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Open Source Awards 2004
An anonymous reader writes "The first Open Source Awards 2004 have been announced. These newly created awards aspire to be the Nobel Prizes of the open source world. Congratulations to the developers of Valgrind, VideoLAN, JACK, and Pango."
These are the Merit award winners. The Grand Master and Special Awards be announced at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention.
;)
That having been said, these projects definitely deserve their awards. I only have experience with VideoLAN, and it's an awesome piece of software.
The committee allows nominations from the public any time, here, so go nominate your favourite project or Open Source person today!
libertarianswag.com
There has to be bigger, better things going on out there..
Depends what kind of award ceremonies you're into.
...is why hasn't something like this been done BEFORE 2003? I mean, it seems like a great idea, so why wasn't there anything available?
It should also include the hall of shame for the numerous violators of open source licenses... we need not mention names here... the list is long. Sort of like a vendor black list.
Yep, you know who they are... I think what ticks me off the most is these violators don't give money, credit or code back - grifters...
ImageMagick
K3b
Plone: The most mature open source CMS. http://www.plone.org
Mamboserver: Not as mature or featurefull as Plone, but very nice as well.
OfflineIMAP: Simple, reliable, powerful
Kstars and KDE Technology in general
The ones that are almost there but could use a hand to make them more intuitive:
*GNUCash. Can't wait for their Gtk2 version.
*Mr. Project
*KOffice has a great technological underpinning. Needs a bit of work, but it's already looking very good.
No OpenOffice? I would I haven't heard of any of these.
I would I haven't heard of any of these.
Yes, these are projects that have less fame than Openoffice. Isn't that cool? You just learned about four great new pieces of software rather than hearing about Openoffice for the millionth time. Sweet.Excel. Access.
Acrobat. FrameMaker.
Flash. Shockwave. Dreamweaver.
This is not limited to open-source software whatsoever.
In any case, Pango is not user-level software; it is a library. JACK is essentially the same. Valgrind is also developer software.
I don't see what's wrong with the name Xouvert. "X-Open."
I don't know how, but I've never heard of or used valgrind before. I am using it right now and OMG, this is so much easier than hunting for memeory bugs! My life just got easier. Thanks valgrind!
Reason:
[Groklaw] deals with the SCO case. Her site is an excellent resource for those looking for a well-maintained and comprehensive guide to what's going on day-to-day surrounding the SCO controversy.
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
While it's really nice to see stuff like this where those who have done alot for open source are acknowledged and applauded, doesn't it seem a bit pretentious to compare it to the 'noble prize'?
That is, isn't the noble prize reserved for those who make a massive contribution to science and/or human wellfare? In this case, there are probably only a very very small handful of people who should receive a noble-like oss reward (e.g. Linus, RMS). And, from the list of people who receive rewards it doesn't seem like they are only limiting them selves to such individuals.
I'm very happy to hear that valgrind won an award. This tool is really a life-saver for anyone developing projects on Linux (with x86). In my project we have solved lots of very hard bugs just by running our program under valgrind. For many of those bugs we were not even aware that they existed in the first place :-)
IMHO valgrind is the single most useful programming tool available on linux. Congratulations to the developers!
Greetings,
Project Manager of Crystal Space (http://www.crystalspace3d.org). Support CS at http://tinyurl.com/cb3x4
Better make that "RMS Presents the GNUbel Prizes for Free Software, Written in Emacs."
True story.
...they couldn't find sponsors?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
These have real potential for communicating a simple message of what "open source" means to non-coders. Unfortunately, I could not discern what that message might be from the site. Also, I'm not familiar enough with the award-winners to understand the significance of their projects within the context of the overall message.
There is a reason these folks were singled out that should resonate beyond the consoles of the like-minded. That reason should state plainly the importance of open source to the mission of civilization overall: service to the higher ideas of truth, freedom and better flavors of ice cream.
But what is that message? And in language that I (or other person with developmentally-delayed level programming knowledge) can understand?
I'm laughing at clouds.
Now we're stuck with two debuggers (Valgrind and gdb) each having stunted functionality. Why didn't the people in charge of Valgrind put their effort into improving gdb (and taking advantage of the already present infrastructure at no added cost)?
As far as watching dvds on linux goes; speaking as an american, I will not buy dvds until it is legally feasible for me to watch them on my linux computer.
