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Slashback: KDE, Tsunami Hacker, and Image Bugs
We Slashback, to provide updates to three recent stories. All happy news, for once. JoaoPinheiro writes "After last week's reports that Novell plans not to ship the KDE desktop on Novell and SUSE Enterprise products, the company got lots of feedback from its customers. Novell has listened to them and reconsidered its desktop strategy." Meanwhile, in the employment sector, sebFlyte writes "Daniel Cuthbert, recently a high-profile victim of the UK's outdated cybercrime laws, has found a job in the security industry." Finally, one less thing to worry about, as gUnit writes "eWeek is reporting that virus researchers at Trend Micro jumped the gun with a warning that a Trojan in the wild was capable of exploiting newly patched Windows security flaws. Just 24 hours after announcing the discovery of a proof-of-concept Trojan that supposedly exploits a trio of image-rendering vulnerabilities patched by Microsoft, Trend Micro is retreating from that claim and offering up a batch of excuses."
With all the news articles and coverage this got it might've been good for them anyway financially and a lot of people wont see the retraction so it may seem their ahead of the curve
Good news all round, it would seem. :)
"Finally, one less thing to worry about, as gUnit writes "eWeek is reporting that virus researchers at Trend Micro jumped the gun with a warning that a Trojan in the wild was capable of exploiting newly patched Windows security flaws. Just 24 hours after announcing the discovery of a proof-of-concept Trojan that supposedly exploits a trio of image-rendering vulnerabilities patched by Microsoft, Trend Micro is retreating from that claim and offering up a batch of excuses." Its the new way to get microsoft to patch security holes :) But good to know this isnt as important as it sounded, as our SUS at work isn't working anyways haha.
I personally think SuSE is the most polished, eye-candy distro for KDE, some knoppix livecd's also have a fair amount of candy.
Thats what amazing, Novell would drop it, but then again, they have a group of gnome developers in house...
After last week's reports that Novell plans not to ship the KDE desktop on Novell and SUSE Enterprise products
Novell never said that AFAIK, and neither does the linked article. They were planning to switch the default and still ship KDE anyway, so nothing was reconsidered in fact.
Firstly KDE will be the primary and default desktop on OpenSUSE and any future SUSE Linux releases. Secondly they will now ship the full KDE as a fully supported (and developed, whatever that means) desktop on all enterprise products. Some more details here.
The real question isn't whether KDE will be included on SuSE Linux, or supported by Novell. The real question is how much money is Novell willing to spend *developing* KDE.
Novell will continue to ship KDE also in the enterprise products as supported option and it's said that it will be easy to choose KDE as your desktop
"Given the time we needed to react to this, we didn't analyze it thoroughly. We wanted to do something fast and perhaps we didn't spend sufficient time on it," Genes said in an interview."
EXCUSE
He said the company received the Trojan sample from a customer in Japan and, during the initial research, the code definitely crashed the "explorer.exe" and EMF File Viewer in unpatched Windows systems.
EXCUSE
"We're still working with Microsoft to clarify what it is exactly and how it will be categorized in relation to MS05-053. But it's not exactly as we originally described it," he added.
Ahh hah.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
That is not what the cited source says, at all, read it for yourself!
"All future enterprise-class Linux product releases, including Novell Linux Desktop, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Novell Open Enterprise Server, will continue to ship with both the GNOME and KDE desktop environments. In upcoming versions of Novell enterprise applications, the default desktop environment will be GNOME. When customers install Novell Linux products, they will be given the option to choose either the GNOME or KDE environment during the installation process. If the user makes no explicit choice, GNOME will be installed."
Matt
Daniel Cuthbert, recently a high-profile victim of the UK's outdated cybercrime laws
To be fair, if you look at what happened:
The judge indicated that he would normally have let Cuthbert go for the core act.
However, Cuthbert didn't just commit the core act, acknowledge what he'd done and then say sorry. Instead, when the police investigated, he concocted a lie about what he'd been doing, causing them to spend a lot more time and money investigating, and only told the truth when caught.
