While unix systems in general, and Linux in particular, are in my oppinion the best systems for developing and testing new ideas, they are also notorious for violating what Fred Brooks considered "the most important consideration in system design."
For those who have not yet read this, I quote:
Most European cathedrals show differences in plan or architectural style between parts built in different generations by different builders. The later builders were tempted to "improve" upon the designs of the earlier ones, to reflect both changes in fashion and differences in individual taste. So the peaceful Norman transept abuts and contradicts the soaring Gothic nave, and the result proclaims the pridefulness of the builders as much as the glory of God.
Against these, the architectural unity of Reims stands in glorious contrast. The joy that stirs the beholder comes as much from the integrity of the design as from any particular excellences. As the guidebook tells, this integrity was achieved by the self-abnegation of eight generations of builders, each of whom sacrificed some of his ideas so that the whole might be of pure design. The result proclaims not only the glory of God, but also His power to salvage fallen men from their pride.
Even though they have not taken centuries to build, most programming systems reflect conceptual disunity far worse than that of cathedrals. Usually this arises not from a serial succession of master designers, but from the separation of design into many tasks done by many men.
I will contend that conceptual integrity is the most important consideration in system design. It is better to have a system omit certain anomalous features and improvements, but to reflect one set of design ideas, than to have one that contains many good but independent and uncoordinated ideas.
According to this article at SunWorld, "As of this week [published April 8, 1999], the Monterey alliance has completed Monterey's 64-bit kernel, 64-bit memory model, endian neutral (non-byte-order specific) commands and libraries, 64-bit C compiler, and journaled files system."
The article also mentions that HP has run "successful tests of the Oracle 8i database on an HP-UX based IA-64 simulator."
At least regarding the compiler (and 64-bit kernel / memory model, I would think), Linux is not far behind. I believe that these vendors are hoping that IA-64 will allow them to place some more distance between their products and Linux. I also think that they have another thing coming.
Unix and Linux: Similar technologies, different career prospects
Confusion over the word unix is commonplace. In this instance, the article splits unix systems into two categories: Unix and Linux, as if all unix systems besides Linux are somehow authentic or legitimate, while Linux is not.
What makes a unix system a unix system? Most of us already know the answer to this but probably have no desire to spell it out. If you know what a unix system is, inside and out, you know perfectly well that Linux is just one implementation of unix, as are Solaris, AIX, HPUX, etc.
The code base does not have to stem from the original tree to be considered a legitimate unix system, nor does it have to be proprietary. As Neal Stephenson points out, "Gnu is an acronym for Gnu's Not Unix, but this is a joke in more ways than one, because GNU most certainly IS Unix. Because of trademark concerns ("Unix" is trademarked by AT&T) they simply could not claim that it was Unix, and so, just to be extra safe, they claimed that it wasn't."
Despite the pedantic point that the trademark is now owned by someone else, he hit the nail on the head.
If I'm not mistaken, the trademark has been owned, at least, by the following: Bell Labs, AT&T, Novell, X/Open, and The Open Group. However, the ownership of the original code has passed from Bell Labs to AT&T to Novell to SCO. Again, if I'm not mistaken, the trademark and the original code base are now owned by two different entities. It is in my opinion ludicrous for anyone to assert their rights to the word unix anymore - though I would not encourage anyone to try naming their product XYZ Unix or some variation along the lines of UnixWare, I think that everyone has every right to describe their systems appropriately, including people who run Linux; and Linux is a unix system.
If you look at The Open Group's discussion of their trademarks, you'll see just how silly the whole idea of claiming ownership to the word unix really is; these measures are too late. Language has owned the word for some time now. Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear, in common speech at work, at least one of their examples violated on how they don't want you to use the word unix. Specifically, I constantly hear people refer to "the unix box," "a unix box," or "one of the unix boxes," when in fact they are talking about different types of machines and different implementations of unix.
Do not let this word game encourage people to perceive Linux as somehow less deserving of the name than its commercial counterparts. A unix, by any other name, is still a unix.
Yes, this is a very common tactic. They did the same thing when the Mac came out, I believe: they downplayed GUI's while behind the scenes they were sweating to get their own out.
What can they do this time to get, for example, the stability of Linux? If they really want to improve their own software and mung Linux simultaneously, the solution is actually quite simple: just tell the current Windows developers that from now on, they are going to get paid to develop Linux. Then hire a couple thousand Linux hackers to completely rewrite Win.
I'm going to take a gamble and bet some comments will be up soon as to the elite and special nature of Linux, and how this is going to ruin everything...
Or on how by dumbing down the OS this way, Linux will be no more and no better than Windows...
Maybe a tiny fraction of Linux users feel this way. Thing is, they kind of look like they're made out of straw.
Or how Linux is their OS, meant and built for hackers, and not meant for idiots, newbies, the clueless, or the Great Unwashed Masses...
The idea that Linux is "meant and built for hackers" is, IMO, true, and it does have some important implications for this discussion.
