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Ask Slashdot: Attracting Developers To Abandonware?
phlawed writes "I've been a Linux user since the previous millennium. I came from OS/2, which I really liked. I quickly felt at home with icewm, using a suitably tweaked config to give me something resembling Presentation Manager. I may have commented on that before. Today, I find myself in a position where my preferred 'environment' is eroding. The only force keeping icewm rolling these days is the distribution package maintainers. I can't code in any meaningful way, nor do I aspire to. I could easily pay for a supported version of icewm, but I can't personally pay someone enough to keep it alive. I'd love it if someone took a personal interest in the code, to ensure that it remains up to date, or to make it run on Wayland or whatever. I want someone to own the code, be proud of it. Is there a general solution for this situation? How do I go about drumming up interest for an old project?"
And you thought Android suffered from fragmentation.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Turn the license into a BSD license, maybe? If it's good code, it might attract some interest. If the software is dead, why not?
Sure you can. Find someone to work on it and get them to sign up for Gittip, while you do the same. You can "tip" them a few cents to several bucks per week for their efforts and they can get paid by you and other supporters.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
I started a website dedicated to this, but I eventually gave up on it.
"Hey guys, I really love your software... I'd be totally unwilling to pay for it, but I'd really love it if you did all of this work for me, thanks."
The problem with the Linux software ecosystem is that it does not run on gratitude alone, as much as some of the users would love to think that it does. Cough up the coin and someone will do the work.
Sorry but thats just how it is, even in the Linux world. You can't relive the past. You gotta move on to newer things. Just look at my screen handle; I've learned this lesson myself. Don't waste time hoping it will make a comeback because it won't; not as long as there's a surplus of people willing to complain about how old and obsolete it is, and not as long as there's no significant payoff to be made.
What's keeping this layout from being re-implemented on any other window manager?
Determine if there's sufficient demand for your preferred environment to grow and be maintained, sufficient to pay the salaries for a small dedicated team. If you can't code, perhaps you can manage the project or handle the marketing. If the demand isn't there, you may have to deal with the situation as is, or transition to another platform.
Plan My Week for iPhone
Have you tried contacting their developer mailing list and ask them what they need?
http://dooblet.com/alternative-to-icewm
http://alternativeto.net/software/icewm/
http://linux.descargargratis.co/icewm/alternatives
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
...and a family-sized bag of Cheetos ought to do the trick.
www.chihuahuarescue.com- Help to end dog abuse, abandonment and cruelty
I'm an OS/2 refugee.
There are parts of KDE that seem much closer to WPS than the other environments. For example, right clicking in Dolphin and "Create New" to make a new blank object is similar to Workplace Shell's templates.
The only parts of icewm that are similar to WPS is the coloring and button layout.
None of the environments on Linux, Windows, or OSX are like the WPS "object oriented user interface." To understand what this is like you have to actually have used OS/2. Everyone else has no idea.
--
BMO
He did say he was willing to pay for the software, just not pay a guys salary.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Use a different OS or window manager and find an OS/2 theme for it. I'm sure there are a bunch floating around out there and even if not, you could make your own or modify an existing theme.
That reminds me of when uwm went away in pref of twm. Window managers have all sorts of abilities and usu have widgets and event traps, and may have to be rewritten from the ground up to incorporate new ideas. But all is not lost, because you can usually tweak the new ones to behave like the predecessor.
As far as window managers, old is often a subset of new, so my suggestion is to spend a day to adapt some new, maintained software using its config and dotfiles to behave the way you want.
I suppose you could start a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a developer's salary. It wouldn't have to be a full year's salary, just enough to encourage a developer to take on the work. Heck, I'd probably do it for a couple of grand. Anyway, if the Kickstarter campaign is a success you can hire a part-time developer to work on the project. On the other hand, if the campaign fails then maybe it is time to move on to a new window manager. There are plenty of free ones out there that work just fine.
I have a mod stalker who is modding down my past comments and is too much of a cowardly pussy to admit it or face me.
No, you get modded down because you say idiotic things like this:
Now you know why 90% of FLOSS projects are crap.
Implying that this is different in closed source software. This is false. 90 percent of closed-source software is crap too. Sturgeon's Law applies everywhere.
--
BMO
While on the topic about fragmentation... Android is another type of linux.
No, its not. End users and nearly all **developers** don't see it. The Linux kernel could probably be swapped out with a BSD kernel and few would notice. Even for those using the NDK and writing some C code they are probably making POSIX calls not calls to anything Linux specific.
In other words, he is not willing to pay the going rate to get the work done. Same difference.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Get together a group of people who are willing to pay something to keep the environment alive, then come back. I personally have no love for OS/2, but even someone like me may consider doing coding on a project like that if it was paid work.
I feel the same way about Plan 9 / Inferno.
You might want to check into a class of crowdfunding sites that exist to fund features in free and open source software. The two main ones I could find are:
https://www.bountysource.com/
https://bountyoss.com/
"Hey guys, I really love your software... I'd be totally unwilling to pay for it, but I'd really love it if you did all of this work for me, thanks." The problem with the Linux software ecosystem is that it does not run on gratitude alone, as much as some of the users would love to think that it does.
In truth, Linux is largely subsidized by various commercial corporation. If it had remained a hobbyist effort it would be far far behind where it is today.
Watch the documentary, echo ${stringZ/#firefly/icewm}
When all the sexy code is written and all that is left is the boring stuff, the coders leave to for the new hotness ... Oh sure, people will point to things like Linux, Apache, etc. but when you get down to it, most FLOSS projects end up as either abandonware or as rarely updated side projects with half-implemented features and unfixed bugs, let alone getting modern features.
Linux is where it is today because of various commercial corporations subsidizing its development. So there is a second alternative, you don't have to pay devs, you can get a major corporation interested in the project and they can pay the devs. That is the Linux model.
I'm not too interested in an escrow service, but personally I liked tvtwm enough I might join a bounty program to bring it back into the mainstream.