The judge outright stated that, whilst he would be inclined to simply give a slap on the wrists, the fact Cuthbert deliberately lied to the police led him to impose a harsher sentence.
The same holds true of pretty much any law. If the judge feels the law is dubious, unmerrited or whatever, he has freedom for leniency. If you piss them off by deliberately lying to the police though, don't expect them to go easy on you.
I still dont get this.
../../../ to the URL in an attempt to access the site's higher directories -- an action that triggered an alarm.
>To check, he added
So are we to believe that simple act resulted in a criminal conviction? Really?
Surely there is more to it than that.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
OP is correct, taking from German sources and Novell sources. OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux will feature KDE as primary desktop. This is not an enterprise product and nothing changes. KDE will remain a supported option on all Novell/SUSE enterprise Linux products and will be very easy to select at or after install time.
This begs the question: Was the initial decision to only support GNOME made with no anticipation for consequences? If there were no consequences expected, then those who made the decision should be fired in my opinion.
If there were anticipated consequences, then why did the PR personnel not do it in a sane way? This flip-flopping by Novell does them no good. They already have a [bad] reputation of spoiling everything they touch.
I would not have touched the new SuSE with GNOME at all! For me, I need that GNOME file selector fixed before I can consider it.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Good news all round, it would seem. :)
:
Indeed, here are some must-have KDE apps that are certainly going to help SuSE's popularity as a desktop operating system
AmaroK music player -- Intuitive, powerful, good-looking music player. Supports transfers to/from iPods and many audio formats.
K3b -- Best CD and DVD authoring program with intuitive wizards, on the fly transcoding between WAV, MP3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis, normalization of volume levels, CDDB, DVD Ripping and DivX/XviD encoding, Save/load projects, automatic hardware detection/calibration and much more.
DigiKam -- The most feature-rich application for digital photo management.
Wireless Assistant -- Most user-friendly app for connecting to wireless networks. Managed Networks Support, WEP Encryption Support, Per Network (AP) Configuration Profiles, Automatic (DHCP, both dhcpcd and dhclient) and manual configuration options, Connection status monitoring, etc
KDE Education -- Educational (Science, Literature, Geography, etc) programs for children. Could play a big role in whether school districts decide to use Free Software in their classrooms.
Konqueror File Manager -- Embeded image/PDF/music/video viewing (via KMPlayer [kde.org]) and a tree-view arrangement of the filesystem familiar to Windows users (Nautilus doesn't come anywhere close)
KDE Control Center -- Centralized location for desktop control. Controls _all_ common aspects of the KDE applications: language, power settings, special effects, icon and window themes, shadows, shortcuts, printers, privacy, etc. This is what makes KDE so well integrated -- all KDE apps respect changes made here, so they all have the same feel. SUSE has even made YAST a module of the KDE control center so users can access distro-specific settings from here. Compare this to the dismembered approach Red Hat (and other gnome distros) have been forced to adopt in the absence of a centralized gnome control center. (ie. a bunch of individial programs named redhat-config-**** that nobody can ever remember)
Seamless, transparent network file access on SMB, FTP, SSH and WebDav networks from _any_ KDE application.
Kaffeine -- The most polished FOSS movie player.
MythTV -- The most advanced analog and digital TV viewer/recorder in the Free Software world (built using QT).
Baghira -- A native QT style that faithfully imitates OS X eyecandy, aimed at new users coming from the Mac world.
Klik -- Gives non-expert access to bleeding edge versions of apps without requiring any compilation or permanent installation.
KDE and QT also make up a technically superior platform for developers, drastically lowering the learning curve for programmers new to FOSS development. KDE apps can be built from the ground up using the best development tools in the Free Software world (which also happen to be built on QT/KDE):
Kdevelop for syntax highliting, application templates, and project organization.
QT designer for GUI development
Quanta -- Rich web development environment for PHP, CSS, DocBook, HTML, XML, etc with advanced context sensitive autocompletion, internal preview and more.