Not to mention the vagueness of your suggestions, they are not trivial to implement. Why? Because Linux was not designed to be this kind of system from the start.
"Zero administration" is the holy grail of people who wish to bring their operating systems to the "great unwashed masses." Seek it if you wish.
As it stands, Linux is extremely conducive to productive hacking. In this respect, it's been "a good thing but not perfect" for a very long time. If other people want to make it easy for me to do other things with it, or easy for other people to do other things with it as well, that's fine. Thanks. I needed that.
I do have a couple O'Reilly books (Programming Perl, DNS and BIND, I think that's it), but I think their books are often superfluous. To their credit, the books are well written if a bit too fluffy for my taste, and the authors are usually experienced and well qualified for their chosen subjects.
Info pages, man pages, source code, and the web usually provide more than enough info to spare you from buying an O'Reilly book. True, it will usually cost you time and convenience, which may be worth much more to you than the cover price. OTOH, I have about a dump truck full of books from Addison Wesley, John Wiley, and Prentice Hall, along with a few titles, e.g., from Digital Press and Morgan Kaufmann. IMHO, these books are much better values.
..so I wonder at what point the O'Reilly folks will realize they'll sell more books when they make online versions of the books freely available on the web. While it may seem a contradiction, it is not. Personally, I'm much more inclined to purchase a technical book after its value has been demonstrated: Show me the content is truely valuable, then I'm much more likely to purchase a hardcopy for my own convienience instead of going to a website. I'm sick of buying books on paper altogether. And no, I'm not some wigged out environmentalist; I actually prefer online documentation because it takes up much less space than shelves of books. With some improvements in documentation software, it should also be more convenient to read and to search through.
Yes, there are some classic computer books that I would probably keep around, but in general, I would much prefer paying for a license and an online copy, like The Evil Known As Proprietary Software. Technology changes too quickly. If the book is good enough - the heresy! - I might even be willing to pay an upgrade fee for the next edition.
I think it's a damned shame how much Sun screwed this up. Java could have been genuinely useful years ago if they hadn't tried to maintain control so tightly, and hadn't tried to conflate so many completely different things (a language, an enormous class library, a virtual machine, and a security model) under one name.
With all due respect, I agree with your second reason but have doubts concerning your first. If If I'm not mistaken, their official line on why they maintained that tight control was twofold: first, they wanted to protect Java from sabotage,as Microsoft tried to pull, and second, that their initial license agreements with vendors made loosening their control legally tricky.
Could they have prevented Microsoft from discrediting Java's "Write once, run anywhere" claims if their control had been any looser? Possibly. Was it feasible for them to give up some ground any faster than they did, or to simply have released the product under a more open license to begin with? Maybe they could have done that, too.
In general, however, I feel that Sun deserves more credit than they've received so far. Vendors such as IBM, IBM/Lotus, Oracle, Apple - in short, pretty much everyone but Microsoft and Compaq/Digital have had enormous input on the class specifications, for example. Some important parts even originated at one of those other companies. And Sun has released preliminary specs for public review and criticism; they've been extremely receptive to outside influence, and I guess the fact that they've been reserving the final word for themselves just doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother you.
It goes without saying that they're simply acting out of their best business interests; those interests seem quite compatible at the moment with almost everyone but Microsoft. Most of all, they are very compatible with the self-interests of developers. The Java community license is possibly the best compromise between the free and proprietary worlds that I've seen so far. I realize that many people feel there can be no compromise: the Qt flame wars demonstrated that quite clearly. But for developers who want to make a living developing, without doing so as consultants, scrutinizing the middle ground is absolutely essential.
gnome, pr, & stabilizing the code base
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CDE vs Gnome
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The author kept finding problems with Gnome and saying "of course, these things will be fixed" too many times. How biased can you get? Why should one assume that these things will be fixed - Gnome releases seem to have gotten progressively more unstable and buggy since version 0.30.
Everyone knows that the GNOME team rushed the 1.0 release because they wanted to have it ready for the big expo. If Miguel would issue some sort of public apology admitting that they made a mistake and saying that they've learned their lesson, perhaps it would go some way towards clearing the air. The guys working on GNOME are good coders. They are very capable of working out the problems. They just need to spend more time testing and debugging. There have been times, for example, when the Linux development kernel or an important part of the Debian distribution have been just as ugly - but their development model and shipping policy, along with the GNOME 1.0 fiasco, ought to serve as examples the GNOME team will never forget. (like that old ad, something like "Serve no wine before its time," ship no dot-o till it's ready to go.)
A few ideas that are missing in this article are 'component framework', 'Java', and their corollary, interoperability.
Java has the coolest architecture and programming interface by far, IMHO. For example, it allows you to change the look-and-feel of your widgets on the fly among the JLAF (Java Look and Feel), Motif, and, on Windows machines, that crappy one too. What's more, you can customize your own! Yes, if you want to, you can make a GNOME and/or KDE look-and feel. They call this feature PLAF: Pluggable Look and Feel.