I'd gladly toss a few bucks to fund a bounty to get it back into a major distro.
I get that you don't like change in this area of your life, but without active development and few users the writing is on the wall here...
Fluxbox? Enlightenment? Awesome? All three can be customized and skinned/themed without "coding in a meaningful way".
The days when desktop environments improved as time went by seem to have gone. Now they just get more and more annoying with every iteration. Unfortunately that's the way of the world and there's nothing to be done but to grit your teeth and put up with it. Hopefully things will change again before too long.
There's no "in truth" about it. Linux is where it is today because people paid people to write software. Some of it was good will gestures, some of it was students learning, some of it was having fun... but the software largely is where it is today because money changed hands and the software writers earned some money.
This guy is proposing that someone picks up the ball, but isn't oftering the scratch. As soon as he's willing, someone will turn up to do it.
It is different than closed source software. You are conflating the utility of an application with the quality of the project.
If the developer of a closed source app can make enough of a profit selling an app, then the developer will continue to maintain and improve the app regardless of the size of the user base. With FLOSS even if a project has a large user base, it can and will die a slow and ugly death as soon as all the "sexy" code is written because the developer(s) will move on to more interesting projects. The primary exceptions to this is when a project is adopted by one or more companies who pay for developers to work on the project or the most of the changes in the project involve sexy code.
In short, if a closed source application is profitable, it will be maintained, even if it is of low quality and possibly low utility. Even useful, high quality, high utility FLOSS projects will be left to rot because the work that is left is boring and no one wants to work on it. If you want evidence, just look at the high profile projects that have had annoying little bugs that lasted for months or even years because hunting down the bug and fixing it would be boring.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Not precisely. He doesn't think of himself as the only user. Micropayments is a perfectly reasonable model, that has just never taken off. Pertially because there's usually so much overhead to managing them. And THAT is partially because of legal constraints.
OTOH, please note that I did say "partially". There are other reasons that it hasn't taken off, and the "free rider" problem is one of them. There's no obvious way around that. But someone *might* find a way if the legal obstacles were removed, and the overhead were lower.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Not an eeeevil corporation, not even necessarily a formal one. Post on forums (like you've already done here) with a solid proposal about chipping in (unlike you've done here); start a webpage; whatever. I guess you can even do a Kickstarter, unless it's required for the host to actually do the work. Start negotiating with developers, say that the $ is on its way or in hand.
Seems like a lot of work? It is, and you probably won't do it. But unlike waiting for someone to be inspired to passionately solve the problem you care about, it has at least a snowball's chance in hell of actually happening.
It's almost like those evil corporations are actually providing a service which random developers, with no motivation but fun and ego, can't or won't provide.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
It's called marketing. RubyOnRails wasn't the first web framework and it certainly wasn't the best. In fact, it was pretty shitty. But it was the first that had a professionally designed website that advertised its benefits and a screencast that explained and demonstraded them. The pratically invented screencasts. Weeks later slashdot was filled with Rails fanatics.
The first version of the Zope Webapp Server came out roughly a decade before rails and still was notabliy superiour to any other WebFW, Rails included, in all aspects. Yet nobody cared. Why? That's why. Bland website? Nothing flashy? Can't find what I'm looking for? Backend UI without good looking buttons? Won't adhere to the loudmouths and hippsters and won't get attention, won't get critical mass, will lose eventually. It's that simple, even in the FOSS world nowadays (Rails actually sought to that, btw.)
If you really want to bring ICEwm (back) into the limelight, join the team, update their 12 year old website, bundle a new version with good looking modern themes and your tweaked setup, give it a new version number and do a little rattling on related online forums. Once everything is in place, tested, up and running that is. If you've done your job well, userbase will rise again and IceWM 2.0 will the the Hip WM of 2014. Fluxbox, a Blackbox fork, gained hippness status some years back the exact same way. Neat website, one or two nice little extras, screenshots, a well kempt miniblog and everybody went "Oh, look, new and shiny."
That's just about all there is to it. But don't you dare think good marketing isn't work and isn't worth giving as much thought as your projects software architecture. It's more work and - most of the time - even more important than that for the success of a project. Even in FOSS.
Good luck.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
You can configure KDE4 pretty well, and even if you can't, you can always get someone to write a plasmoid in QML or python or something. Probably for a bounty you can afford, or even asking nicely, who knows.
Alternatively, there's Gnome 3, but I haven't tested that one much.
Even more alternatively, there's FVWM...you can do pretty much anything on it, if you can afford the time.
I got my KDE using an Unity-like look and using some Unity apis for menus and displays. Didn't need to code at all (and any code I did for custom displays is pretty much bash and a python helper, about 10 minutes of coding).
Of course, this only looks like Unity (I always used sidebars anyway, even in windows), but behaves more like I want it to behave.
I use icewm pretty regularly on some machines. It hasn't changed in years, and I like it that way.
Is there actually anything that needs doing?
Lotus died a long time ago. Everyone on the planet uses Acrobat for electronic forms. Yet the US Government requires you to use crappy Lotus-based forms. Not only that, you have to submit them with Internet Explorer on Windows due to a crappy digital signature implementation that only works on IE and Windows. So, if you want keep an obsolete technology around, hire a lobbyist.
If you want evidence, just look at the high profile projects that have had annoying little bugs that lasted for months or even years because hunting down the bug and fixing it would be boring.
You mean like Windows itself?
Your argument is nonsense.
--
BMO
In short, if a closed source application is profitable, it will be maintained, even if it is of low quality and possibly low utility.
Hard to disagree with that. Look how long Windows has been around.
Bingo, you've got it.
I'll bet (haven't checked) that the documentation and website have lots of room for improvement. Work on that will help substantially, and show a commitment to the project.
Like 16-bit DOS applications and Windows XP, all things eventually reach end of life.
