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What 2008 May Hold In Store for FOSS
eldavojohn writes to mention that LinuxPlanet has a brief discussion on what 2008 may hold for FOSS. The list includes thoughts on KDE 4, OOXML, DRM, and 3-D desktops. What boons for FOSS are you looking forward to in 2008?
That's what I'd like, a version of bash implemented in opengl, so I can make the console apps I write look funky.
Not perhaps the highest priority of the FOSS world, but sometimes you just gotta go with 'it`d be fun'.
A Linux port of Duke Nukem Forever, now that we finally know it isn't just vaporware...
I've been hearing about this "free beer" with FOSS for years... maybe in 2008 we'll finally get some?
KDE4 is half of what I want.
The other half is FreeBSD 7. Given it is on RC1 now, it'll be there in Feb is my guess.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I'm thinking many would not consider DRM in FOSS to be a boon of any sort...
Mostly, a waste of GPU time. But seriously, the expose-ripoff with window title search that compiz has is highly productive when you open lots of windows. Other stuff, pretty much eye candy to me, but I admit I don't try every thing or understand functional benefits some features I relegated to eye candy. There are ways to make use of rendering live to GL manipulated textures that I'm sure will increase (Vista I didn't see make functional use of it, OSX did better, and with all the many different directions people are taking 3D effects in compiz and other projects in the open-source world, some interesting stuff is probably yet to come.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
>>And in 2009 I hope a giant pengiun robot attacks Microsoft headquarters.
Quick someone call the japanese. They can build it. It would be awesome even if it didn't have any weapons. Just walking around the MSFt campus would be great for laughs.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I really REALLY mean it this time!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Actually, I'm hoping for Linux ports of ANY commercial games. I've mailed a few game distributors asking why don't they include Linux versions of their games. The same answer: Not enough market share (and how do you expect the market share if the game publishers don't make Linux games? HMPH!)
Why do they keep selling themselves to DirectX instead of OpenGL? GRRRR!
The end of the tyranny of copyright law. Only then will there be true progress. Otherwise, this and everything else will be buried under the dog pile of licensing, which has already begun.
What?
bash *could* support opening an OpenGL screen to display a 3D model paper clip to help you enter commands...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
And while I'm at it, hopefully improved compatibility due to the Samba team finally getting the proper documentation from Microsoft.
I'm among those who would be happy if existing apps could get fixed, Firefox being the prime example. On my G4 Mac every new realease of FF brings more crashes, more memory leaks, and generally more sluggish performance. I finally abandoned it last month for Opera, which I am liking very much.
When most Open Source apps were small, simple and fast I could tolerate the inevitable bugs, and assume that they would be fixed up in the next release. Now it feels like everyone is working to add more and more features and "widgets," but no-one is worrying about overall stability and reliability.
Three Squirrels
Yeah, I know. My quote refers to the "major challenger" part. There's infinitely more (well, not really, but close) Java deployed on enterprise Linux servers than .Net/Mono, free or not. I'm not sure what the "challenge" is. Obviously, a GPL'd Java is a good thing, but how that will help Java meet this "challenge" that doesn't exist mystifies me.
Yes! Thank you New Year's Gods! A native linux driver for my Aspire laptop's Broadcom BCM94318MPG card!
Yes sir. I really can't ask for more than that can I?.. The old BCM94318 w/out any damned NDIS wrapper.
Yep. It sure would take a warm and good soul to release one of those.
I can't decide if this is funny or what so I don't wanna mod it, and since you're anonymous anyway I'll just assume it's RMS posting ;)
I'm not trying to say we should necessarily support a company that has a lot of bad practices, but they create a huge market for us to make money. When they release a new OS, they beef up the minimum requirements for it and in turn brings prices of last gen products down in price for us to use.
Most Linux 3D desktops actually relieve your CPU of some work. In a non-accelerated desktop your CPU is responsible for all of X's calculations. Composited window managers shift some of that burden to your GPU, which is better at that kind of thing anyway. I see no performance penalty from running Compiz on my box, and the window manager is actually _more_ responsive than metacity, especially during CPU intensive processes. And I only have a GeForce3, the bare minimum according to Compiz's specs (though I've also run it on a GeForce2, there were some issues with drop-shadows).
http://www.mhall119.com
who put 3d desktops on the list? what a waste of cpu time.
I think the idea was offload the desktop onto the GPU (who wouldn't be doing anything anyways until a game is loaded), which in theory would free up more CPU cycles for the regular old processor.
Secondly, you can supposedly get better vector graphics and quicker response with a 3d engine for a desktop. The best example of this is of course not Linux for the Nintendo DS. Most 2d looking games for it are actually using a 3d engine because its easier to code for and less intensive on the CPU.
