Actually, you're on my fan list, so I must have said something that appealed to you at one time.
Since you don't like the analogy, let's try plain logic. If I switch from A to B because I like B, does that imply that I like A too? It does not. There are any number of reasons for making a choice and not all of them have to do with the chooser's tastes or preferences. I might have chosen A because somebody forced me to (just like the Ger... sorry, promised not to use that analogy) or because it was the only choice available, or because it was all I could afford.
I said somebody selling a significant number of BSD-based systems. This is just another build-to-order mom-and-pop white box company. And yes, they'll provision your order with FreeBSD. Or, if you prefer, Windows or Linux. Not exactly a resounding endorsement of the importance of BSD, is it?
One other detail: they only sell servers. I wonder which desktop they'd use if they sold workstations? Probably not CDE.
Yes, I was wrong about GNOME at HP and IBM. Still, GNOME is doing a good job of grabbing mindshare, even where it's not the default desktop.
So when we run a deficit it means we're spending too much money, but when the Canadians run a surplus it means their taxes are too high? Why doesn't it mean that we're not taxing enough or that Canada is thrifty?
I stand corrected on the IBM and HP fronts. But who out there is selling a significant number of boxes with BSD on them? Apple doesn't count, for reasons I've already explained.
...which is more important affordable healthcare for all or seemingly cheaper oil prices and the occupation of foreign nations?
Do remember that Iraq was supposed to be a bargain war. Go in, topple Saddam, hand over power to the peace- and democracy-loving Iraqis, get out. So the fact that we're spending ungodly sums on the war in Iraq has more to do with ignorance and wishful thinking than with oil prices.
Well, you do have a good point. On the other hand, do we really need as big a military as we have? Right now, we could fight a conventional big-battlefield war with the rest of the planet, and probably win.
Except there aren't going to be any more CBBWs. Just nasty little quagmires like Iraq. And maybe the odd terrorist attack or nuclear exchange. Having a huge military is not all that useful for that.
Try reading the rest of my post. I'm not saying these financial mechanisms don't serve a purpose. I'm saying they're just mechanisms.
Having a weak currency is a Bad Thing. It's a sign that fewer customers want the output of the factories we do have. If we can't sell shit, we need to work on ways of making more desirable shit, not count on the Economic Correction Fairy to bail us out.
Anybody else think it's ironic that at a time when people are resisting government run health care because of the expense, the Canadians are running a budget surplus — despite have government run health care?
Offtopic: had a friend once who thought that there were penguins in Canada. When I disabused her of that notion, she said, "there go all my Canadian thanksgiving jokes."
If all currencies were created equal, you'd be right. But in fact, the U.S. dollar is the closest thing we have to a global currency. It's the preferred currency for big international transactions, and when the U.S. is where a lot of people like to stash their money. Some countries even tie their currency to the dollar — in effect, they have no currency of their own.
You can, of course, convert your yen directly to rupees, or your euros directly to yuan. But when you go to currency exchange to find out how much your currency is worth, the value will be quoted in dollars.
American products become cheaper to foreign markets. This helps with the trade imbalances we currently have
Let me guess, you're a Republican, right? So to you, higher prices for imports is a Good Thing, because of the trade imbalance. But if you're a blue collar family struggling to live on an income that's stagnant at best, higher prices are just higher prices.
The fact is, a weak dollar is a Bad Sign. It means that there's less demand for the goods the U.S. sells abroad, and thus less demand for the currency needed to buy those goods. The "positive" effects you cite are just the feedback mechanisms built into any semi-stable economy.
It counts for very, very little. Those Linux and Unix vendors haven't made too much headway on the desktop, people still complain about Gnome's lack of functionality and people still seem to be talking about KDE 4. Things are the same as they ever were.
You're absolutely correct. In point of fact all those Unix vendors I was talking about mostly sell servers and HPC systems these days, so their desktop choices don't have much impact. Come to that, I'm not that big a fan of GNOME. But it is superior to CDE and the other Unix desktops it replaced, and that's mostly due to its development model.
