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Miguel de Icaza Named 'Innovator of the Year'
Solipsist_Nation writes "John Benditt, Editor-in-Chief of Technology Review, said of their Innovator of the Year, 'De Icaza was chosen both for his accomplishments in the GNOME Project and as a representative of the open-source software movement, which embodies a creative new mode of innovation: a large-scale collaboration over the Internet. People like Miguel are the future of technology.'"
Did I read that right? Isn't that somewhat ironic? Isn't this the same guy who predicted the death of the Internet, Linux, civilization, etc?
Nice one. The OSS "movement" needs high profile stuff like this. Corporate bigwigs _like_ this sort of thing. Anything that can legitimise Open Source in the eyes of the business world can only be a good thing. And it's a breath of fresh air to read about a computing event that's not totally full of FUD... Anybody notice that the FUD is beginning to fly even more thickly of late?
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
I'm really curious about the other names listed in that top 100, can anybody post a link?
As a comment, it does seem a bit "the thing you have to do" these days to give awards like this to people busy in the hyped up field of linux development. I've heard of quite a lot of significant breakthroughs this year in a variety of scientific disciplines. The human genome project comes to mind as one, but there must be a lot of others too. It seems a bit weird to give this award to a guy working on a window manager in 1999. Can anybody tell me about the innovative aspects of his work?
That statement is not really very accurate now is it? Windows and icons? Linux had those way before GNOME. Perhaps MIT is just a little bit in the dark? Besides, what about KDE? That's just as user friendly and not half as buggy. Not that De Icaza didn't do a good job, he is doing a very good one and I think eventually GNOME will kill KDE, but so far, they still have a looooot of bugs to fix.
"De Icaza was chosen both for his accomplishments in the GNOME Project and as a representative of the open-source software movement..."
If De Icaza is anything like RMS, I don't think he'll like the confusion between open-source and free software .
There's no reason for a sig here.
Try linux expo or the bazaar. :)
There's no reason for a sig here.
De Icaza was chosen both for his accomplishments in the GNOME Project and as a representative of the open-source software movement, which embodies a creative new mode of innovation
Is what he has contributed to the GNOME project especially "innovative"? Worthy of "Innovator of the year". I've done development, and it is more about common sense than innovation. Choosing him as a "representative" is "off-topic". Also check the language here - Spin doctoring - its all form and no content.
De Icaza was selected from this distinguished group as Innovator of the Year for his success in leading the team that is simplifying the Linux operating system
This is management, not innovation.
I do not wish to detract from Miguel de Icaza's contribution, I accord him much respect. But I do question this award. It is establishment. I say again, the emperor has no clothes.
It can be found here http://www.techreview.com /tr100/nominee-info/tr100_2.html
There's no reason for a sig here.
What makes GNOME more innovative than say, KDE? I'm sorry, I don't mean to present any bias. I'm just wondering. I've only used KDE and am very happy with it. Or is the "Innovator" part of the award just revolved around the fact it is an open-source project being managed across the internet? If that's the case, then I would guess it was just the luck of the draw who got the award considering how many great open-source projects are out there.
Congrats again to Miguel and the other TR100 winners.
I dont believe his speech at the gala is archived anywhere without charge, but it was worthy of an open source project leader. He gave many thanks and raise to the other volunteers on GNOME and other GNU pioneers. Mostly he was just very excited about the whole thing like the rest of us.
Miguel recieved funding just 10 days after the Nov 4th, 1999 event and him being named the top of the 100.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
There's no reason for a sig here.
I don't see any list there
There's no reason for a sig here.
This is the kind of inspirational story that shows how effective a government program can be in helping disadvantaged minorities.
TongXu@cross-circuit.com
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fredh@oaktech.com
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kent@apluscorp.com
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tkiang@turnerdesigns.com
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ymao@ssti.com
claudio_tang@mektecusa.com
pratul@cmostech.com
virgil.turner@cougarcorp.com
willis@innomedia.com
I don't mean to belittle Miguel's (indeed impressive) achievements. However, can we really consider something like GNOME to be a great innovation in this day? GUI systems have been around since Xerox PARC's Alto, and desktop environments with common UI tools and guidelines have many precedents (Macintosh, NeXT, OS/2, Windows). Compound document architectures aren't new either (Wang devised one which MS copied for OLE), and object-oriented application kits date back to Smalltalk.
