First there will be a merger between Verizon and Qwest forming Veriqwest or, my personal favorite, Qweerizon, whichever you prefer. The reason given for this merger will be to allow them to more adeptly compete with the new AT&T. Once the new entity starts to loose ground, the new AT&T will gobble it up and then it's "HELLO, MA BELL!"
I'm fully aware of the requirements you describe with respect to the GPL. Many companies, like some of the ones I do work for, stay away from code licensed under the GPL because they don't like the obligation, as you described above, to make the source available when distributing the executable. So, as a result, many companies don't use GPL'd code and instead use code under the Apache or BSD licenses.
It appears you misinterpreted what I intended to say, or that I was unclear, for that I apologize. Allow me to clarify:
By "all their work" I meant all their work on a given project. For example, if they use GPL code on project A, and subsequently distribute project A to external customers, they are obligated to provide to all customers of project A the source to said project. This is what they want to avoid.
I didn't intend what I said to mean that if they used GPL code on project A that they would have to make the source to A-Z available. That's positively ludicrous, although I can see how you could have interpreted my statement that way.
It's a legitimate concern. At many companies where I've worked, they do use open source and free software, but they are careful when it comes to the license as they don't want to inadvertantly make all of thier work go under the GPL if it's distributed.
All the document is saying is to evaluate each piece of software by it's merits on an individual basis. Further, it says that there is "no reason why open source should not be considered on the same basis as commercial software" but that there could be some licensing concerns.
I'm sure in about a week we'll see something like "Kids who made soybean powered car exposed as hoax." (this message paid for by the Oil Producing Companies of America)
Application developers who used Metrowerks would disagree. They're faced with a rewrite (or dropping Mac support) because of the transition to IA-32.
Perhaps I should clarify: Cocoa (which used to be OPENSTEP) has never had this issue. Metrowerks, I believe was mainly for developers who were developing Carbon apps for the Mac, Carbon is different from Cocoa.
Also, I'm referring to the set of libraries/frameworks as a "development environment", regardless of the IDE used to build the applications.
This is the trouble with Java.. there are too many GUI libraries. Standardize on one and forget the rest. It seems that when an environment is born without one, it's destined to search for the perfect gui framework forever.
As an example of an evironment which has never had this problem, take Mac OS X, it has had AppKit since the day it was created... and it will never see another major gui framework. Ah, yes... you can say but there's GTK and others available on the Mac, but they are not a threat to the *MAIN* AppKit framework... (they do, in fact use AppKit, so they aren't an outright replacement).
Intersting dilemma...
But... to get back on topic, I prefer SWT, it's faster, and it blends more readily with the native environment than the others.
Hey Apple, please stop writing poems and release OS X for normal x86 hardware. There's obviously a huge market for this. While I don't condone piracy, I do believe that what you're seeing is the merest indication of the size of the market you might be able to take advantage of if you were to simply get rid of the DRM crap in OSX.
A windows compatibility layer ala Wine will likely come out of Apple fairly soon. Dvorak's twisted vision is close, but a little off in this case.
Apple would not survive a move to Windows. It's users would never make the move. If Dvorak really thinks this will happen he's seriously out to lunch as Mac users are fundamentally different beasts than Windows users. Apple users tend to be very tied to their machines, and won't give up the ghost as easily as the OS/2 crowd did.
While there might be some concerns about privacy, or even confidentiality, given that some people might feel as though they're risking the confidential nature of thier information by putting it on an online word processor, I think that most of these fears will fade. Like email, people will eventually become comfortable with this new way of doing things.
I certainly think the idea of the online word processors is bound to catch on to some degree.
I was once told a story by a friend who is Jewish, I am an atheist, he said that "The Rabis think it's quite amusing that Christians take the Genesis story to be the literal truth." You see, the old testament is derived from the Torah. Rabis have been studying it for a long time (i.e. millenia).
Additionally, it should provide a clue when the Vatican itself proclaims that "The theory of evolution is perfectly compatible with the Bible, it is fundamentalists who are trying to read literally a portion of the bible which was never meant to be interpreted scientifically."
