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Gnome Founder Miguel de Icaza Moves To Mac
TrueSatan writes "Miguel de Icaza, via his blog, has explained his gradual move to the Apple Mac platform. 'While I missed the comprehensive Linux toolchain and userland, I did not miss having to chase the proper package for my current version of Linux, or beg someone to package something. Binaries just worked.' Here is one of his main reasons: 'To me, the fragmentation of Linux as a platform, the multiple incompatible distros, and the incompatibilities across versions of the same distro were my Three Mile Island/Chernobyl.' Reaction to his announcement includes a blog post from Jonathan Riddell of Blue Systems/Kubuntu. Given de Icaza's past association with Microsoft (CodePlex Foundation) and the Free Software Foundation's founder Richard Stallman's description of de Icaza as a 'traitor to the free software community,' this might be seen as more of a blow to Microsoft than to GNU/Linux."
Now he's going to try to clone all of Microsoft's clones of other people's technology for the Mac.
Lets see how far that gets him.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
And never looked back. Linux maintains its place as my workhorse, while I rest in the comfort of whichever other OS I feel like using that day, typically OS X or iOS. SSH and SFTP fill the gaps.
you can run it on your PC; Apple doesn't like it but you can do it
...but sometimes you just have to Get. Shit. Done. Part of getting shit done is using tools that Just Work.
Yes. Freedom. Openness. Yadda. Yadda. All good things. I agree with them. I also need to ship code. That's the difference between my project and HURD. Sometimes, I just don't care if the tools I use were made from crushed unicorn horns and children's spleens.
I'm starting to think this guy just likes to read about himself in the news. I think his announcement is pretty funny - Linux Mint is a shining example of Linux as a functional desktop OS. It's still not as polished as OS X, but I do find myself using OS X less and less these days.
Maybe he's just butthurt that Gnome probably doesn't have much of a future. I mean, the older versions are great if, uh, your graphics card stops working or something. . .
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
You trade one slavery for another. The Cult of Macheads will mod me down, but Apple owns you as much as Microsoft does. Icaza trades one set of commercial business ecosystems for another.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Been running Linux for 15 years now, and it's better than it ever has been. I guess this guy just lost whatever zeal he never really had in the first place for free software.....Read his blog post and it seems like he's just bored or lazy, or both. Oh well......
bullshit, it's a very incomplete .NET 4.0 missing huge parts of the framework. and let's not forget Moonlight, now dead.
incomplete system like that is fit only for a trainwreck of a project, like say GNOME3
It doesn't matter his affiliation or if he likes or even works for MS or not. Judge the statement on it's own, and it's true.
It's something Linux geeks have trouble admitting, but it is the sole reason Linux usage has not skyrocketed in adoption. If the LSB worked anthing close to how it was envisioned, developers would flock to the platform and then so would users.
At the moment, people use the distro they like and defend, while non linux geeks use distros like Ubuntu or Mint, which are the only platforms commercial developers tend to target.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
It's ironic that he complains about fragmentation, since he's largely responsible. Gnome is pretty shitty, but numerous distributions waste effort either supporting it or for some reason using it primarily instead of KDE which is a lot better. If it weren't Gnome all Linux desktops would have long ago standardized on KDE and we'd be better off for it.
[citation needed] Eula != Law
Its really simple. You can f around with linux endlessly or you can get tired of it and move on to something more interesting. Obviously, Miguel is getting older and just doesn't want to f around with linux anymore. The Mac (for now) just gets things done. Thats not to say that nobody should f around with linux, obviously we need those people to do that, and eventually they'll get it more and more solid. Bless their little hearts. But in the mean time, other people want to f around with other things and not have to constantly be f'ing with linux.
Its like cars (or motorcycles)...
When your younger, you don't mind the beater car that you have to repair all the time. You dream of the day when its perfectly restored, but you never get there. One day you just realize, you have other things you want to do, so you buy a new car that just works. If you're lucky you can now afford one because you stopped f'ing with linux and started f'ing with something else that you can make a good living at. And if you're really lucky, you pick up some pile of junk to work on solely as a hobby and without the stress of wondering if the f'ing thing is going to get you to work on time.
