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Miguel de Icaza on Longhorn
An anonymous reader writes "In Miguel de Icaza's latest blog entry the Mono project leader discusses the threat Longhorn's new technologies and frameworks pose to Linux and open source. He also directs users to this recent USENET post about the goals of Mozilla, which is a very interesting read.
Originally seen on OSnews." Mmmm...Miguel smart. Seriously, good commentary - and ripe for discussion/flame wars.
Hmm, I don't know about Mozilla, but shift+click does indeed open a new window in Firefox. Or even better use middle mouse button for opening/closing new tabs.
The 'bundled' argument may or may not be over used but it doesn't stop it from being true. Microsoft do use their market share to not just bundle apps but attempt to impose a standard. When you have 90% of the market share this is pretty powerful and uncompetitive.
g ement
The EU just gave them a financial slapped wrist over this very issue - http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=EU+Microsoft+Jud
I use Mozilla, Konquror and Opera depending on what OS and which computer I use (work, home, friends, etc).
Every computer I'm forced to use IE, I end up wishing I could remove it because of all the little annoyances.
No tabbed browsing - something all modern web-browsers seems to have.
Crappy network handling. Try spelling an URL wrong. IE hangs for 10-20 seconds with no ability to abort
Ctrl+N to open a new window. IE starts to re-load the contents of the previous window. I start typing a new URL. IE finishes loading the page and inserts the old URL in the middle of my typing. I scream out and install Mozilla on that computer too, regardless of protests from the computers owner
How many companies are publishing applications to run in webstart, or pure VM apps?? There is barely anything that I can take and run it on my iMac, my linux pc's and my windows's pc's seamlessly.
I've more or less stopped trying to show people that IE is stunting their growth. It makes them onery and defensive. Instead, I like ignoring IE's faults, and show them nifty things in Opera they never knew they needed. Things like mouse gestures, linked windows, tabbed browsing (as you mentioned), customizable interface, crash-recovery, etc etc. Easiest thing to do is link to this Opera zealot's site:
Click
The pacing is well-done. He encourages people to try the browser for a month, because that's how long it takes to really get yourself out of an IE rut.
You know, I just accidentally closed the window before I copied over the link address, but instead of having to search for it again, I just hit ctrl-alt-Z to re-open the last window I closed. Little things like this is why I can no longer stand IE. No offense intended to those poor souls who still like using the back button, or can't turn off images with a single button, or natively block popups without a third-party app.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Try Firefox, it's much more IE-like than Mozilla. For example, the shift+click works in it, and it generally tries to imitate certain IE behaviors in order to smooth out the transition for new users.
Many people like loading an exact copy of the same web page. You can only do so much using forward and backward. Opening a new window with the same page allows you to go on tangents then close it out and go back to where you were.
Or, with Mozilla or Opera, you can use the current window as your base for tangents, and then open the links you wish to explore in new tabs (shift-click, or right click --> Open In New (Active or not) Tab) or even new windows. When you're done with those tangents, you can close the tabs and you still have the original page there.
Opening the same window with CTRL-N is something I've never understood about IE. It makes no sense, particularly when you're on a secure site and you ended up logged in twice or force some other odd cookie-based error.
-Augie
The more pragmatic Linux distributions, for example slackware do come with a Sun JVM nowadays, and Microsoft is now having to refrain from shipping its broken JVM as part of the settlement with Sun. This means that millions of Microsoft users will be finding their way inadvertantly to java.sun.com.
Stick Men
Integrated XML user interfaces?
XUL
Sandboxed VM execution for user-mode applications built in to the OS?
Mono, Java, Parrot, others.
Longhorn's got em, Linux doesn't.
Thats the best list of things Linux "doesn't have"? You're not looking very hard.
With Firefox, at least, shift-click does open a new window, and ctrl-click (or the middle mouse button/wheel) opens the link in a new tab, which is preferrable to me.). It has done so for months and months, I don't even know how long.
Now, no one (I hope) is saying you have to use a different browser, but the reason given doesn't hold anymore.
philcrissman.com.
Shift-Left_Click does open a link in a new window in FireFox. I prefer to use tabs, not windows, so I usually Shift-Middle_Click to open the link in a new tab with focus on that tab. Or, if I want to load it in a background tab I'll just Middle_Click. Mozilla FireFox Mouse Shortcuts
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Stock Java is not an option because it lacks a few
;-)
things: the easy-to-build functionality of a web
page (XAML) and the advanced graphics and rendering
of Avalon.
Sure, they can both be built on top of Java, but
they need to be built, hence the `Come up with our
own competitive stack'.
I happen to think that our stack should use the
best technology available today, and since it
must be a new stack, that stack should be built
on top of the ECMA CLI. For plenty of technical
reasons.
Now, if you disagree with my thought direction,
nobody is stopping you from building your stack
on top of Java, I know that am not spending a
minute there
Miguel.