People seem, for whatever reason, bound and determined to believe in this myth. Why? Who knows. If they want to be ignorant, let them be. There's too much scientific evidence in favor of evolution to deny that it's true.
The lists are the best place to start for this. Either discuss-gnustep@gnu.org or gnustep-dev@gnu.org. You can join either. Just go to the following URL to subscribe: http://www.gnustep.org/information/gethelp.html#de vel.
You should simply say you would like to work on something. For base, you should talk to people on this list for contributions to the things which they are responsible for. Myself for gui and Richard Frith-MacDonald for base.
Besides, whether GNOME has a "hope of ever being" "like OS X" has little to do with what language it's based on. Even if it was, you said that being "based on C++" is what's damning it -- and it's not based on C++, so that argument is empty.
Ohhh yeah, that's right!! I'm giving it way too much credit... I forgot it's C using structures right? So GNOME isn't really OO at all. That's advanced technology for ya!!
I haven't found any way to theme GNUstep to make it look anything like a Mac. What theme are you using to put the menubar across the top of the screen? What theme uses my GPU to draw widgets and composite windows? What theme includes the Finder and the Dock and Expose?
After you've demonstrated that you have no clue what a theme is, I wonder if you know anything at all. Also, you seem to not realize that GNUstep comes with GWorkspace which is a fileview, similar to the finder. Also there is a theme bundle which lets you have a menu on the top. It's called WildMenus. GNUstep apps dock using the WindowMaker dock, and as for Expose... well.. it's bloody useless so we didn't implement it. I have a Mac (I am, in fact, a Mac developer) and I find Expose to be the most useless thing I've ever seen.
After what you've demonstrated you know about GNOME, I wonder if you even know what Dashboard widgets *are*.
I do, they are javascript.. mainly... which I suppose means it shouldn't suprise me too much that KDE and GNOME are (once again) implementing a copycat technology based on ideas created by another company instead of actually coming up with something themselves. Not that any other open source project is any different.
How come so many projects that spend so much time trying to be like OS X miss the entire point? They're both based on C++ which is, quite honestly, the worst of all OO languages and they incessently try to be like OS X when they have no hope of ever being so.
GNUstep, on the other hand is themeable and can look like OS X or anything else for that matter. You see, GNUstep HASN'T missed the point.
As for Dashboard widgets... they're a passing fad, IMNSHO.
It's themable, and the themes are very modern in look and function.
At least GNUstep isn't a blind copy of Windows' look and feel like GNOME or KDE. For a couple of environments which proport to be "innovative" they are nothing of the sort.
This is the problem with most slashdotters (who are mostly KDE and GNOME users), they can't look past thier nose because they're too busy looking down it. This blindness will eventually be thier downfall.
For one thing, it would require a radical change in how the internet currently works. TCP/IP was designed around the whole idea of having no central routing (note, I didn't say naming) authority. This is one of the features which make it resilient to damage, since the network can adapt to nodes which suddenly might go dark.
This, after all, was the whole purpose of it, since ARPANET was intended to be resilient to enemy attack if parts of it were taken out.
Slashdot Mirror
It stands to reason that a new product hasn't quite gotten all of the kinks out yet. With years of experience as an engineer this comes as no suprise.
GJC
There's more out there in the world and I'm not just talking about GNUstep or KDE.
GNOME sucks rocks, and you all know it.
GJC
Um... piece of crap, even. :)
I'm all excited and everything. GUH-NOME is so great and wonderful. ;) Oh, I jus' love GUH-NOME.
(it's a peace of crap)
GJC
First there will be a merger between Verizon and Qwest forming Veriqwest or, my personal favorite, Qweerizon, whichever you prefer. The reason given for this merger will be to allow them to more adeptly compete with the new AT&T. Once the new entity starts to loose ground, the new AT&T will gobble it up and then it's "HELLO, MA BELL!"