Another bonus is that it's extremely easy to use threads in Java. Also, its component framework, JavaBeans, and the JNI (Java Native Interface) play extremely well together with other frameworks and with legacy code. There is no good reason whatsoever why people can't write Java apps to be integrated into GNOME and KDE.
There is also no good reason why someone couldn't or shouldn't start yet another open source desktop project based on Java. When the KDE folks said they picked the best available toolkit, well, maybe they did, but IMO that's no longer true. Java is comprehensive and cutting-edge (and it's still growing). Sun has poured a lot of money into it, using extremely talented programmers who have had the luxury of synthesizing the best ideas in software engineering that have come along in the last decade or so.
A final benefit of Java is that you can actually get a job programming in it; how many ads in the paper have you seen for companies looking for Qt or GTK skills? I saw one in my local paper that was looking for Motif last Sunday. Aside from that, everyone wants you to use Microsoft Visual C++, with the wonderful Microsoft Foundation Classes, for the wonderful world of Windows. If you're lucky, they'll let you do some cross-platform stuff between NT and AIX, HPUX, etc.
People can brag about the apps they have with GTK, Qt, and even Motif. Furthermore, both the KOM/OpenParts framework, as well as GNOME's architecture are quite impressive, but under the hood and in the job market, they fall a bit short of Java IMO.
Ok, I've got my flame-retardant jacket on now.
good mail clients for Linux
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CDE vs Gnome
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Good question. I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer. I can say that gnus under emacs/xemacs is outstanding, though. It may be what you're looking for, but then again, it may not. Its interface may not be quite what you have in mind (xemacs would suit you better than emacs), but you're not likely to find better filtering and stability anywhere. I don't know about the Eudora stuff, but it does allow you to import and store your mail in many different mailbox formats. All around, it's extremely flexible. It threads mail, and it gives you a common interface for reading and writing both email and usenet news.
Having said that, if you find that it's still not your cup of tea, I would advise you that filtering in a mail client is really a non-issue; this is Unix. You can do all your filtering before your client ever sees your mail. Just use mailagent (an extremely powerful Perl-based mail sorting engine), procmail (another good and popular choice), or any of the more lightweight options out there.
I've looked at balsa (one of the GNOME mail clients) and kmail (KDE's). Maybe I didn't really give them enough of a chance, but they both struck me as too wimpy - and if you also read news, I think you need a separate client for that; correct me if I'm mistaken. But again, using a good mail filter in addition to one of these may be quite viable.
I've also looked at the mail client with Netscape Communicator, which is what the author of the CDE/GNOME comparison says he uses. This might actually be what you're looking for - or at least as close as you're likely to find right now unless maybe you pony up some cash (but to who and for what product, I don't know). Again, just do your filtering elsewhere. Likewise, there's probably a way to convert your Eudora stuff to different mailbox formats that's independent of any particular mail client. Also, Communicator allows you to read both email and news. It's not for me, but to each his own.
If you've got the time, check a few of them out and take the Pepsi challenge for yourself.
There is no need to use special psychology to explain the hacker culture. The key is to understand the unprecedented nature of the medium within which they work.
Speaking of which, I have yet to hear a discussion on the implications of the "software should be free from restrictions on its modification, redistribution, etc." hypothesis in light of the convergence of older media into into this new medium. Does the argument extend to art, music, movies, and books?
I agree that the price tag is a very important constituent of the movement's success - and yet it's not everything. I also agree that the liberty to modify and redistribute source code is essential - and yet that isn't everything, either.
I paid $100 for an "Ancient Unix Source Code License" from SCO, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Why would I do a stupid thing like that? Why would I pay for obsolete code when I have more contemporary, gratis code than I could ever possibly peruse? And aren't I supposed to demand a license that allows me to redistribute my modifications to anyone I want, not just to other people who paid for a license?
Yes, it's nice to get quality software without having to pay for it, and yes, restrictions on what I'm allowed to do with software tend to annoy me. But money isn't everything, nor am I absolutely convinced that granting people the liberty to do whatever they want with all software is everyone's sacred duty.
The primary impetus behind the free software movement is neither a craving for respect nor a belief in the software rights of mankind. As others have pointed out, people who love to program just love to program. They love making things work, and they love seeing how other people make things work, and they love collaborating to build things together that no one could ever build alone.
Free beer is also very important. When I started reading about paying for Commercial Open Source Software, I had a sinking feeling in my gut: here we go again. If I cannot afford to pay for, say, PowerPoint Deluxe 2001, I don't care. But when I cannot afford to pay for a cool compiler, debugger, disassembler, or whatever, life totally sucks. If a Commercial Open Source Software project produced something that matched, say, egcs in quality, I would be very disappointed if I couldn't afford to pay the executable fee. Again, what others call free beer, Neal Stephenson calls free tanks.
a) maybe jwz can get out there and do something he really enjoys now, which might be good for all of us:), and
b) maybe this will act as a wakeup call. with jwz gone, mozilla can go one of two ways: either somebody's gonna do *something*, or it's gonna die.
c) maybe all of us losers with delusions of grandeur will go download the tarball again...
so, i personally wanna wish jwz good luck.