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
I have a Macbook. It runs Linux exclusively. People might have diverging opinions about the price, but very few question that it's a very well engineered machine. Have you tried looking at their screens to see what OS they were running?
By the way, 10 years ago iBooks were still using PowerPC processors, and Macbooks didn't exist until 2006.
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
I found myself moving from Linux back to Windows 7. Turns out I didn't actually care what fanboys proclaimed Linux could do if the software I wanted to run didn't exist in Linux. Or that my USB3 ports were busted in Linux due to a regression in the kernel that no-one bothered to fix. Or that there aren't any GUI file managers that are as quick at displaying info (and enough details including bitrates and resolutions) that are capable in Explorer.
Shame. But I think I've rid myself of the fanboy stink and use whatever the fuck I want now.
Raenex is a dickhead
Nexus tablet runs Linux
Galaxy phone runs Linux
Wintendo what the hell is that?
Please refrain from attacking de Icaza for these simple reasons.
Like Stallman, de Icaza has donated countless hours of organization and programming time to Linux. Neither got rich as a result. Politics aside, Linux is about superior engineering, even if only as a side effect. Because of the efforts of these two individuals, among many others, Linux is now the most popular operating system on the planet. By any stretch of the imagination, they were and are victorious. Android is closing in on a billion users, but regardless of what Google's marketing materials may tell you, Android is a Linux distribution, and GNU and GNOME have been perfecting Linux distributions for over two decades.
I understand that Android does not ship with much GNU or GNOME software, but GNU and GNOME are what built Linux. Without either, the foundations upon which Android runs would never have accreted enough functionality to even think about running a smartphone.
As mostly non-rich people, often not closely allied with specific companies, we don't have publicists or agents. We don't come off as polished. We don't have speech writers. Forgive us for seeming offensive, rude, obnoxious, conceited, full of ourselves, or some other adjective. We're people, and as engineers we're trained to traffic in the honest truth. Once you meet us you'll like us, for the most part. And even if you don't, enjoy using our software. Contribute if you like.
You trade one slavery for another. The Cult of Macheads will mod me down...
Choice of computing platform is not slavery. Liking things that work is not a cult.
On reading Miguel's blog post I found myself thinking about a character who showed up on Gilligan's Island who was perpetually lost in his biplane. His nickname was "Wrong Way."
Ever notice how Miguel always seems to get involved in chaotic situations and then flees them by taking the wrong train, ending up in the middle of nowhere? Why does anyone even listen to this guy?
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Mono was a pointless waste of time and De Icaza is a quisling turn coat. Apple deserves that worthless pile of donkey shit.
Lets see:
Miguel's contributions to Linux:
1) Midnight Commander
2) Contributions to Wine
3) He worked with David S. Miller on the Linux SPARC port and wrote several of the video and network drivers in the port, as well as the libc ports to the platform.
4) They both later worked on extending Linux for MIPS to run on SGI's Indy computers and wrote the original X drivers for the system.
5) With Ingo Molnar he wrote the original software implementation of RAID-1 and RAID-5 drivers of the Linux kernel
6) De Icaza started the GNOME project with Federico Mena in August 1997 to create a completely free desktop environment and component model for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.
7) He also created the GNOME spreadsheet program, Gnumeric.
Your contributions to Slashdot:
1) Silly karmawhoring hatefilled anti-Microsoft rants on Slashdot
Who has made better contributions to the progress of Open Source?
You confuse choice with slavery. Some choices have masters. Some, like Linux and BSD, do not. They may have their own cults, drama queens, and idiots, but also leaders, contributors, and plentiful competition.
Some choices do not, and I equate *them* with slavery.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Because you equate it doesn't make it fact. Slavery has a very strict definition and you're twisting of it does good for no one.
Just because you disagree with me, doesn't make it not true.
Each of these platforms has enormous degrees of vortex, along with inducements and outright shock troops to keep you "in the herd".