Is GNOME really a profound innovation, or merely a case of good engineering using already established techniques to fill a niche?
He put the "human" in "human Gnome project".
There's no reason for a sig here.
yes me do
..
I don't think he will patent it (;)) but I think he got the reward because of the (semi) unique way he formatted the developers to achieve the current status of enlightment. It's not about enlightment or the obvious stuff that is put into the codebase. It's about the way the project is organised. You can ofcourse discuss if the way he organised the project is unique or not.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I'm sure you're trolling but I must say funny trolls make my day happier.
Just look at the facts:
RMS A beared ubergeek that plays the flute to his Amiga and carries around plastic bags filled with god knows what mind altering herbal substances!
ESR A gun toting maniac who threatens the lifes of all those that have a contrary opinion. And he writes tons of communistic propaganda, claiming it is in actuality a capitalistic manifesto. Yeah, right, and J Edgar Hoover didn't wear big pink undies...
Linus Torvalds A big, fat, finnish penguine dude that rulez the kernel development with an iron fist. What ever he doesn't understand (and there is a lot of it) he vetos against for the main kernel tree without any explaination what so ever.
Miguel de Icaza Instead of putting out a competent desktop he spend all his time spreading FUD about all other efforts. All the while Gnome looks like it is using a pre Macintosh GUI (no matter how you theme it). This guy is about as weak as a tortilla in a washing machine.
W S B I'm both cute, cuddly and slightly dead...WSB
I am baffled as to how a lackluster GUI can be considered innovative. I also fail to see how open development can be considered an innovation, when so many people are doing it right now (especially in areas where free software is more likely to make an impact at this time).
Is there anyone especially familiar with his code who could comment on why it is so innovative and amazing?
Everyone on this list is just bitching about the work "innovation". Well, I guess it all depends on how you look at it.
From dictionary.com, Innovation means to introduce something new. That means that a Furby can be interpreted as innovative, so can Pokemon and GUI's.
I think what he has done differently here is the basis of Architecture, which to my feeble understanding, is based on CORBA which KDE et al are based on a single library (Qt). The concept behind GNOME is that you can run an applet that is written in XML rather than always being in C.
I would call that pretty innovative
Okay, an object oriented library is nice, but easier to use for MFC programmers?!?!?! I hope the QT people don't see you saying that!
Just ask Miguel :)
KDE/Qt2.0 already has XML capabilities integrated into the *core* libraries, including DOM support, XML parsing, and the capability to make user defined widget actions. Gnome just has a IDE that can output and convert XML, KDE apps will be able to handle it natively and in any app. KDE just hypes buzzwords less.
Hmmm... a Xerox STAR (is that what it was called?) theme.. now there is an idea. If only I knew what it looked like.
Uh, sorry for a minute I didn't notice it was a troll
I meant things like CORBA, BONOBO, a soundserver, GTK-theming, etc.. KDE is way ahead when it comes to the Office suite, I think GNOME is, or soon is going to be, way ahead of KDE when it comes to the technical layer underneath the GUI.
Even if this is repeated a thousand times, it doesn't become true. If you compare bleeding edge Gnome with 1-year-old KDE 1.1x, this may sound sensible, but with KDE 2 technology, this is absolutely ridiculous.
KDE 2alpha is ahead of Gnome in nearly every respect (except stability, of course, as its still alpha).
* Bonobo is compatible to nothing, so the use of Corba (or the Gnome/OrBit version of it) for GUI components (Bonobo) is effectively useless.
* The new KParts technology, OTOH, is faster and more memory efficient, and Corba can be used for what it is meant for - enterprise datas exchange.
* The same goes for app communication: Instead of reinventing the wheel by using heavyweight Corba calls, KDE uses a X11 standard (libICE) for their fast and efficient DCOP, and provide bridges to the outside world, i.e. XML(-RPC), CORBA, etc...