These are the same types of things that initially went through my head, so I'll probably just end up repeating them.
I agree that if he feels miserable there, he should leave and find a project that will help him reclaim his happiness. However, to the company or project that loses him, yes, they may very well be able to recover and even to continue building on the work that has already been done and to make it a huge success - but his departure is still a big loss for them.
For Open Source, however, it may be a milestone of sorts; this seems to be the first case of a change in leadership occurring in a major Open Source project. Granted, it's a position that's funded by a large corporation, but as jwz pointed out when AOL bought Netscape, no matter what happens, the source is out there. As long as someone, somewhere, steps up, an Open Source project cannot die.
On a side note, I don't believe he listed negative sentiments towards AOL as one of his "reason/excuses." Despite his repeated assurances that Mozilla is not AOL, I think that the buyout hurt Mozilla tremendously.
As much as I love the GNU utilities and the FSF, I think the naming thing is just plain tough and that they should let it go. Is America named after Columbus? No. That's just too bad.
The word GNU has no unix ring to it whatsoever. Yes, it's a clever acronym. Yes, I even like the name very much. But if you talk about GNU to a non-unix person, chances are they'll reply, "Your what hurts?"
By contrast, the name Linux is quite uncanny; it contains all the letters that are in the word unix, plus it's the creator's first name with the last letter changed to an x. It looks and sounds like the name unix, but it also looks and sounds like the name Linus. It's a strange coincidence, but it works extremely well. I've heard a number of people mispronounce the word Linux, but that seems to be happening less and less.
The article says that RMS is eccentric. Many people likewise consider the name GNU eccentric, especially compared to the more familiar-sounding Linux - which of course is based on the eccentric name unix. I repeat, to them GNU is eccentric, but Linux is normal because it sounds like a well-established name, a name that just happens to be eccentric.
To be honest, marketing is just not RMS's forte - but that is meant as a compliment; it isn't Thompson's or Ritchie's forte either. IMHO, the name HURD resembles the sound of blowing chunks more than it does a stampede of free-running antelope-like animals. Eccentric indeed. And a man of great integrity, and a great hacker who will forever be close to our hearts regardless of the name we settle on.
Has the world forgotten Columbus? Neither will it forget RMS.
I stopped reading AC posts a while back by setting my threshold to one. Yes, you miss some interesting posts, but you also save a lot of time, and you also filter out a very high percentage of the posts that are pure garbage. One thing that jumped out at me right away was the change in tone: suddenly the posts seemed much more rational. Best of all, when the trolls rear their ugly heads, they usually don't cross the threshold.
If their GUI was open sourced, this would be a big deal. For the lower level stuff, yeah, it's nice, but so what? Could someone please enlighten me on the functionality and technical enhancements they're adding to previously available open sourced systems?
Secondly, how will this affect Apple's MkLinux support (I'm sure this is on a faq somewhere)?
$300. Ouch. I'm not cheap, I'm just poor. If it was half that much I'd probably get it and just not eat for a couple days, but I think I'm going to pass on this for now.
Still, anything that can help Linux swallow Windows & its installed base is a good thing.
Triboot? Dang. I've got Linux, Solaris, UnixWare, OpenStep, FreeBSD, and a couple different DOS's & Windows systems all installed on this box. The easiest way to do this is to install a removable drive, whatever kind you like, as your first hard drive, and use a SCSI controller that lets you select whether you want to boot from the removable or not. Then you just install whatever you need to boot each system plus whatever else you want (root/main partition) on a removable disk and use your fixed disks for extra storage. You can also, of course, turn off the removable boot option any time you want and just boot whatever system you use most off a fixed disk.
Slashdot Mirror
For those who have not yet read this, I quote:
Most European cathedrals show differences in plan or architectural style between parts built in different generations by different builders. The later builders were tempted to "improve" upon the designs of the earlier ones, to reflect both changes in fashion and differences in individual taste. So the peaceful Norman transept abuts and contradicts the soaring Gothic nave, and the result proclaims the pridefulness of the builders as much as the glory of God.
Against these, the architectural unity of Reims stands in glorious contrast. The joy that stirs the beholder comes as much from the integrity of the design as from any particular excellences. As the guidebook tells, this integrity was achieved by the self-abnegation of eight generations of builders, each of whom sacrificed some of his ideas so that the whole might be of pure design. The result proclaims not only the glory of God, but also His power to salvage fallen men from their pride.
Even though they have not taken centuries to build, most programming systems reflect conceptual disunity far worse than that of cathedrals. Usually this arises not from a serial succession of master designers, but from the separation of design into many tasks done by many men.
I will contend that conceptual integrity is the most important consideration in system design. It is better to have a system omit certain anomalous features and improvements, but to reflect one set of design ideas, than to have one that contains many good but independent and uncoordinated ideas.
-Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man Month
The article also mentions that HP has run "successful tests of the Oracle 8i database on an HP-UX based IA-64 simulator."