Platform slavery is well known. I don't, in using it, diminish the horrible context of human slavery. Human slavery is a different subject for a different day. This is about Icaza going from Microsoft to Apple with a blush on his face. This isn't about Dr MLK, or Selma, or Chinese girls in Boston brothels.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Wait, so, the guy who basically pushed 90% of the bloat, incompatibility, and other such madness I've ever seen in Linux is leaving because of the bloat and incompatibility?
Dude, not cool. You made that bed, now lie in it.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Dude's got more legitimate cred than ESR ever had really. People just can't get their heads around the fact that a Linux guy can like elements of other software ecosystems.
seven cats and one dog. Four laptops running Mint 14, 1 netbook running Mint 11, HTPC running Mint 14 KDE and second htpc running Mint 14 KDE. AND guess what, they all just work after install. Weird how you can't get it to just work.
but now I like my home computer to just work. They cost more, but are worth it. I still have a unix command line and most of the open source tools but have access to commercial software as well.
Yummy KoolAid.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
What did they say about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel?
Time to open up OSX and allow it to be installed on any computer.
A tired response to a tired post. Apple is a hardware maker not an OS maker. They only make OSs to support their hardware. This explains the price difference between Mac upgrades and Windows upgrades. They make their profits off the hardware. They could potentially offer a version of the OS at a higher price that could be installed on PCs but people like you would complain about the price difference. They can't win this argument so why play the game? You want open there's Linux. You want Mac OS then there's Macs. You want everything your way, life sucks and get used to it! Christ when I was in my teens computers ran off Cassette drives! Be happy. 20 years ago Macs cost the same as a car. Cars got more expensive and Macs got cheaper and you're still complaining! Your average smart phone has a 100X the power of my first computer. My iPad would have probably been a super computer when I was a kid. If you were thrown back in time to the 70s or 80s you'd think you were in hell. Just imagine the 60s, as in pre calculator days when computers ran off punch cards. You're living in a time of miracles and you're whining about running OSX on hardware it was never designed to run on! My expartner bought a Mac clone off some one that claimed it worked faster than a Mac Pro. The damned thing was slower than a Mac Mini and crashed constantly. I made him take it back to the idiot that sold it to him. Is that what you want? A slower than hell OSX that crashes constantly? I'm sure you'd just blame Apple for not supporting PC hardware better!
No, you're just devaluing the word slavery by using it in that ridiculous way, because there's already a term for what you're trying to describe: vendor lock-in.
Just because you believe it really really strongly doesn't make it true, either.
Yup. Representatives from my technology company of choice just knocked on my door. They are coming to chain me and send me to the cotton fields.
When asked why, the answer is almost always: "It's 2014".
The guy who launched GNOME as a counter to KDE is complaining about "the fragmentation of Linux as a platform"? Tthe guy who made the decision replace GNUstep (which was the GNU project's official toolkit/framework in 1996) in favor of GTK â" he's fled to the Mac? He's got the chutzpah to say, "Linux just never managed to cross the desktop chasm"â"without admitting that his decisions are a major cause of that failure?
Good damn riddance.
Technically, Mono is great. Unfortunately, Miguel completely failed to establish it as a Linux standard by antagonizing much of the Linux community and failing to assuage licensing and patent concerns. Frankly, as an early Mono adopter and supporter, I feel let down by him. Let him be happy with his Mac; I won't miss him.
I used to configure my desktop PCs to dual boot Windows and Linux. I started doing so in the mid 90s. Some tasks were just better performed in a unix environment. I didn't care about the politics of linux, I just wanted a unix environment. In more recent years I've found that Mac OS X fills this role quite well, for both traditional unix tools and whatever FOSS software I want to run. Some folks seem to erroneously equate FOSS with linux but configure; make; make install seems to work just as well under os x for what I've tried. Mac OS X just makes for a better desktop environment. I still use linux, but its running on the headless servers in the closet. I have linux VMs to start up in VMWare should I actually need Linux but I don't think I've started one up in a year. At the time I had to write something that would be deployed on a RHEL box and I started the project at home under CentOS.