GNOME has many flaws, but it's far superior to CDE. IMHO, that's because CDE is a child of politics and bureaucracy, while GNOME grew up organically, with various developers exercising their intelligence, insight, and creativity in order to make it a better product.
Arguably, the former is exactly what Gnome has become. Too many corporate companies pushing different agendas, from Mono to some internet based desktop...
You could be right. If you are, it's because GNOME has ceded so much control to its corporate sponsors that it's back to the old committee model of development. That must be an issue with all successful (or maybe I should say "widely adopted") OS projects. It's part of the project leaders' job to resist that kind of pressure. I think most are successful.
Still, I think the main problem with GNOME (and KDE) is the failure to convert a critical mass of desktops away from Windows. That limits the incentive for companies to donate resources (especially programmer time) to move the project forward. That would make the problems you cite effects rather than causes — the result of GNOME's leaders struggling to keep their project alive.
It may seem a quaint idea to you, but it's considered a very positive practice to actually read the post you're replying to. That sort of courtesy is what separates a conversation from a shouting match.
I did some Googling and found a lot of stuff on GNOME for HP-UX on an HP web site. I came to the conclusion that HP had gone over to GNOME. Perhaps I was mistaken. Though it's possible the systems you're looking at belong to people who are used to CDE and don't feel like changing.
Sun systems actually come with three desktops: GNOME, CDE, and OpenWindows, the Sun proprietary desktop that was used before Sun joined the CDE consortium. But GNOME is the default.
I was actually working for Sun in 1998 when they were making the OpenWindows/CDE changeover. IT really wanted everybody off of OpenWindows, which was really antiquated. (The mail client directly accessed the mailbox file.) But hundreds of employees resisted the change tooth and nail. Didn't want to give up the tools they were used to.
Great, Apple is allowed to use the Unix brand. Which just means they passed a bunch of compliance tests, and still doesn't make Apple a "Unix vendor".
Besides which, it's a brand nobody cares about any more. The leading flavor of Unix is these days is Linux, which is not allowed to use the brand, because nobody can be bothered to submit a Linux distro.
Re:Obviously new to these things- politics started
on
GNOME 2.20 Released
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· Score: 1
Did you compare the post times of your post and the previous one? Hours apart. And did you read my response to it? Which is actually the only part I care about.
Re:Obviously new to these things- politics started
on
GNOME 2.20 Released
·
· Score: 1
Dude, before you fire off a response to a posts take a monist to see if somebody hasn't already written the same response.
I think you're describing "free" software projects, rather than open source projects. The former is driven by the whims of the individual contributors, because their unpaid labor is the only resource a project has. The latter has to impose some measure of planning and focus in order to satisfy the corporate sponsors that are paying the bills.
There are actually only three major Unix vendors left: Sun, IBM, and HP. All provide GNOME as the default desktop.
SGI is still around, but they no longer sell systems that run Unix. Their flavor of Unix was IRIX, which only ever ran on MIPS, and that CPU is no longer cost-competitive for big iron. So SGI sells Itanium and x64 systems running Linux. FWIW, their default desktop is GNOME.
Dell is also a Unix vendor of sorts, since they sell a fair number of servers running Solaris. Guess what the default desktop for Solaris is?
It's silly to call Apple a "Unix vendor". Yes, MacOS is built on top of Unix. But they're not part of the Unix marketplace. Almost nobody buys them to run Unix software, by which I mean software that's coded against traditional Unix APIs. Almost all Mac software is coded against Apple's proprietary APIs, and isn't available on "other" Unixes. The fact that Apple found it convenient to code those APIs on top of Unix APIs is an implementation detail that matters not at all to 99% of Apple's customers.
BSD has no vendors. Just a few enthusiasts.
That leaves SCO. Do we really want to talk about SCO?
No matter how many times I read that first sentence, it still sounds flamy. You trash GNOME, you don't say why you don't like it. Pretty typical first shot in a flame war.
