You've got a point there. However, when it comes to user interfaces, it's all a matter of opinion. Personally, I think they both suck...
I think that KDE and GNOME are only better in the sense that at least you can change them, switch between them, or use them together. And that's more a feature of X and window managers that other windowing systems don't have. I think the Gimp is better for my needs. Recent versions of Photoshop seem to have more useless options, and that doesn't help me get anything done. Kaffe is actually pretty good for what it is, there are better virtual machines out there, but this is an area where you really can benchmark and test them. Mozilla is looking very good. In fact, I might make it my default browser sometime, but I figured I'd test out Netscape 4.7 some more. Mozilla and Netscape also have the cross-platform development advantage here.
I don't want to "drag" files. That's slow. I use fvwm2 and if I need to do file manipulation... well, that's what that "xterm" program is for. To run my shell.:)
I think dragging a file, or dragging and dropping, is interesting but ultimately limited. If I drag a file and drop it on an executable, that's generally interpreted as: I want to view this file with that executable, or something. If I double-click the file, that's supposed to mean I want to run this file, or I want to run the application that this file is associated with on this file.
If I drag a file onto another regular file, should that mean I want to join them? If so, how would I split them? Drag and drop them on the split utility? Should it pop up a menu if I might want to use some parameters, or just use the defaults, and screw up the job?
There are a lot of principles of UI design used for the Mac that I don't necessarily like, and the same goes for a lot of Window Managers in X. All I really want is something to manage the windows, let me set a few options for specific programs, have virtual desktops (preferably with keyboard bindings and no pager) and not clutter the screen with anything I don't want. The last thing I need is a trashcan that's under a window somewhere that I have to use to eject a disk.
Maybe my perspective on this will change if I ever get a huge screen in a high resolution, but if it does, I'll just change my Window Manager, or extend my current one. --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Feel like hacking Themes into MacOS? How about porting it? Or changing the buttons on the titlebar? Does it come with cool screensavers? Or an integrated file/web browser?
KDE has a lot of features that MacOS doesn't have, and a consistent desktop interface (KDE's apps, eh?). And if you don't like it, you even have a choice! --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Good ol' sunsite. Imagine, normal geeks write code and upload it to an ftp site because they want to *share*. Hmm. And I thought they just wanted to spread their warez for us to leech. (ooo, kool k-rad Xbill game!) And they don't all program games, either, some of them want to get their work done! And some of those people have jobs, maybe even in other countries! Surprise, surprise.
Oh well, I'll content myself with the fact that this never would have made it to ZDNet a couple of years ago. --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
But yes, that did aid portability before they dropped support for everything. Now it probably just slows them down.
VMS had some cool features. Unfortunately, NT didn't use any of them, so all we have left is some legacy weird architecture. How stupid is that? --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
:) I think the replies this thread got cover most of my points, and it's too late now, but...
1) You turn it on. What do you get? A blue screen. Any boot info? Not really... That's what I mean by "it doesn't tell you anything". It's about as helpful when it crashes, too.
2) In my experience, if I take a new machine and try to install NT, I can't make an NTFS partition take up the whole disk. Maybe it's just a limitation on IDE drives, but dude, it sucked. FAT16 is worse. 16 exabyte? Has anyone tried that? Jeez.
3) Driver support: try getting a modern video card to work, say. I had an ATI card that would run under SP3 but not SP4 or SP5 at all. Go figure. There are drivers in the box for virtually any hardware device on the NT hardware compatibility list. Past that, you're confusing it with Win98 Release 2. And you *can't* write them yourself, unless you have $$$....
4) It doesn't support FAT32. It doesn't have the same driver model. It breaks a lot of DOS apps. Sometimes Linux DOSEmu does a better job than the NT DOS VM. I hope NT5 fixes the.DLL library clobbering problems, for Windows' sake. And only Linux people are allowed to use the phrase "check out the devel kernel with these patches if you really need it now.";)
5) Ooo, didn't mean to waste your precious time.
