I am always amazed by the amount of intelligent, highly educated adults that fail to grasp that the cost of goods is always as high as people can be convinced to pay for it.
A second one that always puzzles me are all the people that fail to grasp that high quality does not implies high price, specially when dealing with mass produced goods (which is pretty much anything nowadays).
There are two observations I would like to make regarding "development" of these two major DE for Linux:
1. Duplication is a shortcut to madness. I regret the NIH mentality that still seems to be everywhere. There are many good choices of applications for both DEs, but instead of working to make a nice application component more robust and flexible and to work to integrate that with the other DE. People insist in this NIE mentality and write a copy of it.
While choice is good, it is not a good thing to have 5 choices of incomplete apps that either won't play nice with GTK or to QT.
If you only live inside one code base, you may not see the damage that that causes to both users, and to the people in charge of deployment (which in this case are the dists). But the damage will be there nonetheless.
2. You fail to understand failure when you blame it on your users.
The simplest big short coming of a developer is not to take responsibility for its blunders. The developer controls the code. Decides what to rewrite, what to add, and what to remove. The devs are the ones with commit rights, not the users. A release gets made, and users refuse it. The developers start yelling and swearing on the users?
I browsed some 3 or 4 KDE-4.X (stable or beta) release forum thread (the one that goes under the announcement). All were filled with devs _literally_ swearing at the users who still thought KDE-3 to be better. On KDE4.2 beta 1 or 2, someone went on to mention that that wasn't a nice thing to do. ASeigo, KDE's president, came along to swear at the guy asking for respect for different opinions.
Amarok links developer blogs in their front page. Amarok2 gets released. Someone starts a post asking for attention in order to swear at users who still thought better of KDE3.
As a developer, I have no respect for a project that talks to its users like this. The project leadership thinks it is "OK" to blame and swear at its users?
The barcode recognition is the biggest feature IMHO. Imagine the apps you could build with a good barcode recognition.
Scan a list of 'to buy'. Sort of a "Wedding registry" but how many times are you out and you see something that looks like a decent product but you want to check reviews? Scan a barcode, dump it into a Google docs document.
The biggest IMHO is "crowd sourcing" grocery lists. So you go to the store and scan in what you're going to buy, punch in the price and it gets added to a database. Use the GPS to determine the store.
What you describe already exists for Android since pretty much day one: http://www.biggu.com/
Having bought a Asus board recently I would like to mention that:
while all new boards support Splashtop,
only the very expensive ones have the flash-ROM on board
at least in the cases where you don't have flash pre-installed, you need to use a USB flash and use Windows to install it.
Yes, you got that right. No Linux-based Splashtop for Linux only users.
A second nitpicking: my experience with KDE4 has been the opposite of yours. Other than the new Konsole, and Okular; I find it a disaster. In any case, I don't think KDE or Gnome are particularly fast DEs.
Using a smaller specialized distribution is IMHO a better choice than all the bloat found in "full" dists like Ubuntu -- notice that I do use Ubuntu:-S.
Years ago, I used a PentiumIII with 128Mb and a terribly slow disk. It booted Debian into Gnome (a very old version - can't remember which) in 23 seconds. My "Core Duo" laptop, or brand new Quad-core desktop take more than twice that to start up. BTW both run Ubuntu.
In my experience, this claim/expectation that XFCE is significantly faster than Gnome or KDE just doesn't cut. IceWM and LXDE are the real contenders here.
These backwards magical-thinking buffoons have no evidence, no tests, nothing to point to a different theory; they have a book. A book they believe trumps the evidence of our own eyes and our most advanced scientific methods.
Evolutionary theory has no tests either. You have a book too: Origin of Species. You have no evidence of your own eyes because your life span is less than 100 years and the lifespan of human existence is easily less than 10,000 years. Your only "evidence" says that because Animal A has feathers and Animal B has feathers and Animal A lived a long time ago then Animal A must be related to B. How do you explain that leap of logic? That's what I call magical thinking. That is no evidence at all.
YES! YES! I agree!!!
Evolution is just theory and science is just a bunch of theories!
Windows Mobile smartphones and PDAs support tethering out of the box; all the ones I've owned anyway. As for VoIP, depends on what client you wanna use, but Skype has a free WM client and since WM phones usually aren't locked down very hard (being targeted at business users rather than Joe Sixpack) you can just install whatever you need.
I have heard about this, and also that Nokias will offer Skype support.
I have to admit that I always looked down at the iphone as a "fashion phone that represented a regression in terms of user lock-in", but now I own a G1 and have found that Google decided to lock its users more or less just as much as Apple.