That and it looks just as good at any resolution and screen DPI. It wasn't as big of an issue, but if you have a 30" monitor with an unreasonably high resolution and try to increase the size of your icons on a 2d desktop that doesn't use vectoring... You will notice how pixelated everything looks.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
That would be plagiarism, something else entirely. Copyright is about distribution, not about who created what. GPL is only necessary due to the existence of copyright law, as pointed many times by many others. Slavery is still slavery. It cannot be "reformed". It must be abolished. And remember to throw some royalties into the RIAA kitty if you plan on singing Aud Lang Syne tonight.
What?
There is no reason that AI shouldn't be integrated into the OS, but "invisibly". Here's an example:
Joe User gets a lot of email. He tends to be organized, so he likes to sort his mail into different folders. He could use procmail or his client's filtering capabilities, but why should he have to? OSS has good solutions to the text classifying problem
If only the email client (or imap server) paid attention, he's already supplying all the input necessary for a text classifier to sort all his mail for him without any additional action on his part.
When Joe (manually) moves an email from his inbox to a new folder, this is a training event.
If Joe notices that an email is in an incorrect folder and moves it (manually) to the right one, this is a retraining event.
This concept could be expanded to other applications: how about a window manager that remembers where you tend to arrange your applications and starts putting them in the right place to begin with? The ability do manually set placement rules like with KDE doesn't count. That's just a workaround for not using the information the user is already providing.
+1 Martyr
There are 2 types of people in this world. Those who understand ternary and those who don't.
They want to port to HURD first.
I also understand that some of the more recent portions are written in Perl 6.....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I predict that LLVM and HLVM will gain steam. People are going to realize that this pair of abstractions is cleaner, leaner, and meaner than the current virtual machine + language + API way of doing things characterized by Java and .NET. The fact that a GPU can be used as a processor transparently where appropriate, just the way Apple already has with LLVM, is going to start the rethink that was cut short by Java and .NET's fiascoes of ownership or patents. They'll also start making development in compiled languages easier.
This will be the open source response to the blurring lines between CPU and GPU task-wise, as the vector computing tasks could be done much quicker on the GPU based on the advances of LLVM, and applications will benefit transparently. It will be very cool.
You probably got modded because it was a crazy ass sounding rant against trying to predict tech trends by using religion. You then followed up with a bunch of offtopic tripe.
Tech website speculating about the future of FOSS in the next year.... yeah... it happens. That's great that no one will remember who predicted what. That's not the point of the exercise. The point is to discuss it NOW for the heck of it. It most likely has nothing to do with hating religion.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
From the article: "And it is true that food and clothing may seem like more immediate priorities in many regions."
Please do not send any more clothes. You've already killed off the local textile industry and put all the cotton farmers out of work with your free clothes. Who can compete with free crap? Please stop.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1076411.stm
I no longer donate clothes for exactly this reason.
Again, I support the ReactOS project. It's a neat idea. But Linux+Wine is much, much closer to being a viable replacement for Windows than ReactOS is. Linux+Wine gives you "the best of both worlds": a stable OSS core, access to a huge vetted repository of applications, and ability to run unmodified Windows binaries if you need to.
Wine has been getting very good of late (e.g. runs Photoshop 7 flawlessly, runs Office 2003 with some bugs). In fact, I see Wine's Windows-compatibility over the next few years becoming a major selling point for transitioning to Linux.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Projectm whitescreens under Amarok as well. I'm sure it's some problem with the libs. At least it compiles now though, the first couple of attempts a year or two ago gave up the ghost due to (from what I could gather on forums) a compiler bug. It's all good though, I'm sure it'll end up in the repositories.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
Just reiterating what the other poster said. In the normal world, you get paid for the work you do, not the work of your work. If I hire Bob to come build me a gate, he doesn't get to charge me every time someone comes through it. He is paid to build the gate and then he gets the hell out of my life. He only gets paid again if I need him to return and do more work.
Same with the novel (or insert song, program, etc in here). You might have (and without copyright likely would have) been paid to write the story in the first place. Once you've been paid to write, you write the novel. Now, you can choose to only give it (or you could technically sell it) to the people who already gave you money, but the bottom line is you will have already been paid to write it. Once it's done your part is done and if people want to make copies of it to sell, or to give away, that's their own concern. If you want to keep raking in cash you better have written a story good enough that people are willing to pay you to write another one. And you better be willing to write a number of "sample" stories to begin with if you want anybody to start reading your stuff.
With music, it's even easier. You could in the same way be paid to write the songs, or more likely you would be paid for live performances (ie, you are actually gonna have to get out there and do work again).
With software, GPL isn't needed because if you release a closed source version of my code I'm just gonna decompile it, reimplement the changes in a high level language, and rerelease it again. If you want to be paid for software, someone will end up hiring you to do a custom program for them (ie, you must work, not live off imagined entitlement), or you can write free stuff and charge to support it (again, working).