BKSys environment for a complete replacement of the autotool chain (libtool
Internet reporting should have a way that retractions can't be buried. The technique of frontpaging war justifications, for example, then burying corrections, is an artifact of "front" pages and thick pads of printed paper. The new medium doesn't necessarily need to be limited that way. What can we invent to ensure that stories followed up by corrections are sure to feature the corrections in at least the same prominence? Maybe some kind of enhancement to RSS? Like requiring corrections to include a machine-readable reference to the original story, as part of the RDF? Then at least publishers have to relate the stories, in order to call them "corrections". Some publishers will probably just not follow that part of the spec, including "correction" labels in the freeform text without the required reference to the previous story. But those publishers that do implement the spec will be more reliable, and the ideas marketplace can choose among them.
--
make install -not war
You realize that KDE was the default SuSE desktop for years, right? It's only now that SuSE has been acquired by Novell that they brought GNOME into the equation.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
No matter what Novell/SuSe say, changing the default window manager to GNOME is the first indication that Novell wants to shift focus to the free GTK toolkit.
You can put as much sugar on the subject as you like Novell PR, the proof is in the pudding.
Only offering KDE support to technical-savvy users that know one window manager from the other is an attempt to appease the well-grounded pioneers of the SuSe platform.
It is clear that this is a business decision to change the default to GNOME, and for all their newly created Mono tools to be used throughout all desktop offerings.
You can bet your bottom dollar that those Mono related Novell tools that will be created in the future will not be written also with the QT libraries. This doesn't make good business sense.
So the fact remains, the users that choose KDE will be short changed. A dependancy to run those new Novell tools on GTK libraries will be a requirement within KDE - mark my words.
My recent purchase of a powerbook has re-affirmed my initial gut feeling towards the Linux desktop (I have been a Linux fan/developer since the mid 90's), that collaboration simply isn't on the proverbial menu.
Feel free to try. My I.P. Address is 127.0.0.1
Knock yerself out.
This space unintentionally left blank.
Well, I guess the proof is in the pudding, as they say. TrollTech survive by selling licenses for their toolkit, obviously. There are literally hundreds of apps out there written using it (Photoshop CS, for example). Contrary to your opinion, commercial developers love Qt. No offense, but small developers like you just don't write the big apps that sell. If you made money from your apps, a Qt license would be no big deal. Sorry. (Yes, I'm a C++ developer of many years, and I've worked for big companies and small - right now, I'm in a 16 person startup. I know the value of time to market and working with the best tools.)
I'd like to hear about commercial apps written with gtk. Can you name any? I can't.
As nice as the free argument used to be, it's not really the case startings with QT4. QT, as of version 4, is now opensource on all 3 major platforms. Trolltech has shifted to the embedded market for most of its revenue.
I personally prefer GTK for now other reason than asthetics. Even with theming, something about QT has always seemed off to me.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
OK, this is a shameless troll but I'm really peeved by the GTK file selector and the way it hides what directory you're in unless you press this tiny little arrow. Is that going to confuse people or what?
It's bad enough having Firefox and Gimp rendered unusable (shameless exageration) in this way let alone a whole suit of applications.
KDE makes much more sense to me (shameless flamebait) and I hope there is another German distro that can become what Suse was once to fill the void that has been left by the "restructuring". All the times I've seen a US corporation take over a European company (shameless generalisation) they have just sabotaged it. I used to work for a European Harmen pro-audio company before the writing was on the wall what they wanted to do with it.
Does your supervisor know you're reading Slashdot? Get back to work!
This switch back to KDE doesn't quite resolve everything. From the slashdot story Suse Linux Founder Exits Novell, it's clear that there has been a big internal fight over the changes happening at Novell. This comment under the above story sheds some light on just what.
It looks like Novell is being pushed to make some bad moves by a major investor or two, with lots of R&D layoffs and pressure to sell off some of the technology that strongly identifies Novell with quality. Rings bells of the sort of thing that happend at HP, with all the PHB talk of changing Novell's "vision," but with little articulated beyond "Linux" as a strategy. This is just a wee bit broad and smacks of a solution looking for a problem.