* the soundserver thing is similar: Stefan Westerfelds aRts is the most advanced synthesizer/soundserver app available, and it is independent from KDE (it just offers a KDE interface). The alternative is, BTW, not a Gnome app, but Rasters enlightenment sound server.
So, except for marketing hype, KDE is far ahead of GNOME, if you look at the current, instead of year-old technology.
In the midst of the arising "my gnome is bigger then your kde!" wars, I'll just say congratulations to Miguel, good work.
back to code...
/dev/eskil ---
there is no such thing as GNU/Linux. It is a fairy tale, a dream by the ultimate thief of other people's work, RMS.
You obviously have not used libglade. Libglade is a library that can load the interface xml files created by glade, and create a gui from them at _runtime_. This makes for a lot quicker development as it's visual, no need for a recompile in many cases, and allows users to change the interface files and fix UI type bugs in them without _any_ programming experience. Sorry, I believe gnome is futher along in this arena.
expects the GNU inquisition:
Our chief weapon is Fear.
Fear and Uncertainty...
..ahh..TWO Weapons
Our TWO main weapons are fear and uncertainty
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt....
...ahh..THREE Weapons
Our THREE main weapons are fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Fear, uncertainty, doubt, and an almost fanatical devotion to Richard Stallman,
...ahh..FOUR Weapons
Our FOUR main weapons are fear, uncertainty, doubt, an almost fanatical devotion to Richard Stallman, and ripping superior products like KDE.
and on like that for a while.
Where is the gnome office suite supposed to counter KOffice? Where are the alpha source code releases for GNOME 2.0? Where is the developer support outside the OSS community? KDE has won this battle hands down. Frankly I fail to see what it is innovative about GNOME. It isn't nearly as aggressive as KDE
He is truly not a nice person. He learned all of his tricks on how to destroy other people's work and trash people from King Richard.
What do you really know about XML? :)
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
...I am pretty much getting tired of Blah of the whatever, first it was the amazon bone head, then albert, and now gnome boy, gee, can't you guys find more quality articles? like, porn actress of the year?
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
A lot of people are going to object to this but what's so Innovative about Gnome ? I have sean it read the docs, dissected the specifications used and customized the interface to death ( literally ) and it still isn't a radical concept.
The whole "OSS is way to make software concept is of corse old news. Yes Miguel is a nice guy and frankly I think he should get a medal but not for innovation. This isn't even M$Inovative since it wasn't intended to hurt customers or competitors.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
There's hardly anything innovative about trying to make Unix into Windows.
1) Oh for fucks sake... how long do we have to deal with this childish angry ego crap. IT'S NOT GNU/LINUX, sheesh. Yes we all give thanks to RMS for all of the great GNU stuff. I love emacs, i get a friggin hard-on just watching it come up. And yes... Linux would not have the popularity it has today without all of the great gnu tools... Yes RMS has made a great contribution to the *nix commmunity...Here... I'll shout it out for you:
THANKS RICHARD, I AM FOREVER IN YOUR DEBT !!!
There.. now can we just get on with it.
2) Gnome is great, KDE is great. So everybody can just shut the fuck up and use the one you like the most. Competition is healthy, it's good for both sides, so lets act like friggin adults here and build those puppies to the best of your ablilities and be a fucking adult about it and the whole world will benefit from 2 great open source products.
Christ, sometimes you fucking 12 year old pissant angry geeks just make me wanna install Win95 again .
A genius writes code an idiot can understand, while an idiot writes code the compiler can't understand.
Who's 'King Richard'?
How come Slashdot idiots can't spell? What the fuck is "wierd"? Don't you mean "weird"?
It's hard to know whether to kick them in the teeth or just go back to real Unix.
Spitting in their eye would appear sufficient. No need to put up with UNIX(tm). Just slap up the freaks whenever you can.
Congratulations Miguel.
Gnome is coming along splendid and many of us are anxious to see what you and Nat come up with in your Helix effort.