I'm talking about how GNOME was created, you're talking about why. It may well be that the decision to start the GNOME project was political, but that doesn't mean the design process was political, as it usually is when a product is designed by a committee. Perhaps my choice of phrase ("child of politics") was poorly chosen, but I think it's pretty clear what I was talking about.
Naturally the poster focuses on Linux, but in fact GNOME has become a standard desktop for many Unix vendors. The fact that it has done this says a lot about Open Source as a superior way to develop non-proprietary software. When GNOME became common in the Unix world, it mostly displaced CDE, a non-proprietary desktop that was developed the old-fashioned way: a bunch of companies got together and formed a committee that wrote a spec, that various people went out and implemented.
GNOME has many flaws, but it's far superior to CDE. IMHO, that's because CDE is a child of politics and bureaucracy, while GNOME grew up organically, with various developers exercising their intelligence, insight, and creativity in order to make it a better product.
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Actually, you're on my fan list, so I must have said something that appealed to you at one time.
Since you don't like the analogy, let's try plain logic. If I switch from A to B because I like B, does that imply that I like A too? It does not. There are any number of reasons for making a choice and not all of them have to do with the chooser's tastes or preferences. I might have chosen A because somebody forced me to (just like the Ger... sorry, promised not to use that analogy) or because it was the only choice available, or because it was all I could afford.
I said somebody selling a significant number of BSD-based systems. This is just another build-to-order mom-and-pop white box company. And yes, they'll provision your order with FreeBSD. Or, if you prefer, Windows or Linux. Not exactly a resounding endorsement of the importance of BSD, is it?
One other detail: they only sell servers. I wonder which desktop they'd use if they sold workstations? Probably not CDE.
Yes, I was wrong about GNOME at HP and IBM. Still, GNOME is doing a good job of grabbing mindshare, even where it's not the default desktop.
So when we run a deficit it means we're spending too much money, but when the Canadians run a surplus it means their taxes are too high? Why doesn't it mean that we're not taxing enough or that Canada is thrifty?
I stand corrected on the IBM and HP fronts. But who out there is selling a significant number of boxes with BSD on them? Apple doesn't count, for reasons I've already explained.
Well, you do have a good point. On the other hand, do we really need as big a military as we have? Right now, we could fight a conventional big-battlefield war with the rest of the planet, and probably win.
Except there aren't going to be any more CBBWs. Just nasty little quagmires like Iraq. And maybe the odd terrorist attack or nuclear exchange. Having a huge military is not all that useful for that.
Try reading the rest of my post. I'm not saying these financial mechanisms don't serve a purpose. I'm saying they're just mechanisms.
Having a weak currency is a Bad Thing. It's a sign that fewer customers want the output of the factories we do have. If we can't sell shit, we need to work on ways of making more desirable shit, not count on the Economic Correction Fairy to bail us out.
Anybody else think it's ironic that at a time when people are resisting government run health care because of the expense, the Canadians are running a budget surplus — despite have government run health care?
Offtopic: had a friend once who thought that there were penguins in Canada. When I disabused her of that notion, she said, "there go all my Canadian thanksgiving jokes."
If all currencies were created equal, you'd be right. But in fact, the U.S. dollar is the closest thing we have to a global currency. It's the preferred currency for big international transactions, and when the U.S. is where a lot of people like to stash their money. Some countries even tie their currency to the dollar — in effect, they have no currency of their own.
You can, of course, convert your yen directly to rupees, or your euros directly to yuan. But when you go to currency exchange to find out how much your currency is worth, the value will be quoted in dollars.
The fact is, a weak dollar is a Bad Sign. It means that there's less demand for the goods the U.S. sells abroad, and thus less demand for the currency needed to buy those goods. The "positive" effects you cite are just the feedback mechanisms built into any semi-stable economy.
Still, I think the main problem with GNOME (and KDE) is the failure to convert a critical mass of desktops away from Windows. That limits the incentive for companies to donate resources (especially programmer time) to move the project forward. That would make the problems you cite effects rather than causes — the result of GNOME's leaders struggling to keep their project alive.
