Microsoft does not support an official way to run multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same system. This is only really an issue for web developers who need to test their websites in older versions of IE. The closest they come to "blessing" any method (short of testing on different computers) is to recommend running each version of IE in a virtual machine.
Now they're restricting virtual machines, forcing people who want to use the recommended solution to get the more expensive version of the OS.
This won't have much immediate effect. For one thing, Vista will ship with the newest version of IE, so unless you're using Win2k as your host OS, your guest systems will be older versions of Windows without the restriction. For another, it's actually easier to use the unofficial solution to run alternate versions of IE (though it's got its own drawbacks).
Plus, there is this thing about Trademark law. If you don't actively police it, you can lose the right to the mark.
Of course, they can actively police it *and* grant permission to use it. That didn't work in this case, because the conditions Mozilla placed on that permission weren't acceptable to Debian.
Also, I seem to recall something in the DFSG such that licenses *must* be transferable to derived products. I suspect Mozilla's trademark license would have been specific to Debian, and therefore not qualify for the DFSG.
It happened when Firefox became mainstream. According to geek rule A45-124.7 Firefox must now be considered evil.
Actually, you may have a point there. But it's not just geeks. It's any counterculture. Look at indie music -- once an unknown band becomes a mainstream hit, suddenly they've sold out and are beneath contempt.
Some subsets of our culture have an attitude that quality is inversely proportional to popularity. Others have the opposite tendency.
The article brings up an interesting question: to what extent does having multiple choices "split the vote" (as the article put it)? Let's take two scenarios:
Choose between IE and Firefox.
Choose between IE, Firefox, Opera, IceWeasel, and Flock.
Is someone more likely to choose IE in scenario 2 than scenario 1?
Possibly yes, if the paradox of choice holds true. If the number of options paralyze your decision, you'll be more likely to stick with the status quo... which for Windows users means Internet Explorer."
Should proponents of alternative browsers pick one to rally behind? If so, should it be Firefox? Would it be worth voting third-party (so to speak), but pooling resources to campaign for the lead challenger?
the TV show from the '60s was based on the case of Sam Sheppard.
Not to mention Les Misérables, although that has more to do with the lone inspector obsessively chasing one fugitive through the years than with the initial criminal case.
At least Gerard though he was pursuing a killer, not a guy who stole a loaf of bread 20 years earlier.
I assume they meant that they saw his arrest coming.
I'd assume the same thing.
When I was in college, I had a girlfriend who was majoring in criminology. According to her professors, a huge percentage of murders are actually perpetrated by people who know the victim. Who's closer than a spouse? (And if someone else is closer, you've got a suspect *and* a motive.)
So here you have an estranged marriage, and the wife disappears. It's a no-brainer that the cops are going to at least investigate the husband.
Site 1: Hyperborea. Mix of personal website and comic book fan site. Lots of traffic to the comic book section. General audience, but still higher-than-typical Firefox and Opera usage. MSIE: 69.7% Firefox: 22.4% Safari: 3.4% Opera: 1.2%
Correction: In following links elsewhere in this discussion, I've discovered that WindowMaker is still around and has moved to www.windowmaker.info. (Now I know *two* legit.info domains!) The latest snapshot is dated March 2006, but that's better than the several years I remembered.
Interestingly enough, on disk the JDK does take up about 100 MB (after decompressing). This is going by the contents of/usr/lib/jvm on a system with the Java 1.5 JDK.
They also can obtain the system's settings on how to handle different file types, and program access to email, the root account, preferred applications, and the screensaver.
As an example, I run a GNOME desktop with KMail as my primary email application and a locally-installed Firefox (i.e. not the distro-provided one) as my primary web browser. As things are, I not only had to to tell GNOME that KMail and Firefox are my email and web apps, but I had to track down the KDE control center (which isn't in the menus under Fedora's GNOME config) in order to tell KDE that Firefox was my preferred browser. Otherwise, KMail would try to load everything in Konqueror, because it uses the KDE settings even when running under GNOME.
Targeting an app to Portland instead of to GNOME or KDE would let the app pick up the settings from the desktop the user is actually running (as long as the desktop used the Portland API).
Given that I haven't seen an updated version of WindowMaker in years, and even www.windowmaker.org seems to be dead (it's been unreachable for weeks, maybe months), I'd guess the chances of WindowMaker implementing the Portland API are slim to none.
Bluecurve is basically a disguise: you set up KDE and GNOME so that they look the same. It's purely aesthetic.
Portland is about communication -- getting GNOME and KDE apps to talk to the opposing desktop more reliably.
Example: both GNOME and KDE provide screensavers. Suppose you have a media application that wants to disable the screensaver while it's playing. Now suppose the app is a KDE app, but you're running it under GNOME (or vice versa). Portland makes it simple for the KDE app to contact the GNOME screensaver.