I remember when Slackware dropped GNOME, the slashbots were practically *cheering*. What's with the /. KDE-bias?
See my point? It didn't take long for a Trolltech apologist to squirm out of the woodwork.
TrollTech survive by selling licenses for their toolkit, obviously. There are literally hundreds of apps out there written using it (Photoshop CS, for example).
So.. why can I not buy a Linux version of Photoshop? What's the point crippling KDE (and hence Linux) with Qt - IF NOBODY USES IT FOR COMMERCIAL APPS ON LINUX?
If you made money from your apps, a Qt license would be no big deal. Sorry.
So Linux development has been hijacked by people that can afford $6600 toolkits? If it's turning into a closed-ended expensive solution like Solaris or NeXT, Linux is dead for the consumer desktop before it got started.
right now, I'm in a 16 person startup. I know the value of time to market and working with the best tools.
Are you using Qt? (you didn't actually say)
If no, have you asked your money people about buying 16 licences of a $6600 library that might save a little bit of time. I would be interested in their reaction. And if it saves you theoretical month's worth of work.. you're being paid too much.
And if time to market and quality of tools are the most important aspects, why are you not using either Microsoft Visual C# or Borland Delphi / C++ Builder?
You can see what happens with a two desktop strategy by looking at SuSE right now: Gnome under SuSE sucks.
I think for Novell to continue spending time on supporting two desktops is a mistake; they should focus on doing a great job with one desktop, and they really don't have much of a choice other than to use Gnome.
brings new meaning to the statement "go hack yourself !" ;).
CH
> If you're a "Linux enthusiast", you're using a "free" desktop to prevent paying fees to the likes of Microsoft.
If you are really a "Free Linux desktop enthusiast" why would you want to see proprietary applications (for which you likely have to pay) at all? Shouldn't everything rather be free software? Or at least those companies wanting to write closed-source applications should give something back (like via paying Qt licenses)?
And are you talking about users paying "fees" to Trolltech or developers (of million dollar rich companies)?
Uh, there's no place like home? // Got nothing.
KDE == Proprietary and expensive
Your subject is misleading. KDE is not proprietary. It can be expensive though, if you wish to develop proprietary software.
One important thing to consider is that Qt is so darn good. People complain about programming in Gtk. No one complains about programming in Qt. If your employer buys you Qt to develop with, then you're a lucky bastard. The only thing people complain about with Qt is the commercial license cost. In some ways, this reminds me of Apple: pricey, but there are people out there that will pay that price. This is why a lot more "high end" apps are written in Qt (like Pixar's tools, for example).
That said, this is further complicated by the fact that Qt is also free as in GPL. For open source developers, the choice between Gtk and Qt is simple, and this is why KDE thrives. Granted, Gtk is used by a lot of open source developers, but I'd say this is mostly due to preference of the C progamming language. It is the KDE crew that loves what they are doing, and they make faster progress.
You wrote: If you're a "Linux enthusiast", you're using a "free" desktop to prevent paying fees to the likes of Microsoft. But with Qt, you are encouraging people to pay Trolltech.
Maybe so, but you have to admit it is a very different situation. I like that Trolltech gets paid. They give us free stuff. Free as in GPL. That's like corporate suicide. Nobody gives their stuff away like that. Fortunately, here we have a business model that allows it to happen. In fact, it turns the whole system upside down. When you pay Microsoft, you encourage further closed source development. When you pay Trolltech, you are sponsoring open source development. Qt would not be as good as it is today without this funding.
It might be that Qt is "hurting Linux" in some way, as you say. But in my opinion I don't think we'd even be talking about Linux if it weren't for Qt (and you can take that any way you like... simply technical merit, or the fact that without Qt, Gtk wouldn't have been started).
I hear you though. On some days I wish Qt were LGPL/BSD. Simple licenses make life so much easier... But it would be a tradeoff.