Get over it and move on to something else.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
You make this point yourself. If the developer of a closed source package gets bored of it, or it is not profitable (which itself is a high bar for a most producers!), or both, they will drop it. Anyone who came to rely on it is completely stuck, as they cannot fix the most trivial or sexy bugs. They have to live with it until advancing technology and other changes make the program fail completely, and they will have to retrain.
If it is open source, then at least you can recompile and/or port to a new OS. You have the option of paying someone to fix a problem. You have none of those options if the closed-source producer of a package arbitrarily decides to drop it.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I still doesn't have a builtin mail client :)
On the plus side jwm has seen quite a bit of development recently.
Never could figure out why it didn't catch on better than it did. I think it just lacked proper advertising.
... fits your requirements of being easy to configure and not getting in your way.
No, he's right.
I have nothing to do, so I spend all of my time finding his posts and down modding them with all my different accounts.
It takes up so much time I even stopped contributing to a certain open source project.
We use Icewm for a Linux/X thin client environment (IceWM and apps runs on the host, not the desktop machine) and it works really well. It is simple, fast, reliable, low-resource, and controllable. I would hate to see it die or fade away. It does lack a few features that I had hoped would be added, but anything other than bug fixes stopped several years ago.
1. Announce a course in window manager design.
2. Collect tuition.
3. Give your students the current source code for icewm.
4. Tell them their assignment is to make icewm compatible with modern Linux.
5. Profit!
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I don't get this kind of mentality.
The OP is using a WM because it's reminiscent to the WM of a dead OS he liked from the early 90s.
If developers do anything more than maintenance work on the code, it's going to be less and less like his beloved, "Presentation Manager" and more like a modern WM, giving him less and less incentive to actually stay with IceWM. So what exactly does he want? He seems to be sticking to IceWM out of habit, perhaps he should look around at other WMs and not limit himself.
When i was running Linux I used IceWM+PCmanFM for desktop icons, It's a fine for what it is, a loose imitation of the classic windows UIs. Like all cloneware, there comes a time when interest wanes, and the code is deemed "done".
is really the same DE, really seriously, tell us what ICEWM does so much better than any other DE (not counting the recent crimes against useability from the big names) move along, which may be extremely difficult since your referencing OS/2 as a crowning glory in freakin 2013. Dont get me wrong I like presentation manager and ice wm as well, I have them both loaded up on a fat pentium MMX laptop as a dual boot.
but its not cause its the best thing ever made, its more along the lines of its neat and not windows mentality
Micropayments is a perfectly reasonable model, that has just never taken off.
And why is that? You are answering:
Partially because there's usually so much overhead to managing them. And THAT is partially because of legal constraints.
Overhead? I can't think of much overhead in sending a fraction of a BTC, or in sending over PayPal. There might be a problem if you are an Amazonian native who lives in a rainforest and has no Internet. But then you aren't very likely to be a user either. Everyone else, who has access to the Net, can pay.
OTOH, please note that I did say "partially". There are other reasons that it hasn't taken off, and the "free rider" problem is one of them.
Somewhat yes, I agree. Very often optional payments are optimized away. Also, a small payment is seen as not influential, and therefore not necessary. People are conditioned to not spend their money left and right because they have needs in the real world, and those needs are not optional. For micropayments to work you need a new man. Good luck with that. People are, generally, opportunistic gatherers and freeloaders. They do contribute sometimes, but not too much and not too often. A modern society requires too much labor from an individual to just stay alive, pay for the house, and for the children, and for healthcare... very few people come home from a 12-hour hacking at work and immediately sit down for another 8 hours of hacking at home. Not everyone works as hard, but good coders usually do - and you want only those.
The overhead is in converting any sort of micropayment system into actual useful currency. PayPal takes a stupidly large chunk. BitCoin is a joke, good luck in getting that few bucks in BitCoin tips into your American bank account.
It doesnt happen in exactly the same way with proprietary software. Instead of the developers going off to chase whatever they think is new and exciting, they get sent off every so often to chase what marketing thinks is new and exciting, but either way projects are never finished. Programs which become generally mature, in danger of reaching bug free and feature complete, are always phased out in favor of new and shiny one way or another.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
First, a short background: I played with OS/2 Warp for a really short time, but had a lot of things to do and then Linux came. So, no cigar here.
I have a couple computers -- the most powerful run KDE4(Mageia); for the weaker/older I've been experimenting with Xfce and LXDE and since the latter will use Qt, I'll probably use it where KDE is not possible.
Finally, for really weak machines I've been trying some simpler distros. Porteus is incredible nimble, but I'd rather have a Debian-based distro. Which led me to...
antiX: a distro which can use a selection of window managers, iceWM included. I'd recommend that you try jwm, as others already said, 'cause I found it to be configurable to my taste (btw, I don't click a window to raise it; I click its title... that is because I may want to work with a certain window disposition and even paste things on a window I don't want to bring up and wreck my desktop layout).
Now, what I don't get:
If you got an older machine (or are helping lots of people in need like Ken from Reglue/Helios), ok, I recommend jwm by Joe Wing if you really need to stick to something akin to icewm.
If you got a decent machine, depending on its age, I'd suggest waiting for LXDE-Qt and perhaps using Xfce in the mean time... it can be tweaked to look like iceWM (though I have no idea about OS/2's capabilities).
Or, better yet, go for KDE4. It can be configured to work like mostly anything... from Windows (yuck!) to OS X... though the ride is not without emotions. Here the problem is the opposite: "how can I make those KDE developers stay put and don't change things so fast, or at least be better at marketing the new features?").
I don't get why you don't want a desktop, since a desktop can be made to work just like a window manager (for the most cases, at least). I've seen your comment explaining it, but certainly you don't think icons are mandatory in KDE (or Gnome, btw)...
And, btw, iceWM is nice. It's development slowed, maybe, because it already attained perfection. Why are you worried about it?
It's frightening how plausible that sounds.
Not like Windows. With Windows, management can prioritize bugs with feedback from the triage team and their budget. And then assign those bugs to people, who get paid to find and fix the bug.