I just don't know which phone architecture provides a decent platform. Android and iphone provide good SDKs for development, while AFAIK Symbian's sucks. I can hack tethering support on my G1 through USB, or install this app for (insecure) wifi tethering (check the XDA Dream forum for its betas). But not how to get proper VoIP running on it.
In any case, it seems to me that the more smart phones get popular, the more they are locked down. At least the two new platforms decided to fight for market space by being more obedient to the telcos (in detriment to users), than the previous existing platforms. This is just sad.
I have a G1. What I really don't get is why on Earth the two 'new' hot phone platforms (iphone & android) screw their costumers like this in order to server better the telcos.
Ok. I do get how they do that. I just wish *someone* would release a phone with out-of-the-box support for tethering and VoIP.
It is amazing how many huge companies seem to be fighting for this market place, and how none seems interested in actually delivering what people want.
Yes, but being able to reflash the same firmware doesn't actually gives you any other advantage other than backup. The whole thread is about whether the Android openness is relevant or not.
My point about flashing firmwares is that with Android, you can actually compile the dev branch and install it http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=462512 if you don't like it you can just revert the process.
My point being: the ADP is open enough for "regular" hacking. You have the source, you can change stuff, test, revert, try again, and when you are happy you can send it to your friends.
Did I say/claim T-Mobile was locking me outside of something? (I honestly can't see where I said that)
But since you asked;-) T-Mobile asked Google for assurances that there would be no VoIP running on the phone (I believe I saw the interview with TMobile's US branch CEO on Engadget). Hence no voice support for Google Talk.
The Google developer that answers questions in the Android development newsgroup said that *DRM* apps are not going to be supported in the ADP images (as they can just by pass the DRM).
My understanding is that what will be fixed in a next update is the ability of seeing/installing non-DRM paid applications.
I think you completely missed the point (either that or I am missing yours;-)).
The G1 allows you to directly install your own applications, and any "free" application from the "Android Market". So if you are talking your own apps, these can be directly installed in both the ADP and in the G1 without any problem.
The trouble starts when you need to install DRM applications from the market. If you are running a ADP and want see a DRM application running, you'll have to reflash.
I think Nokia is doing more than Google as it plans to allow VoIP applications in its next generation of smart phones (though not installed by default). However I have owned "unlocked" Nokia phones, and I would rate it as much more closed than the ADP (but perhaps it is because I never really installed paid apps in neither of them).
I seriously believe that Apple is Linuxs' best hope for more widespread adoption. If OS X can fracture the market to the point that devs have a vested interest in avoiding platform specific code then that removes the excuse for Windows specific applications.
I sort of hold the same opinion, but I imagined that it would be along the lines of: if OS X takes too much market share, it could lead vendors like Dell, HP, Lenovo and Acer to challenge MS grip, and start shipping Linux pre-installed for real (instead of just a handful of models in a handful of countries).
The open source does not matter to most users, but my point is that it will matter to mobile phone manufacturers.
As I mentioned in another post (not in this thread), IMO the real "killer" application is not available to both the G1 and the Iphone. That application being Skype. Another one would be out of the box & easy to use tethering. In these cases, both Google and Apple have let telecom vendors call the shoot. So while I understand that Google has to avoid (further) crippling of Android. This is something that they and Apple already do (so I don't give neither that much credit right now).
I haven't really looked into it, but there are a fair set of specifications that have to be meet for a phone to an "Android phone". That Australian Kugar(?) phone got axed exactly due to violating the minimal screen definition. I just don't know how far that goes.
> Can I install interesting apps?
You can. Android just lacks the applications:-S but that is to be expected, as the platform is only a few months old.
> Does it pique user interest? Is it cool?
Google has enough mojo, but I agree they should have released a more fashionable phone together with the G1.
Your point with platform providers sound US centric. In Europe, many buy their phones unlocked (outside of a contract), and these phones are normally much better phones (as far as software goes).
Though I do own a G1, I have to reckon that, as far as expats are concerned, you are absolutely right.
The true deal breaker for expats and many other end users has a name and it is called skype. I hear Windows mobile has it, and Nokia plans to distribute a version for Symbian.
My personal problem is that I am allergic to Windows Mobile, and only now Nokia started talking about Skype support.
The open source nature of Android matters a lot. As it is an attempt to become a complete software stack to be installed into "commodity" handsets. No one expects that to be fully realized into 3 or 6 months.
So it is actually more of a direct competitor with Symbian than with Apple. (it is just that people in the US love to talk about Apple). While Symbian has millions of units sold, AFAIK writing apps that actually use "fancy" functionality (GPS, camera, maps, calendar) is not a "write once, run on any Symbian phone" deal.
