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Open Source Victories of 2008
Meshach writes "Ars Technica has an interesting run-down on the major open source victories of 2008. Some, like Firefox 3, we can probably mostly agree on. Others — KDE 4 comes to mind — will be more controversial. And Mono 2? What else should be on the list?"
Honestly, I wish people would just sit back, relax, and realize that there mere EXISTENCE of open source is the real victory here. Do we really need more than that? I have a choice in software. I have a freedom to choose. Neither Microsoft nor Apple dictate how I execute personal computing tasks.
We won. Let's give it up with the smug articles about how our sh*t doesn't stink. It's really tiresome.
Of the 7 "victories" listed, 3 involve Nokia:
Their opening up of Symbian
Their purchase of Trolltech
And the unveiling of Maemo 5
Yay.
Uh, Wine went 1.0? How is this not on the list, but Google Chrome is? Chrome isn't even open source, Chromium is.
...because there is no war.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Uhm, 4.1 is only marginally better than alpha quality. Perfect example: yesterday, I needed to import a CA public key for use in all my KDE apps. There is no tool for this, and I actually had to use 'cat' to append the certificate to the system certificates file. That is an embarrassing oversight, and forces one to question just what sort of design practices, if any, were adhered to by the KDE 4 team.
You say that 4.0 was a temporary step backward from 3.5? 4.1 is still a step backward, just slightly less of one. 3.5 derived a lot of its power from a very solid, well refined OLE framework, and 4.1 has yet to even approach that. In 3.5, it was seamless to browse a tarball, because the ArK component would embed right into Konqueror. ArK does not embed into Dolphin or Konqueror in 4.1, and in standalone ArK, you cannot open most files without extracting, which is annoying and basically defeats the purpose of a tool like ArK. Many users, myself included, use (or used to use) keyboard shortcuts for various actions -- yet that is still completely broken in KDE 4.1, and worse yet, some application shortcuts are broken if you run the application with KDE as the WM, but work just fine if you use something else.
If the KDE team does not get their act together fast, and give people some sort of hope with the 4.2 release, KDE is going to die.
Palm trees and 8
I read the list in TFA, and generally agree that these are decent to good projects, but I think articles like this miss the point in large measure. I use gvSIG and Quantum GIS for part of my job (GIS). I use Drupal for another part of my job (web admin). Most people, even open source advocates, are likely not aware of all of these projects. They are all open source, but they cater to niches. Thus, they don't make lists. That's fine though. Open source has found its way into every dark corner of software development. I think the phrase "paradigm shift," before it was a buzz phrase, describes what has happened. That these projects and hundreds like them are thriving tells me more about the victory of open source than any top ten list.
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
Disclaimer: I am using KDE4. I like it for what it could be. As it is, I'm looking at alternatives.
Replace "4.0" with "Vista", "4.1" with "Vista SP1", and "4.2" with "Vista SP2" -- and, for good measure, "3.5" with "XP Pro", and you have a fair sense of what's going on here.
In fact, Microsoft has handled this better -- they still fix bugs in XP.
In KDE4, and in some of the bigger KDE4 apps (like AmaroK), there's this completely new, exciting, amazing version which almost has all the features you needed from the old version, in a very cool-looking but annoyingly different way, and sometimes crashes. Then there's the old, boring, unsupported version, which does everything you want it to do, but has some annoying bugs and deficiencies -- yet whenever you point them out, people close the bug "wontfix" as development has stopped on that branch, and the KDE4 version will be done so differently the bug is irrelevant.
At least Windows has a mostly-working version -- XP. KDE has no working version.
An example of something that worked in 3, but is broken in 4: The panel. Everyone always said, "Don't mind that, it's fixed in 4.1." Well, I'm running 4.1, and I can tell you, it's not even close. How do I make the panel thinner vertically? How do I adjust its translucency -- how do I give it a completely transparent background, but solid foreground?
An example of something that doesn't work anywhere (wontfix in 3, not done yet in 4) is encoding scripts in AmaroK. There's no longer a GUI option to tell AmaroK what your preferred format for a device is -- if you've got an iPod, it's going to give you mp3s, whether you want them or not, even if you can handle AAC just fine. Yet the KDE4 version of AmaroK doesn't yet support encoding scripts in any way, so my choice is mp3s, or no encoding at all. WTF?