Valgrind is the only one I use from the list, and, as an user, I must say that it's one of the best tools in my toolbox.
Valgrind has saved so many hours of debugging that I don't think any developer should live without it. If you haven't tried it, give it a shot, it might not help you now but it's surelly a valuable asset to have in your toolbox.
Assuming the others are just as great as Valgrind, I'll surelly give them a try (VideoLAN and JACK, because if you run a gui in linux you probably already run something that uses pango).
Anyway, kudos for the winners!!
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/forumdispl ay.php?forumid=37
FFII might get my merit award.
No FLOSS - organisation had done more for Open Source Lobbying in 2003. They smashed the EU software patent legislation while the OSI kept silent, OSI even announced they were not opposed to software patentability: "The Open Source Initiative does not have a position on whether ideas can be owned, whether patents are good or bad, or any of the related controversies. We think the economic self-interest arguments for open source are strong enough that nobody needs to go on any moral crusades about it."
So who works against us?
Brian Wellington and Matias Duarte.
Who is Brian Wellington and Matias Duarte you say? Well, they are the creators of XBill and let me get out so much aggression. Go pick up the latest copy for your favorite platform.
While I would agree that these projects deserve these awards, I think the top-level poster was trying to make a point that the projects aren't very user-oriented and are therefore boring to the average non-developer user.
I mean, the user doesn't see Pango's markup, libdvdcss calls, or the development of Mozilla actually occurring, so as far as the user can see, these are obscure projects.
Either way, I think these awards are for the Open Source communities which include mostly developers (and developers love these projects). Otherwise They'd be something like the Open Source User's Choice Awards or something.
True story.
four obscure flash-in-the-pan programs which do nothing to advance the cause of Free Software are getting a brief bit of exposure.
OpenOffice.org has enabled the Free Software movement to further penetrate the corporate desktop market, and for that reason I say it does not get enough kudos.
Also, one of these is a dvd library, which is technically not even legal to use (IANAL, of course). At least I don't have to worry about the RIAA busting down my door for saving word documents under OO.org!
well?
God, root, what is difference ?
Get lindows dvd player It comes with a fully authorized dvd player
Now you have no excuse, put your money where your mouth is!
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
So I saw Pango listed, was curious, and clicked the link for further info, which led me to a ... error page whining about cookies.
So, I gave up, because I have discovered that pages leading to errors are often broken in multiple ways, and often maintained (or not) by web masters that really don't care, so I quit even trying to report or work around broken web pages anymore.
Back in the day (around 0.4.x releases) VideoLAN Client was the only solution (for the "Classic Mac User Mindset" people) that:
... remember the "Classic Mac User Mindset"...) VLC provided an easy-to-install bundle file that "just worked" as a Mac User expected things to work.
.avi file with it. Pre"doctoring" .avi files is not exactly the great joy and glory, you know...
-Was (and is) easy to install (MPlayerOSX was still at a fledling state, IIRC getting it to work required compiling or something
-Handled just about every media file you got to throw at it, in some cases even better than the official media players (WMV!!!!) While QuickTime was sure to spit blood every time one tried to view a little bit cranky
Now, I don't actually know if MPlayerOSX or QuickTime have actually gotten better in their respective problem areas I just said, mostly because I haven't tried... the VLC "just works". VLC was there with a working solution at a right time and got a good chunk of OSX users. And when one gets accustomed to something, it is likely that one sticks with it as long as it continues to work.
--Just checked MPlayerOSX website. Looking very promising! maybe I should give it a try...
The grandparent poster was NOT saying that there were no windows programs with silly names; but that there are no OSS programs with sensible names.
I suppose things like ImageMagick, Sendmail, and OpenOffice don't count?
That looks like they ripped off the XINE project; wouldn't that be violating the GPL?
I know the GPL allows you to charge ($40?), but shouldn't Lindows make the source available?
Hint: america != world, deal with it
Four pieces of 'Nobel' winners which I have never heard of. Time to RTFA and educate myself what are these crucial parts of OSS I never even dreamed to need.
Bot Assisted Blogging
GNUCash, KOffice, XCDRoast. FreeAMP. GAIM is at least as reasonable as AIM. Xterm. I'm sure there are more, especially if you include the whole crop of K and G apps named after what they do.