6) I'm aware of its limitations. That's what I was outlining. And I felt the need to rant for a while....;) --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Heh. Even if I pass flags to linux to run in 4MB or 8MB, it won't take that long. Maybe if I put it on a slower computer it would take a bit longer. (I know with 4MB X won't start up, though. Maybe 6MB, then.)
However, Linux has support for XT hard drives, and stuff! Yeah, we can build a 386 with even crappier hardware, and install Red Hat 6.1 with everything running, and have it panic when it can't find a network!
Nope, I still think NT would take longer. If you want a *fair* test, though, maybe comparative boot times on the same hardware, or maybe try to misconfigure everything too? --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Not so, my man. This is only measuring one thing: a contest with slow NT reboot times.
If you want a contest for slow server boot times, so be it. Put up a webpage and ask for submissions.
My linux box is running quite a few services, and it isn't a monster like some of the hardware for some of those NT boxes, and it boots up quite nicely, thank you.
fsck can take forever. Fortunately it doesn't always run. However, NT checking partitions takes a while too. Sendmail doesn't take *that* long to timeout IMO, but I could be wrong here.
A 50 minute boot time sounds like Exchange is a bad *app* to me, though. I wonder what it does.
What do you think creates rabid NT-haters? NT! It's DOS, VMS, and Windows, all rolled into one! How monolithic and anti-UNIX can you get? It doesn't tell you anything, it's slow, it doesn't make decent-sized partitions, it has weird driver support, it doesn't support a lot of windows extensions from the past 4 years, it's insecure, it's bloated, and it's generally annoying. Therefore, the occasional anti-NT page is entertainment.
If you can write a good, sensible anti-UNIX or anti-whatever page, and get it posted, go right ahead. Start with X, it annoys me sometimes. Even if it does have all the features Windows Terminal Server wishes it has.:) --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Spreading misinformation is evil, offering the facts is righteous.
People like to bash companies when they're abusing their position. Only successful companies have a superior position to abuse from. People like to bash evil companies that also happen to be successful.
Microsoft is evil, as evinced by their actions. People like to bash them. Apparently, when Intel has competition, they act the same way, and are therefore evil. We just didn't know it before because of their x86 monopoly. (Sometimes monopolies are okay, when the entrance barrier is high, which it was in the past. Now it's lower, and Intel is starting to feel the effects.) Remember, Intel's products *are* overpriced. That was AMD's biggest gripe against them in the first place.
Releasing benchmarks is always better than offering no real information at all besides "I'm better". That just turns into a shouting match. However, if no one can set up a fair test platform that can approximately reproduce said benchmarks, then the benchmarks are just as bad, and should be responded to with accurate benchmarks.
Intel should be condemned for making it harder for their customers to find the right information. Say that your new processor is 20% faster than a PIII/whatever, instead, and remind them that you're Intel, or something, but don't lie to them.
Intel is trying to hold onto its monopoly, and not in a graceful fashion. They aren't used to real competition. Sound like Microsoft yet? --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
*sigh* I wrote my post in English. Be glad I don't reply in line numbers.
I don't like BASIC because it is generally slow and interpreted and weak. (i.e. not powerful, you shouldn't have to code around the language to do basic tasks) You should have gathered this from the content of my post.
I'm interested in performance. C is good. Assembler is better for optimizing code, it's great if you can write that code for a couple of platforms, and include it in as needed, with substitute C code for other (unsupported as yet) platforms. MAME does this for some of its CPU cores.
Perl and Java speed implementation and are therefore good for prototypes and hacks. However, if you know C, it's great for hacks, and actual implementations. And it's already really portable too. Some Java VM's might get faster at least, they're still maturing. Perl will probably get rewritten into C++ for maintainability, so we'll see if it gets slower or not.
I'm not really saying that Perl or Java is outright bad, but for performance and real products that might need to run on, say, 486's with 8MB of RAM, they are obviously not the right choices IMO... (on a platform like that, I'd want the most speed possible!) And this is the platform that OSes like Linux like to claim to target. At least the GNU utils are coded well in C, but I remember when RedHat used Python for some of their control-panel tools, and it sucked...