Seriously, are you still spouting that bullshit? For the configuration Apple chooses to sell, they are very competitive on pricing. Ultrabooks are typically more expensive than MacBook Airs, and the very cheap ones have really shitty cases.
Or are you one of those assholes who like to compare a macbook air to a cheapie $250 netbook?
Mucking Foron.
The Gnome project was a disaster from beginning to end. It accomplished exactly one useful thing: Trolltech was forced to GPL QT. At that point, Gnome should have been promptly shut down, having accomplished its purpose, and Linux on the desktop would be much further advanced than it is. But instead we have this crippled zombie thing that shambles on and on. Somebody put a stake in its heart or something please.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
>My guess is that in this case this is an Ableton Libe problem and not an OS X problem.
Hey if Linux can get blamed for the misbehaviour of proprietory apps, and indeed if proprietory app-makers can complain that they cannot build for every linux system (when NO free software developer ever has that problem - it comes from not playing by the rules, if you give us the source, you never have to build for ANYTHING - each distro will build it for itself and you need not know how ANY of them does it) then blaming apple for the behaviour of an application sold for apple is simply tit for tat.
Linux people always hear Linux being blamed for the faillures of third parties. But oddly, software in the repo almost always "just works" - the problems almost always comes in from stuff that are't in the repos and are not in fact maintainable by the community whom you are blaming for it's failure. People have tried and failed to solve this for years (the gaming companies almost all went for self-extracting archivesin uuencoded shell scripts for example).
A user's experience of working on a platform is determined just as much by the platform and those who develop well for it, as by those who develop badly for it. This is utterly unfair and irrational but it's nevertheless true.
How much better would some of the GP's have rated the linux desktop if they limited themselves to ONLY the stuff in the repos (and that's without getting into a free software only argument - which I personally DO believe in and stick to).
People actually feel their linux experience is harmed because skype on linux is so inferior to skype on windows - but that is not only skype (or now microsoft)'s fault, it's not something linux developers CAN do anything about whatsoever. The best we could do is offer ekiga - but that has so little market-share that it doesn't solve the problem.
So tit for tat I say.
That all said - whenever I have to use any windows platform it irritates the living daylights out of me, which is why I stick to mint+KDE. I tried a Mac a while ago... yuerch... it just didn't want to work the way *I* want to work.
Nobody tells me how my desktop should function, that's MY decision, because I am most productive in a system set up and customized to my particular workflows. The only desktop that actually respects that is KDE.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I just read at least a dozen "but OSX just WORKS!!" threads, "I don't have to do anything to make it WORK!#@!".
Well, guess what. What you spend your money on is *REAL* *VOTING*; more than any election.
When you *VOTE* for shitty, evil Apple Business Practices (that would be ALL OF THEM), you're supporting and proliferating Evil (tm). They're worse than Microsoft, just without as many of your Billions. Keep feeding the beast and see what happens.
I don't think it's very fair to say the Gnome project was a disaster. Sure, in the context of present-day desktop environments, GNOME 1.x looks pretty damn horrible now. But back then, comparing it to KDE (which, to be fair, was in some respects the more reliably functional interface) it was not bad. At that time, I really hated KDE, since it was so kfucking kluttered and kfugly.
I stuck with GNOME from 1997 until the end of the 2.x versions, since it did what I needed it to do reasonably well. Meanwhile, the early KDE 4.x releases were unusable. Sadly, GNOME 3.x has followed suit (and appears set to stay that way), while KDE has re-evolved itself in recent versions as a really nice, feature-rich environment.
27" iMac 4-core with 8 GB RAM - cost ~$1800CAN ... you have a big ass, noisy box sitting on or near your desk with wires snaking to and from the monitor. Conversely, the iMac fits cleanly, quietly, and completely on your desk. ... period.
A competitive screen (same resolution) from Samsung costs $1100CAN. Add in a good wireless keyboard and mouse, the RAM, HD, etc. and the difference between the homebuilt PC and iMac is maybe $200CAN BUT
If you want to game, maybe there is an argument for the PC. If you need to work or relax and enjoy some media, Apple
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.