Linux doesn't have this problem, because piles of companies employ people to fix what they want fixed. FireFox is funded, although I'm not sure how forcing people to work on specific things pans out - the "clownshoes" saga was the most ridiculous failure to diagnose a problem that I can remember, so not exactly a success story. Google funds/funded a lot of software develolpers on other projects such as Python, but doesn't seem to be in a position of forcing what to work on routinely. Dual licensing, like Qt and MySQL, means funding is available. The remainder of open source software projects are vulnerable to neglect, developer churn, and related problems due to not having a way to force attention.
With FLOSS, sometimes the barrier is simply not having the hardware to be able to repro the bug, and thus being unable to fix it at all. Someone who has the hardware can fix it you say? Well, that person somehow decided that the software was worth using, wanted to fix it, had the right hardware, and was capable of debugging. All of which is missing in the case of "abandonware". And most of which is missing if the bug even exists at all.
And, one good way to keep or build interest in a project is to introduce the new features. Fixing a bug that isn't critical or affecting most people just means that people who can't use your product, still won't use it. The lure for new is the obvious draw. As it is with Windows, or any software with resource constraints. Is Windows your only counter-example? Because "boring" is completely different from "not financially worth it", which is where your example completely breaks down.
Now, I'm not sure what your point was here:
90 percent of open source software falls in the categories of: builds on a limited number of distros, won't build on current build environments, isn't finished, works for the case of the author only, or any number of other definitions of "crap". This is not dissing open source in any way, it is simple numerical data. Closed source, by the numbers, is impossible to enumerate. The stuff that doesn't work mostly doesn't ship. The stuff that does ship is mostly functional for the given use case. It's certainly not "better". But, and this I think was the original point, open source that *doesn't* work is statistically more prevalent.
The complication of having an all-volunteer workforce just means you can't sit someone down and force them to work, so you have to appeal to their sense of accomplishment, pride, sometimes ego, or whatever happens to drive them. Unfortunately for "phlawed" I'm not sure that anyone here knows which personality attributes to appeal to for the people who might be interested in maintaining his/her toy.
How about finding an IceWM user's group and drumming up interest there? Because they might have more helpful contributions than a bunch of nerds involved in a dick-waving contest about how their view of the world is the only correct one.
Do it yourself or stop bitching.
Yes, but it's free market crap that we pay for.
Seriously, this is like me saying I like using DOS and I'm dissappointed that nobody is making programs for it anymore.
1. Switch window managers like all of the icewm users obviously have.
What's so bad about gnome or kde?
2. Keep using icewm and put up with slow/no development
3. Pay a programmer a decent wage to fix problems - you probably wouldn't get anyone to work on it for less than 3months at standard rates
4. Start a kickstarter or gitip to fund development
5. Learn to code and fix it yourself.
If one guy writes the software, his salary is the price of said software.
rephrase: i really want hollywood to make "throw momma from the train 2: grandma!" I cannot afford to bankroll the whole movie but I will happily buy a ticket when this comes out in theaters. how can I make this happen?
I was originally just going to say this to be a dick, but in rephrasing the question I think we see the answer. Look at the story behind Veronica Mars 2. It was fans who pushed for it and ultimately funded it through KS. The lesson here: even though Hollywood was apathetic, fans won out because of their collective ferver.
solution for @phlawed: build a rabid fanbase. Don't worry about the coders, worry about the users. the coders will come.
Of course, if you don't have the time / inclination to work towards this goal, and nobody else wants to do it either, then you're @phucked!
FVWM users share the same problem. My highly customized FVWM setup of 45 workplaces (http://skliarie.blogspot.co.il/2008/11/my-45-workplaces.html) can barely keep up with today keyboard layout switchers and full-screen resolution-resizing applications.
For any meaningful hardware manupulations (multi-screen setup, audio volume, USB mounts) I must run a terminal or gnome-setup...
Couple of years ago I tried to switch to gnome-session with similar 45 desktops setup, to no avail. I wasn't a bit as smooth and seamless experience as with FVWM. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?
The end result will be more frightening. Do you want to use a WM that had been written by students? A WM crash may easily ruin your day.
I used to run icewm and loved it. But then something broke or changed or it was missing from whatever distro I was using and I bit the bullet and just moved to openbox.
Seriously it's a window manager. They're all fairly similar and once you get it configured how you like you don't need to touch it again. I don't think I've looked at my openbox configuration in 4 or 5 years so it was a reasonable investment in a couple of hours of tweaking and getting used to the differences.
It's had it's day - let go and move on
Not precisely. He doesn't think of himself as the only user.
Well, he's (effectively) wrong on that count.
SourceForge is indicating a total of 35 downloads, and I'd bet at least a couple of them were the result of this Slashdot article.
Congrats, Chris, that's fine turn-about.
"How do we pay to get this done?
"I know, we'll _charge_ for it!"
Slick, man.
It's more complex then that. Not only does it have to be profitable, it has to be more profitable then some other new project the guy is doing. And that other project is probably more fun so it has to be moore profitable enought to compensate for that.
Actually i was going to suggest that if he can get the code modular enough and organized enough he ight search for universities that insist that students complete some sort of independent project before getting their degree, then seeing if he can get the students and faculty interested.
Linux is the kernel. Other stuff is other stuff.
If you want to find good targets for your spare time, here you can find abandonware that is still used by people:
http://python3wos.appspot.com/
just pick any project that is marked with red color!
Try xmonad or awesome.
As long as you pay me $40,000 USD a year, I'll continue maintaining IceWM for you in perpetuity. That would be taking a big pay cut to do something boring that I have no interest in doing, but it would be worth it to get to work at home in my underwear.
I don't know how many times I've been approached by someone who wanted to "pay" me to do work like this. Yeah, $60 isn't going to get you anywhere, Bunky. Sorry bud. You want me to do something that's going to eat all my time, then I'm quitting my day job, and guess who has to make my house payment and crap? Right!