Glue languages are fine, that's what TCL was supposed to be for, and what a lot of people use Perl for (or some freaks who use Scheme:). I like to use shell for this too. It's slow, but the whole point of a glue language is that you shouldn't be using it enough for it to be slow. All the real work should be done by something fast, like... C.
VNC does have a Java client. That's okay. Why? Because VNC is slow too, usually because of network bandwidth. Java is fine, provided you make sure that it's not the bottleneck. Use it on the WWW, when you're waiting for a slow site or a modem, say, and it doesn't look that slow anymore.;)
And I think I had a 'holy war disclaimer' at the beginning, but these are of course my opinions. --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Linus made Linux, and turned it into a full-fledged Unix with the help of gcc. Therefore, he GPL'ed it out of respect to gcc and therefore RMS and GNU.
People looking for a free Unix found this, and it fit a niche, being in the right place at the right time.
This is the story of how that historical event happened.
You might not like the GPL, but it allows people to collaborate in a strict way. It encourages the kind of programming freedom that people used to have before people started programming for money instead of love.
Microsoft has always been too proud to do this, but it makes me feel better knowing that they write bad code for money, and can't write good code out of love. I'm sure there's a moral lesson there. Of course they don't love their customers: they love their money.
It got moderated up because it was a real, on-topic post about the historical events leading up to what Linux has done today. It's a thoughtful post, and remember: Open Source is the popular remarketing of Free Software, taking a different means to the desired end. --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Well, it's had longer to develop, it's been open source, and... nothing has happened.
I'm not saying it'll never help anyone. I'm sure the features it offers will be useful, and perhaps they'll be folded into Linux. Or maybe it will succeed, and we'll all be using The HURD. Or Jini. Or something. Who knows.
However, as it stands right now, I'd say it's the opposite of a success.;) --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
I think that under a less restrictive license it still would have become fairly popular, but also could have been merged with the *BSD's. And, of course, would probably have not had as much development in many areas (perhaps ext2, for instance) where code could have been taken from other projects. (or maybe those projects would have gotten improved)
However, a lot of commercial systems would also probably be based on Linux now, like perhaps MacOS X.
I don't think I can second-guess the present much more, though.:)
My favorite future would be the one where X and Wine became perfect and supplanted Windows and Windows Terminal Server. I'm waiting... --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Unix doesn't stand for anything, it's a pun on MULTICS, which was a failure.
Linux doesn't stand for anything, it's 'Linus Unix', basically.
However, 'The GNU HURD' stands for (pass one) "The GNU's Not Unix HIRD of Unix-Replacing Daemons".
Pass two: The (GNU's Not Unix)'s (HURD of Interfaces Representing Depth) of Unix-Replacing Daemons".
And, of course, it never ends, since you keep expanding GNU, HURD, and HIRD. Thank god GNU didn't make Unix or name Daemons or have any large effect on the English language. Make it stop! This is 8 billion times worse than anyone asking "How do you pronounce Linux".
...and, the HURD is a failure, so far. Everyone likes the system tools, though. Why? It's Unix. (I know. "GNU's Not Unix". You can shut up now) Ask me what the name of the utility means, and I can tell you.:) --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Linus wrote Linux because he wanted a free Unix for the PC. If he just distributed binaries instead of opening the source, anyone could have gotten a free Unix that would run on *his* machine, one cheap 386 in Finland. If they wanted more than that, they'd have to request features, or pay him, or something.
At which point they could go out and buy SunOS, or Xenix, or work on making BSD free, or hack Minix or something. --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Waste time on geek girls and porn stars! Find yourself a geek girl pornstar! Asia Carrera, are you listening?:)
But seriously, my girlfriend is somewhat geeky, maybe not as bad as I am, but I like it when she knows what I'm talking about. Being geeky doesn't mean being competitive (I'm not), it doesn't mean being obsessed with computers (she's isn't really, unless you count computer games, but many non-geeky people share that flaw), and it doesn't mean being unable to communicate with people or being unable to express yourself.