It's an abstraction layer. You tell your apps to target services through Portland, and Portland will contact whichever service is actually running. Theoretically more desktop environments could be set up to provide the potland APIs, allowing a GNOME app to contact the XFCE screensaver, and so on.
The one I kept getting was "Adora." Or worse, "Adoro." I don't know how they managed to mangle the pronunciation that bad... it took me a while to figure out what they were asking about!
Debian has policies in place and if they start making exceptions they have to make them for everyone.
Why? What would obligate Debian to make even one more exception, never mind exceptions for everyone who asks them?
That's a slippery slope argument -- a logical fallacy.
At most, it would encourage others to ask for exceptions, but Debian would be free to keep refusing them.
Debian making an exception to the DFSG for Mozilla would no more obligate them to let other groups bypass the policy than Ubuntu's exception for Firefox from their no-new-versions security policy obligates Ubuntu to ship new versions of other software instead of backporting patches.
Besides, if they let everyone do it, it wouldn't be an exception, would it?
Mozilla has exactly that. There's a compile switch that lets you choose between an officially branded Firefox with the official name, icons and logos, or an unofficial version with the name of your choice and a generic icon.
The "problem" was that Debian didn't want to use this switch and go the unofficial route. Instead, they wrote a patch that would mix-and-match the official name with the unofficial icons and logos. Mozilla, having consulted their lawyers, said "Wait, you can't do that! It has to be one way or the other." They went back and forth, and finally Debian settled on going all unofficial.
cbeard's post suggests that Ubuntu has made a similar agreement with Mozilla as the agreements that Red Hat and Novell have (which is why you'll see a full branded Firefox in SuSE and Fedora). But Ubuntu folks are working on an IceWeasel icon.
Anyone know what's up with Ubuntu? Are they going to pull official Firefox releases, or are they going to pull IceWeasel straight from Debian?
Thanks for the tip! The updater couldn't get past 0.7.9.3, probably because it's the latest version on addons.mozilla.org. But going to the extension's home page (double-checked, since y'know, installing software from random Slashdot postings is a bit risky -- no offense) does indeed show a newer version, which is quite happy to install on Firefox 2.0!
Slashdot Mirror
Pshaw! Everyone knows Slashdotters never actually read the articles! They should be perfectly safe!
Microsoft does not support an official way to run multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same system. This is only really an issue for web developers who need to test their websites in older versions of IE. The closest they come to "blessing" any method (short of testing on different computers) is to recommend running each version of IE in a virtual machine.
Now they're restricting virtual machines, forcing people who want to use the recommended solution to get the more expensive version of the OS.
This won't have much immediate effect. For one thing, Vista will ship with the newest version of IE, so unless you're using Win2k as your host OS, your guest systems will be older versions of Windows without the restriction. For another, it's actually easier to use the unofficial solution to run alternate versions of IE (though it's got its own drawbacks).
Something to think about, though.
Of course, they can actively police it *and* grant permission to use it. That didn't work in this case, because the conditions Mozilla placed on that permission weren't acceptable to Debian.
Also, I seem to recall something in the DFSG such that licenses *must* be transferable to derived products. I suspect Mozilla's trademark license would have been specific to Debian, and therefore not qualify for the DFSG.
Actually, you may have a point there. But it's not just geeks. It's any counterculture. Look at indie music -- once an unknown band becomes a mainstream hit, suddenly they've sold out and are beneath contempt.
Some subsets of our culture have an attitude that quality is inversely proportional to popularity. Others have the opposite tendency.
s/IceWeasel/K-Meleon/ in the example scenario. The point isn't IceWeasel, the point is the number of options.
If you switch to IceWeasel, the terrorists^Wmonopolists win!
The article brings up an interesting question: to what extent does having multiple choices "split the vote" (as the article put it)? Let's take two scenarios:
Is someone more likely to choose IE in scenario 2 than scenario 1?
Possibly yes, if the paradox of choice holds true. If the number of options paralyze your decision, you'll be more likely to stick with the status quo... which for Windows users means Internet Explorer."
Should proponents of alternative browsers pick one to rally behind? If so, should it be Firefox? Would it be worth voting third-party (so to speak), but pooling resources to campaign for the lead challenger?
Not to mention Les Misérables, although that has more to do with the lone inspector obsessively chasing one fugitive through the years than with the initial criminal case.
At least Gerard though he was pursuing a killer, not a guy who stole a loaf of bread 20 years earlier.
I'd assume the same thing.
When I was in college, I had a girlfriend who was majoring in criminology. According to her professors, a huge percentage of murders are actually perpetrated by people who know the victim. Who's closer than a spouse? (And if someone else is closer, you've got a suspect *and* a motive.)
So here you have an estranged marriage, and the wife disappears. It's a no-brainer that the cops are going to at least investigate the husband.
You want 'em, you got 'em.
Site 1: Hyperborea. Mix of personal website and comic book fan site. Lots of traffic to the comic book section. General audience, but still higher-than-typical Firefox and Opera usage.