I guess you're not so busy now, since you have nothing better to do than to fire off lame responses to every post I make.
In other words, you can't give the conversation your full attention, but you still expect others to give you their full attention.
It may seem a quaint idea to you, but it's considered a very positive practice to actually read the post you're replying to. That sort of courtesy is what separates a conversation from a shouting match.
I did some Googling and found a lot of stuff on GNOME for HP-UX on an HP web site. I came to the conclusion that HP had gone over to GNOME. Perhaps I was mistaken. Though it's possible the systems you're looking at belong to people who are used to CDE and don't feel like changing.
Sun systems actually come with three desktops: GNOME, CDE, and OpenWindows, the Sun proprietary desktop that was used before Sun joined the CDE consortium. But GNOME is the default.
I was actually working for Sun in 1998 when they were making the OpenWindows/CDE changeover. IT really wanted everybody off of OpenWindows, which was really antiquated. (The mail client directly accessed the mailbox file.) But hundreds of employees resisted the change tooth and nail. Didn't want to give up the tools they were used to.
Great, Apple is allowed to use the Unix brand. Which just means they passed a bunch of compliance tests, and still doesn't make Apple a "Unix vendor".
Besides which, it's a brand nobody cares about any more. The leading flavor of Unix is these days is Linux, which is not allowed to use the brand, because nobody can be bothered to submit a Linux distro.
Did you compare the post times of your post and the previous one? Hours apart. And did you read my response to it? Which is actually the only part I care about.
Dude, before you fire off a response to a posts take a monist to see if somebody hasn't already written the same response.
I think you're describing "free" software projects, rather than open source projects. The former is driven by the whims of the individual contributors, because their unpaid labor is the only resource a project has. The latter has to impose some measure of planning and focus in order to satisfy the corporate sponsors that are paying the bills.
There are actually only three major Unix vendors left: Sun, IBM, and HP. All provide GNOME as the default desktop.
SGI is still around, but they no longer sell systems that run Unix. Their flavor of Unix was IRIX, which only ever ran on MIPS, and that CPU is no longer cost-competitive for big iron. So SGI sells Itanium and x64 systems running Linux. FWIW, their default desktop is GNOME.
Dell is also a Unix vendor of sorts, since they sell a fair number of servers running Solaris. Guess what the default desktop for Solaris is?
It's silly to call Apple a "Unix vendor". Yes, MacOS is built on top of Unix. But they're not part of the Unix marketplace. Almost nobody buys them to run Unix software, by which I mean software that's coded against traditional Unix APIs. Almost all Mac software is coded against Apple's proprietary APIs, and isn't available on "other" Unixes. The fact that Apple found it convenient to code those APIs on top of Unix APIs is an implementation detail that matters not at all to 99% of Apple's customers.
BSD has no vendors. Just a few enthusiasts.
That leaves SCO. Do we really want to talk about SCO?
No matter how many times I read that first sentence, it still sounds flamy. You trash GNOME, you don't say why you don't like it. Pretty typical first shot in a flame war.
I'm talking about how GNOME was created, you're talking about why. It may well be that the decision to start the GNOME project was political, but that doesn't mean the design process was political, as it usually is when a product is designed by a committee. Perhaps my choice of phrase ("child of politics") was poorly chosen, but I think it's pretty clear what I was talking about.
Naturally the poster focuses on Linux, but in fact GNOME has become a standard desktop for many Unix vendors. The fact that it has done this says a lot about Open Source as a superior way to develop non-proprietary software. When GNOME became common in the Unix world, it mostly displaced CDE, a non-proprietary desktop that was developed the old-fashioned way: a bunch of companies got together and formed a committee that wrote a spec, that various people went out and implemented.
GNOME has many flaws, but it's far superior to CDE. IMHO, that's because CDE is a child of politics and bureaucracy, while GNOME grew up organically, with various developers exercising their intelligence, insight, and creativity in order to make it a better product.