Some of your advice is good, but I don't need a woman who will simply accept that I'm different, get in the kitchen, and make me some pie. I think that relationship would be missing something. --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
I'm curious, specifically what do you need from PhotoShop that The Gimp doesn't do?
A more recent version of CorelDraw that runs under Linux should be released, but I wouldn't be too surprised if CorelDraw for Windows ran under Wine.
WordPerfect 8 and StarOffice are both free for non-commercial use, and do a pretty good job. I like WordPerfect better from a resource utilization standpoint, but StarOffice does a good job of replacing the Office suite of programs.
I wouldn't mind seeing more commercial programs for Linux, it's just more incentive for the free people to write free replacements, and the non-free people to switch to Linux.
I'd love it if The Gimp incorporated some of the functionality of Fractal Image Painter, which it looks like this Amiga program does. Maybe that's why it's $99... --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Last I heard, JWZ had given up on Mozilla out of frustration. He was being hard on himself for not having a product out yet, and he didn't feel bad about leaving Netscape. (after what it had become, merged with AOL and all) Seeing as how Marc left, I'd say he was right.:)
He's still alive, though. He's posted to slashdot since he left Netscape/AOL on April Fools Day, and updated xscreensaver, and stuff. As to what he's doing, I don't know. Go check alt.fan.jwz or something. --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
I have the mod, (but if that was Future Crew, then it was probably Purple Motion...) I don't think I ever saw the demo. I'll have to search for that... --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
First, Microsoft never 'endorsed' FreeBSD. They just can't make NT perform as well.;)
Second, that pioneer/settler quote also works well for Microsoft. Chilling, really. The people who don't innovate win? I hope it doesn't work that way. Of course there's a big advantage to maintaining a stable system, but that shouldn't mean that you can't invent anything. BSD used to be the 'development arm' of Unix. It looks like Linux has pretty much taken over this role.
Oh, and to all those people talking about "Unix heritage": Unix is a standard nowadays. Whoever can implement it best, wins. (and those who don't are doomed to reinvent it) Any code that matters in FreeBSD has been rewritten from scratch (to be free), therefore it's as much Unix as any good Unix clone is. (and less so wherever it isn't compliant to one of the three+ major standards.:) This goes for all Unix implementations, and doubly so for SCO, DGUX, and HP/UX (because they're freaky). --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
He's 17, that's old enough to see R-rated movies. He can go see Eyes Wide Shut and he can't get into a computer show? Yeah, right. I agree, they need to get with reality here.
Remember, in 1993 we had high-school kids writing the most beautiful graphics demos in assembler ever. And throughout our history, it's been high school kids and college drop-outs driving the industry. Microsoft, Apple, you name it. Computer nerds with free time always make a difference, and if you don't support those, you are not supporting innovation. --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
:) I'm sorry, it isn't very polite to compare people to Katz on the basis of one article.
Your price comparisons seemed realistic, at least. I don't see too many real world estimates these days... (or for that matter real world benchmarks. hmm.)
However, now that you have a slashdot account, feel free to jump into the fray, it's fun! --- pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Slashdot Mirror
You've got a point there. However, when it comes to user interfaces, it's all a matter of opinion. Personally, I think they both suck...
:)
I think that KDE and GNOME are only better in the sense that at least you can change them, switch between them, or use them together. And that's more a feature of X and window managers that other windowing systems don't have. I think the Gimp is better for my needs. Recent versions of Photoshop seem to have more useless options, and that doesn't help me get anything done. Kaffe is actually pretty good for what it is, there are better virtual machines out there, but this is an area where you really can benchmark and test them. Mozilla is looking very good. In fact, I might make it my default browser sometime, but I figured I'd test out Netscape 4.7 some more. Mozilla and Netscape also have the cross-platform development advantage here.
I don't want to "drag" files. That's slow. I use fvwm2 and if I need to do file manipulation... well, that's what that "xterm" program is for. To run my shell.
