I've read several comments like "time shouldn't be spent on that kind of things" and "we've seen that already (e.g. Loooking Glass)". As one of the two guys responsible for the Metisse project, I'd like to say a few words...
I started playing with application redirection while I was finishing my PhD in 1999. The ideas that led to Metisse are described in the thesis, defended in July 2000. At that time, I was just considering this as an interesting application for videoSpace, a video toolkit I had written during my PhD.
In 2000, Microsoft Research presented the Task Gallery at the CHI conference. Although I don't like it particularly, I was pleased to see that some people were using an application redirection mechanism to explore new window management techniques. The Task Gallery, however, required a modified version of Windows and its source code was not available. So I decided to spend some time to create something that would allow other people to experiment with new window management techniques ("new", not necessarily "3D").
The result of that work was named VideoWorkspace. A paper describing it was presented at a french conference in 2002. A web page in english including images and videos was already available at that time. The source code came a little later (November 2002). Last year, I published another paper on Ametista, a revised version of VideoWorkspace. The source code for this version as well as videos and snapshots have been available for more than a year.
A few months ago, Olivier Chapuis, one of the fvwm developers, took Ametista and mixed it with fvwm and a modified X server (based on Keith Packard's). This is what we now call Metisse.
The goal of all this has always been to allow people to experiment with new window management techniques. Metisse is not a replacement for your existing wm. It's something that will hopefully help us create a replacement. Until recently, VideoWorkspace/Ametista/Metisse was one of the only freely available things that allowed to display existing X Window applications with OpenGL.
To conclude, I'd say: time shouldn't be spent reading press releases from Sun, Microsoft or Apple to know if they will open-source their technologies. I wish more slashdot readers and free software developers could pay attention to what the research community is doing...
Nicolas
Boundaries, new society and freedom
on
At The Crossroads
·
· Score: 1
Someone said about french people against Yahoo France: "They dont seem to understand that things like that usually appear only if you look for them and that it is virtually impossible to stop."
French laws are made by french people for french people (and companies) only. The recent decision against Yahoo France simply reflects the desire of a majority of french people to restrict the development of racist ideologies in their country. This decision is not against the Internet, but against the services provided by Yahoo France to french people. As I said, restrict is the right word, and not stop. This is like speed limits: signs and police patrols can't prevent people to go faster than you want, but if you put enough of them, probably these people will think twice before they do so.
Boundaries... In the US, you have the right to buy a gun. In France, you can buy alcohol anywhere, anytime, at almost any age. In The Netherlands, you can legally buy marijuana under some conditions. These examples reflect the opinions of the people from three different countries. Although they are based on a largely common culture, none of these countries are willing to change their opinion on these examples. And since you can't be in the US, in France and in The Netherlands at the same time, this is usually not a problem.
New society... What J. Katz and others propose when they talk about a "new society" is usually a selection of what they like most from the different existing societies (e.g. both alcohol and marijuana freely available in addition to mp3 files, possibly without guns). There is nothing wrong with this, except that since the Internet is ubiquitous but immaterial, you can't avoid the existing societies (i.e. you're physically always somewhere, and the place matters). So you can't create a new society, but you need to change the existing ones. J. Katz fears that the Internet might be changed by the existing societies that want to impose their laws. He says "Were the founders alive (...), they would find in the Internet many of their values and dreams for a free and democratic society. And they'd fight to keep it that way." Does he mean that the existing societies are not already free and democratic? Although I agree with this for some countries, I don't think this is true for the countries that might "change the Internet" (e.g. US or EU).
Freedom... Laws have been invented so people can live together with a common code. In a democratic society, these laws are not imposed but freely chosen by the people and Justice ensures that they are respected so people can also trust them. Freedom is important, but total freedom (i.e. no law) leads to the law of the jungle where the strongest decides everything [1]. Where is the strength today? Money, media? Where will it be tomorrow? Sometimes I have the bad feeling that people asking for freedom today might just want to be the strongest tomorrow...
X and Motif came out in the late 80s (commercially). The question is not whether Qt or GTk will replace Motif. These three toolkits do the same job: they offer buttons, scrollbars, text widgets and a "drawing area" for everything else.
The question is: do you want to stick to these interaction techniques? Do you want another "desktop" (CDE, MS-Windows or KDE)?
I want more than buttons. More than one mouse. More than "windows" and "desktops".
I think something like Quartz is more interesting, although underused in MacOS X, at least from what I saw in the videos available. This could lead to new interfaces, new interactions (far beyond the "themes" everybody wants and nobody uses...).