MSIE: 69.7%
Firefox: 22.4%
Safari: 3.4%
Opera: 1.2%
Site 1: Alternative Browser Alliance. Highly tech-oriented.
Firefox: 42%
MSIE: 42%
Opera: 7.7%
Safari: 2.3%
The results aren't terribly surprising, given that Site 2's audience is made up of the people most likely to use a third-party browser.
Correction: In following links elsewhere in this discussion, I've discovered that WindowMaker is still around and has moved to www.windowmaker.info. (Now I know *two* legit .info domains!) The latest snapshot is dated March 2006, but that's better than the several years I remembered.
Interestingly enough, on disk the JDK does take up about 100 MB (after decompressing). This is going by the contents of /usr/lib/jvm on a system with the Java 1.5 JDK.
I think the next sentence is more important:
As an example, I run a GNOME desktop with KMail as my primary email application and a locally-installed Firefox (i.e. not the distro-provided one) as my primary web browser. As things are, I not only had to to tell GNOME that KMail and Firefox are my email and web apps, but I had to track down the KDE control center (which isn't in the menus under Fedora's GNOME config) in order to tell KDE that Firefox was my preferred browser. Otherwise, KMail would try to load everything in Konqueror, because it uses the KDE settings even when running under GNOME.
Targeting an app to Portland instead of to GNOME or KDE would let the app pick up the settings from the desktop the user is actually running (as long as the desktop used the Portland API).
Given that I haven't seen an updated version of WindowMaker in years, and even www.windowmaker.org seems to be dead (it's been unreachable for weeks, maybe months), I'd guess the chances of WindowMaker implementing the Portland API are slim to none.
Bluecurve is basically a disguise: you set up KDE and GNOME so that they look the same. It's purely aesthetic.
Portland is about communication -- getting GNOME and KDE apps to talk to the opposing desktop more reliably.
Example: both GNOME and KDE provide screensavers. Suppose you have a media application that wants to disable the screensaver while it's playing. Now suppose the app is a KDE app, but you're running it under GNOME (or vice versa). Portland makes it simple for the KDE app to contact the GNOME screensaver.
It's an abstraction layer. You tell your apps to target services through Portland, and Portland will contact whichever service is actually running. Theoretically more desktop environments could be set up to provide the potland APIs, allowing a GNOME app to contact the XFCE screensaver, and so on.
The one I kept getting was "Adora." Or worse, "Adoro." I don't know how they managed to mangle the pronunciation that bad... it took me a while to figure out what they were asking about!
I didn't say they should make that exception -- just that "If I make an exception for you, I'll have to make an exception for everyone" is utter B.S.
Why? What would obligate Debian to make even one more exception, never mind exceptions for everyone who asks them?
That's a slippery slope argument -- a logical fallacy.
At most, it would encourage others to ask for exceptions, but Debian would be free to keep refusing them.
Debian making an exception to the DFSG for Mozilla would no more obligate them to let other groups bypass the policy than Ubuntu's exception for Firefox from their no-new-versions security policy obligates Ubuntu to ship new versions of other software instead of backporting patches.
Besides, if they let everyone do it, it wouldn't be an exception, would it?
Yep. Mozilla has been on both sides -- they had to rename Phoenix to Firebird, then Firebird to Firefox.
And Debian's been on both sides, too, when they forced the DCC to drop "Debian" (originally it was the "Debian Common Core Alliance.")
Mozilla has exactly that. There's a compile switch that lets you choose between an officially branded Firefox with the official name, icons and logos, or an unofficial version with the name of your choice and a generic icon.
The "problem" was that Debian didn't want to use this switch and go the unofficial route. Instead, they wrote a patch that would mix-and-match the official name with the unofficial icons and logos. Mozilla, having consulted their lawyers, said "Wait, you can't do that! It has to be one way or the other." They went back and forth, and finally Debian settled on going all unofficial.
Sorry, looks like I picked the wrong tab to paste in there. This IceWeaselIcon wiki page has several drafts.
I assume you mean Galeon or Epiphany. (Hmm, does Debian ship with WINE?)
So you can now read syslogs in Lucinda Console, huh?
cbeard's post suggests that Ubuntu has made a similar agreement with Mozilla as the agreements that Red Hat and Novell have (which is why you'll see a full branded Firefox in SuSE and Fedora). But Ubuntu folks are working on an IceWeasel icon.
Anyone know what's up with Ubuntu? Are they going to pull official Firefox releases, or are they going to pull IceWeasel straight from Debian?
Thanks for the tip! The updater couldn't get past 0.7.9.3, probably because it's the latest version on addons.mozilla.org. But going to the extension's home page (double-checked, since y'know, installing software from random Slashdot postings is a bit risky -- no offense) does indeed show a newer version, which is quite happy to install on Firefox 2.0!