I think dragging a file, or dragging and dropping, is interesting but ultimately limited. If I drag a file and drop it on an executable, that's generally interpreted as: I want to view this file with that executable, or something. If I double-click the file, that's supposed to mean I want to run this file, or I want to run the application that this file is associated with on this file.
If I drag a file onto another regular file, should that mean I want to join them? If so, how would I split them? Drag and drop them on the split utility? Should it pop up a menu if I might want to use some parameters, or just use the defaults, and screw up the job?
There are a lot of principles of UI design used for the Mac that I don't necessarily like, and the same goes for a lot of Window Managers in X. All I really want is something to manage the windows, let me set a few options for specific programs, have virtual desktops (preferably with keyboard bindings and no pager) and not clutter the screen with anything I don't want. The last thing I need is a trashcan that's under a window somewhere that I have to use to eject a disk.
Maybe my perspective on this will change if I ever get a huge screen in a high resolution, but if it does, I'll just change my Window Manager, or extend my current one.
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Clearly superior to MacOS how?
Feel like hacking Themes into MacOS? How about porting it? Or changing the buttons on the titlebar? Does it come with cool screensavers? Or an integrated file/web browser?
KDE has a lot of features that MacOS doesn't have, and a consistent desktop interface (KDE's apps, eh?). And if you don't like it, you even have a choice!
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What a cool idea!
Good ol' sunsite. Imagine, normal geeks write code and upload it to an ftp site because they want to *share*. Hmm. And I thought they just wanted to spread their warez for us to leech. (ooo, kool k-rad Xbill game!) And they don't all program games, either, some of them want to get their work done! And some of those people have jobs, maybe even in other countries! Surprise, surprise.
Oh well, I'll content myself with the fact that this never would have made it to ZDNet a couple of years ago.
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Um... let's see, what could I do to fix this.
1) Block ads. The internet junkbuster is a wonderful thing.
2) Use a text-based web browser like w3m or lynx. Or better yet, ftp!
3) Disable image loading. (okay, sometimes that isn't as easy to do these days, but graphical browsers used to support it better before...)
4) If you don't like it, turn off the computer.
5) Listen to the radio?
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Yeah, it's a "microkernel". :)
But yes, that did aid portability before they dropped support for everything. Now it probably just slows them down.
VMS had some cool features. Unfortunately, NT didn't use any of them, so all we have left is some legacy weird architecture. How stupid is that?
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:) I think the replies this thread got cover most of my points, and it's too late now, but...
.DLL library clobbering problems, for Windows' sake. And only Linux people are allowed to use the phrase "check out the devel kernel with these patches if you really need it now." ;)
;)
1) You turn it on. What do you get? A blue screen. Any boot info? Not really... That's what I mean by "it doesn't tell you anything". It's about as helpful when it crashes, too.
2) In my experience, if I take a new machine and try to install NT, I can't make an NTFS partition take up the whole disk. Maybe it's just a limitation on IDE drives, but dude, it sucked. FAT16 is worse. 16 exabyte? Has anyone tried that? Jeez.
3) Driver support: try getting a modern video card to work, say. I had an ATI card that would run under SP3 but not SP4 or SP5 at all. Go figure. There are drivers in the box for virtually any hardware device on the NT hardware compatibility list. Past that, you're confusing it with Win98 Release 2. And you *can't* write them yourself, unless you have $$$....
4) It doesn't support FAT32. It doesn't have the same driver model. It breaks a lot of DOS apps. Sometimes Linux DOSEmu does a better job than the NT DOS VM. I hope NT5 fixes the
5) Ooo, didn't mean to waste your precious time.
6) I'm aware of its limitations. That's what I was outlining. And I felt the need to rant for a while....
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Heh. Even if I pass flags to linux to run in 4MB or 8MB, it won't take that long. Maybe if I put it on a slower computer it would take a bit longer. (I know with 4MB X won't start up, though. Maybe 6MB, then.)