Have you seen the amount of closed-source freeware that is not worth half a cent? There is good and bad software in both ecosystem. In open-source you can at least have a say in its evolution path. Want ZFS in Windows? forget it. Want to support humonguous amount of CPUs? Windows will sell you a less-crippled version for a helty price, in open-source world artificial limitations dont exist. You can argue all you want, my actual experience of the open-source software made we want to stay, as opposed to closed eco-systems.
Tomorrow is another day...
> Is Windows your only counter-example?
No, I could say Lotus Notes or any other kind of crapware. Do I have to list all the crapware out there? After I list, will you ask for more? Probably, because you are here to troll.
>your message overall
You keep using arguments that apply to both closed source software and open source software, and then saying it's only open source software that's crap.
"open source that *doesn't* work is statistically more prevalent"
And then you pull stuff like that straight out of your ass with no references.
You're a troll.
--
BMO
If it is open source, then at least you can recompile and/or port to a new OS.
The OP says, "I can't code in any meaningful way, nor do I aspire to"
You have the option of paying someone to fix a problem.
The OP says, "I could easily pay for a supported version of icewm, but I can't personally pay someone enough to keep it alive."
You have none of those options if the closed-source producer of a package arbitrarily decides to drop it.
What you've written is true, there are more options for open source projects. However, exercising those options just may not be feasible, as the OP points out in this particular case. If resources for continued development cannot be found, the open source project is effectively just as dead.
I run Windows XP and Windows 7
Same kernel right?
http://saveie6.com/
Same is true for Debian: Linux kernel, FreeBSD kernel, same userland. Hence GNU/Linux GNU/hurd GNU/whatever...
The key distinction is that Android is a Java environment not a *nix environment. An app's byte codes see a virtual machine, the kernel is far below that, far more removed from an android app than a *nix app.
Most of his argument is that the UI is different. It's like saying that if you don't have a Gnome/KDE/Unity UI, you're not running Linux.
If you think this is a UI argument you are mistaken. Android is a Java environment not a Linux environment. Nearly all apps are pure byte code executing on a VM, they never see the Linux kernel. Unlike desktop Linux UI's where the apps may interact with the kernel.
You got that wrong. YOU can't change the fact that Android runs on a Linux kernel and that's pissing you off so hard that you wanna deny that Linux is there at all.
Sorry, but you guessed wrong. I also develop for Linux. I've been using Linux (not exclusively) since Yggdrasil Linux in the early 90s. I am not religious about my platforms. I've used Linux, MS Windows, or Mac OS for decades, whichever was best for the task at hand.
Android is a Java environment. Java apps don't see the kernel. That is quite different than apps/utils running on the desktop where the kernel is right there in the headers and fully available.
No one is denying that Linux is currently on the device, many layers distant from the app, below the virtual machine that the java byte code is running on. The argument is that Linux is irrelevant to the java app. That Android is no more of a Linux environment than MS Windows running in a virtual machine hosted on a Linux box.
I'm sorry I can't give any good advise on how to save icemw. What I can do is give you some reasons why an Open Source developer might be interested in developing a project... You can then try to find a marketing angle that appeals to one of these: 1. At the root of all open source development is the desire to do one of two things: (A) Build a tool of profound use to self and/or others. (B) Build one's skills and/or resume. Unfortunately, desktop management systems are an innovation that we've moved beyond. Today the "wild west" is in HTML5 cloud computing, wearable devices (mobile in general), etc. Sometimes an old technology will get lucky and be used as a building-block to something new and upcoming. What makes icewm so useful? How is it useful in the context of things on the "cutting-edge" today? If you can't answer that in a meaningful way then you may need to face the fact that change is a fundamental (and sometimes sad) part of the computer industry.
Should commercial companies that depart operations deposit their source in a freesource repository?
Slothware vendors charge for upgrades with reduced functionality. Startups try to fill the gap. Abandonware source code could help startups deliver enhanced and more robust products (because abandonware developers already solved a problem or found an optimal solution). Abandonware source code could act as an impetus to move slothware to provide better upgrades.
The best project management tool I ever used was Lisa Project. NASA used it as long as they could and were lost when it could no longer be supported.
Has anyone revived it?
End MGM. Get prospective parents of boys to Google: Men do complain
Isn't that a Fedora release? That's DEFINITELY Linux!
no, I said "open source that *doesn't* work is statistically more prevalent". Which you quoted. I specifically said It's certainly not "better". I in no way even implied that open source as a rule is crap. Your failure to comprehend makes it difficult for you to participate, so I'll spend some time explaining.
You want a reference? Search for *anything* on GitHub or Sourceforge, and count the number of projects that actually do anything, vs. the incomplete, half-assed garbage. That is what I'm talking about - statistics and numbers. One stand-out project in a class doesn't erase the remainder of projects which just don't work.
My perspective is on the Windows platform - I'm sure if you're a Linux user your experience is different. But that is much like a self-selected study sample, and you can't exclude parts of open source. So look for Windows only, and learn something from the experience.
20 years of following open source tells me that when I have a particular use case, I will find endless half-finished projects that do nothing, one that builds on an outdated or specific platform, and if I'm lucky I'll find abandonware that doesn't completely suck. Meanwhile, I'll find both free and paid closed source software that just works.
IrfanView is pretty much the go-to image viewer on Windows, with no real open source alternatives. Playing a DVD from the hard drive, Windows Media Player does a better job up-scaling to a 1080 display, so I use it instead of VLC.
I have written my own software for 35 years for most use cases, because I can't download and run something that works. Why would I spend the time if options were available? Sure the experience is great, but I could write something that doesn't *exist* instead of re-writing something that doesn't *work*.
Here's a stupid bug in Notepad that is still not fixed in Windows 7, meaning I can't just CTRL-S and continue typing It is not important enough to be fixed, which is completely different from the open-source experience of "can't fix" or "won't fix". And, since I know Windows programming and enjoy reverse engineering, I don't mind making a binary patch to an executable - it's generally simpler than finding the source, setting up a build environment, fixing inevitable errors like include paths, debugging, and patching. Most people couldn't do a binary patch. But, most people couldn't patch open source either, because like OP they don't program.