At least regarding the compiler (and 64-bit kernel / memory model, I would think), Linux is not far behind. I believe that these vendors are hoping that IA-64 will allow them to place some more distance between their products and Linux. I also think that they have another thing coming.
Let the code run free.
Confusion over the word unix is commonplace. In this instance, the article splits unix systems into two categories: Unix and Linux, as if all unix systems besides Linux are somehow authentic or legitimate, while Linux is not.
What makes a unix system a unix system? Most of us already know the answer to this but probably have no desire to spell it out. If you know what a unix system is, inside and out, you know perfectly well that Linux is just one implementation of unix, as are Solaris, AIX, HPUX, etc.
The code base does not have to stem from the original tree to be considered a legitimate unix system, nor does it have to be proprietary. As Neal Stephenson points out, "Gnu is an acronym for Gnu's Not Unix, but this is a joke in more ways than one, because GNU most certainly IS Unix. Because of trademark concerns ("Unix" is trademarked by AT&T) they simply could not claim that it was Unix, and so, just to be extra safe, they claimed that it wasn't."
Despite the pedantic point that the trademark is now owned by someone else, he hit the nail on the head.
If I'm not mistaken, the trademark has been owned, at least, by the following: Bell Labs, AT&T, Novell, X/Open, and The Open Group. However, the ownership of the original code has passed from Bell Labs to AT&T to Novell to SCO. Again, if I'm not mistaken, the trademark and the original code base are now owned by two different entities. It is in my opinion ludicrous for anyone to assert their rights to the word unix anymore - though I would not encourage anyone to try naming their product XYZ Unix or some variation along the lines of UnixWare, I think that everyone has every right to describe their systems appropriately, including people who run Linux; and Linux is a unix system.
If you look at The Open Group's discussion of their trademarks, you'll see just how silly the whole idea of claiming ownership to the word unix really is; these measures are too late. Language has owned the word for some time now. Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear, in common speech at work, at least one of their examples violated on how they don't want you to use the word unix. Specifically, I constantly hear people refer to "the unix box," "a unix box," or "one of the unix boxes," when in fact they are talking about different types of machines and different implementations of unix.
Do not let this word game encourage people to perceive Linux as somehow less deserving of the name than its commercial counterparts. A unix, by any other name, is still a unix.
Yes, this is a very common tactic. They did the same thing when the Mac came out, I believe: they downplayed GUI's while behind the scenes they were sweating to get their own out.
What can they do this time to get, for example, the stability of Linux? If they really want to improve their own software and mung Linux simultaneously, the solution is actually quite simple: just tell the current Windows developers that from now on, they are going to get paid to develop Linux. Then hire a couple thousand Linux hackers to completely rewrite Win.
I'm going to take a gamble and bet some comments will be up soon as to the elite and special nature of Linux, and how this is going to ruin everything...
Or on how by dumbing down the OS this way, Linux will be no more and no better than Windows...
Maybe a tiny fraction of Linux users feel this way. Thing is, they kind of look like they're made out of straw.
Or how Linux is their OS, meant and built for hackers, and not meant for idiots, newbies, the clueless, or the Great Unwashed Masses...
The idea that Linux is "meant and built for hackers" is, IMO, true, and it does have some important implications for this discussion.
Not to mention the vagueness of your suggestions, they are not trivial to implement. Why? Because Linux was not designed to be this kind of system from the start.
"Zero administration" is the holy grail of people who wish to bring their operating systems to the "great unwashed masses." Seek it if you wish.
As it stands, Linux is extremely conducive to productive hacking. In this respect, it's been "a good thing but not perfect" for a very long time.
If other people want to make it easy for me to do other things with it, or easy for other people to do other things with it as well, that's fine. Thanks. I needed that.
I do have a couple O'Reilly books (Programming Perl, DNS and BIND, I think that's it), but I think their books are often superfluous. To their credit, the books are well written if a bit too fluffy for my taste, and the authors are usually experienced and well qualified for their chosen subjects.
Info pages, man pages, source code, and the web usually provide more than enough info to spare you from buying an O'Reilly book. True, it will usually cost you time and convenience, which may be worth much more to you than the cover price.
OTOH, I have about a dump truck full of books from Addison Wesley, John Wiley, and Prentice Hall, along with a few titles, e.g., from Digital Press and Morgan Kaufmann. IMHO, these books are much better values.
..so I wonder at what point the O'Reilly folks will realize they'll sell more books when they make online versions of the books freely available on the web. While it may seem a contradiction, it is not. Personally, I'm much more inclined to purchase a technical book after its value has been demonstrated: Show me the content is truely valuable, then I'm much more likely to purchase a hardcopy for my own convienience instead of going to a website.
I'm sick of buying books on paper altogether. And no, I'm not some wigged out environmentalist; I actually prefer online documentation because it takes up much less space than shelves of books. With some improvements in documentation software, it should also be more convenient to read and to search through.