They also do not demand a high level of platform homogeneity. Both things Android aims to offer. Nokia/Sony control Symbian, so you can also bet that *all* their competitors (using Symbian) would rather use Android.
I do agree with you that the real game will only begin when (& if) other vendors start releasing other models. But working as a enterprise developer, I understand that it does take time between deciding to produce a unit and actually releasing it. Take a look at how long it took for all the netbooks to start appearing, after the first EEE initial success.
The G1 is still a toy, so until there are more devices, all the openness doesn't mean as much. To some extent, it's open source nature is irrelevant to most.
Google blocks users running the ADP version of the OS from accessing paid applications.
However, as I mentioned in my previous post: if you have a phone running the developer version, you can fully backup the whole phone (the entire thing). Install the "consumer version of it", do as you will, backup your "consumer image", reflash the dev version.
If you are a developer, it is as simple as changing phone covers. I know that as I own a G1 running the development version of the OS, and have performed the described operations.
I second the GP poster. Tomato rocks. Clean interface, lots of functionality, good documentation.
I've been many times at the OpenWrt. It sure looks like a full featured linux dist, but they sure forgot to put clear simple instructions to get my router running it. They seem to try to be so many things that they forgot to cater to, what seems to me to be, their most plentiful potential users: Linux users that would like to run OpenWrt in a router.
No, I don't want to edit/etc/network files, I want a simple GUI that does the job.
Slashdot Mirror
That is absolutely right on the spot.
I am always amazed by the amount of intelligent, highly educated adults that fail to grasp that the cost of goods is always as high as people can be convinced to pay for it.
A second one that always puzzles me are all the people that fail to grasp that high quality does not implies high price, specially when dealing with mass produced goods (which is pretty much anything nowadays).
This is what I could find... it's not like I am collecting them...
http://dot.kde.org/2008/12/18/kde-42-beta2-canaria-testimony-bug-fixing-frenzy
Thank you very much for this. Please ignore the "it's not like KDE3.5"-morons, but keep on innovating. It's very much appreciated.
you evidently haven't tried 4.2 then, as your complaint is pretty stupid in light of the achievements in that release.
http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/862-KDE-Trolls,-eat-this.html
Anyone else noticed the extreme amount of hate & trolling against KDE lately, and especially against KDE 4? I have a special message for you trolls:
You're fucking idiots.
the guy swears like this, and then proceeds to quote Gandhi.
There are two observations I would like to make regarding "development" of these two major DE for Linux:
1. Duplication is a shortcut to madness.
I regret the NIH mentality that still seems to be everywhere. There are many good choices of applications for both DEs, but instead of working to make a nice application component more robust and flexible and to work to integrate that with the other DE. People insist in this NIE mentality and write a copy of it.
While choice is good, it is not a good thing to have 5 choices of incomplete apps that either won't play
nice with GTK or to QT.
If you only live inside one code base, you may not see the damage that that causes to both users, and to the people in charge of deployment (which in this case are the dists). But the damage will be there nonetheless.
2. You fail to understand failure when you blame it on your users.
The simplest big short coming of a developer is not to take responsibility for its blunders.
The developer controls the code. Decides what to rewrite, what to add, and what to remove. The devs are the ones with commit rights, not the users. A release gets made, and users refuse it. The developers start yelling and swearing on the users?
I browsed some 3 or 4 KDE-4.X (stable or beta) release forum thread (the one that goes under the announcement). All were filled with devs _literally_ swearing at the users who still thought KDE-3 to be better. On KDE4.2 beta 1 or 2, someone went on to mention that that wasn't a nice thing to do. ASeigo, KDE's president, came along to swear at the guy asking for respect for different opinions.
Amarok links developer blogs in their front page. Amarok2 gets released. Someone starts a post asking for attention in order to swear at users who still thought better of KDE3.
As a developer, I have no respect for a project that talks to its users like this. The project leadership thinks it is "OK" to blame and swear at its users?
Let me rephrase the key point for you.
Playing DVD movies on the Wii will ruin the device over time.
Sorry dude. It is a matter of royalties, not hardware. In Japan they have playback enabled.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/japan-to-get-wii-with-dvd-player
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=148355
The barcode recognition is the biggest feature IMHO. Imagine the apps you could build with a good barcode recognition.
Scan a list of 'to buy'. Sort of a "Wedding registry" but how many times are you out and you see something that looks like a decent product but you want to check reviews? Scan a barcode, dump it into a Google docs document.
The biggest IMHO is "crowd sourcing" grocery lists. So you go to the store and scan in what you're going to buy, punch in the price and it gets added to a database. Use the GPS to determine the store.
