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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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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
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 ---
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.
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.
Hey we could have said the same for linux on almost all these points a few years back and gave up.
Development continues, no one is dead until they stop.
Finkployd
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.
He's not a Minority, He lives in Mexico, Spanish speakers are the majority there. Now when he moves to the US then he will be a Minority.
Just to clear things up.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
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 ?
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.
Hmmm, I'm more of a naked NP / MLM sort of chap... And I also would much prefer to leave out the "petrified" bit, being more of a fan of "oiled and breathless with anticipation", hehehehe :) :)
But in the interests of equality, and dare I say it; humour, I felt this had to be posted...
As far as "up all night", do you mean recompiling Linux on a slow machine?
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
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!
Can I get an amen, brothers and sisters??
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
Hackers aren't always male, either, you fumbduck. I used to work with an amazing hacker woman who frankly, would recompile your kernel any day... /. _does_ have a few female readers (hopefully more by the day), I though it would be nice for them to have a laugh at a N&P post...
Although having said that, I'd say most trolls _are_ male.....
And seeing that
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
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?
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.
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?
Maybe you should update yourself on the status of GNOME development before you litter your post with shameless KDE plugs.
There several fronts on which GNOME is giving KDE a run for it's.. well.. download time..
1. Pango - GTK+ 1.4, universal text layout
2. GTK+ - Win32 port
3. GDK-pixbuf, improved image handling, alpha support
4. Gnome-vfs, virtual filesystem layer
5. lib-glade, dynamically loads a UI from XML
These are some, and there are more, fronts in which GNOME is taking the initative, most of which is work on the infrastructure. Yes KDE is futher along in applications, but there is no need to denounce GNOME because it uses esound. They decided to junk that long ago and they need a simple lightweight solution, not aRts.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
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.
This is a sensable thing to say. Both desktops are pretty equal if you compare similar releases (if you substitute October GNOME instead of GNOME 1.0.x). GNOME 2, IIRC, will sport much of things KDE has. It isn't as far developed though but look for some things in GNOME 2 that KDE won't have for a while.
It is pretty clear that KDE is more Windows-like, I think it has also borrowed some UI from the Mac and OS/2... but it is still heavily Windows like. GNOME gets its UI from NEXT, Motif, CDE, and some Windows influence as well.
Overall, I like the GTK widget set better than QT. This has nothing to do with theming either. I use GTK's default theme. The buttons are a little larger. The gray is a little lighter. The widgets are spaced apart a little more. I think GTK has a more pleasant feel to it.
But, really now. The differences betweek KDE and GNOME isn't much more than personal preference.
(I won't comment on the untrue comments about CORBA.)
6. Multiple Language Bindings. C, C++, Perl, and many many more than i can think of right now :)
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.
Hahaha. Well.. I have, I just haven't use kde-2.0 much at all, assuming that is where this xml functionality is coming from? I never said that kde didn't have this functionality, just that gnome seems to be further along.
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
That is an interesting take on it, but it is only your opinion. I've seen nothing to back up what you say (although it does have a meager amount of logoc). Quite the contrary, all trends are looking good for Linux. Hell, even if it never gains any more market share from this point on, it is doing well for itself.
Finkployd
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.
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?
Whatever. Stop being so nitpicky about details... grrrrrrrrrrrr.
His meaning came across loud and clear, no? So what's the big deal?
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
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
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.