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Java Desktop System Rivals XP, OSX in Usability
protohiro1 writes "In this glowing review Chris Gulker calls Sun's Java Desktop System 'the most polished and real-world user-ready Linux desktop in existence.' Well, I'm sold. Will this finally sell the PHBs on a linux corporate desktop?" Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
Meanwhile, Sun sends millions of dollars in "license money" to SCO, and keeps spreading FUD about Linux to promote its own OS offering, Solaris. Even Sun's own employees know that Java is a piece of crap, and everyone who has ever tried to run a Java client application (without drinking Sun's Kool-Aid first) knows that, too. Sun should be boycotted for their collaboration with SCO alone, but the fact that they have pushed a programming language into academia which cannot be used to develop competitive client applications has done more to harm the tech community than Microsoft.
Yes, Java can be used for server applications (a claim which Java proponents ridiculuously uphold to demonstrate that Java is good technology -- if it couldn't, it would be quite useless, wouldn't it?), but so can Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby, OCaml and many other powerful and completely open programming language that are not controlled by a megacorporation which is in bed with SCO. There is no need whatsoever to use Sun, and the sooner the IT community learns that, the better.
Bloat(processor)ware at its finest. Unless you have a ton of memory JDS is not that great. Sure its nice to port off OpenSource projects but it would be nicer to keep my load down while running them. It's bad enough apps like gtk chew on mem like a cowboy with some skoals, but java + gtk? Unf I would rather swim with piranhas
MoFscker
That's it. People should really look deeper into the Sun Open Source shenanigans. Besides the SCO crap, and now their "we indemnify you" crap, everything Sun has "given" to the community has come with a whole heap of strings attached, and its only purpose is to serve to the greater good of Sun. Anything that would even so much as hint to being a "competitive edge" is closed source. I have two issues with this particular setup>
First of all, I think that from a corporate perspective, The "desktop appliance" idea sucks. It is a Wintel blowback in terms of technology - i.e. treating the Linux/Unix desktop in the same vein as a windows desktop is simply stupid. The technical underpinning of this particular train of thought is that in Windows, playing with the setup of the machine will most likely fsck up your machine. In linux, the worst that can happen is that your colourscheme turns green and purple.
Secondly, the Desktop Appliance idea is just another form of Vendor Lock-in. No different from Microsoft. When it comes to desktops, there is no such thing as "one size fits all" - every user, every culture, every company, they all have different approaches to performing work. In order to truly serve your user base, you must customise this desktop. An appliance by default will not allow you to do that easily.
Don't for a second confuse this with Open Source. The fact that Sun ripped off large chuncks of work from the Open Sopurce community is not a plus, and will do *nothing* positive to the community. I want to see Sun distributing their own code along with the code they lifted of the community. I want their patches, their settings, their changes. Bet you they won't do it. I have worked with Sun in the Open source community long enought to know that Sun only cares about one thing when it comes to Open Source, and that's free labour.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
until you want to run Peachtree or a real Office suite, and since Java is such a pig, I can't believe performance is worht a damn on anything but beefy hardware. Another Sun bomb on deck.
A computer is a tool. Nothing more. Nothing less. This tool is designed to accomplish certain tasks. Some tasks are accomplished using tool A. Some tasks are accomplished using tool B.
With that being said I would like to point out that I would not like to see a dentist using a carpenters drill on my teeth.
In the same fashion I hate this "ease of use" stupidity where productivity is sacrificed because we can not be bothered to train someone on the task at hand. EXAMPLE: Anyone who has used a serious accounting system will atest to the fact that the [TAB] key to advance to the next field is LAME. All accounting equipment dating back to god knows when use a numeric keypad. This same keypad was not present in the first PC's. Not on Apples. Not on IBM's. So when you see an accounting app which uses the [TAB] key claiming that it is business quality, then you know that this was not designed for accounting but was designed for the home user. Like I said before and come back to my point now, How many here have a DENTISTS drill at home? If you beleive that one size fits all, then why not bring your home drill to the dentists office next time you have a filling?
While I will agree we need standards, making everything be the same make no sense. So to come back to your subject. I can cut/copy and paste, not to mention run apps (GUI included), as easily on remote systems as in local systems on Linux and other Unix platforms. I cannot do the same as easily on Windows. So I do not use Windows as my default desktop/system/OS. I feel Windows comes with toooooooo much overhead and is counter productive for my needs. I do use Windows.
I am not asking you to change. What I'm asking you is to tell it like it is and stop making up FUD.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
No fucking shit, the moron won't use linux becaues he can't figure out how to copy/paste. This is SO pathetic. What a fucking idiot!