Maybe I'm just using the wrong distro? I was pretty appalled at Kubuntu's handling of Intrepid. Bluetooth is broken, due to conflicting versions of a few packages. The only available solutions are, use the commandline (I tried, didn't work), go back to Hardy, or use the Gnome bluetooth GUI.
Isn't that why you use a distro in the first place? So bullshit like this doesn't happen?
Here's hoping by 4.5, they'll finally attain the functionality of 3.5. Maybe they'll still have some users left by then. Meanwhile, I'm going to take a long, hard look at going back to Fluxbox or straight Compiz.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Except that you do not need to write KDE apps or Qt apps for your program to run properly in KDE. You can run GTK applications in KDE, I do it all the time, and it is not a problem at all.
Palm trees and 8
I agree. Frankly, KDE 4 sucks. KDE 3.5 was polished and efficient. KDE 4.1 is well, not even close to where KDE 3.5 was. To pick one example, panel hiding is still buggy. Sometimes it hides, sometimes it doesn't. The number of options on panel hiding are now yes or no rather than a gradation of possibilities. I'm wondering if we'll get to KDE 4.5 where things are good again, and then we'll come to some screwy KDE 5.
Okay, mod me flamebait if you want, but I fail to see how Wine is any sort of win for the open source community. Wine is a pretty good open source implementation of an ugly, broken and virtually unimplementable API that really shows its age and irrelevance in an increasingly Internet-driven world.
As another poster says, Django is a win. Pyjamas is a win. Even KDE 4 is more of a win. But Wine? No, Wine is nothing more than a legacy layer in a world that increasingly doesn't need such.
My blog
NetBeans and Eclipse namely.
They cover C, C++, Java, Python, Perl, PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, UML, XML, SVN, and many more - totally free. The compilers and interpreters for listed languages exist freely on Windows, and all are open source.
The best part is - these platforms are as good, and often better than paid versions such as Visual Studio.
They are also very popular in enterprise...
No, it really is a rule. RTFA is hard and it takes mad clicking skillz. It's much easier to read 500 comments than RTFA, even if you have to pull the little slidy thing to "Full" and click "More" 5 times so you can get your AC nigger fix.
A few years ago...I never thought I'd use GNOME, what with its child-proofing mentality.
But now its the only choice that's both functional and actually supported.
(Functional is a relative term. The release that shipped with Intrepid has entirely broken session management, which is a regression from even the ancient releases)
"Strangers have the best candy" -Me
No, simply that it's new isn't a problem. A few reasons:
1) It's big, ugly, and distracting, mixing a variety of font sizes, italics, etc. (That's my subjective opinion).
2) It is unpredictable, hence less useful. It used to bring up URLs that were previously typed in the field, that began with the letters typed. Now it searches other places and other fields, in a way that is not obvious, and can change unpredictably. My son was complaining about how the webcomic he reads keeps on turning up multiple times in the "awesomebar", because every strip has a different title.
3) It can pull up results that were never typed into the bar. That's non-intuitive; it should use the same 'type-ahead' system of selecting from previous entries that would work for other fields, such as html input fields. Don't make a crazy new interface for one field; make a interface that works sensibly for all fields.
4) It's marketing-driven. It was given a ridiculous name, and seemingly was at the top of a 'new 3.0 feature' bullet list that Mozilla wanted to 'push'... Then they removed options (which existed in the betas) to switch between the new and old configuration. That's skirting close to BIG BAD COMPANY behavior.
Doesn't it remind you of how the search feature in every MS OS has been getting worse and worse every version, despite the added features?
Oh, and before some idiot comes in with "hurf durf we don't want your PROPRIETAAAAAAAARY code!!!111", note that I release code under the MPL and/or BSD licenses as the situation calls for--but not the rights-restrictive GPL. Developers deserve freedom too, not just downstream users.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
If MySQL didn't suck, yes, it would be.
MySQL is a very fast database because it takes out the parts of a database that make it a database. Data validation? Pfft! Who needs that?!
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Plasmoids can be embedded in the taskbar, and could be useful for something like a little weather applet.
