GNOME bashers are all forgetting something
on
GNOME 1.0 Released
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· Score: 1
I think this is an excellent point, and something I didn't think about when worrying over the last few days if GNOME was "ready enough". Hopefully it's beyond the point of having major embarrasing bugs, even if there are a few minor ones floating around. ----------
I agree, head hunters can be extremely useful, but you have to be careful who you work with. I work as a contract programmer and without head hunters my life would be extremely more difficult. Like anything else, there's good ones and bad ones; you just have to learn how to pick which one's which. ----------
I'm a little worried too. The last few releases have definitely made very big improvements in stability, but the big version number change from 0.3 to 0.99 gave me the willies. I think it won't be too bad, though, things definitely seem to be progressing very nicely. ----------
I don't know if that bug has been fixed, but I do know that there were a ton of bugs in 0.99.3 that have since been fixed. So I would really recommend upgrading. I did try enlightenment briefly with some of the later releases, and did not experience what you mentioned. ----------
If RMS isn't the embodiment of an old school hacker, then I don't know what is. I think RMS has some views that are far more extreme than many hackers, but RMS is definitely one of the remains of an era... he is certainly a lot more of an "old school" hacker than Linus, just by the fact that he's been hacking around for probably at least a decade longer than Linus. ----------
I disagree. Linux being a great OS is inextricably linked to those "idiots" with the penguin dolls. They are the reason it is a great OS: they are the coders and users; it is their enthusiasm that has made it great, and it is also their enthusiasm that makes them extreme.
I think people have a valid point that the Linux community might benefit from a more "mature" and less geeky, extremist image. But I don't think the extremists should be written off as idiots, nor disassociated from the success of Linux.
Personally, I'm not as worried about the geeky image in this event, because in my opinion this event should be targeted more at greedy lawyers with "CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT" written on their foreheads, not at PHBs.
Oh yeah, if I lived in Washington, I would have been there. Can't vouch for any penguin attire though.:) ----------
I haven't upgraded to 2.2, but I did notice that in the SRPMS ftp directory, there is an update to dhcpcd. You might want to try upgrading that, and probably the rest of the packages there too. ----------
I disagree, I think RMS most definitely needs to be mentioned. You can make a very convincing argument that Linux would not be anywhere it is today without RMS, because without RMS we wouldn't have the GPL nor the GNU tools. The GPL and GNU software are a major foundation of Linux and its success.
Think about it: RMS embodies a culture of sharing, of openness, that most good hackers and programmers that I've met share. Not everyone is as extreme as RMS, but most programmers that truly love programming for its own sake understand where he's coming from. RMS has helped kept this tradition alive. You don't have to be as extreme as he is, but his extreme views are necessary because overall they inspire people to be more open and collaborative than they would otherwise.
Even if you disagree with him philosophically, technically RMS is responsible for GNU, and that in and of itself is a remarkable achievement. Without GNU, Linux just wouldn't have made it this far so fast. Heck forget Linux; GNU's contribution (and thus RMS') to UNIX software development is immense.
I understand why people have a problem with him---I've worked with him in the past, and I've seen his stuborness firsthand---but I definitely think RMS is not only one of the great hackers of our time, but also one of the great philosophical contributors of our time (w.r.t software). It is important not to understimate how significant the GPL, and his resulting push for GNU software, has been to the advancement of Linux in particular and software development in general. ------------- ----------
It ended up being a minor difference. But as someone already mentioned, the point is that MS was trying to demonstrate difference in connect speed due to SOFTWARE, not due to HARDWARE. The fact that they didn't show similar hardware puts into question the whole demo. I mean, if they couldn't be trusted to make the modems the same, how do we know the rest of the hardware was the same? Say CPU, memory, hard disk, etc.? It is simply an extremely deceptive thing to do, even if the end result is a minor difference. Take this in conjunction with last week's complete screwup (read: falsification of evidence), it's a very serious thing indeed. The entire credibility of the demo is in question.