Yes, there are some classic computer books that I would probably keep around, but in general, I would much prefer paying for a license and an online copy, like The Evil Known As Proprietary Software. Technology changes too quickly. If the book is good enough - the heresy! - I might even be willing to pay an upgrade fee for the next edition.
I think it's a damned shame how much Sun screwed this up. Java could have been genuinely useful years ago if they hadn't tried to maintain control so tightly, and hadn't tried to conflate so many completely different things (a language, an enormous class library, a virtual machine, and a security model) under one name.
With all due respect, I agree with your second reason but have doubts concerning your first. If If I'm not mistaken, their official line on why they maintained that tight control was twofold: first, they wanted to protect Java from sabotage,as Microsoft tried to pull, and second, that their initial license agreements with vendors made loosening their control legally tricky.
Could they have prevented Microsoft from discrediting Java's "Write once, run anywhere" claims if their control had been any looser? Possibly. Was it feasible for them to give up some ground any faster than they did, or to simply have released the product under a more open license to begin with? Maybe they could have done that, too.
In general, however, I feel that Sun deserves more credit than they've received so far. Vendors such as IBM, IBM/Lotus, Oracle, Apple - in short, pretty much everyone but Microsoft and Compaq/Digital have had enormous input on the class specifications, for example. Some important parts even originated at one of those other companies. And Sun has released preliminary specs for public review and criticism; they've been extremely receptive to outside influence, and I guess the fact that they've been reserving the final word for themselves just doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother you.
It goes without saying that they're simply acting out of their best business interests; those interests seem quite compatible at the moment with almost everyone but Microsoft. Most of all, they are very compatible with the self-interests of developers. The Java community license is possibly the best compromise between the free and proprietary worlds that I've seen so far.
I realize that many people feel there can be no compromise: the Qt flame wars demonstrated that quite clearly. But for developers who want to make a living developing, without doing so as consultants, scrutinizing the middle ground is absolutely essential.
The author kept finding problems with Gnome and saying "of course, these things will be fixed" too many times. How biased can you get? Why should one assume that these things will be fixed - Gnome releases seem to have gotten progressively more unstable and buggy since version 0.30.
Everyone knows that the GNOME team rushed the 1.0 release because they wanted to have it ready for the big expo. If Miguel would issue some sort of public apology admitting that they made a mistake and saying that they've learned their lesson, perhaps it would go some way towards clearing the air. The guys working on GNOME are good coders. They are very capable of working out the problems. They just need to spend more time testing and debugging. There have been times, for example, when the Linux development kernel or an important part of the Debian distribution have been just as ugly - but their development model and shipping policy, along with the GNOME 1.0 fiasco, ought to serve as examples the GNOME team will never forget.
(like that old ad, something like "Serve no wine before its time," ship no dot-o till it's ready to go.)
A few ideas that are missing in this article are 'component framework', 'Java', and their corollary, interoperability.
Java has the coolest architecture and programming interface by far, IMHO. For example, it allows you to change the look-and-feel of your widgets on the fly among the JLAF (Java Look and Feel), Motif, and, on Windows machines, that crappy one too. What's more, you can customize your own! Yes, if you want to, you can make a GNOME and/or KDE look-and feel. They call this feature PLAF: Pluggable Look and Feel.
Another bonus is that it's extremely easy to use threads in Java. Also, its component framework, JavaBeans, and the JNI (Java Native Interface) play extremely well together with other frameworks and with legacy code. There is no good reason whatsoever why people can't write Java apps to be integrated into GNOME and KDE.
There is also no good reason why someone couldn't or shouldn't start yet another open source desktop project based on Java. When the KDE folks said they picked the best available toolkit, well, maybe they did, but IMO that's no longer true. Java is comprehensive and cutting-edge (and it's still growing). Sun has poured a lot of money into it, using extremely talented programmers who have had the luxury of synthesizing the best ideas in software engineering that have come along in the last decade or so.
A final benefit of Java is that you can actually get a job programming in it; how many ads in the paper have you seen for companies looking for Qt or GTK skills? I saw one in my local paper that was looking for Motif last Sunday. Aside from that, everyone wants you to use Microsoft Visual C++, with the wonderful Microsoft Foundation Classes, for the wonderful world of Windows. If you're lucky, they'll let you do some cross-platform stuff between NT and AIX, HPUX, etc.
People can brag about the apps they have with GTK, Qt, and even Motif. Furthermore, both the KOM/OpenParts framework, as well as GNOME's architecture are quite impressive, but under the hood and in the job market, they fall a bit short of Java IMO.
Ok, I've got my flame-retardant jacket on now.
Good question. I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer. I can say that gnus under emacs/xemacs is outstanding, though. It may be what you're looking for, but then again, it may not. Its interface may not be quite what you have in mind (xemacs would suit you better than emacs), but you're not likely to find better filtering and stability anywhere. I don't know about the Eudora stuff, but it does allow you to import and store your mail in many different mailbox formats. All around, it's extremely flexible. It threads mail, and it gives you a common interface for reading and writing both email and usenet news.