Windows 2000 is not a good OS for the home. My memory is sketchy since I wans't using it much (except at work) but let me see...
What version of DirectX did Windows 2000 ship with? I think it was way behind or something. Games and other multimedia apps weren't very good...
What was the cost? If I remember correctly, didn't Win2000 cost more than Win ME and Win XP?
Win2000 boots up slower than Win XP.
Win XP has better sleep mode, and other power consuming features.
And so on...
Overall, Win XP is much better than Windows 2000 for the home user... Don't know about servers though... In any case Win XP is very similar to Win 2000.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Why would a bank use XUL for an application (forcing all thier users to download mozilla), when they can let them run native Longhorn appps from thier browser without any installation?
Mozilla has the GRE (Gecko Runtime Engine) which is all that is needed to execute XUL apps. The GRE can be loaded without the browser. Last time I check I think it was a little under 10 megs which is not too bad since 1 GRE can support multiple XUL apps.
Linux won't overtake Windows for a while (I'm talking about home market only--server is another story). Windows just provides too many features that Linux lacks. Windows is also much easier to use. For instance, how easy is it to change video card drivers (or for that matter any driver) in Linux? It is very difficult for causal users. I think 90% of the home users won't get past, say, Nvidia's 3rd instruction to modify the XFree-86 configuration file. Or how about when something goes wrong? Linux is not as foolproof. For instance, if there are problems with the filesystems, the error/fix messages generated during boot-up would give a heart attack to many users (the messages basically say something like 'you could lose all data if you proceed' :) ).
Lastly, Linux does not have enough software. This will seriously prevent adoption for a while. You can find basic software in Linux but it's always those one or two special ones that make it difficult. For instance, if you are using a particular tax software, you may not find it in linux. Or you may be able to find replacements for everything but MS Encarta (encyclopedia). Or, you find everything in linux except that digital camera software that you cherish.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Check out Avantbrowser. It's a replacement "front end" for IE, supports tabbed browsing, popup blocker, ad blocker, script blocker, flash blocker, etc, etc, etc. Ctrl-N (or middle-mouse click, or mouse gesture, or however you want to open a new tab) works as you'd like it to (and me, too). As for wrong URLs hanging for 10-20 seconds, that's an oddity. I usually just hit Esc to stop loading the page.
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
First, the GNUstep runtime has no concept of a sandbox (or applets for that matter) so you lose a big part of Java's appeal. Second, it uses native code, so you don't get easy portability. Third, it uses Objective-C, which for better or worse has struggled to gain developer mindshare - which Java has in spades.
There are reasons Apple has become a big Java proponent...
(All that said, I like Objective-C and have been meaning to mess around with GNUstep for quite a while...)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
After seeing Nat speak at the Real World Linux Conference a few weeks ago in Toronto, I decided to check out Dashboard. From what I can tell, no it's not usable. It's clearly CVS-quality code, but that's not the reason it's so difficult. The barrier to entry for compiling Mono apps seems VERY high: you'll need to compile gtk-sharp, gconf-sharp, glib-sharp, gnome-sharp, evolution-sharp, as well as all their esoteric dependancies.
Presumably these dependancies will come out of CVS and will be packaged with GNOME, but for now "mono-izing" your computer is a pain in the ass. I would only suggest installing Dashboard if you have lots of time and patience. Otherwise, wait six months or so.
I do not think you read my whole message,
because I stated that there were two options:
to implement Avalon, or to build our own.
We are in the process of specing out what
ours should be (the platform we call
"salvador").
Miguel.
The problem with your suggest is that Python has no sandboxed execution stack (bastion/rexec has been removed as of the 2.2 branch because it was fundementally insecure.) There is a lot of discussion about what to put into Python to replace this feature set. Personally, I favor a capabilities approach but Guide seems to disagree so we will see what happens.
Either way, only one of your two tools meets the required specs. Try again...
Sure, they can both be built on top of Java, but they need to be built, hence the `Come up with our own competitive stack'.
No, unlike Longhorn/Mono, they do not need to be built, they already have been. There are a number of companies with XAML like technology here and now. I work for one that has been around for 4 years already, and there are many more including some Open Source projects (notably XWT and Luxor). I can't comment on "advanced graphics and rendering", because it is as vague a claim as you'd expect to come out of Microsoft's marketing for a product that is still 2 1/2 years away and slipping.
No reply... imagine that.
I use CMD to manage files as well - it's not much of a pain, especially when tab completion is enabled by default in XP.
Then again, it depends on what "file management" means. If you mean copy, move, rename files... well, it's only a couple of characters off the linux method. Not exactly rocket science, and there's no manufactured difficulty.
If by "file management" he meant "file processing", then that's a different story, but it's also not hard to grab yourself Win32 equivalents of grep, sed, awk, perl, python, etc.