A Look at GNOME 2.14

An anonymous reader writes "Gnome has a nice preview of their newest version 2.14 posted which should be hitting the streets around the 15th of March. From the article: "As well as new features and more polish, developers have been working around the clock to squeeze more performance out of the most commonly used applications and libraries. This is a review of some of the most shiny work that has gone into the upcoming GNOME release."

Comments

Impressive

[the_rev_matt]

Makes me want to fire up my linux box again. I particularly like the admin tools and the "save your search as a folder" feature. OS X admin tools are sometimes a little restricted for my taste.

Re:Progress!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome is now knocking off OS X

Why not call it collaboration instead. OS X is using like 50 GNU programs straight off, source and everything. Gnome (Which is part of GNU) is borrowing some ideas, but not code from OS X. "Knocking off" seams like a bad thing when both GNU and Apple are using eachohers ideas and it's probably benifitial for both projects.

Program Naming

[caerwyn]

Why do so many linux programmers insist on such crazy naming conventions. Sabayon? Changing a perfectly servicable and pragmagic GNOME Meeting to "Ekiga"?

I use linux both at home and at work, so I'm not some anti-linux zealot or something- I think it's a legitimate question to raise. On my mac laptop, I have a handy app for browsing mDNS networks called Rendezvous Browser (since mDNS was once called Rendezvous). The name is simple and describes perfectly what the program does. On the other hand, 90% of the linux applications available have names that look like they were chosen by picking random letters and squishing them together. I'm sure that the programmers think they've very clever by choosing a name that means something in some obscure language- or they just thing the name sounds cool- but that simple lack of meaningful names is detrimental. If I start up a GNOME session and want to use network meeting functionality, how is there any possible way that I could guess that "Ekiga" is the application I'm looking for?

Re:Program Naming

[Yaztromo]

While I don't disagree that a lot of OSS software uses poor naming onventions, as an OSS developer myself, I can understand the reasons behind it.

Let's face it -- the obvious descriptive names are typically already taken. OSS developers want to write software -- they don't want to have to spend a lot of time doing name searches in order to ensure they aren't infringing on a trademark used by some tiny software house out in BF Nowhere, and they typically don't have the resources to fend off a legal attack. Thus, the tendancy these days is to pick (or make up) some sort of really obscure name that hopefully isn't going to attract negative attention from litigation-happy corporate lawyers, and then hopefully make a name for yourself.

Naming is difficult, even within the corporate world. But at least within the corporate world you have people who can do research on existing trademarks, and will hopefully come up with a suitable name for your new product -- and then have the lawyers to fight it as necessary. OSS projects don't have such resources.

Just take a look at your own example -- "Rendevous". Apple was forced to change the name to "Bonjour" due to trademark infringement with another company.

If Apple, with its bevy of lawyers and billions of dollars, can run into such a problem, what is the poor OSS developer to do? Picking some obscure name that nobody is likely to call their product is a good (but hardly guaranteed) way to avoid the problem in the first place.

Yaz.

Re:Program Naming

[Coryoth]

If I start up a GNOME session and want to use network meeting functionality, how is there any possible way that I could guess that "Ekiga" is the application I'm looking for?

Because if things have been installed and set up properly "Ekiga" will be under the "Internet" sub-menu of the "Applications" menu, and the entry itself will read something like "Ekiga video-conferencing" with a tooltip saying something like "Communicate with others using text, voice phone calls, or video conferencing". You hold up "Rendezvous Browser" as a well named application because it's clear what it does, but it really begs the question: what the hell is Rendezvous and what does it do? I think the GNOME approach - to choose a distinctive name and pair that with a concise description - is a very good one. You can't have everything named after what it does or else things quickly get pointlessly confused, so distinctive names are good - as long as you pair that with a description of what the app does so people can find it easily. You'll find GNOME conforms to that pretty well, and the result (always having descriptive menu entries and explanatory tooltips for those entries) actually makes for a system where it is easier to find what you want.

Jedidiah.