Slashdot Mirror
Some guys from Tokyo University have a project on this, called optical camouflage
Hi,
I've read several comments like "time shouldn't be spent on that kind of things" and "we've seen that already (e.g. Loooking Glass)". As one of the two guys responsible for the Metisse project, I'd like to say a few words...
I started playing with application redirection while I was finishing my PhD in 1999. The ideas that led to Metisse are described in the thesis, defended in July 2000. At that time, I was just considering this as an interesting application for videoSpace, a video toolkit I had written during my PhD.
In 2000, Microsoft Research presented the Task Gallery at the CHI conference. Although I don't like it particularly, I was pleased to see that some people were using an application redirection mechanism to explore new window management techniques. The Task Gallery, however, required a modified version of Windows and its source code was not available. So I decided to spend some time to create something that would allow other people to experiment with new window management techniques ("new", not necessarily "3D").
The result of that work was named VideoWorkspace. A paper describing it was presented at a french conference in 2002. A web page in english including images and videos was already available at that time. The source code came a little later (November 2002). Last year, I published another paper on Ametista, a revised version of VideoWorkspace. The source code for this version as well as videos and snapshots have been available for more than a year.
A few months ago, Olivier Chapuis, one of the fvwm developers, took Ametista and mixed it with fvwm and a modified X server (based on Keith Packard's). This is what we now call Metisse.
The goal of all this has always been to allow people to experiment with new window management techniques. Metisse is not a replacement for your existing wm. It's something that will hopefully help us create a replacement. Until recently, VideoWorkspace/Ametista/Metisse was one of the only freely available things that allowed to display existing X Window applications with OpenGL.
To conclude, I'd say: time shouldn't be spent reading press releases from Sun, Microsoft or Apple to know if they will open-source their technologies. I wish more slashdot readers and free software developers could pay attention to what the research community is doing...
Nicolas
Someone said about french people against Yahoo France: "They dont seem to understand that things like that usually appear only if you look for them and that it is virtually impossible to stop."
French laws are made by french people for french people (and companies) only. The recent decision against Yahoo France simply reflects the desire of a majority of french people to restrict the development of racist ideologies in their country. This decision is not against the Internet, but against the services provided by Yahoo France to french people. As I said, restrict is the right word, and not stop. This is like speed limits: signs and police patrols can't prevent people to go faster than you want, but if you put enough of them, probably these people will think twice before they do so.
Boundaries... In the US, you have the right to buy a gun. In France, you can buy alcohol anywhere, anytime, at almost any age. In The Netherlands, you can legally buy marijuana under some conditions. These examples reflect the opinions of the people from three different countries. Although they are based on a largely common culture, none of these countries are willing to change their opinion on these examples. And since you can't be in the US, in France and in The Netherlands at the same time, this is usually not a problem.
New society... What J. Katz and others propose when they talk about a "new society" is usually a selection of what they like most from the different existing societies (e.g. both alcohol and marijuana freely available in addition to mp3 files, possibly without guns). There is nothing wrong with this, except that since the Internet is ubiquitous but immaterial, you can't avoid the existing societies (i.e. you're physically always somewhere, and the place matters). So you can't create a new society, but you need to change the existing ones. J. Katz fears that the Internet might be changed by the existing societies that want to impose their laws. He says "Were the founders alive (...), they would find in the Internet many of their values and dreams for a free and democratic society. And they'd fight to keep it that way." Does he mean that the existing societies are not already free and democratic? Although I agree with this for some countries, I don't think this is true for the countries that might "change the Internet" (e.g. US or EU).
Freedom... Laws have been invented so people can live together with a common code. In a democratic society, these laws are not imposed but freely chosen by the people and Justice ensures that they are respected so people can also trust them. Freedom is important, but total freedom (i.e. no law) leads to the law of the jungle where the strongest decides everything [1]. Where is the strength today? Money, media? Where will it be tomorrow? Sometimes I have the bad feeling that people asking for freedom today might just want to be the strongest tomorrow...
---
Sadly, things which are now happening in Freetown (Sierra Leone) are giving us a terrible and very ironic example of this.
I tink historical testimonies belong to museums (possibly virtual ones), where they can be publicly displayed and explained, and not to auction sites.
The question is: do you want to stick to these interaction techniques? Do you want another "desktop" (CDE, MS-Windows or KDE)?
I want more than buttons. More than one mouse. More than "windows" and "desktops".
I think something like Quartz is more interesting, although underused in MacOS X, at least from what I saw in the videos available. This could lead to new interfaces, new interactions (far beyond the "themes" everybody wants and nobody uses...).