In other words, the KDE team destroyed a perfectly functioning desktop environment to build a better Weatherbug. This is coming from a long time KDE user, Gnome hater, and still Fedora 6 user (previously Fedora 4 user). I can't upgrade to the newer Fedoras due to bugs. In other words, if it is not going to work "out of the box", there isn't much benefit. Maybe I will switch to Debian.
... And along with your increased ability and incentive to move away from 'doze, comes increased incentive for developers to NOT move away from WinXX API.
If Wine works well, why should I, (a developer) want to port my appz to *nix? (not that I haven't, and we've offered OSX support for some time, but in all these years I've NEVER been asked about a Linux port) Of course, I won't officially support Wine on XYZ Linux, so the end result is a perpetual second-rate support for Linux.
On top of this, there's no particular incentive for us to support Linux anyway, since it's such an incohesive environment. Support RPM? Apt? Tar? Compiled sources? CUPs? PDF through Adobe? Ghost? Kghost? KDE? Gnome?
Each of these is important, because end users often have trouble finding the power switch. In this environment, having 24,000 flavors of the same O/S is *NOT* a good thing. And I say this despite using Linux for ALL of our core infrastructure and tech workstations!
Is this what you wanted? 'Cause it's what you are getting...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I like Gnome because it doesn't get in the way.
Doesn't get in the way ? As soon as you click in a window it comes to the front and obscures the material you were trying to view.
I suppose that it makes sense to Windows and Mac users but for the rest of us it's seriously irritating. I suppose it can be turned off by editing the Gnome XML configuration file (a staple of the traditional Gnome user friendliness) but it's a major pain in the neither region. As are a number of other defaults picked by the Gnome people who want to make the experience as "Windows-like" as possible for the corporate users.
I just can't wait for the transition to KDE4 to be complete. KDE works *for* me, not against. I don't want a desktop that "doesn't get in the way", I want one that actively makes things easier. KDE does that for me.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
No, simply that it's new isn't a problem. A few reasons:
1) It's big, ugly, and distracting, mixing a variety of font sizes, italics, etc. (That's my subjective opinion).
I don't see what you mean with variety of font sizes, italics, etc... It looks good once you get used to it.
2) It is unpredictable, hence less useful. It used to bring up URLs that were previously typed in the field, that began with the letters typed. Now it searches other places and other fields, in a way that is not obvious, and can change unpredictably. My son was complaining about how the webcomic he reads keeps on turning up multiple times in the "awesomebar", because every strip has a different title.
The bar is supposed to guess what you want, not the other way around. I also think it adapts to what you choose when searching.
I don't have to type more than 3 letters to get exactly where I want.
Maybe you shouldn't try to predict what the bar will do and instead let the bar predict what you want.
4) It's marketing-driven. It was given a ridiculous name, and seemingly was at the top of a 'new 3.0 feature' bullet list that Mozilla wanted to 'push'... Then they removed options (which existed in the betas) to switch between the new and old configuration. That's skirting close to BIG BAD COMPANY behavior.
Ridiculous name? Unlike many other open source products?
Doesn't it remind you of how the search feature in every MS OS has been getting worse and worse every version, despite the added features?
No, it reminds me of how google toolbar does a great job at searching for everything in my desktop.
The only thing you didn't mention, and I could have agreed with that, is the issue of performance. The awesomebar can get really slow (unlike google toolbar, which searches my whole computer much faster) and that's something I dislike. But it is a common problem in firefox as a whole (it can take long to startup, long to shutdown, slow to run web applications, etc)
As for the functionality, I'm really glad they added it. Versatile search and tagging functionality are two great features in my experience.
I don't use history anymore, and bookmarks were replaced by tags.
That said, what features of firefox 3 do you need? I mean, why can't you just roll back to firefox 2 if you don't like ff3?
it doesn't embed into Dolphin, no, because that's not Dolphin's design goal.
What? What kind of *nix file manager leaves out tarballs? Hell, even Explorer does zip.
Rule of thumb: if it does less than mc, it sucks.
Sadly, much as I like KDE, this is basically the case. Nobody really knows what Plasmoids are useful for, other than simplistic applets that we already had with other systems. It is kind of interesting to having something like Folder View...but not really useful. Unfortunately, the KDE team spent so much time worrying about Plasma and plasmoids and getting it all working that they neglected things like KHotKeys, KSSL, etc.
Palm trees and 8