One of the issues with Free software that I would agree with is the love of acronyms. XMMS, GIMP, etc.
I nominate Asterisk and MythTV
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
i dont know about that but i think they were sponsoring (with money!) xine.
Maybe they did a private non gpl fork for them
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
I know the GPL allows you to charge ($40?), but shouldn't Lindows make the source available?
Not necessarily.
For one thing, the GPL only requires you to make source code available to the people who have the binaries. In other words, if you haven't paid, you don't have any right to complain.
Another issue is how integrated the DVD decoder is. If it's sufficiently modular, then there is nothing in the GPL to stop them distributing a totally closed-source proprietary decoder module along with a GPL'd player, provided they offer you the source code to the GPL'd player as well.
One program that I use daily that does not get a lot of mention is Adium, a GPLed AIM client on the Mac.
The older version, v1.6.x series, has a few cosmetic problems under Panther (works perfectly under Jaguar), but in general is outstanding. Why anyone would use the AOL client under OS X with Adium and iChat available is beyond me. The only thing that iChat has going for it over Adium is the video conferencing feature.
Highly configurable, easy to use, and has a great feature set.
v2.0, now in late-alpha, looks to be even better, going to a modular protocol backend, meaning it can do AIM/MSN/etc.
I have used VideoLan Client on OS X and really like that, as well. It opens about 98% of the files that MPlayer can handle, and has an interface that is leaps and bounds beyond MPlayer (for a good example of how *not* to write an OS X interface, check out MPlayer for OS X).
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Descriptive indeed.
After all, photoshop is just like the iTunes Music Store, Poser is a program that "habitually pretends to be something [it] is not", or rather one that "can talk the talk, but can't walk the walk.", or is it "the bishop's examining chaplain"? A puzzeling question.
The only thing "Visual Basic" says is that it's easy and you can see it. I like that in french girls.
The only name that really is descriptive in your list is Word, and that's not only descriptive, but totally generic.
To emulate the Nobel prize, the Open Source community need one centralized ceremony rotating for all the countries (not only USA).
Is a fantastic idea this prize. Congratulations for the Commitee, the Sponsors and the Winners!
a) Never heard of these things, and
b) Would probably never use them
Obviously the criteria for choosing these tools as being worthy of mention isn't based on how sexy they are, it's based on how USEFUL they are.
OSS development still suffers from an excess of people wanting to work on the 'sexy' code... the things that blink and humm and make people go 'wow cool', and a deficit of coders willing to slug it out on the basic, relatively un-sexy tools that make those other things possible. Giving kudos to people who take the time to build solid and dependable frameworks enhances OSS and software generally, and imo deserves more recognition than they currently get.
Who knows, maybe they can encourage a shift in young coder minds that building solid tools can be sexy too...
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
According to that page, "Open Source(tm)" is trademarked by them? What's up with that, is this another CDDB/Gracenote MySQL/nusphere about to split open? How can they own a trademark on open source?>
What I don't get is whether or not the GPL allow you to take software, add a few function calls Call_From_Closed_Source_Library();, link against said closed library, and redistribute for $$ w/o distributing source for your closed library...?
Who had the idiotic idea of comparing these awards with the Nobel prizes?
Pretty much anybody can write software. Very, very few people have the intellect required to make a Nobel prizewinning discovery.
Plus, do we really need a million apps named things like: umix, mixer, amixer, rexima ("amixer" backwards), alsamixer, amix, ermixer, emixer, gmix, kmix, gmixer, ojmixer, psmix2, smixer ...
I mean, you can name things after their obvious function, but, at some point, it becomes helpful to have some easy to distinguish apps. When you have five or six friends all named "Matt," don't tell me that you don't come up with any nicknames for some of them!
-os
Only one of those names gives me any semblance of a clue of what it might do.
Valgrind, okay, I'll give you that one. The name is from Nordic mythology, as explained in an interview with Julian Seward. It actually makes a bit of sense if you know what it means.
VideoLAN is obvious.
JACK is used to connect audio programs together. The name makes sense to me.
Pango, well, I got the name immediately, and I think it's a perfect description. But I admit that many people won't understand a combination of Greek and Japanese roots meaning "all languages".
