That depends on what you mean by "true innovation":).. Innovation is a business term - hence it really is broad. Technical people seem to only like two kinds of innovation: the "invention"/bright idea, or the innovation based on "new knowledge".
In reality, "bright ideas" account for piddley - most bright ideas rarely become full fledged "products". Innovations based on "new knowledge" are usually most successful, are as you say, rare.
But there are other forms of respectable innovation: those based on demographics, shifting opinions or incongruities between "what is", and "what should be". The iMac is an example of that.
Now, back to the topic at hand: First, check amazon for "Tog on Software Design". It describes a user interface codenamed Starfire that Tog & other digerati were commissioned to create (as a demo) while working at Sun Microsystems. The concepts in that UI were formed by the leading thinkers in this area: Tog, Jakob Nielsen, and Donald Norman [Mr. "Design of Everyday Things"].
Hence, Starfire has a lot of credibility behind it. Of course, it's way ahead of its time. The scenarios described in that book describe levels of integration "akin" to attaching a word processor to a 3D modeller,which I admit is far fetched.
in the book, one of the characters integrates a 3D CAD model onto a spreadsheet with her search on the Internet for determining temperature-ranges for a piece of manufacturing material... oh, and she was blind:) [flashbacks to Sneakers]
As for your AI analogy: you may be more right than you imagine. There are some *key* economists that I know of that view "expert systems" [which could be seen as low-rung AI systems] as the next big thing - few people know about it, few people care about it, but if done properly, they will make a HUGE difference for businesses that can encode "expert procedures" in a computer.
There is no reason a newbie user should have to type: "rpm -ivh kde*"
You simply don't get it. THAT IS command line dependency.
User friendliness means that it doesn't try to have the user conform its reality to the machine, as this is something non-programmers have difficulty doing.
User friendliness goes beyond Windows. It even could go beyong the Mac.
It's about using a metaphor to help the user relate what's going on in the computer to what he/she understands in real life. And if that doesn't work, providing an easy-to-access and understand help system to walk things through.
Linux doesn't have any of that KDE and Gnome right now are simple little environments that doing what Windows & Mac did 8 years ago. All other "really user friendly interfaces" are VAPOR for now.
"Why do I need my Word Processor integrated with my 3D modeller? They are two different, orthogonal applications, with two different interfaces. "
It's attitudes like that that have made application integration the #1 deficiency in almost all existing shrink wrapped and business applications.
"Dumb users" _accomodate_ user interfaces to their lifestyle. Programmers , tend to _assimilate_ interfaces to their lifestyle.
This means that "dumb users" require lots & lots of training in order to use something. This also means that a typical large company with 30+ in-house applications requires the user to memorize 30+ applications plus the multitude of "processes" that take place within those applications (I.e. how to place an order, edit a customer profile, etc.)
This is plainly inefficient. Actually, no, more than that: it's dumb. The concept of the independent "application" is a technological constraint, and from a usability perspective is STUPID.
Read "Tog on Software Design", and you'll get an idea of WHY you'd want a word processer to talk to a 3D modeller. And it *CAN* be done, it just hasn't been done on a wide scale yet - Oliver Sims' book "Business Objects" explains one way of creating a UI integration utopia...
In the end, Tony - as much as Cassius is being pessimistic about Linux's chances of UI integration - he *IS* right - the Mac is the best platform at this today, though it is a long way from what "could be".
And I'm a bit more optimistic: I think Linux "could" have this next-generation kind of integration - the only problem is, I don't think the hackers at large will agree to develop for the underlying framework. Such a framework would go beyond what KDE & GNOME seem to be targeting, so it won't be the "in-thing" to do....
I'm talking about Good and Easy. NeXTStep was Good and Easy. MacOS X is the next generation of NeXTStep.
Furthmore, I find your argument to be rather flawed. What does it MATTER if graphics slow things down? As in all things with engineering, it is a TRADE OFF between asthetics and performance.
You're also toeing the line dangerously close to Godwin's law, with your silly rants about "Sovietism". Grow up, please.