Having said that, if you find that it's still not your cup of tea, I would advise you that filtering in a mail client is really a non-issue; this is Unix. You can do all your filtering before your client ever sees your mail. Just use mailagent (an extremely powerful Perl-based mail sorting engine), procmail (another good and popular choice), or any of the more lightweight options out there.
I've looked at balsa (one of the GNOME mail clients) and kmail (KDE's). Maybe I didn't really give them enough of a chance, but they both struck me as too wimpy - and if you also read news, I think you need a separate client for that; correct me if I'm mistaken. But again, using a good mail filter in addition to one of these may be quite viable.
I've also looked at the mail client with Netscape Communicator, which is what the author of the CDE/GNOME comparison says he uses. This might actually be what you're looking for - or at least as close as you're likely to find right now unless maybe you pony up some cash (but to who and for what product, I don't know). Again, just do your filtering elsewhere. Likewise, there's probably a way to convert your Eudora stuff to different mailbox formats that's independent of any particular mail client. Also, Communicator allows you to read both email and news. It's not for me, but to each his own.
If you've got the time, check a few of them out and take the Pepsi challenge for yourself.
There is no need to use special psychology to explain the hacker culture. The key is to understand the unprecedented nature of the medium within which they work.
Speaking of which, I have yet to hear a discussion on the implications of the "software should be free from restrictions on its modification, redistribution, etc." hypothesis in light of the convergence of older media into into this new medium. Does the argument extend to art, music, movies, and books?
You make some very interesting points, none of which address mine: I hack, therefore I am.
how many times
must an ignorant myth
be refuted again and again?
and how many times
must my patience be tried
before I just tell 'm to get bent?
the answer, my friend,
is blowin' in the wind
the answer is blowin' in the wind
I agree that the price tag is a very important constituent of the movement's success - and yet it's not everything. I also agree that the liberty to modify and redistribute source code is essential - and yet that isn't everything, either.
I paid $100 for an "Ancient Unix Source Code License" from SCO, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Why would I do a stupid thing like that? Why would I pay for obsolete code when I have more contemporary, gratis code than I could ever possibly peruse? And aren't I supposed to demand a license that allows me to redistribute my modifications to anyone I want, not just to other people who paid for a license?
Yes, it's nice to get quality software without having to pay for it, and yes, restrictions on what I'm allowed to do with software tend to annoy me. But money isn't everything, nor am I absolutely convinced that granting people the liberty to do whatever they want with all software is everyone's sacred duty.
I just want to hack, ok?
The primary impetus behind the free software movement is neither a craving for respect nor a belief in the software rights of mankind. As others have pointed out, people who love to program just love to program. They love making things work, and they love seeing how other people make things work, and they love collaborating to build things together that no one could ever build alone.
Free beer is also very important. When I started reading about paying for Commercial Open Source Software, I had a sinking feeling in my gut: here we go again. If I cannot afford to pay for, say, PowerPoint Deluxe 2001, I don't care. But when I cannot afford to pay for a cool compiler, debugger, disassembler, or whatever, life totally sucks. If a Commercial Open Source Software project produced something that matched, say, egcs in quality, I would be very disappointed if I couldn't afford to pay the executable fee. Again, what others call free beer, Neal Stephenson calls free tanks.
however, maybe it's a good thing:
:), and
a) maybe jwz can get out there and do something he really enjoys now, which might be good for all of us
b) maybe this will act as a wakeup call. with jwz gone, mozilla can go one of two ways: either somebody's gonna do *something*, or it's gonna die.
c) maybe all of us losers with delusions of grandeur will go download the tarball again...
so, i personally wanna wish jwz good luck.
These are the same types of things that initially went through my head, so I'll probably just end up repeating them.
I agree that if he feels miserable there, he should leave and find a project that will help him reclaim his happiness. However, to the company or project that loses him, yes, they may very well be able to recover and even to continue building on the work that has already been done and to make it a huge success - but his departure is still a big loss for them.
For Open Source, however, it may be a milestone of sorts; this seems to be the first case of a change in leadership occurring in a major Open Source project. Granted, it's a position that's funded by a large corporation, but as jwz pointed out when AOL bought Netscape, no matter what happens, the source is out there. As long as someone, somewhere, steps up, an Open Source project cannot die.
On a side note, I don't believe he listed negative sentiments towards AOL as one of his "reason/excuses." Despite his repeated assurances that Mozilla is not AOL, I think that the buyout hurt Mozilla tremendously.
As much as I love the GNU utilities and the FSF, I think the naming thing is just plain tough and that they should let it go. Is America named after Columbus? No. That's just too bad.
The word GNU has no unix ring to it whatsoever. Yes, it's a clever acronym. Yes, I even like the name very much. But if you talk about GNU to a non-unix person, chances are they'll reply, "Your what hurts?"
By contrast, the name Linux is quite uncanny; it contains all the letters that are in the word unix, plus it's the creator's first name with the last letter changed to an x. It looks and sounds like the name unix, but it also looks and sounds like the name Linus. It's a strange coincidence, but it works extremely well. I've heard a number of people mispronounce the word Linux, but that seems to be happening less and less.