Do I use Notepad++ instead? No, because it sucks. I paid for UltraEdit. For hex editing, UltraEdit sometimes does internal conversions on text, meaning I can't debug UTF-8 issues. So I use XVI32, which is free but closed source.
I use FireFox and Audacity and VLC, and for the rare times I have to use it, Impress is actually better than Powerpoint for presenter view and rehearsing. But on Windows, those are exceptions and I generally can't find open source that beats closed-source freeware. I prefer Media Player, Excel, WinZip, PhotoShop, and countless other paid or free closed source software. Or I write my own, which I don't release because it works for my specific use case and I don't have any desire to fix issues for other people. Which would add to the number of half-assed, unsupported open source projects which is the whole problem.
I have adopted several open source projects. My patches weren't accepted due to 1) "not invented here" syndrome 2) cannot contact the owner to submit patches 3) no idea - never got a response. 3 projects, with submitted patches available, which are still broken. I'm not forking and becoming a maintainer, so the projects remain broken for non-developers.
Most FLOSS projects end up as "works for me, if you want to fix your problem yourself, you have the source". Which is great, if you have the knowledge. As OP demonstrates, once the developer decides to quit, if you don't have the knowledge you're stuck. This is my experience, *on Windows*.
>You want a reference? Search for *anything* on GitHub or Sourceforge, and count the number of projects that actually do anything, vs. the incomplete, half-assed garbage.
And I can point at stacks and stacks of crapware out there on Download.com and Tucows.
You continue to fail to grasp Sturgeon's Law.
Take the beam out of your eye.
--
BMO
Have you ever looked into eComstation? OS/2 base with a modern file system and a really shiny GUI,
http://www.ecomstation.com/
You can even request a demo copy.
Oops, should have been: Note how Google's sample native code begins with "#include "
Just because it isn't developed doesn't mean it is dead or abandoned, it just means it is done. the final release. What else is there to do besides package the product?
Regarding my own site, that runs the Empire game hosted on the MPE/iX operating system. I have simply found a programmer who LIKES the game AND he like the platform it is hosted.
Granted you can only get to it via simple telnet, but he likes it. The game has been running in various forms since 1973. My Zealot programmer has continued to make improvements to his very day.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Android is a Java environment not a Linux environment. Nearly all apps are pure byte code executing on a VM, they never see the Linux kernel.
Android is a Linux distribution just like any other Linux distribution which can include different userland, desktop environment and application toolkits (which can be - but are not limited to - Java), applications can - but do not have to - use these provided toolkits and may or may not directly interact with the kernel.
Unlike desktop Linux UI's where the apps may interact with the kernel.
You just said If you think this is a UI argument you are mistaken and then compared applications running on Android to applications running on desktop Linux UI's. Are you quite sure you understand what you're trying to say? Because you are directly contradicting yourself, or perhaps just confusing terms.
Android is a Java environment not a Linux environment. Nearly all apps are pure byte code executing on a VM, they never see the Linux kernel.
Android is a Linux distribution just like any other Linux distribution which can include different userland, desktop environment and application toolkits (which can be - but are not limited to - Java), applications can - but do not have to - use these provided toolkits and may or may not directly interact with the kernel.
Java is not merely an application toolkit. For all practical purposes Java is its own operating system and environment. Its virtual machine (VM) can merely be hosted on Linux or various other platforms, Java apps don't know or care what is hosting the VM. Android is built upon Java and therefore shares this structure. Android apps run on the Dalvik VM, whether this VM is hosted by Linux or something else is irrelevant to Android.
Android also comes with a set of support libraries implemented in C and wrapped with the Java Native Interface (JNI) letting an Android app call these libraries. When you use the NDK to wrap your own C code, which may interact with the kernel, in a JNI compatible library you are creating an application specific extension to Android. Its just a library next to libc, OpenGL, SQlite, etc. This does not somehow turn Android into a Linux distribution.
Unlike desktop Linux UI's where the apps may interact with the kernel.
You just said If you think this is a UI argument you are mistaken and then compared applications running on Android to applications running on desktop Linux UI's. Are you quite sure you understand what you're trying to say? Because you are directly contradicting yourself, or perhaps just confusing terms.
Look at the post that I am responding to, that post made the claim that its just UI differences. I am responding to that claim.
For all practical purposes Java is its own operating system and environment. Its virtual machine (VM) can merely be hosted on Linux or various other platforms, Java apps don't know or care what is hosting the VM.
Except in the cases where the functionality is not provided by the VM but by native Android support libraries.
Android is built upon Java
Whilst much of Android is built on Java you even pointed out that "Android also comes with a set of support libraries implemented in C" and these libraries, while accessible by Dalvik applications through the JNI are not restricted only to Dalvik applications through the JNI and if you were to run Dalvik on another non-Linux host operating system you would be missing these native support libraries that are a part of Android and applications would not run. But it's more than that, Android includes its own window manager, it's own libc (Bionic), it's own Java VM (Dalvik), it's own native libraries and is not limited to just the bit that built on top of Java.
Android also comes with a set of support libraries implemented in C and wrapped with the Java Native Interface (JNI) letting an Android app call these libraries.
Yes and these are a part of Android and are not built upon Java even though they can be accessed by Java code through the JNI.
This does not somehow turn Android into a Linux distribution.
How exactly is it that you believe an installation of Android differs from say an installation of Ubuntu in terms of being a "linux distribution"? And what distribution of linux is Android?
The support libraries are Android's extension of the Java environment. The android app sees Java classes not the underlying C implementation. For example with respect to OpenGL: GLSurfaceView, android.opengl.GLES20. The environment is still Java language based and the underlying host OS still irrelevant.
The support libraries are Android's extension of the Java environment.
Yes they are native Android libraries - that do not sit atop Java - that access the functionality of the underlying operating system.