Of course, how MS wrote it off BEFORE THEY FOUND OUT THE ACTUAL DIFFERENCE IN SPEED is like this: "The difference in speed between the two modems is academic." Again, this statement is BEFORE they knew the actual speed difference; when the lawyer made that point, MS didn't know what the difference was. ------------ ----------
I read the article first. And I read it twice: first, when the original blunder happened. At that point, MS was trying to prove BOTH that the setup time was faster, AND that the actual connect speed was faster with Win98.
Then the blunder happened. It was a big deal in court; the MS witness mumbled that he wasn't sure that they were the same speed, though that was half of what they were trying to show. At that point, I kid you not, this is what one of their lawyers said immediately afterwards: "The difference in speed between the two modems is academic." (ZDNet article here.).
After all that, MS found out the difference in speed, but it didn't matter; they changed their tune to say that the demo was about the setup time, not the actual connection speed. Just like their video blunder last week, they changed what their demo was about after mistakes were found. That's why if you read articles on it now, you'll hear MS say that the demo was really about setup time; but that's only because you are reading the article well after the blunder. If you had seen articles on it immediately afterward, you would have seen that MS meant to show problems with actual connect speed too. -------------- ----------
They were originally showing BOTH actual connection speed AND how long it took to actually get connected. However, once the discrepancy in the modems came up, they changed their tune and said the demo was really more about how much easier it was to get setup only. ZDNet has more detail on this.
In other words, once the flaw was found, they changed their mind on what it was about. They did the same thing with the video from last week: once the government found major problems with the video, and they couldn't reproduce the original results two days later, they changed the label from "Demo of actual problems" to "Hypothetical simulation of theorized problems". ------------ ----------
I'll tell you why MS wants to compare Win3.1 to Win98, rather than Win95 to Win98. Because comparing Win3.1 to Win98 is completely bogus, and has nothing to do with the advantages of "integrating" IE with Windows, while comparing Win95 w/out IE to Win98 is more valid.
Even that would be stupid. The Connection Wizard is a completely separate function from the browser. This test is yet another attempt by MS to deliberately use smoke and mirrors to hide the real issues. I'm not sure why the DOJ didn't address this point directly. This "demo" is completely irrelevant to the issue of browser integration, because they are demonstrating a function that is separate from the browser. ------------- ----------
Slashdot Mirror
I think this is an excellent point, and something I didn't think about when worrying over the last few days if GNOME was "ready enough". Hopefully it's beyond the point of having major embarrasing bugs, even if there are a few minor ones floating around.
----------
I agree, head hunters can be extremely useful, but you have to be careful who you work with. I work as a contract programmer and without head hunters my life would be extremely more difficult. Like anything else, there's good ones and bad ones; you just have to learn how to pick which one's which.
----------
I'm a little worried too. The last few releases have definitely made very big improvements in stability, but the big version number change from 0.3 to 0.99 gave me the willies. I think it won't be too bad, though, things definitely seem to be progressing very nicely.
----------
I don't know if that bug has been fixed, but I do know that there were a ton of bugs in 0.99.3 that have since been fixed. So I would really recommend upgrading. I did try enlightenment briefly with some of the later releases, and did not experience what you mentioned.
----------
If RMS isn't the embodiment of an old school hacker, then I don't know what is. I think RMS has some views that are far more extreme than many hackers, but RMS is definitely one of the remains of an era... he is certainly a lot more of an "old school" hacker than Linus, just by the fact that he's been hacking around for probably at least a decade longer than Linus.
----------
I disagree. Linux being a great OS is inextricably linked to those "idiots" with the penguin dolls. They are the reason it is a great OS: they are the coders and users; it is their enthusiasm that has made it great, and it is also their enthusiasm that makes them extreme.
:)
I think people have a valid point that the Linux community might benefit from a more "mature" and less geeky, extremist image. But I don't think the extremists should be written off as idiots, nor disassociated from the success of Linux.
Personally, I'm not as worried about the geeky image in this event, because in my opinion this event should be targeted more at greedy lawyers with "CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT" written on their foreheads, not at PHBs.
Oh yeah, if I lived in Washington, I would have been there. Can't vouch for any penguin attire though.