The article says that RMS is eccentric. Many people likewise consider the name GNU eccentric, especially compared to the more familiar-sounding Linux - which of course is based on the eccentric name unix. I repeat, to them GNU is eccentric, but Linux is normal because it sounds like a well-established name, a name that just happens to be eccentric.
To be honest, marketing is just not RMS's forte - but that is meant as a compliment; it isn't Thompson's or Ritchie's forte either. IMHO, the name HURD resembles the sound of blowing chunks more than it does a stampede of free-running antelope-like animals. Eccentric indeed. And a man of great integrity, and a great hacker who will forever be close to our hearts regardless of the name we settle on.
Has the world forgotten Columbus? Neither will it forget RMS.
I stopped reading AC posts a while back by setting my threshold to one. Yes, you miss some interesting posts, but you also save a lot of time, and you also filter out a very high percentage of the posts that are pure garbage.
One thing that jumped out at me right away was the change in tone: suddenly the posts seemed much more rational. Best of all, when the trolls rear their ugly heads, they usually don't cross the threshold.
Here's a list of products from their web site's Product Finder:
Yeah, gas grills are prolley in there someplace.
[(probably somewhat inacurrate) text processing courtesy of awk, btw.]
And no, I don't work for them. It's not my fault the list is so long. That was kind of the point of my last message...
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Here's a list of products from their web site's Product Finder:
Semiconductors & IC Home Page, Microcontrollers & Microprocessors, 8/16-bit H8 MCU, 32/64-bit SuperH MCU/MPU, Flash MCU, SuperH enabling Windows CE, Memory ICs, Flash Cards, LCD Drivers/Controllers, QAM Demodulator, Logic ICs, Optoelectronic Components, RF Power Amp Modules, Discrete Devices, Packaging, Developer Information, Mass Storage Products, CD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-ROM, Hard Disk Drives, Multimedia Recorders, MPEGCam, M2 Multimedia Recorders, Handheld PCs, LCD Projectors, 8mm Camcorders, ATM Products, Accessories, Analytical Instruments, Belt Sanders, Brake Hose, Bread Makers, Broadcasting & Professional Cameras, Chemical & Nuclear Plant Equipment, Chiller Heaters, Circular Saws, Color TV, Compressors, Dealerboard Products, Desktop Computers, Digital Printer, Drills, Enterprise Professional Services, Fans, Full Size VHS Camcorders, Gears, Genetic Systems, Graphics Tablets, HMCA Diagnostic Ultrasound, HMCA Nuclear Products Division, Imaging Software, Industrial Video Products, Interconnection Materials, Inverter Welders, Inverters, Jig Saws, Large Motors, Mainframe Computers, Mainframe Storage, Mass Transit Systems, Massager, Microwave Plasma Etching Equipment, Mini-Notebook, Miter Saws, Monitors - Color, Multimedia Vision, Nailers, Notebook Computers, Open Systems Servers, Open Systems Software, Orbital Sanders, PBX Products, Planers, Power Plant Equipment, Power Semiconductors, Power Steering Hoses and Assemblies, Premise Wire, Printed Wiring Board Materials, Printed Wiring Boards/Assemblies, Printers, Printers - Color Laser, Programmable Logic Controllers, Projection TV, Projection Television Tubes, Reciprocating Saws, Rice Cookers/Food Steamers, Roll Mills, Routers, Semiconductor Materials, Shavers, Submersible Motors, Super TFT Color Displays, Super TFT Color LCD Monitors, Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), TFT Color Displays, Test & Measurement Equipment, TradeLink, VCR's, Vacuum Brake Hose, Vortex Blowers
Yeah, gas grills are prolley in there someplace.
[text processing courtesy of awk, btw.]
And no, I don't work for them.
"mommy, what's a Unisys?"..."isn't a Tandem a bike with two people on it?"
:-)
Yeah, and who the heck are these "Hitachi" guys, anyway?
If their GUI was open sourced, this would be a big deal. For the lower level stuff, yeah, it's nice, but so what? Could someone please enlighten me on the functionality and technical enhancements they're adding to previously available open sourced systems?
Secondly, how will this affect Apple's MkLinux support (I'm sure this is on a faq somewhere)?
$300. Ouch. I'm not cheap, I'm just poor. If it was half that much I'd probably get it and just not eat for a couple days, but I think I'm going to pass on this for now.
Still, anything that can help Linux swallow Windows & its installed base is a good thing.
Triboot? Dang. I've got Linux, Solaris, UnixWare, OpenStep, FreeBSD, and a couple different DOS's & Windows systems all installed on this box. The easiest way to do this is to install a removable drive, whatever kind you like, as your first hard drive, and use a SCSI controller that lets you select whether you want to boot from the removable or not. Then you just install whatever you need to boot each system plus whatever else you want (root/main partition) on a removable disk and use your fixed disks for extra storage. You can also, of course, turn off the removable boot option any time you want and just boot whatever system you use most off a fixed disk.