Keep tearing it up!
I know why Miguel is weird. He was bitten by a lycanthropic chihuahua during a night with a full burrito!
Can I get an amen, brothers and sisters??
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
Congrats once again, Miguel! I'm happy to see someone who has worked so hard get their recognition. I've truly enjoyed Gnome, and hope to watch it evolve even more in the future. Keep up the good work.
-What have you contributed lately?
Does Miguel howl when he drives past Taco Hell?
Except here it's integrated into the lowest levels of the library. You obviously have not used Qt/KDE.
LibXml is the equivalent of 2 classes in Qt. Crappy.
most of the twelve year olds that i know have better senses of humor than Your Average Slashdot Poster.
i don't really have anything against anger, definitely don't have anything against geekdom, and i'm still not sure what a pissant is, but um where was this going?
oh! the point is, you should all get over yourselves. there was a world before /., and there will be a world afterwards. luckily, in the meantime, there are geek communities around where people don't use phrases like "bearded one" or have their days ruined by news about gui toolkit contributors.
sorry man, I'm the one that posted the reply and I'm 17 so you can go fuck yourself
Let's have a look at a snippet of info about one of the judges....
Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet and founder of 3Com (see "Invention Is a Flower, Innovation Is a Weed,") offered a telegraphic listing of his criteria: "signs of early success, some sign of a struggle, some sign of interim approval from the real world, something exciting, something big."
Is this not the same Bob Metcalfe who just a few months ago was blasting Linux and the open-source model? The same model that Miguel de Icaza is being honored for enhancing and perpetuating?
First there is the obvious, for layouts. Secondly, you can make "actions" in your code that are controlled by XML parameters, thus making your app configurable by any XML capable app. And of course, you can communicate with KDE's IPC with the xml2dcop bridge. As far as applets, the eventual idea is that with apps like kdevelop and kuml you will be able to eventually take a bunch of predefined actions and bind them together with XML. What do *you* know? :)
Now *that*'s real exciting.
Gnome is a rip of KDE which is a rip of the Mac/Windows. If making a Linux GUI is considered an innovation than Miguel/Gnome certainly are not deserving of the award. But of course he wins, he's the FSF person. Bullocks - it's all politics and users have a right to complain.
Listen to someone who can't spell "weird"?
6. Multiple Language Bindings. C, C++, Perl, and many many more than i can think of right now :)
>sorry man, I'm the one that posted the reply and I'm 17
It shows.
At http://www.techreview.com/tr100/profiles.html you can find full lists of the TR100 sorted by name and category, as well as separate sub-lists for each category (biotech, chemistry/materials, hardware, software, telecom/web). Links on these lists will pull up expanded descriptions of each TR100 member. There's also a search option available on this page.
For what it's worth, the TR100 has been online since November 4; it's odd that Slashdot has waited nearly two months to publicize this award!
Supposedly, this whole OS thing is about better software so where is KDE ? Where are the awards for KDE ? If anything, Gnome was created to duplicate KDE funcionality which was't considered "free enough". There is nothing innovative about it.
Linux will eventually start to lose mindshare because of the community's "one OS for everything" mindset. Linus jokes about world domination, but Linux zealots don't get the joke. They are so blinded by hatred of Microsoft that they try to fight Microsoft on its own turf. Linux will never win (whatever "winning" is) this way.
Right now, all of the attention of Linux developers is going towards the desktop. This is a HUGE waste of talent. The simple truth is that tech-savvy coders don't "get it". They don't understand just how brain-dead an interface has to be before the average desktop user will accept it. As nice as KDE and GNOME are, you still have to deal with user-hostile concepts like drive mounting, zip/tar/compile (RPMs are NOT a big improvement), and configuration files/scripts.
Worst of all, Linux is missing the opportunity in areas where it COULD excel -- enterprise and application servers. Unfortunately, most of the community thinks "enterprise" is a ship on Star Trek. The mentality seems to be, "Hey, I'm doing fine with Perl scripts on an overclocked Celeron box. That should be good enough for everyone." Only after Microsoft has gained a significant lead in this arena will the Linux developers wake up and struggle to catch up. They will celebrate every trivial Microsoft feature they are able to copy, never realizing that they could have taken the lead years ago.