What you describe already exists for Android since pretty much day one: http://www.biggu.com/
Having bought a Asus board recently I would like to mention that:
Yes, you got that right. No Linux-based Splashtop for Linux only users.
A second nitpicking: my experience with KDE4 has been the opposite of yours. Other than the new Konsole, and Okular; I find it a disaster. In any case, I don't think KDE or Gnome are particularly fast DEs.
I second this recommendation.
Using a smaller specialized distribution is IMHO a better choice than all the bloat found in "full" dists like Ubuntu -- notice that I do use Ubuntu :-S.
Years ago, I used a PentiumIII with 128Mb and a terribly slow disk. It booted Debian into Gnome (a very old version - can't remember which) in 23 seconds. My "Core Duo" laptop, or brand new Quad-core desktop take more than twice that to start up. BTW both run Ubuntu.
In my experience, this claim/expectation that XFCE is significantly faster than Gnome or KDE just doesn't cut. IceWM and LXDE are the real contenders here.
These backwards magical-thinking buffoons have no evidence, no tests, nothing to point to a different theory; they have a book. A book they believe trumps the evidence of our own eyes and our most advanced scientific methods.
Evolutionary theory has no tests either. You have a book too: Origin of Species. You have no evidence of your own eyes because your life span is less than 100 years and the lifespan of human existence is easily less than 10,000 years. Your only "evidence" says that because Animal A has feathers and Animal B has feathers and Animal A lived a long time ago then Animal A must be related to B. How do you explain that leap of logic? That's what I call magical thinking. That is no evidence at all.
YES! YES! I agree!!!
Evolution is just theory and science is just a bunch of theories!
I also want public funds to be spent teaching the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
We also have a book!
I say all three theories (evolution, ID, F.S.M.ism) should be presented with equal time and children should be left to decide on their own!!
Could somebody just mail the Flying Spaghetti Monster original letter to everyone in this board?
Oh, and BTW, if haven't done it yet. Read it. It is the best rebuttal to Int.Design I have ever read.
As long as we practice one-man-one-vote the system will swing to a two-party system.
Somehow every other western democracy has a one-citizen-one-vote policy, and most of them did not swing to a two-party system.
Windows Mobile smartphones and PDAs support tethering out of the box; all the ones I've owned anyway. As for VoIP, depends on what client you wanna use, but Skype has a free WM client and since WM phones usually aren't locked down very hard (being targeted at business users rather than Joe Sixpack) you can just install whatever you need.
I have heard about this, and also that Nokias will offer Skype support.
I have to admit that I always looked down at the iphone as a "fashion phone that represented a regression in terms of user lock-in", but now I own a G1 and have found that Google decided to lock its users more or less just as much as Apple.
I just don't know which phone architecture provides a decent platform. Android and iphone provide good SDKs for development, while AFAIK Symbian's sucks. I can hack tethering support on my G1 through USB, or install this app for (insecure) wifi tethering (check the XDA Dream forum for its betas). But not how to get proper VoIP running on it.
In any case, it seems to me that the more smart phones get popular, the more they are locked down. At least the two new platforms decided to fight for market space by being more obedient to the telcos (in detriment to users), than the previous existing platforms. This is just sad.
I have a G1. What I really don't get is why on Earth the two 'new' hot phone platforms (iphone & android) screw their costumers like this in order to server better the telcos.
Ok. I do get how they do that. I just wish *someone* would release a phone with out-of-the-box support for tethering and VoIP.
It is amazing how many huge companies seem to be fighting for this market place, and how none seems interested in actually delivering what people want.
Go read this post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1153123&cid=27132101
The point is whether the Android openness is relevant or not, when compared to what the Iphone offers.
While I should have modded the tone of my post, my point stands: the openness is relevant because you can hack the OS. With the Iphone, you cannot.
Yes, but being able to reflash the same firmware doesn't actually gives you any other advantage other than backup. The whole thread is about whether the Android openness is relevant or not.
My point about flashing firmwares is that with Android, you can actually compile the dev branch and install it http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=462512 if you don't like it you can just revert the process.
Or you can make your own changes to the OS, compile and try it out http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=480582 if you don't like what you get you can revert it.
My point being: the ADP is open enough for "regular" hacking. You have the source, you can change stuff, test, revert, try again, and when you are happy you can send it to your friends.
Did I say/claim T-Mobile was locking me outside of something? (I honestly can't see where I said that)
But since you asked ;-) T-Mobile asked Google for assurances that there would be no VoIP running on the phone (I believe I saw the interview with TMobile's US branch CEO on Engadget). Hence no voice support for Google Talk.