GJC
With the exception that it's taken 25 years for this particular terminator to form itself back together, you're right on the money. ;)
Wasn't this broken up before? Isn't the point of antitrust laws to make sure that trusts don't form in the first place?
Also, shouldn't the SEC have some say in this?
GJC
You have, in fact, argued my point for me.
I'm fully aware of the requirements you describe with respect to the GPL. Many companies, like some of the ones I do work for, stay away from code licensed under the GPL because they don't like the obligation, as you described above, to make the source available when distributing the executable. So, as a result, many companies don't use GPL'd code and instead use code under the Apache or BSD licenses.
This is unfortunate, but true.
Later, GJC
Ahem... let me straighten this out a bit...
It appears you misinterpreted what I intended to say, or that I was unclear, for that I apologize. Allow me to clarify:
By "all their work" I meant all their work on a given project. For example, if they use GPL code on project A, and subsequently distribute project A to external customers, they are obligated to provide to all customers of project A the source to said project. This is what they want to avoid.
I didn't intend what I said to mean that if they used GPL code on project A that they would have to make the source to A-Z available. That's positively ludicrous, although I can see how you could have interpreted my statement that way.
Later, GJC
It's a legitimate concern. At many companies where I've worked, they do use open source and free software, but they are careful when it comes to the license as they don't want to inadvertantly make all of thier work go under the GPL if it's distributed.
All the document is saying is to evaluate each piece of software by it's merits on an individual basis. Further, it says that there is "no reason why open source should not be considered on the same basis as commercial software" but that there could be some licensing concerns.
All in all, it's a sound and reasonable policy.
GJC
I'm sure in about a week we'll see something like "Kids who made soybean powered car exposed as hoax." (this message paid for by the Oil Producing Companies of America)
GJC
Application developers who used Metrowerks would disagree. They're faced with a rewrite (or dropping Mac support) because of the transition to IA-32.
Perhaps I should clarify: Cocoa (which used to be OPENSTEP) has never had this issue. Metrowerks, I believe was mainly for developers who were developing Carbon apps for the Mac, Carbon is different from Cocoa.
Also, I'm referring to the set of libraries/frameworks as a "development environment", regardless of the IDE used to build the applications.
GJC
This is the trouble with Java.. there are too many GUI libraries. Standardize on one and forget the rest. It seems that when an environment is born without one, it's destined to search for the perfect gui framework forever.
As an example of an evironment which has never had this problem, take Mac OS X, it has had AppKit since the day it was created... and it will never see another major gui framework. Ah, yes... you can say but there's GTK and others available on the Mac, but they are not a threat to the *MAIN* AppKit framework... (they do, in fact use AppKit, so they aren't an outright replacement).
Intersting dilemma...
But... to get back on topic, I prefer SWT, it's faster, and it blends more readily with the native environment than the others.
GJC
Hey Apple, please stop writing poems and release OS X for normal x86 hardware. There's obviously a huge market for this. While I don't condone piracy, I do believe that what you're seeing is the merest indication of the size of the market you might be able to take advantage of if you were to simply get rid of the DRM crap in OSX.
Please... please... don't cripple this great OS.
GJC
Here's a good name: Cider. ;)
GJC
A windows compatibility layer ala Wine will likely come out of Apple fairly soon. Dvorak's twisted vision is close, but a little off in this case.
;)
Apple would not survive a move to Windows. It's users would never make the move. If Dvorak really thinks this will happen he's seriously out to lunch as Mac users are fundamentally different beasts than Windows users. Apple users tend to be very tied to their machines, and won't give up the ghost as easily as the OS/2 crowd did.
Besides, Mac users tend to actually have souls.
GJC
While there might be some concerns about privacy, or even confidentiality, given that some people might feel as though they're risking the confidential nature of thier information by putting it on an online word processor, I think that most of these fears will fade. Like email, people will eventually become comfortable with this new way of doing things.
I certainly think the idea of the online word processors is bound to catch on to some degree.