However, Linux has support for XT hard drives, and stuff! Yeah, we can build a 386 with even crappier hardware, and install Red Hat 6.1 with everything running, and have it panic when it can't find a network!
Nope, I still think NT would take longer. If you want a *fair* test, though, maybe comparative boot times on the same hardware, or maybe try to misconfigure everything too?
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Not so, my man. This is only measuring one thing: a contest with slow NT reboot times.
:)
If you want a contest for slow server boot times, so be it. Put up a webpage and ask for submissions.
My linux box is running quite a few services, and it isn't a monster like some of the hardware for some of those NT boxes, and it boots up quite nicely, thank you.
fsck can take forever. Fortunately it doesn't always run. However, NT checking partitions takes a while too. Sendmail doesn't take *that* long to timeout IMO, but I could be wrong here.
A 50 minute boot time sounds like Exchange is a bad *app* to me, though. I wonder what it does.
What do you think creates rabid NT-haters? NT! It's DOS, VMS, and Windows, all rolled into one! How monolithic and anti-UNIX can you get? It doesn't tell you anything, it's slow, it doesn't make decent-sized partitions, it has weird driver support, it doesn't support a lot of windows extensions from the past 4 years, it's insecure, it's bloated, and it's generally annoying. Therefore, the occasional anti-NT page is entertainment.
If you can write a good, sensible anti-UNIX or anti-whatever page, and get it posted, go right ahead. Start with X, it annoys me sometimes. Even if it does have all the features Windows Terminal Server wishes it has.
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Spreading misinformation is evil, offering the facts is righteous.
People like to bash companies when they're abusing their position. Only successful companies have a superior position to abuse from. People like to bash evil companies that also happen to be successful.
Microsoft is evil, as evinced by their actions. People like to bash them. Apparently, when Intel has competition, they act the same way, and are therefore evil. We just didn't know it before because of their x86 monopoly. (Sometimes monopolies are okay, when the entrance barrier is high, which it was in the past. Now it's lower, and Intel is starting to feel the effects.) Remember, Intel's products *are* overpriced. That was AMD's biggest gripe against them in the first place.
Releasing benchmarks is always better than offering no real information at all besides "I'm better". That just turns into a shouting match. However, if no one can set up a fair test platform that can approximately reproduce said benchmarks, then the benchmarks are just as bad, and should be responded to with accurate benchmarks.
Intel should be condemned for making it harder for their customers to find the right information. Say that your new processor is 20% faster than a PIII/whatever, instead, and remind them that you're Intel, or something, but don't lie to them.
Intel is trying to hold onto its monopoly, and not in a graceful fashion. They aren't used to real competition. Sound like Microsoft yet?
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That's too bad, but don't let it ruin your day. After all, they released "Sex for Dummies" (that book by IDG, all rights reserved by them, and stuff).
I'm waiting to see if anyone ever releases, say, "Rocket Science for Complete Idiots". Just an idea.
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You'll get sued!
Do you know how many times each of you have infringed this trademark?
Resist the urge, don't say it! They'll take your house, your car, and your pigs!
This is a discussion forum! Aaaahhhhhhh!
:) Silly lawyers...
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*sigh* I wrote my post in English. Be glad I don't reply in line numbers.
:). I like to use shell for this too. It's slow, but the whole point of a glue language is that you shouldn't be using it enough for it to be slow. All the real work should be done by something fast, like... C.
;)
I don't like BASIC because it is generally slow and interpreted and weak. (i.e. not powerful, you shouldn't have to code around the language to do basic tasks) You should have gathered this from the content of my post.
I'm interested in performance. C is good. Assembler is better for optimizing code, it's great if you can write that code for a couple of platforms, and include it in as needed, with substitute C code for other (unsupported as yet) platforms. MAME does this for some of its CPU cores.
Perl and Java speed implementation and are therefore good for prototypes and hacks. However, if you know C, it's great for hacks, and actual implementations. And it's already really portable too. Some Java VM's might get faster at least, they're still maturing. Perl will probably get rewritten into C++ for maintainability, so we'll see if it gets slower or not.