The android app sees Java classes not the underlying C implementation.
But the C implementation is executed natively, not within the Java environment, because it does not sit atop Java, it executes at the native level.
For example with respect to OpenGL: GLSurfaceView, android.opengl.GLES20. The environment is still Java language based and the underlying host OS still irrelevant.
Wrong, when I call native code from Java that code is not executed in the Java environment even if you think there is some magic that makes it do so.
The end result will be more frightening. Do you want to use a WM that had been written by students? A WM crash may easily ruin your day.
No, why?
Unless you have your Xsession setup to terminate when your window manager exits, you can just start it up again. I use dwm, and (being dwm) I have to recompile and re-run it to reconfigure anything. in my .xinitrc I have something like:
while true ; do $HOME/bin/dwm ; sleep 2 ; done
The support libraries are Android's extension of the Java environment.
Yes they are native Android libraries - that do not sit atop Java - that access the functionality of the underlying operating system.
And parts of Java are also implemented in native code. Its irrelevant. The host OS is abstracted away, the java app never sees it.
The android app sees Java classes not the underlying C implementation.
But the C implementation is executed natively, not within the Java environment, because it does not sit atop Java, it executes at the native level.
Again, that is irrelevant. The java app does not know or care. Its a hidden implementation detail.
Are you thinking that someone is claiming that Java is purely implemented in Java? No one is claiming that. What is being claimed is that the Android development environment is a java based environment where the underlying host OS is abstracted away and irrelevant to the java app. That Android is a java based environment, not a Linux based environment, that Linux is just a host OS that Android apps are unaware of. Most apps on the Google Play store are pure Java. For the minority that use the NDK to extend Android and access the host OS through a custom library, many of these are not even Linux based. They are generally accessing c runtime libraries and possibly posix functionality, rarely something Linux specific. Linux is just a host OS. Its not required by stock Android. Its not even required by most NDK based apps.
For example with respect to OpenGL: GLSurfaceView, android.opengl.GLES20. The environment is still Java language based and the underlying host OS still irrelevant.
Wrong, when I call native code from Java that code is not executed in the Java environment even if you think there is some magic that makes it do so.
No magic. Just you fundamentally misunderstanding what I am saying. As the author that is my fault not yours.
What is being claimed is that the Android development environment is a java based environment where the underlying host OS is abstracted away and irrelevant to the java app.
Then show me it running on another host.
That Android is a java based environment, not a Linux based environment, that Linux is just a host OS that Android apps are unaware of.
Then show me it running on another host, you'll quickly discover how wrong you are.
Its not required by stock Android. Its not even required by most NDK based apps.
Again, prove it, stop arguing with your weasel words and actually show me some factual proof.
No magic. Just you fundamentally misunderstanding what I am saying. As the author that is my fault not yours.
If i write a C++ application that calls a .Net assembly the application is no longer just a C++ application, it really isn't that hard to understand, just as a Java application that calls out to a native library is no longer just a Java application.
What is being claimed is that the Android development environment is a java based environment where the underlying host OS is abstracted away and irrelevant to the java app.
Then show me it running on another host.
You are arguing a tangential point that no one is disagreeing with. Android is hosted on Linux. That does not change the fact that stock Android completely abstracts away the OS from the app's and the developer's perspectives. There are Android devices where you do not even have the option to use the NDK to add a JNI wrapped C library that can access Linux, for example Google TV.
a Java application that calls out to a native library is no longer just a Java application.
Untrue. Java itself is partially implemented with native libraries. These libraries, like the Android libraries, are wrapped appropriately and from the apps perspective a Java implemented class is indistinguishable from a C implemented class. Whether a class is implemented in Java or JNI wrapped C is irrelevant, its an implementation detail the app knows nothing about.
Some libc functions are implemented in assembly language. Calling those from your C or C++ app does not make these apps any less C or C++.
You are arguing a tangential point that no one is disagreeing with. Android is hosted on Linux. That does not change the fact that stock Android completely abstracts away the OS from the app's and the developer's perspectives.
No I'm saying if the host OS is irrelevant then show me it running on a non-Linux host.
a Java application that calls out to a native library is no longer just a Java application.
Untrue.
Then you show me how to run a Java application that calls out to non-VM native code without having that native code.
These libraries, like the Android libraries, are wrapped appropriately and from the apps perspective a Java implemented class is indistinguishable from a C implemented class.
And since Android requires these native libraries that are not implemented in Java it is not platform agnostic and is not built solely on top of Java. It's very simple to understand, go and actually try to run it on another host.
Whether a class is implemented in Java or JNI wrapped C is irrelevant
Again, bullshit. If it's Java it will run on top of Java and only the Java VM is required to be implemented, if it is native C then it requires a platform-specific binary that is not portable across operating systems hence the host os is not irrelevant. But I've explained this and it seems the only way for you to understand is for you to try to run it on another host OS so you discover this yourself but you still won't do that.
You even said of Linux that Its not required by stock Android, so prove it, stop this nonsense and actually prove it.
When did it stop?
it's the ONLY wm I would ever use on my 486dx4-100 laptop with 8mb ram, and my p133 with 16mb
actually I'm pretty sure it's the only one I could ever use.
There's a site that's apparently growing for bounties on open source stuff, too: http://bountysource.com./
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
You are fundamentally misunderstanding what I am saying. The Android APIs are portable by design, host agnostic by design. Android ***apps*** do not require Linux, even many NDK based ***apps*** do not require Linux since they just call libc or posix. Android ***app developers*** do not see Linux unless they make a special effort to do so by adding new JNI wrapped C libraries that extend Android.
You keep discussing things related to hosting and or porting Android itself. I am discussing writing apps that run on Android. These are two different things.
The Android APIs are portable by design, host agnostic by design.
That doesn't matter, the implementation of the non-Java functionality is platform-specific, you can wrap native code in a portable interface but that doesn't make the code portable, which is why you cannot prove your false assertion because it is tied to Linux.