I like FreeBSD. However, your "several years ahead" of the old BSD 4.4 system argument is flawed, considering MacOS X uses FreeBSD (and NetBSD) code, plus its own enhancements drawn from almost TEN YEARS of experience with Mach (the NeXT boys DO work at Apple now, remember?)
Judging things on technical grounds must be seperate from religious grounds. Don't like the proprietary GUI? fine. But don't start telling me that "it's not easy to use", or it's technically inferior. You have already shattered your credibility in claiming that FreeBSD is as easy to use as MacOS - it plainly isn't.
I'm not going to get into a Mac vs. PC debate, either. I've never owned a Mac.
kfm is probably the best alternative to Netscape, but it still is no where near ready to be a permanent replacement.
Opera is coming soon, but it will be written with Qt.
on the bright side, Qt 2.0 will be free, so silly anti-Qt arguments will hopefully will diminish [unless of course, you just don't like the feel of it].
The Gecko release from the Netscape Developer site is probably a fair amount older than the one in Mozilla M3... Mozilla M3 renders that CSS testpage perfectly, as you say.
Bob Glass is well known for his "reality check"-like debunking. His book on "Software Creativity" is a classic [though sadly out of print, I believe.]
Recently he wrote an article for IEEE Software, sort of trying to debunk a lot of the Linux hype going around... if you have an IEEE membership, check it out. I thought it was a fairly good article.
i can type my thoughts more quickly without distractions... table of contents/paragraph spacing/fonts are all useless when you're trying to hammer out ideas.
Remember how the Halloween documents from microsoft talked about the potential "lack of innovation" coming out of the open source community?
Isn't it a twing ironic that the Gnome component model is based upon OLE2?
OLE2 is a decent piece of technology, though it is/was rather complicated to use. The thing is - it was developed over 6 years ago.
Wouldn't it be nice if people went back to the drawing board to think about what _fundamentally_ should be done with regards to how software components & user interfaces interrelate?
The only stabs at advanced UI software integration have been OpenDoc, and Taligent CommonPoint. Both were technically sound, but both failed.
OpenDoc for business/political reasons (Java killed it - ask IBM & Apple) and asthetic reasons [not EVERYTHING in this world is a document].
Taligent failed because it was ahead of its team (it was fat & slow) and it was released in 1995, coincidentally the same time as another OS that we all know about.
Why hasn't anyone tried to learn from the failure of these models? OpenDoc is a free download from IBM's site, with some source code (none of the internals yet i don't think).
Intead of starting with OLE2, wouldn't it have been better to start from "what is needed", and then pick & choose from what OLE2, OpenDoc, OS/2 SOM, etc. did well? There could potentially be so much more to a GUI than the compound documents/object linking & embedding that OLE2 provides...
Now, I know talk is cheap & actions are where its at. (I do intend to act on this eventually. ) I just think it would be great if the open source model came out with something as lucrative as a next-gen GUI, instead of a commercial company.
But, for whatever reasons, open source mavens seem to have difficulties with understanding how the common user "thinks" with regards to a GUI. This isn't a flame, it's an observation. For this reason, my bets are on the company, for now.
within 5 years, desktops (hopefully) will be a lot more advanced than what gnome & kde are architected for.
within 15 years, desktops will be irrelevant.
Furthermore, with all of the philosophical wars about vi vs. emacs, bsd vs. linux, and kde vs. gnome, I think you're being a little optimistic about the "one desktop utopia". the Linux crowd wants diversity - and mainstreamers aren't going to change that because the Linux crowd *develops* this stuff. Gnome isn't going to take over unless all the KDE people jump off a cliff - not going to happen.
this also tends to lead to attitudes like "Oh, it has a 'K' in it - it must be evil!"... etc:)
nothing really is "meant" for gnome or kde, imho. KDE is just Qt, drag'n'drop, WM hints & mime types right now, Gnome is similar.
of course, when the component model for each environment because usable, sure then we'll see some dissimilarities. but for now, it's just a bunch of libraries.. it's easy to have both sets on your system.
Hmm.. I don't remember getting a shockwave request on the front page when I surfed there under Linux... I'll have to check again.