So Linux development has been hijacked by people that can afford $6600 toolkits?
You keep repeating that $6600 number, but not even the most expensive option for Qt is that high. If you take a look at their pricing, you have a full desktop edition for 2630. Nor is anything being hijacked, cheaper options are available. And if you're really that anti-Qt, noone is saying you can't write a GTK application with KDE integration.
What's the point crippling KDE (and hence Linux) with Qt - IF NOBODY USES IT FOR COMMERCIAL APPS ON LINUX?
That point can easily be proven wrong. HP uses Qt for their printer utilities on Linux. Google Earth is being ported to Linux, and yes, it uses Qt. Another example is Skype, which works on Linux as well as it does on Windows, thanks to Qt.
And if time to market and quality of tools are the most important aspects, why are you not using either Microsoft Visual C# or Borland Delphi / C++ Builder?
Maybe because Qt can be considered on par with these solutions? Or because being cross-platform is important?
If you care so much about Qt being proprietary (which it isn't, actually... it's free software), then I'm afraid you'll have to stop making proprietary software yourself, if you expect your arguments to hold any weight. But then again if you weren't making your own software proprietary, you wouldn't have to pay for Qt, would you?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
That's pretty funny, you just used Microsoft Visual C++ and "quality of tools" in the same sentence. Now everyone knows you're just trolling though.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
No. Everything in KDE is available under the GPL. That means KDE is free to develop for. You only have to pay if you want to make your software proprietary.
When I see that someone is being dishonest like this, I immediately assume that they are trying to trick me, and discount what they are saying. A bit like using the word "steal" in a copyright infringement argument. If your point has merit, then it should be able to stand on its own, without being supported by deception.
Funny, that a Linux fan/developer since the mid 90's has such a high slashdot id#.
Arrgh... these KDE idiots just don't fucking get it (and I include the mong writing the kdedeveloper blog entry). *NOTHING* has changed. Novell said originally that they will *still* ship the KDE *libraries*, and that KDE development will be done by the community in OpenSUSE. GNOME will be the default, it its libraries, desktop and apps will be installed and supported... and development work on GNOME, its apps and libraries will be done by Novell's paid developers.
Absolutely nothing has changed. Slashdot posts hysterically inaccurate KDE headline after wildly inaccurate and misleading article submitted by KDE supporter. How many times has this happened now -- one might think there is a collection of goon associated with the KDE project that actively tries to post misinformation -- oh I don't know, the KDE Marketing Foundation or some such.
If you're going to try that joke, try something less obvious. Hint: 127.0.0.1 is in a class A range..
OK, this is a shameless troll but I'm really peeved by the GTK file selector and the way it hides what directory you're in unless you press this tiny little arrow. Is that going to confuse people or what?
That's not a troll at all - it's a reasonable opinion backed with a coherent justification. That said, I've got my own reasons for disliking the GTK+ file selector, but this isn't one of them. In fact, it's the way that applications work on the Mac, which has influenced many Gnome design decisions.
Having fielded enough anguished calls from relatives and acquaintances who have 'lost' their files by accidentally saving them in another directory, I don't think it's a bad idea. I'm talking about people whose clicking speed is far faster than their speed of reading comprehension, especially of computer jargon. The fewer opportunities they are given to click the wrong thing, the better, I think. Hiding extra details is just simpler for the large numbers of people for whom directory hierarchies are an esoteric mystery, and it still works for those who understand it. And, in fact, if you tend to save all the files from a given application in a specific location, it will work well.
If you want complexity and myriad configuration options, KDE is for you. But the simplicity of Gnome is entirely appropriate for non-specialist users, in my opinion - in fact, it's probably a better fit for those people.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
> ... quality of tools ... Microsoft Visual ...
Hahaha.
"Is that going to confuse people or what?"
No it isn't. Because the GTK file dialog looks almost exactly the same as MacOS X's file dialog. Everybody praises MacOS X for its usability, including the file dialog, and the GTK dialog looks almost exactly the same, therebefore the GTK dialog is good. If you say the GTK dialog is bad, then you must also admit that the MacOS X dialog is bad.