The Linux desktop is finally coming into it's own

[carlmenezes]

You have Gnome and KDE - two very different approaches that manage to co-exist side by side. I'm a KDE guy myself, but I must say that Gnome's looking really polished and I can see Gnome and KDE standing beside, if not taller than Windows in the near future. I won't be switching because I like KDE's direction, but there are probbaly a lot of Gnome users who say the same and I can appreciate that.
We also do need to thank the artists that put in the time to create the icons and mouse cursors for us. You can put in all the anti-aliasing you want, but if something like the icons dont look good, people get put off. I'm just really happy for the Gnome guys and all I can say is, "keep it up, you're doing a great job!"
Linux is about choice. I wouldn't want either Gnome or KDE to wipe each other out. They need to co-exist simply to show Windows users that there is a choice available if not for anything else :)

Re:Will it be in FC5 or Ubuntu 6.next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu doesn't follow Gnome's releases on purpose, it has a standard 6 month release cycle of updates.

Yes, but the clever people at Ubuntu have managed to find a (patent-pending) way to keep their standard 6 month release cycle nicely in sync with the Gnome standard 6 month release cycle. I don't have time to explain to you how it works, though. Sorry.

Congratulations

[theolein]

It's looking very polished. In the looks department it certainly is good enough for corporate users. It might not be 100% of where OSX is or have the fancy glass effects that Vista will have, but it's certainly light years ahead of what it was just 5 years ago.

I just wish for one thing, and that is that the Gnome and KDE people would cooperate on clipboard and drag and drop standards so that software from one would work in that department at least in the other.

Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM

[diegocgteleline.es]

Vista is much worse than just a plugin, they're planning to control via DRM absolutely all the path that the media content follows from your DVD to your screen.

DRM is just a propietary file format to keep people tied to a software just like CSS is a very succesful way to control the dvd-player market. It's not there to keep people away from seeing video. By implemeting DRM support you break the main purpose of DRM

The one reason why itunes sells DRMed songs is because in 5-10 years, everyone who bought itunes songs will NEED to buy a ipod to listen those songs, no matter if by that time ipod is the worst and more expensive player of the galaxy. You're stuck with apple products

The same goes for DRM'ed .doc documents. Has microsoft published the office stanrdard to let people steal market share from a product which is 30% of the total income of microsoft? Hell, no. Publishing standards in office 2003 looked nice to governments. In the real world, office 2003 also includes DRM. All documents DRM'ed with office will need...office to be opened again in the future. No other software will be able to open them if Microsoft doesn't let them. Office standards being "opened" is just a lie. DRM being "secure" is just a lie. I can do everything office DRM does with PGP - even allowing people to see documents remotely through a "DRM server"

So DRM is just a closed document format. But instead of being a standard closed format which can be reverse-ingeniereed, they use crypto to make the "perfect closed format": A closed format that can't be reverse-enginereed. By allowing people to use DRM in other systems you break the purpose of DRM. But yes, DRM should be avoided. It's ironic that DRM has been created in the country that is supposed to love capitalism - DRM keeps me away from choosing products from other companies which is what the capitalism is about.

Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM

[Pecisk]

Yeah, yeah, right. What about DVDs I would like to see? What about DRM-enabled bought files from iTunes?

Lets be clear. DRM is not evil. Abuse of it's functionality and usage from RIAA/MPIAA is, well, it is close to stupid and shortsighted (at least so far - region coding for DVD for price fixing, requesting DRM for bough songs in Internet shops like iTunes). But there are lot of LEGAL and UNDERSTANDING uses of DRM in multimedia, even for small media companies.

I understand that music and movie cartel actions is something is should not taken lightly, however, such hyperbole which are claimed by RMS and other "wisle blowers" are too much. Fight companies which abuse DRM, don't fight DRM itself. Because by itself it is just one of technologies to allow copyright holders have their rights fullfilled. If it is abused to limit anything.

It is NOT a black/white situation. And claiming that Fluendo is doing just to give "control of Linux desktop media to cartels" are plainly overblown and childish claim. Fluendo actually created LEGAL mp3 plugin for you to use, freerly. you can download it at their webshop, put it in your home directory, and vola - no half-legal repositories, no endless searching. It is just works.

And by the way, Xine is illegal to distribute in US with mp3/divx/quicktime support. It is just by the way. Mplayer too.
Of course, there is "nothing wrong" with these apps in geeks view. But it totally wrong to think that any distro will get ANY kind of support for those prioritary formats out there with such attitude. Oh, you don't want prioritary formats? What about your XVID videos? What about divx movies? Mp3? Quicktime trailers which geeks love so much? Haven't got enough?

Be real. There is world out there which are seeking compromises not always screaming about something they don't like. And trolling (yes, such claims about Fluendo ARE trolls) won't help not your cause, nor KDE, nor Linux desktop overall.