Android ***apps*** do not require Linux
Apps aren't the issue, we're talking about Android and it isn't implemented on any other operating system which is why Android is tied to Linux and thus so are the applications. Until somebody ports Android to another operating system Android - and its applications - will be Linux only.
Android ***app developers*** do not see Linux unless they make a special effort to do so by adding new JNI wrapped C libraries that extend Android.
Android is made up of Java and native libraries, the Java libraries are portable, the native ones are not.
You keep discussing things related to hosting and or porting Android itself. I am discussing writing apps that run on Android. These are two different things.
You changed your argument because you failed early on in the discussion regarding the portability of Android, now you've changed to talk about apps that run on Android, which even then aren't necessarily platform agnostic so you fail even at this.
So again, just prove it, prove that it doesn't rely on Linux by either your original argument about the host being irrelevant for Android or your new argument about the host being irrelevant for Android applications. All your weasel words won't help you so just provide some proof.
You keep discussing things related to hosting and or porting Android itself. I am discussing writing apps that run on Android. These are two different things.
You changed your argument because you failed early on in the discussion regarding the portability of Android, now you've changed to talk about apps that run on Android
No, the app and app developer perspective has been my argument since my first post in the thread. You simply misunderstood, perhaps that was my fault initially. However at this point you have no excuse.
Android is made up of Java and native libraries, the Java libraries are portable, the native ones are not.
No. Android's JNI wrapped C libraries are not Linux specific, they are cross platform: libc, opengl, sqlite, webkit, etc.
Linux is a convenient host, nothing more.
No, the app and app developer perspective has been my argument since my first post in the thread.
Wrong, you explicitly said Android is a Java environment which is clearly not the case because it requires platform specific libraries in order to operate, Android includes Java APIs but where those APIs call native code the implementation is only on Linux. So for the god-only-knows-how-many-th time stop your idiocy and weasel words and actually prove it.
No. Android's JNI wrapped C libraries are not Linux specific, they are cross platform: libc, opengl, sqlite, webkit, etc.
You only listed the cross-platform ones either because you are ignorant or because you're trying to be deliberately deceptive, go try and build surfaceflinger or bionic on a platform other than Linux...go on...prove it, oh right you can't.
Linux is a convenient host, nothing more.
Then prove it, you obviously don't understand Android enough to know that this isn't possible so the only way to convince you is for you to actually try to prove that you are right but you fail time and time again to even try.
No, the app and app developer perspective has been my argument since my first post in the thread.
Wrong, you explicitly said Android is a Java environment ...
Wrong. My fist post: "No, its not. End users and nearly all **developers** don't see it. The Linux kernel could probably be swapped out with a BSD kernel and few would notice. Even for those using the NDK and writing some C code they are probably making POSIX calls not calls to anything Linux specific."
You use the word, "operate", you are discussing hosting Android. I am not.
What Linux specific call appears in the Android API? This is what I have been discussing.
The fact that many developers don't see it is irrelevant, if an app relies on some native library and that library does not exist then the app won't run, which is again why you cannot prove your assertion, that's why your assertion is false, these libraries do not exist on operating systems other than Linux.
Android apps rely on some native libraries, those native libraries are implemented on Linux (and some of it is linux-specific, like Bionic and SurfaceFlinger for example) so it is tied to Linux, you could - in theory - re-write and re-compile the native dependencies for another platform like you could for any application but until that is done it is tied to Linux. So show me it running on another operating system, swap the Linux kernel for the BSD one, actually show some proof instead of your continuing weasel words and idiocy.
But you know you are wrong, that's why you can't prove it but you just keep posting these pathetic weasel word posts, if it as simple as you say and there is no Linux-specifc code then you can just re-compile with a different kernel and it will work, but it will not work and you know it, frankly your aversion to providing proof is getting pretty pathetic.
So no more bullshit, no more weasel words, show me proof!
And, who is going to offer the course, the OP who doesn't know how to code in the first place? Would you pay for course in Window Manager Design from someone who doesn't know how to design or code a window manager?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Plausible? The OP isn't a university professor nor a coder. He is neither qualified nor capable of giving a course on window manager design.
Then, as other has noted, the issue of the output of such a course.
And, what is described is not window manager design but window manager maintenance. IceWM has already been designed, this is just porting it to a newer version of Linux. How happy would you be if you paid for a course on window manager design thinking you would be able to design window managers at the end only to learn that you will only have one example that is already designed and you are supposed to do some maintenance programming? No discussion of how to actually design a window manager in a window manager course would result in charges of fraud and/or a high dropout rate.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Except, the OP has already stated he doesn't have the skill to do as you suggest.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
The fact that many developers don't see it [Linux] is irrelevant,
Not to my point because that was my point all along, Thank you for finally acknowledging that app developers don't see Linux. As I stated in my first post: "End users and nearly all **developers** don't see it [Linux]."
Android apps rely on some native libraries, those native libraries are implemented on Linux (and some of it is linux-specific, like Bionic and SurfaceFlinger for example) so it is tied to Linux ...
You are referring to libraries not exposed in the Android API. Bionic is a libc variant available via the NDK, just like the Linux kernel itself. SurfaceFlinger uses OpenGL and the GPU. These are part of the internal Android implementation not the Android API, in other words hosting code.
... you could - in theory - re-write and re-compile the native dependencies for another platform ...
Thank you for finally acknowledging that Android could probably be ported to another platform, as I stated in my first post: "The Linux kernel could probably be swapped out with a BSD kernel and few would notice. Even for those using the NDK and writing some C code they are probably making POSIX calls not calls to anything Linux specific."
We agree that developers don't see Linux and that Android could probably be ported to another hosting environment without impacting most developers (including those using the NDK for libc and posix). Where we disagree is whether being hosted on Linux makes Android Linux. You think so. I think not, I think it is the API that makes Android Linux or not Linux. As we agree that most apps/developers would not be impacted by porting Android from Linux to BSD I think I have a strong argument.