Human/Ranger/Zangband
It took me all of 2 minutes with Google trying to find links for all the software you mentioned - and greatly enriches your post.
Other than that, thanks for the pointers.
====
ImageMagick
K3b - DVD/CD burner software
Plone - The most mature open source CMS.
Mamboserver - Not as mature or featurefull as Plone, but very nice as well.
OfflineIMAP - Simple, reliable, powerful
Kstars - and KDE Technology in general
The ones that are almost there but could use a hand to make them more intuitive:
GNUCash - Can't wait for their Gtk2 version.
Mr. Project
KOffice - has a great technological underpinning.
What I don't get is whether or not the GPL allow you to take software, add a few function calls Call_From_Closed_Source_Library();, link against said closed library, and redistribute for $$ w/o distributing source for your closed library...?
No, you can't.
Human/Ranger/Zangband
Closed source apps often have non-obvious names too while they are being developed. It's only when marketing etc get involved that "reasonable" names get tacked on (and then only sometimes, I think you underestimate how hard finding a good name is and I don't see you offering any suggestions for alternatives). However all that happens behind closed doors.
In Open Source however the development is open to the public so a project can quickly become known by the first name it is given. Meanwhile coders aren't going to sit back and stop coding while focus groups and naming comittees mull over a good name. They'll quickly come up with something they are happy with and get on with the business at hand, actually creating the software.
At the end of the days names aren't that important . That's obviously true for infrastructure applications like most of those given these awards that no user needs to ever hear about. Even for end user apps assuming distributers/packagers follow sensible guidelines there should be no issue for end users.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
For one thing, the GPL only requires you to make source code available to the people who have the binaries. In other words, if you haven't paid, you don't have any right to complain.
Even if they charge for the binary, someone can give a copy to someone else, and then that person can request the source without paying.
Human/Ranger/Zangband
The first Open Source Awards 2004
Well, we almost made it through January.
Man, valgind is so great. I don't know how anyone can bear programming in C or C++ without it.
at least all of those names have vowels...
The truth doesn't care what I think.
I would particularly like to congratulate Ximian on their accomplishments this year. Without their work, Linux would not be as usable!
JACK and its companion, Ardour are what got me to move the last machine in the house, the one in the music studio, off of Windows to Linux. It's professional level software made avalable at no cost.
This is a well-deserved honor for Paul Davis and crew.
I do not fully agree. If I have paid for the binary, I can only complain if the software was given to me with the GPL blurb, otherwise how am I supposed to know that the software is GPL? And even then, I cannot claim any copyright infrigement.
However, if I am the copyright holder of a part of the GPL software (funny, in the case of the Lindows DVD player, I happen to be), then I have a right to complain if the GPL terms are not respected. I asked the Lindows legal service about my concerns a few months ago but never got an answer.
God, root, what is difference ?
And with Robert Love now on board this year promises to be another good one for creating an even tighter desktop experience.
Keep up the good work monkeys.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Mozilla Firebird
Correct, and I'm not sure why you haven't gotten an informative mod yet. However, I reiterate that there are legal ways to write a closed-source module for a GPL'd program. Very strict and narrow ways, but it is possible.
See, there's the problem. The sitting. Oh, and the waiting.
Now I realize, friend, that there ought to be a way for those developers to know you're sitting and waiting and, God willing, someday, someone will be able to reach out of your monitor, shake your hand, and say, "My friends, my brothers and sisters, thank you for your patient, ever-suffering faith! Here, right now, today, glory glory, is that blessed new software you've believed in for so long!" but until that golden, glorious day, we're all just bound, bound and cursed, to be sitting and waiting for those overworked and underthanked developers to get tired of their sitting and their waiting so they can release that wonderful, beautiful new code into our hands.
Or you could thank them for what they've already done and hope it's good motivation to keep working. I'm just saying. Hallelujah.
how to invest, a novice's guide
They have clearly given out four Merit Awards this time. Anyone seen any coments on why they did this? Is it awards for the two last quarters of 2003 or is it because it's the first time they give them out?
Microsoft generally has easier-to-understand names:
-------------------
Visual C++
Visual Basic
Visual Foxpro
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Photo Editor
Internet Explorer
SQL Server (SQL Server)
Outlook (client shows "your personal outlook for today")
Exchange ("information exchange" server)
Microsoft Windows
PocketPC
-------------------
In France, Microsoft would just rename it's software with the French translations of the simple names above.