I hear you though. On some days I wish Qt were LGPL/BSD. Simple licenses make life so much easier... But it would be a tradeoff.
The downside of Qt is that there's a broad range of apps between GPL'd apps and high-end commercial apps that naturally must exist on a desktop. One of the problems is that you can't use any other toolkit to make an application that seems to fit on a KDE/Qt desktop. Yes, I know you can make GTK use Qt for drawing but I doubt it is legal to do that for a commercial app, since Qt is GPL. If you need what I would consider a trivial interface for a proprietary application, you're really in a bad spot. I wish Qt would release a very simple library of "dumb" GUI items for free use in proprietary apps. No signals/slots, no network/xml/sql or other classes, simply plain building blocks that needs to be subclassed to do anything useful. It's C++ 1990s-style but there's a market there that is *not very profitable*, but that needs filling to provide a full KDE/Qt based desktop. Unless you believe OSS will replace all proprietary apps, but I'm not one of them. There are always special needs where people are ready to pay money, but where there's not really enough "mass demand" to gather community time.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
However, Cuthbert didn't just commit the core act, acknowledge what he'd done and then say sorry. Instead, when the police investigated, he concocted a lie about what he'd been doing, causing them to spend a lot more time and money investigating, and only told the truth when caught.
That "explanation" is a confabulation. Judges aren't supposed to decide based on whether they are "pissed off", and it shouldn't take any longer to determine whether the defendant typed "../.." whether or not he admits it.
The real reason Cuthbert's lie was relevant is because it's an indication that he knew what he was doing was wrong, and intent and knowledge of wrongdoing do enter into this kind of case in the UK.
You're making the implicit argument that KDE should be chosen because it is technically better. But that's not the issue. KDE has always been technically better than Gnome (although the gap is small these days). The choice is really determined by legal and licensing issues, and Novell doesn't have much of a choice other than to go with Gnome as their main desktop.
As for the US-vs-European angle, the KDE developers already screwed up big time once before on licensing issues. Perhaps the problem is that those European companies and projects that get taken over by US companies are good on technology but lousy on business and licensing questions.
What a spectacular flip-flop!
No, it's not a "flip flop". Because of user demand, they'll continue to support KDE, but Gnome is going to be their focus.
As nice as the free argument used to be, it's not really the case startings with QT4. QT, as of version 4, is now opensource on all 3 major platforms.
It's dual-licensed, which means that commercial developers need to pay. Gtk+ is LGPL, meaning commercial developers can just use it. Whether you like it or not, that means that Gtk+ is going to be the obvious choice for commercial distros.
No offense, but small developers like you just don't write the big apps that sell. If you made money from your apps, a Qt license would be no big deal.
Ah, I see, we are back to the good ol' days where only the big, money-making developers matter. According to you, shareware developers can go to hell. People creating technology demos can go to hell. Software developers that are trying to get started on the side can go to hell. Community projects like Eclipse can go to hell. BSD-licensed software can go to hell. Thanks for being so clear about why Qt is simply not acceptable.
Yes, I'm a C++ developer of many years, and I've worked for big companies and small - right now, I'm in a 16 person startup. I know the value of time to market and working with the best tools.
And Qt may well be the best tool for a startup whose primary concern is time-to-market and that has millions of dollars to burn in a few months. But just because Qt is the best tool for you doesn't make it the right foundation for the Linux desktop.
Maybe because Qt can be considered on par with these solutions?
No, it can't be. Qt's tool support is exceptionally poor compared to Microsoft Visual C#, and VisualStudio costs a fraction of Qt.
One linux distributor finally gets it that having a standardized gui is a good thing, and then the linux fan boys go bitch and moan at them because "they" want to have a choice when installing. Well if you don't like it, use another distributor then. End users would rather have one gui not have a choice of a gui. Standardization is what is holding back linux. That's what windows has, linux needs it too.
My Gawd WTF...