Also note that Shockwave is considered a dream to most web artists.. I think it's very useful, though I just wish they'd hurry with a Linux port (I think there was a beta version of Flash, donno if they released it generally yet)
Actually, I agree with this assessment. Rick Belluzo looks to be a good CEO, but I think he didn't like the SGI "mystique". He's a back-to-basics guy and his job is to move SGI away from the elite and into the mainstream where it can actually make money.
Do I like this? Not at all. Why buy from SGI, when we have HP, Sun or IBM?
Note that I don't particularily see this attitude in the website - just in the overall remake of the company.
I really hope people that write GTK-based apps in the future will stop naming their creations "GTKwidget" or "Gthing", etc. It's about as silly as "Kfoo" or "QtBar". Prefixes are rather unnecessary.
There are so many toolkits available for X that we are *NOT* going to have a common look and feel standard, period. Linux is about diversity - we don't have to reinvent the wheel once for every toolkit.
his definition of "coder" is the funniest thing I've read... Nice to know that all the "coders" working for Microsoft are "devising evil hacking methods.."
- he's talking about "crackers", not "code hackers". [deal with it, the h/cr debate is never going to die, sort of like "GIFF" vs. "JIFF".:) ]
- he's a nut. Do any of you remember the controversy over the paper he originally wrote? I remember a slashdot article linking to it - it was ridiculous. It said that crackers were sexually abused people from broken homes... huh? When I was younger (around 12/13 years old) I dabbled in that stuff, but it was because it was interesting, not because I was abused...
- He's doing a grad student, and was a former cop. A little biased.
Slashdot Mirror
That depends on what you mean by "true innovation" :).. Innovation is a business term - hence it really is broad. Technical people seem to only like two kinds of innovation: the "invention"/bright idea, or the innovation based on "new knowledge".
,which I admit is far fetched.
:) [flashbacks to Sneakers]
In reality, "bright ideas" account for piddley - most bright ideas rarely become full fledged "products". Innovations based on "new knowledge" are usually most successful, are as you say, rare.
But there are other forms of respectable innovation: those based on demographics, shifting opinions or incongruities between "what is", and "what should be". The iMac is an example of that.
Now, back to the topic at hand: First, check amazon for "Tog on Software Design". It describes a user interface codenamed Starfire that Tog & other digerati were commissioned to create (as a demo) while working at Sun Microsystems. The concepts in that UI were formed by the leading thinkers in this area: Tog, Jakob Nielsen, and Donald Norman [Mr. "Design of Everyday Things"].
Hence, Starfire has a lot of credibility behind it. Of course, it's way ahead of its time. The scenarios described in that book describe levels of integration "akin" to attaching a word processor to a 3D modeller
in the book, one of the characters integrates a 3D CAD model onto a spreadsheet with her search on the Internet for determining temperature-ranges for a piece of manufacturing material... oh, and she was blind
As for your AI analogy: you may be more right than you imagine. There are some *key* economists that I know of that view "expert systems" [which could be seen as low-rung AI systems] as the next big thing - few people know about it, few people care about it, but if done properly, they will make a HUGE difference for businesses that can encode "expert procedures" in a computer.
There is no reason a newbie user should have to type: "rpm -ivh kde*"
You simply don't get it. THAT IS command line dependency.
User friendliness means that it doesn't try to have the user conform its reality to the machine, as this is something non-programmers have difficulty doing.
User friendliness goes beyond Windows. It even could go beyong the Mac.
It's about using a metaphor to help the user relate what's going on in the computer to what he/she understands in real life. And if that doesn't work, providing an easy-to-access and understand help system to walk things through.
Linux doesn't have any of that KDE and Gnome right now are simple little environments that doing what Windows & Mac did 8 years ago. All other "really user friendly interfaces" are VAPOR for now.
"Why do I need my Word Processor integrated with my 3D modeller? They are two different,
orthogonal applications, with two different interfaces. "
It's attitudes like that that have made application integration the #1 deficiency in almost all existing shrink wrapped and business applications.
"Dumb users" _accomodate_ user interfaces to their lifestyle. Programmers , tend to _assimilate_ interfaces to their lifestyle.