The canonical example of this, is, or course, the Monty Python sketch "Bruce's Philosophers Song"
Maybe they mean jack as in an audio jack? Same meaning as outlet?
I sing the doggie electric!
JACK = JACK Audio Connection Kit. It's a recursive acronym, like GNU (GNU's Not Unix).
FSF have the "Award for the Advancement of Free Software". The award ceremony has been at FOSDEM for the last 3 years, not sure where it was held before that.
Previous winners were: Lawrence Lessig, Guido van Rossum, Brian Paul, Miguel de Icaza, and Larry Wall.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Why the double standards? Lots of flaming on Slashdot when someone confuses "GPL" with "public-domain". Lots of whining about Disney strip-mining the public domain. Why is none of this criticism levelled at authors of GPLed software who esssentially do the same thing?
Having used Mythtv for the past month, I am surprised to not see this app in the list. Easily the coolest computer application I have ever used - let alone it being open-source.
=====
imagetweak.netWeb-based image t
No, they don't rename anything.
Many people here (Quebec / Canada) have no clue what Outlook mean but they do use it because it's from Microsoft.
Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
If you read your second link carefully, you will see that your friend has to give you a copy of the offer.
Since the offer refers to the entity giving you the copy, it's the person who gave you a copy of the binary (i.e., your friend) who must supply you with a copy of the source.
Whoever gave your friend a copy of the binary must supply your friend with a copy of the source, but need not supply you with a copy.
Disclaimer: IANALADPTBO (... and don't pretend to be one), but that's how I interpret it.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
After rereading the above, I feel that I should clarify: I meant providing a copy without charge, as described in section 3a of the GPL.
If the third party gave your friend a copy of the source along with the binary, that third party is not responsible for providing you with a copy of the source code if your friend gives you a copy of the binary without the source.
I screwed up in applying this reasoning to your second link, which was actually refering to section 3b, not 3a.
However, section 3b does allow the original distributor of the binary to charge a nominal fee for a copy of the source, so the you can't request the source "without paying".
(Well, actually, you can request it, but the original distributor doesn't have to honor the request.)
Sorry for the mixup.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I'd like to nominate the Crystal Space game engine.
However, section 3b does allow the original distributor of the binary to charge a nominal fee for a copy of the source, so the you can't request the source "without paying".
I meant without paying for the binary. The fee for distributing the source under 3b can only be as much as it actually costs to send a copy, so the distributor won't make a profit on sending the source (or even enough to cover overhead).
Human/Ranger/Zangband
You must not be a developer. They do two very different things. One is a memory analyzer/checker, the other is a tool for *locating* a known bug. They are quite complementary really. Valgrind errors and segfaults tell you what to look for in GDB. Kind of like how a error spit out by gcc makes you look things up in your text editor to fix the problem.
Groklaw and the entire fiaSCO damages the open source development massively by the countless hours lost when developrs and users refresh groklaw to see what stupid thing Darl and monkeys CO this time have done.
Please go report/fix a bug or write up some documentation between refreshes. Or help some newbie on IRC rather than shout RTFM and "I haven't time for you, I'll reload groklaw and slashdot instead".
After reading /. for a few years nonstop, today it came in haandy, an article with a link to valgrind which fixed me a bug today...
How convinent...
This is not a troll
The lunatic is in my head
I suppose that for a big part of the world, program names don't give much of a hint regarding the purpose of the program anyway. Remember, not everyone who can use a computer understands English.
Valgrind puts Linux on par with Solaris as far as state-of-the-art UNIX development environments go. Finally, a free alternative to Purify. All software will benefit from the amazing memory/cache/profiling analysis abilities of Valgrind. I cannot say enough good things about Valgrind. Next to GCC, Valgrind is the single most useful software package in any developer's toolkit.
Purify is the main reason why most UNIX development shops still use Sun equipment. With this obstacle removed expect development shops to abandon expensive Sun hardware altogether in favor of Linux.
Does anyone know whether Valgrind can be adapted to run on other x86 OSes like the various BSDs?
my gawd how often have i wanted to say this to people...
The same thing in spanish speaking countries. Grandparent post is wrong.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
OK - My mistake. Thanks for the clarifications guys.