----------
I haven't upgraded to 2.2, but I did notice that in the SRPMS ftp directory, there is an update to dhcpcd. You might want to try upgrading that, and probably the rest of the packages there too.
----------
I disagree, I think RMS most definitely needs to be mentioned. You can make a very convincing argument that Linux would not be anywhere it is today without RMS, because without RMS we wouldn't have the GPL nor the GNU tools. The GPL and GNU software are a major foundation of Linux and its success.
Think about it: RMS embodies a culture of sharing, of openness, that most good hackers and programmers that I've met share. Not everyone is as extreme as RMS, but most programmers that truly love programming for its own sake understand where he's coming from. RMS has helped kept this tradition alive. You don't have to be as extreme as he is, but his extreme views are necessary because overall they inspire people to be more open and collaborative than they would otherwise.
Even if you disagree with him philosophically, technically RMS is responsible for GNU, and that in and of itself is a remarkable achievement. Without GNU, Linux just wouldn't have made it this far so fast. Heck forget Linux; GNU's contribution (and thus RMS') to UNIX software development is immense.
I understand why people have a problem with him---I've worked with him in the past, and I've seen his stuborness firsthand---but I definitely think RMS is not only one of the great hackers of our time, but also one of the great philosophical contributors of our time (w.r.t software). It is important not to understimate how significant the GPL, and his resulting push for GNU software, has been to the advancement of Linux in particular and software development in general.
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It ended up being a minor difference. But as someone already mentioned, the point is that MS was trying to demonstrate difference in connect speed due to SOFTWARE, not due to HARDWARE. The fact that they didn't show similar hardware puts into question the whole demo. I mean, if they couldn't be trusted to make the modems the same, how do we know the rest of the hardware was the same? Say CPU, memory, hard disk, etc.? It is simply an extremely deceptive thing to do, even if the end result is a minor difference. Take this in conjunction with last week's complete screwup (read: falsification of evidence), it's a very serious thing indeed. The entire credibility of the demo is in question.
Of course, how MS wrote it off BEFORE THEY FOUND OUT THE ACTUAL DIFFERENCE IN SPEED is like this: "The difference in speed between the two modems is academic." Again, this statement is BEFORE they knew the actual speed difference; when the lawyer made that point, MS didn't know what the difference was.
------------
----------
Then the blunder happened. It was a big deal in court; the MS witness mumbled that he wasn't sure that they were the same speed, though that was half of what they were trying to show. At that point, I kid you not, this is what one of their lawyers said immediately afterwards: "The difference in speed between the two modems is academic." (ZDNet article here.).
After all that, MS found out the difference in speed, but it didn't matter; they changed their tune to say that the demo was about the setup time, not the actual connection speed. Just like their video blunder last week, they changed what their demo was about after mistakes were found. That's why if you read articles on it now, you'll hear MS say that the demo was really about setup time; but that's only because you are reading the article well after the blunder. If you had seen articles on it immediately afterward, you would have seen that MS meant to show problems with actual connect speed too.
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They were originally showing BOTH actual connection speed AND how long it took to actually get connected. However, once the discrepancy in the modems came up, they changed their tune and said the demo was really more about how much easier it was to get setup only. ZDNet has more detail on this.
In other words, once the flaw was found, they changed their mind on what it was about. They did the same thing with the video from last week: once the government found major problems with the video, and they couldn't reproduce the original results two days later, they changed the label from "Demo of actual problems" to "Hypothetical simulation of theorized problems".
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I'll tell you why MS wants to compare Win3.1 to Win98, rather than Win95 to Win98. Because comparing Win3.1 to Win98 is completely bogus, and has nothing to do with the advantages of "integrating" IE with Windows, while comparing Win95 w/out IE to Win98 is more valid.
Even that would be stupid. The Connection Wizard is a completely separate function from the browser. This test is yet another attempt by MS to deliberately use smoke and mirrors to hide the real issues. I'm not sure why the DOJ didn't address this point directly. This "demo" is completely irrelevant to the issue of browser integration, because they are demonstrating a function that is separate from the browser.
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