This means that "dumb users" require lots & lots of training in order to use something. This also means that a typical large company with 30+ in-house applications requires the user to memorize 30+ applications plus the multitude of "processes" that take place within those applications (I.e. how to place an order, edit a customer profile, etc.)
This is plainly inefficient. Actually, no, more than that: it's dumb. The concept of the independent "application" is a technological constraint, and from a usability perspective is STUPID.
Read "Tog on Software Design", and you'll get an idea of WHY you'd want a word processer to talk to a 3D modeller. And it *CAN* be done, it just hasn't been done on a wide scale yet - Oliver Sims' book "Business Objects" explains one way of creating a UI integration utopia...
In the end, Tony - as much as Cassius is being pessimistic about Linux's chances of UI integration - he *IS* right - the Mac is the best platform at this today, though it is a long way from what "could be".
And I'm a bit more optimistic: I think Linux "could" have this next-generation kind of integration - the only problem is, I don't think the hackers at large will agree to develop for the underlying framework. Such a framework would go beyond what KDE & GNOME seem to be targeting, so it won't be the "in-thing" to do....
it's not about measuring SPECIFIC people, it's about estimating a new project in a specific area of the company...
I'm talking about Good and Easy.
NeXTStep was Good and Easy.
MacOS X is the next generation of NeXTStep.
Furthmore, I find your argument to be rather flawed. What does it MATTER if graphics slow things down? As in all things with engineering, it is a TRADE OFF between asthetics and performance.
You're also toeing the line dangerously close to Godwin's law, with your silly rants about "Sovietism". Grow up, please.
I like FreeBSD. However, your "several years ahead" of the old BSD 4.4 system argument is flawed, considering MacOS X uses FreeBSD (and NetBSD) code, plus its own enhancements drawn from almost TEN YEARS of experience with Mach (the NeXT boys DO work at Apple now, remember?)
Judging things on technical grounds must be seperate from religious grounds. Don't like the proprietary GUI? fine. But don't start telling me that "it's not easy to use", or it's technically inferior. You have already shattered your credibility in claiming that FreeBSD is as easy to use as MacOS - it plainly isn't.
I'm not going to get into a Mac vs. PC debate, either. I've never owned a Mac.
most web developers WANT to switch to pure CSS. The whole reason we have these CSS-intensive tests is because web developers want it.
It is only a matter of time before we're going to have complex CSS, especially in controlled environments like Intranets.
kfm is probably the best alternative to Netscape, but it still is no where near ready to be a permanent replacement.
Opera is coming soon, but it will be written with Qt.
on the bright side, Qt 2.0 will be free, so silly anti-Qt arguments will hopefully will diminish [unless of course, you just don't like the feel of it].
Netscape 3 is HORRIBLY unstable :)
The Gecko release from the Netscape Developer site is probably a fair amount older than the one in Mozilla M3 ... Mozilla M3 renders that CSS testpage perfectly, as you say.
.. it's called Mac OS X Server.
If you want a free OS I really think SuSE has an easy setup - easier than Redhat's, actually.
Bob Glass is well known for his "reality check"-like debunking. His book on "Software Creativity" is a classic [though sadly out of print, I believe.]
Recently he wrote an article for IEEE Software, sort of trying to debunk a lot of the Linux hype going around... if you have an IEEE membership, check it out. I thought it was a fairly good article.
well i don't _lay it out_ in vi, of course! :)
i can type my thoughts more quickly without distractions... table of contents/paragraph spacing/fonts are all useless when you're trying to hammer out ideas.
seconded.
.sig :)
BTW - really cool
Yeah, I figured that's what OpenParts was about. I'll have to look deeper into it.
Remember how the Halloween documents from microsoft talked about the potential "lack of innovation" coming out of the open source community?
Isn't it a twing ironic that the Gnome component model is based upon OLE2?
OLE2 is a decent piece of technology, though it is/was rather complicated to use. The thing is - it was developed over 6 years ago.
Wouldn't it be nice if people went back to the drawing board to think about what _fundamentally_ should be done with regards to how software components & user interfaces interrelate?