I'm not really saying that Perl or Java is outright bad, but for performance and real products that might need to run on, say, 486's with 8MB of RAM, they are obviously not the right choices IMO... (on a platform like that, I'd want the most speed possible!) And this is the platform that OSes like Linux like to claim to target. At least the GNU utils are coded well in C, but I remember when RedHat used Python for some of their control-panel tools, and it sucked...
Glue languages are fine, that's what TCL was supposed to be for, and what a lot of people use Perl for (or some freaks who use Scheme
VNC does have a Java client. That's okay. Why? Because VNC is slow too, usually because of network bandwidth. Java is fine, provided you make sure that it's not the bottleneck. Use it on the WWW, when you're waiting for a slow site or a modem, say, and it doesn't look that slow anymore.
And I think I had a 'holy war disclaimer' at the beginning, but these are of course my opinions.
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Yes, VNC kicks ass.
:)
No, I don't seriously write in Perl or Java, but...
C is a systems programming language.
sh is a scripting language (shell, yeah! What are you programming in? Shh.).
Java is a Lisp interpreter with C++ syntax beaten with an ugly stick.
Perl can be ugly, but it's at least optimized for a task.
Conclusion? Write in C. Or assembler, if you can. Or anything but BASIC.
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Okay, I'll bite. :)
RMS made the GPL,and released gcc under it.
Linus made Linux, and turned it into a full-fledged Unix with the help of gcc. Therefore, he GPL'ed it out of respect to gcc and therefore RMS and GNU.
People looking for a free Unix found this, and it fit a niche, being in the right place at the right time.
This is the story of how that historical event happened.
You might not like the GPL, but it allows people to collaborate in a strict way. It encourages the kind of programming freedom that people used to have before people started programming for money instead of love.
Microsoft has always been too proud to do this, but it makes me feel better knowing that they write bad code for money, and can't write good code out of love. I'm sure there's a moral lesson there. Of course they don't love their customers: they love their money.
It got moderated up because it was a real, on-topic post about the historical events leading up to what Linux has done today. It's a thoughtful post, and remember: Open Source is the popular remarketing of Free Software, taking a different means to the desired end.
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Well, it's had longer to develop, it's been open source, and... nothing has happened.
;)
I'm not saying it'll never help anyone. I'm sure the features it offers will be useful, and perhaps they'll be folded into Linux. Or maybe it will succeed, and we'll all be using The HURD. Or Jini. Or something. Who knows.
However, as it stands right now, I'd say it's the opposite of a success.
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Good question.
:)
I think that under a less restrictive license it still would have become fairly popular, but also could have been merged with the *BSD's. And, of course, would probably have not had as much development in many areas (perhaps ext2, for instance) where code could have been taken from other projects. (or maybe those projects would have gotten improved)
However, a lot of commercial systems would also probably be based on Linux now, like perhaps MacOS X.
I don't think I can second-guess the present much more, though.
My favorite future would be the one where X and Wine became perfect and supplanted Windows and Windows Terminal Server. I'm waiting...
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Let's compare names here:
:)
Unix doesn't stand for anything, it's a pun on MULTICS, which was a failure.
Linux doesn't stand for anything, it's 'Linus Unix', basically.
However, 'The GNU HURD' stands for (pass one) "The GNU's Not Unix HIRD of Unix-Replacing Daemons".
Pass two: The (GNU's Not Unix)'s (HURD of Interfaces Representing Depth) of Unix-Replacing Daemons".
And, of course, it never ends, since you keep expanding GNU, HURD, and HIRD. Thank god GNU didn't make Unix or name Daemons or have any large effect on the English language. Make it stop! This is 8 billion times worse than anyone asking "How do you pronounce Linux".
...and, the HURD is a failure, so far. Everyone likes the system tools, though. Why? It's Unix. (I know. "GNU's Not Unix". You can shut up now) Ask me what the name of the utility means, and I can tell you.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Somewhere between none and minix.