It is an opportunity being wasted right now before our very eyes. It would be interesting if it weren't so damn sad.
Only Innovator of the Year? These days I would have expected him to get Innovator of the Millennium (okay, maybe he'd be pipped to the post by Britney Spears or something).
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
What distributed application frameworks are available for Linux? Sure, I can download and install an ORB and hack things together, but where is the all-in-one solution?
:)
How do I get transaction management for component objects in Linux? How do I get object pooling? What about database connection pooling for those objects?
Where are the Java application servers for Linux? Please don't give me the tired "Java sucks" line. Businesses use Java right now because it is the ONLY way to rapidly develop distributed components without resorting to Visual Fill_In_The_Blank on NT.
These things don't exist on Linux, but they COULD and they would work REALLY WELL. I have no doubt that the underlying system would support them as well or better than anything else out there.
The effort required would be far less than what is being spent on "Linux for Mom and Dad". It's not as sexy as building a desktop that you can run on your little 133-Mhz Pentium, but it is at least as important.
You're absolutely right, this is just the opinion of an Anonymous Coward. However, this particular Coward has worked with both MTS and Java application servers. Right now, I don't see Linux with a real answer and I think that's a waste of a pretty nice platform.
The real question is whether Linux wants to scale up or down. I see more effort being expended on scaling it down and I think that's a mistake. There are other OS's designed to be user-friendly and desktop-oriented from day one (BeOS comes to mind). Maybe I should approach the VCLinux group for funding to go the other way.
A lot of people talk about the desktop but not that many people are out there developing. Just look at the dev lists to see what a tiny pool of people are involved, (there are a lot of transients but very few people stay around for more than a few months).
This is even more true in application land. I estimate Linux has 1% of the number of active application develops as Win32.
If you look at the number of application development teams than Linux has 1% of 1% of the raw manpower compared to Win32.
(I suspect the quality of Linux developers is substantially higher though).
So to answer your question it's not that everyone has abandoned the enterprise to go developing linux apps it's just that there aren't many people doing either, and even less people doing either in coordinated teams.
We don't care about "the desktop" or "the enterprise". We're systems programmers, doing kernels and middleware, not end-luser touchie-feelie MBA programmers.
I'm assumming you're a different AC. I was replying to comments by an AC about Linux and the enterprise:
Linux is missing the opportunity in areas where it COULD excel -- enterprise and application servers
Perhaps you are in the wrong discussion?
How come Slashdot idiots get so hung up on spelling? Did you understand what he said? What's the problem?
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
Hmmm...first it was the glorification of communism. then esr. now a wetback, illegal spik. how interesting. america has really gone to the dogs. aahhhh...the days when all "innovators of the spik kind" are sent to jail... kind of like mitnick. remember him. phuk spikaza-boy nuke mexico land of drugs, wetbacks, and disease.
heh.. I think american society likes to slam people.. I was like hmmn something nice about someone else.. The top comments will probably be ones that SLAM him.. Guess im a psychic now huh? heh..
Linux in itself is not particularly technically innovative. it is based on a classic monolithic kernel design like traditional unices, and modelled on SysV (and to a lesser extent BSD). This is opposed to systems such as the HURD, which is considerably more novel, and countless weird concept OSes that never get a large installed base because few people are willing to get their heads around an alien paradigm.
More novel is the open-source concept and the distributed ("bazaar") development model, though again, that derives from the GNU project, and the hacker culture in general.
Linux in itself is not particularly technically innovative. it is based on a classic monolithic kernel design like traditional unices, and modelled on SysV (and to a lesser extent BSD). This is opposed to systems such as the HURD, which is considerably more novel, and countless weird concept OSes that never get a large installed base because few people are willing to get their heads around an alien paradigm.
More novel is the open-source concept and the distributed ("bazaar") development model, though again, that derives from the GNU project, and the hacker culture in general.