The only stabs at advanced UI software integration have been OpenDoc, and Taligent CommonPoint. Both were technically sound, but both failed.
OpenDoc for business/political reasons (Java killed it - ask IBM & Apple) and asthetic reasons [not EVERYTHING in this world is a document].
Taligent failed because it was ahead of its team (it was fat & slow) and it was released in 1995, coincidentally the same time as another OS that we all know about.
Why hasn't anyone tried to learn from the failure of these models? OpenDoc is a free download from IBM's site, with some source code (none of the internals yet i don't think).
Intead of starting with OLE2, wouldn't it have been better to start from "what is needed", and then pick & choose from what OLE2, OpenDoc, OS/2 SOM, etc. did well? There could potentially be so much more to a GUI than the compound documents/object linking & embedding that OLE2 provides...
Now, I know talk is cheap & actions are where its at. (I do intend to act on this eventually. ) I just think it would be great if the open source model came out with something as lucrative as a next-gen GUI, instead of a commercial company.
But, for whatever reasons, open source mavens seem to have difficulties with understanding how the common user "thinks" with regards to a GUI. This isn't a flame, it's an observation. For this reason, my bets are on the company, for now.
within 5 years, desktops (hopefully) will be a lot more advanced than what gnome & kde are architected for.
within 15 years, desktops will be irrelevant.
Furthermore, with all of the philosophical wars about vi vs. emacs, bsd vs. linux, and kde vs. gnome, I think you're being a little optimistic about the "one desktop utopia". the Linux crowd wants diversity - and mainstreamers aren't going to change that because the Linux crowd *develops* this stuff. Gnome isn't going to take over unless all the KDE people jump off a cliff - not going to happen.
this also tends to lead to attitudes like "Oh, it has a 'K' in it - it must be evil!" ... etc :)
nothing really is "meant" for gnome or kde, imho. KDE is just Qt, drag'n'drop, WM hints & mime types right now, Gnome is similar.
of course, when the component model for each environment because usable, sure then we'll see some dissimilarities. but for now, it's just a bunch of libraries.. it's easy to have both sets on your system.
'nuff said :)
Hotmail has been known to run Solaris; they tried NT - it didn't work out.
From SGI's point of view... its traditional audience isn't making it money... so it wants a new one.
Is this a good thing? No, but it's probably their only real option, besides bankruptcy.
Hmm.. I don't remember getting a shockwave request on the front page when I surfed there under Linux... I'll have to check again.
Also note that Shockwave is considered a dream to most web artists.. I think it's very useful, though I just wish they'd hurry with a Linux port (I think there was a beta version of Flash, donno if they released it generally yet)
Actually, I agree with this assessment. Rick Belluzo looks to be a good CEO, but I think he didn't like the SGI "mystique". He's a back-to-basics guy and his job is to move SGI away from the elite and into the mainstream where it can actually make money.
Do I like this? Not at all. Why buy from SGI, when we have HP, Sun or IBM?
Note that I don't particularily see this attitude in the website - just in the overall remake of the company.
I really hope people that write GTK-based apps in the future will stop naming their creations "GTKwidget" or "Gthing", etc. It's about as silly as "Kfoo" or "QtBar". Prefixes are rather unnecessary.
There are so many toolkits available for X that we are *NOT* going to have a common look and feel standard, period. Linux is about diversity - we don't have to reinvent the wheel once for every toolkit.
his definition of "coder" is the funniest thing I've read... Nice to know that all the "coders" working for Microsoft are "devising evil hacking methods.."
- he's talking about "crackers", not "code hackers". [deal with it, the h/cr debate is never going to die, sort of like "GIFF" vs. "JIFF". :) ]
- he's a nut. Do any of you remember the controversy over the paper he originally wrote? I remember a slashdot article linking to it - it was ridiculous. It said that crackers were sexually abused people from broken homes... huh? When I was younger (around 12/13 years old) I dabbled in that stuff, but it was because it was interesting, not because I was abused...
- He's doing a grad student, and was a former cop. A little biased.