Interview With Ximian's Nat Friedman

Sheepish writes "OSNews features a long and interesting interview with Nat Friedman, of Ximian fame. Nat tells all and talks about the upcoming Ximian Desktop 2 and its differences from Gnome 2, the difficulties of developing the MS Exchange Connector, Linux as a desktop, Mono and plans for Gnome integration, the hundrends of OpenOffice.org changes made to make OOo like a Gnome2 app, and how Ximian feels... about Apple's business. Four screenshots of Ximian Desktop 2 are included too."

Comments

UI Consistency

[Rura Penthe]

I'm pleased that XD2 is striving for complete UI consistency. This is something I've always felt was lacking in the overall user experience for linux. Having a coherent set of human interface guidelines ala Apple's materials for OS X can do nothing but help.

Maybe I'm in the minority

[Anonymous Coward]

I think since RedHat has made a concerted effor to make their distro much more "desktop friendly" the whole Ximian desktop loses a bit of it's shine.

I recall back when Ximian first started to come out with some slick looking stuff they were much nicer, asthetically speaking, than any linux distro out there. With Bluecurve and the maturation of Gnome 2.xx it seems the need for Ximaina is greatly diminished.

By the looks of things here I see no need to upgrade from RedHat 9.0 with the exception of getting Evolution 1.4. (And actually if it's faster than the butt slow 1.2 version that would be a good upgrade, now that I think about it.)

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[chetohevia]

Well, given that you don't actually lose the data, it's reassuring.

Since .doc ends up being the underlying file format, the dialog is just needlessly alarming, and they just took it out.

The Mono revolution?

[alext]

Some interesting claims made for Mono:

1. Mono can be the universal component hub, allowing you to use C objects from Python, C++ objects from Perl, and so on.

We've certainly been here before. As has been pointed out on /. a number of times, ActiveX, CORBA, DCE etc. have all made claims like this and have met with limited success.

First there is the inefficiency introduced by constantly translating data (where equivalents exist at all), second the impedance mismatch of languages with quite different call models.

Yes, there's some capability here for scripting code written in low-level languages, but that's quite a different thing from claiming to provide universal, peer-level interoperability.

Note that this isn't the same argument that says that bytecode level interworking is doomed - one is still limited to a rather C#-like subset of features, just as one is to a Java-like subset in a JVM.

Nat goes on to give an example of how Mono is changing things:

This is possible because C#'s language features make it trivial to automatically bind C# objects into other languages. Check out Python Scripting for .NET: http://www.zope.org/Members/Brian/PythonNet/FAQ.ht ml.

OK, let's see what Brian thinks this new Python Dotnet is bringing to the table:

" While a solution like Jython provides "two-way" interoperability, this package only provides "one-way" integration. Meaning, while Python can use types and services implemented in .NET, managed code cannot generally use classes implemented in Python.

A Jython-like solution for .NET would certainly be doable and useful - but it would also be a lot more work than the current approach."

Hardly a ringing endorsement of Mono here. Perhaps the last reference will be the proposition that we can't refuse?

Nat says:

There's also a Mono-based JavaScript compiler in the works (MS already has one, of course).

Doesn't the Java world have one of those too? Yes, in fact, it's had one for five years. Rhino is a full Javascript compiler, interpreter and debugger, released by Netscape in April 98 and still developed under the Mozilla banner. Not some also-ran knock-off here, but something used in quite significant products such as the Resin web app server.

So, draw your own conclusions about what real new capabilities Mono will bring to the OSS world.

And don't forget that there is at least one company that will definitely gain from this all this free marketing and "innovation".

Enterprise Carpet all its cracked up to be?

[dieman]

Aside from multiple distribution support, is anyone taken aback about how many companies are essentially peddeling what an admin can do with apt-get/cfengine (with updates to cfengine configs via rsync/ssh) with Debian?

I too support hundreds of machines, and I find my worst experience is making sure i've got a decent, up to date for bleeding edge kernel handy and a discover database to match it. Nevermind X. :) Since I follow woody and roll in some of my own updates alongside other users updates, its quite easy to have a 'modern' gnome2 system that has been updated against major security issues.

Having a nice automatic installer (autoinstall, heavily hacked, ask for source if you care) and good remote mass administration tools are the two things that make my life easier.

Be weary of supporting these companies, I just don't think they have many peoples best interests in mind if you have a clue handy. Ximian is supporting propretiary file formats (doc!) now, redhat is selling 2 year development cycles (wasn't that a debian complaint a ways back?), and many of them are only selling their 64-bit installers for nearly $1k a pop.

Re:OSX

[alienw]

[rant]

Sure, trade RPM dependency hell (which is really bullshit if you use a modern distribution) for the apple monopoly / shareware hell. Right. With macs and osx, you are forced to either shell out $30 to $100 to do _ANYTHING_ remotely useful, like encoding video, burning DVDs, or backing up your files, or pirate the abovementioned software. Sure, you can use free software, but then you have to mess with porting it and compiling it for PPC and OSX -- a major pain in the ass. That's pretty much the reason why I dumped Windows -- it's not stability or security. I'd say that XP is about as stable as OSX. Both are less stable than my Linux box.

Also, the simple solution to your Linux problems would be to either use packages compiled for your distribution (which is rather simple with URPMI) or to download and compile the source or source RPMs. I don't think you've used linux "for years". More like a week. Anyone who used Linux even for a month would know that packages built for Suse won't work well on Mandrake, which is probably what you were trying to do.

Besides, I would much rather use windows than go for vendor lock-in with apple. I thought people had enough of that with proprietary unix boxes. I have a severe problem with having to buy all my hardware and most of the software from one overpriced company that also actively prosecutes anyone selling compatible hardware. I don't know what planet Apple is living on, but a 1GHz machine with a small hard drive, outdated video card and hardly any RAM should not cost $1500 in this day and age.

[/rant]