The Google developer that answers questions in the Android development newsgroup said that *DRM* apps are not going to be supported in the ADP images (as they can just by pass the DRM).
My understanding is that what will be fixed in a next update is the ability of seeing/installing non-DRM paid applications.
I think you completely missed the point (either that or I am missing yours ;-)).
The G1 allows you to directly install your own applications, and any "free" application from the "Android Market". So if you are talking your own apps, these can be directly installed in both the ADP and in the G1 without any problem.
The trouble starts when you need to install DRM applications from the market. If you are running a ADP and want see a DRM application running, you'll have to reflash.
I think Nokia is doing more than Google as it plans to allow VoIP applications in its next generation of smart phones (though not installed by default). However I have owned "unlocked" Nokia phones, and I would rate it as much more closed than the ADP (but perhaps it is because I never really installed paid apps in neither of them).
I seriously believe that Apple is Linuxs' best hope for more widespread adoption. If OS X can fracture the market to the point that devs have a vested interest in avoiding platform specific code then that removes the excuse for Windows specific applications.
I sort of hold the same opinion, but I imagined that it would be along the lines of: if OS X takes too much market share, it could lead vendors like Dell, HP, Lenovo and Acer to challenge MS grip, and start shipping Linux pre-installed for real (instead of just a handful of models in a handful of countries).
The open source does not matter to most users, but my point is that it will matter to mobile phone manufacturers.
As I mentioned in another post (not in this thread), IMO the real "killer" application is not available to both the G1 and the Iphone. That application being Skype. Another one would be out of the box & easy to use tethering. In these cases, both Google and Apple have let telecom vendors call the shoot. So while I understand that Google has to avoid (further) crippling of Android. This is something that they and Apple already do (so I don't give neither that much credit right now).
I haven't really looked into it, but there are a fair set of specifications that have to be meet for a phone to an "Android phone". That Australian Kugar(?) phone got axed exactly due to violating the minimal screen definition. I just don't know how far that goes.
> Can I install interesting apps?
You can. Android just lacks the applications :-S but that is to be expected, as the platform is only a few months old.
> Does it pique user interest? Is it cool?
Google has enough mojo, but I agree they should have released a more fashionable phone together with the G1.
Your point with platform providers sound US centric. In Europe, many buy their phones unlocked (outside of a contract), and these phones are normally much better phones (as far as software goes).
The true deal breaker for expats and many other end users has a name and it is called skype. I hear Windows mobile has it, and Nokia plans to distribute a version for Symbian.
My personal problem is that I am allergic to Windows Mobile, and only now Nokia started talking about Skype support.
Would you please be so kind to stop modding posts you disagree with as troll?
I mean, everything in my post is factually correct:
So it is actually more of a direct competitor with Symbian than with Apple. (it is just that people in the US love to talk about Apple). While Symbian has millions of units sold, AFAIK writing apps that actually use "fancy" functionality (GPS, camera, maps, calendar) is not a "write once, run on any Symbian phone" deal. They also do not demand a high level of platform homogeneity. Both things Android aims to offer. Nokia/Sony control Symbian, so you can also bet that *all* their competitors (using Symbian) would rather use Android.
I do agree with you that the real game will only begin when (& if) other vendors start releasing other models. But working as a enterprise developer, I understand that it does take time between deciding to produce a unit and actually releasing it. Take a look at how long it took for all the netbooks to start appearing, after the first EEE initial success.
The G1 is still a toy, so until there are more devices, all the openness doesn't mean as much. To some extent, it's open source nature is irrelevant to most.
Seriously, in which sense is the G1 a toy?
However, as I mentioned in my previous post: if you have a phone running the developer version, you can fully backup the whole phone (the entire thing). Install the "consumer version of it", do as you will, backup your "consumer image", reflash the dev version.
If you are a developer, it is as simple as changing phone covers. I know that as I own a G1 running the development version of the OS, and have performed the described operations.
If you bought a G1 and have the knowledge, you can turn it into a ADP and do just as you please.
Developers can
Does Apple has something like that? I guess not, since there are no developer versions of the Iphone.
BTW, Where can I **legally** download the source to the Iphone OS?
I second the GP poster. Tomato rocks. Clean interface, lots of functionality, good documentation.
I've been many times at the OpenWrt. It sure looks like a full featured linux dist, but they sure forgot to put clear simple instructions to get my router running it. They seem to try to be so many things that they forgot to cater to, what seems to me to be, their most plentiful potential users: Linux users that would like to run OpenWrt in a router.
No, I don't want to edit /etc/network files, I want a simple GUI that does the job.