Later, GJC
I was once told a story by a friend who is Jewish, I am an atheist, he said that "The Rabis think it's quite amusing that Christians take the Genesis story to be the literal truth." You see, the old testament is derived from the Torah. Rabis have been studying it for a long time (i.e. millenia).
Additionally, it should provide a clue when the Vatican itself proclaims that "The theory of evolution is perfectly compatible with the Bible, it is fundamentalists who are trying to read literally a portion of the bible which was never meant to be interpreted scientifically."
People seem, for whatever reason, bound and determined to believe in this myth. Why? Who knows. If they want to be ignorant, let them be. There's too much scientific evidence in favor of evolution to deny that it's true.
Later, GJC
The lists are the best place to start for this. Either discuss-gnustep@gnu.org or gnustep-dev@gnu.org. You can join either. Just go to the following URL to subscribe: http://www.gnustep.org/information/gethelp.html#de vel.
You should simply say you would like to work on something. For base, you should talk to people on this list for contributions to the things which they are responsible for. Myself for gui and Richard Frith-MacDonald for base.
Later. GJC
One of the things which is going to become the focus this year is precisely that. The look is badly in need of an update.
I'm one of the maintainers of GNUstep, so I'm hoping to beautify GNUstep in the months to come.
Dear A. Coward,
Besides, whether GNOME has a "hope of ever being" "like OS X" has little to do with what language it's based on. Even if it was, you said that being "based on C++" is what's damning it -- and it's not based on C++, so that argument is empty.
Ohhh yeah, that's right!! I'm giving it way too much credit... I forgot it's C using structures right? So GNOME isn't really OO at all. That's advanced technology for ya!!
I haven't found any way to theme GNUstep to make it look anything like a Mac. What theme are you using to put the menubar across the top of the screen? What theme uses my GPU to draw widgets and composite windows? What theme includes the Finder and the Dock and Expose?
After you've demonstrated that you have no clue what a theme is, I wonder if you know anything at all. Also, you seem to not realize that GNUstep comes with GWorkspace which is a fileview, similar to the finder. Also there is a theme bundle which lets you have a menu on the top. It's called WildMenus. GNUstep apps dock using the WindowMaker dock, and as for Expose... well.. it's bloody useless so we didn't implement it. I have a Mac (I am, in fact, a Mac developer) and I find Expose to be the most useless thing I've ever seen.
After what you've demonstrated you know about GNOME, I wonder if you even know what Dashboard widgets *are*.
I do, they are javascript.. mainly... which I suppose means it shouldn't suprise me too much that KDE and GNOME are (once again) implementing a copycat technology based on ideas created by another company instead of actually coming up with something themselves. Not that any other open source project is any different.
GJC
How come so many projects that spend so much time trying to be like OS X miss the entire point? They're both based on C++ which is, quite honestly, the worst of all OO languages and they incessently try to be like OS X when they have no hope of ever being so.
GNUstep, on the other hand is themeable and can look like OS X or anything else for that matter. You see, GNUstep HASN'T missed the point.
As for Dashboard widgets... they're a passing fad, IMNSHO.
GJC
It's themable, and the themes are very modern in look and function.
At least GNUstep isn't a blind copy of Windows' look and feel like GNOME or KDE. For a couple of environments which proport to be "innovative" they are nothing of the sort.
This is the problem with most slashdotters (who are mostly KDE and GNOME users), they can't look past thier nose because they're too busy looking down it. This blindness will eventually be thier downfall.
GJC
For one thing, it would require a radical change in how the internet currently works. TCP/IP was designed around the whole idea of having no central routing (note, I didn't say naming) authority. This is one of the features which make it resilient to damage, since the network can adapt to nodes which suddenly might go dark.
This, after all, was the whole purpose of it, since ARPANET was intended to be resilient to enemy attack if parts of it were taken out.
I prefer WindowMaker and the GNUstep applications and libraries as my DE.
I must say that Linus is right on this one. It's about time someone publically called GNOME what it is... a pile of junk.
GJC