Linus wrote Linux because he wanted a free Unix for the PC. If he just distributed binaries instead of opening the source, anyone could have gotten a free Unix that would run on *his* machine, one cheap 386 in Finland. If they wanted more than that, they'd have to request features, or pay him, or something.
At which point they could go out and buy SunOS, or Xenix, or work on making BSD free, or hack Minix or something.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Waste time on geek girls and porn stars! Find yourself a geek girl pornstar! Asia Carrera, are you listening? :)
But seriously, my girlfriend is somewhat geeky, maybe not as bad as I am, but I like it when she knows what I'm talking about. Being geeky doesn't mean being competitive (I'm not), it doesn't mean being obsessed with computers (she's isn't really, unless you count computer games, but many non-geeky people share that flaw), and it doesn't mean being unable to communicate with people or being unable to express yourself.
Some of your advice is good, but I don't need a woman who will simply accept that I'm different, get in the kitchen, and make me some pie. I think that relationship would be missing something.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Well, we'd love to help you. :)
I'm curious, specifically what do you need from PhotoShop that The Gimp doesn't do?
A more recent version of CorelDraw that runs under Linux should be released, but I wouldn't be too surprised if CorelDraw for Windows ran under Wine.
WordPerfect 8 and StarOffice are both free for non-commercial use, and do a pretty good job. I like WordPerfect better from a resource utilization standpoint, but StarOffice does a good job of replacing the Office suite of programs.
I wouldn't mind seeing more commercial programs for Linux, it's just more incentive for the free people to write free replacements, and the non-free people to switch to Linux.
I'd love it if The Gimp incorporated some of the functionality of Fractal Image Painter, which it looks like this Amiga program does. Maybe that's why it's $99...
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Last I heard, JWZ had given up on Mozilla out of frustration. He was being hard on himself for not having a product out yet, and he didn't feel bad about leaving Netscape. (after what it had become, merged with AOL and all) Seeing as how Marc left, I'd say he was right. :)
He's still alive, though. He's posted to slashdot since he left Netscape/AOL on April Fools Day, and updated xscreensaver, and stuff. As to what he's doing, I don't know. Go check alt.fan.jwz or something.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
I loved Catch That Goblin!
I have the mod, (but if that was Future Crew, then it was probably Purple Motion...) I don't think I ever saw the demo. I'll have to search for that...
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
First, Microsoft never 'endorsed' FreeBSD. They just can't make NT perform as well. ;)
:) This goes for all Unix implementations, and doubly so for SCO, DGUX, and HP/UX (because they're freaky).
Second, that pioneer/settler quote also works well for Microsoft. Chilling, really. The people who don't innovate win? I hope it doesn't work that way. Of course there's a big advantage to maintaining a stable system, but that shouldn't mean that you can't invent anything. BSD used to be the 'development arm' of Unix. It looks like Linux has pretty much taken over this role.
Oh, and to all those people talking about "Unix heritage": Unix is a standard nowadays. Whoever can implement it best, wins. (and those who don't are doomed to reinvent it) Any code that matters in FreeBSD has been rewritten from scratch (to be free), therefore it's as much Unix as any good Unix clone is. (and less so wherever it isn't compliant to one of the three+ major standards.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Protecting minors from Comdex? Come on.
He's 17, that's old enough to see R-rated movies. He can go see Eyes Wide Shut and he can't get into a computer show? Yeah, right. I agree, they need to get with reality here.
Remember, in 1993 we had high-school kids writing the most beautiful graphics demos in assembler ever. And throughout our history, it's been high school kids and college drop-outs driving the industry. Microsoft, Apple, you name it. Computer nerds with free time always make a difference, and if you don't support those, you are not supporting innovation.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
:) I'm sorry, it isn't very polite to compare people to Katz on the basis of one article.
Your price comparisons seemed realistic, at least. I don't see too many real world estimates these days... (or for that matter real world benchmarks. hmm.)
However, now that you have a slashdot account, feel free to jump into the fray, it's fun!
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.