You also have to understand that not EVERYTHING will/would be feasible with copyright gone. It's a shift of society, but for the better. I'm sure if we reinstituted slavery we could achieve some absolutely marvelous feats in construction and such, but that doesn't mean it's something that a fair society should support. I seriously doubt large scale motion pictures as they currently stand would still be realistically profitable (though live theater certainly might return to a much more profitable status). That's not something we can't live without though, and it's certainly not worth instituting insanely oppressive laws over.Copyright instills a limited supply (and source) onto something that by nature is unlimited (and not really even tangible). It's one of the most perverted corruption of economics ever seen.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
...giant penguin robot... ...someone call the japanese... Wouldn't the Japanese be much more likely to build a giant octopus robot?Grammar Nazi
That's a rather absurd statement to make. I could just as easily say "with features like object orientation, it makes me wonder if C++ developers really qualify as programmers anymore." Linq is a higher level abstraction to let you write less code. But it doesn't do anything you couldn't without it. Just like C++ allows you to write less code than if you used assembly.
What does it matter if the other APIs are Windows only? I thought competition was a good thing. The fact that WPF is tied to Windows doesn't make it less powerful in the slightest. If I can get something done quicker and cheaper using the Windows platform, but that means I have to give up cross platform ability.. well, it doesn't become as cut and dry as "well its not cross platform so its not an option."
Look at http://scan.coverity.com/. This is a great project to improve the stability of open source projects by looking for all sorts of coding errors that can be very hard to spot manually. It may not be true that with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. But is it very clear that the Coverity eyeballs are exceptionally good at exposing lots of bug. It is all clear that the open source developers are excellent at fixing these bugs. If KDE can get 4.0 out the door and drive their Coverity defects closer to zero, then I think that we will see a very robust, efficient KDE 4.0 by year's end. The number of defects in my Linux/X.org/KDE 'desktop stack' has dramatically dropped, at least as measured by Coverity. Sorry for sounding like an advertisement. I know that there are other ways to find defects, but I am just so impressed with how open source developers have closed thousands of coding errors that have been identified by these automated code audits. This is the sorts of constant improvement that quietly leads to better stability and security.
Think global, act loco
More cowbell.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I'd like either a nice port of iTunes or to find a better jukebox-type music player. I know I can get 100 suggestions right now for players people swear by, but nothing I've tried so far handles browsing, selection, and playback of music as well. In fact, I'd like a better version of iTunes, with features like the ability to classify a song as multiple genres, and have it show up under each.
I've yet to try setting my Linux box up as a iTunes library sharing server (which makes sense with the Macs in the house but the media on my Linux desktop), but if that's not easy to maintain (adding/editing content) I'd like to see improvement there. I suppose that falls into the network media sharing server that's compatible with iTunes as a client category.
Also, the traditional complaint about having to fiddle around. Why should I have to assign keystrokes to 8 of my 12 mouse buttons for it to work across everything (comfiz-fusion/kde, wine/wow, fluxbox, etc)?
Copyright instills a limited supply (and source) onto something that by nature is unlimited
I am glad to say this is wrong. First someone has to write whatever it is, and copyrights give them an incentive to write it. Therefore copyrights are more likely to make sure something is written, and therefore increases the supply, than not having copyrights. As it is now, a writer does not have to copyright something, they can instead put whatever they create into the public domain. And how many books, movies, or songs are released into the public domain as compared to those copyrighted? I know of no such material that has been placed into the public domain but those for whom the copyright has expired. However as I said in a previous post I would shorten copyright terms, I'd only have copyrights last a few years from first publication.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yup, that ridiculous sentence reflects the overall quality of this artcile. It's complete garbage. Take a few announcements, summarize as predictions, then somehow get posted on /. We already know KDE4 will be here in January, ATI announced specs for it's video drivers months ago, Ubuntu + Fedora + others already have Compiz as the default, OOXML is much publicized, and without further research I'm fairly certain the other 2 mentions issues (DRM + End Software Patent Coalition) are nothing new. And finally make some pathetic assertion that Java is trying to catch .NET and not the other way around.
/. and fsdaily than a few years ago.
/. standards get even worse.
I know there's plenty of crap on the net but it seems that the crap filters are breaking down because I am finding myself directed to rubbish not-worth-reading articles on a far more regular basis through sites like
My 2008 prediction -
Free Software games list and commentary
if it do what I need and its free (beer and speach), i will dump all close apps i might have!!
if i see someone using something that can be replaced fine with FLOSS software, i will do it.
the more people use FLOSS software, more easilly will new open projects show up, and existent ones get better and better.
i dump and fight against many close source programs because they refuse to work with others programs and use open standards.
if they would use open standards, worked with other programs, i would be completely neutral to then and could even use several of then (and i use several like this).
As far i i can do, i refuse to use close apps that can be replaced and those that cant, i try to find a balance.
so yes, i'm zealot to want FLOSS to get better, not only because it helps others, but even more because it helps me and the programs that i use to get better.
No one uses a OS or apps that dont work, we use FLOSS software because it works good enough for our needs and each year that "good enough" overlaps more and more closed apps until it can replace everything that anyone wants.
Higuita