The variety of Open Source projects is its strength.
Where do you see Open Source as a failure? All I can see is that it spreads more and more. Who knows where it will end yet. It may be the desktop, may be not.
For me, Open Source is not a failure, because it always allows me to do whatever I need to do with software. And if I would be the only one in the world who likes a colorfull desktop, I guess I would have to write KDE from scratch and on my own.
Don't let people tell you what you have to eat. Be free in your choices. And if you are in a minority, do your own thing. And if you don't succeed, then the rest of the world will know why they haven't gone your way:)
When they more or less say that there is nobody to help them with their probs, I think they haven't seen the full potential of Free Software / OSS
Clearly they are not the only digital animation shop on the planet. So others that switch to Linux will face the same problems. And I know of a few in London that do switch to Linux.
So if they and all the others would give back what they fixed and developed, the investment would suddenly shrink and everybody would gain.
But then most studios are afraid to disclose what they are doing and how. For the simple reason that technology is one of the key parts of creating a good digital animation. So if everybody has got the receipe, they'd loose their advantage in the competition against all the other hundreds of shops.
There's a lot of debate currently on whether the Reichstag (the German parliament) should switch to linux.
Burning my karma here, but please don't call it Reichstag. The building is the old Reichstag, but it has got nothing to do with the current use of it. The Nazis are gone a long time ago and now they call it 'Der Bundestag' in the Reichstag building.
The Germans use Reichstag to describe the building. The political institution Reichstag is gone a long time ago.
In comparison to the UK, Germany is way ahead when it comes to Linux in commercial or govermental environments. When quoting for a Free Software solution in Germany you normally don't have to explain the whole 'free as in free speach, not free beer' malaki.
IBM Germany and SuSE are also very active trying to convince government organisations to employ Free Software where ever they can.
There is also a big decission coming up whether to use free Software on the backend and / or on desktops for the parliament and its members. If you google for it you should be able to find quite some stuff about it.
There is one odity. There is one fraction in the EU that promotes the use of FS and in parallel there are initiatives that go against it by trying to intriduce weired patent laws.
Come to think of it, IMHO France and Germany are Europes biggest promoters for FS in governmental organisations.
Though I am sure the parent post is not meant seriously it highlights one of the current issues evolving around resource provision for Free Software projects.
IMHO we have to move away from the idea a central resource allocation for projects is good. The currecnt debate about SourceForge and VA is the best example.
It is just dangerous to rely on one or two main sites run by corporates. Why not try to find many corporations that can share the load and also minimise the risk for the project of being affected by companies woes?
One main server that is the central source for many, many mirrors and without direct access for the end-user might be the way ahead.
IMHO your last sentence is the key to the solution. Other projects use a system whereby they don't allow direct ftp / http download access. This should be purely for mirror sites.
It would also help, if/. would not put direct links to kernel.org but would instead provide or link to a list of mirrors.
BTW, the following message I just got back from www dot kernel dot org:
The Linux Kernel Archives is currently offline due to a hardware failure. However, mirror sites are receiving updates; please use a mirror site instead.
May be this is the beginning of the end to direct access to them?!
Regards,
REB
Re:dept: its-about-frigging-time
on
Qt Going GPL
·
· Score: 3
Even more so: Is this not a prove that commercial interests and pressure can lead to an Open Source Development?
To me it seems that Troll Tech will take this step because they see that some big commercial players have decided to go Gnome rather than KDE for the reason of being Open Source.
The good and right reaction is to go Open Source as well. Because 'proprietary' pieces of software will in the long term not be able to compete with OSS.
So let's celebrate this as a success fpr Open Source!
Do we need to be paranoid about it? I don't think so. Lets be honest--what can you do?
Well, we as individuals will not be able to do much against any kind of secret services activities. For me the question is more: What can They do with all this?
Since I learned that the Germans have established a massive force of machinery that checks international phone calls on a random base for keywords like: bomb, explosion, etc I am not surprised by anything.
But let's face it, what exactly are they going to do with the contents of my phone calls to my mum, lover, wife, etc? How many staff do they need to filter out all the relevant information from all the phone calls there are? If they really need information that is transmitted via phone, they will target the right connections.
Though there is always some scope for mis-use, this seems to be IMHO of very little likelihood. All technology has got this risk. Alfred Nobel never intended the use of explosives for military purposes. The same with Zuse.
Slashdot Mirror
Where do you see Open Source as a failure? All I can see is that it spreads more and more. Who knows where it will end yet. It may be the desktop, may be not.
For me, Open Source is not a failure, because it always allows me to do whatever I need to do with software. And if I would be the only one in the world who likes a colorfull desktop, I guess I would have to write KDE from scratch and on my own.
Don't let people tell you what you have to eat. Be free in your choices. And if you are in a minority, do your own thing. And if you don't succeed, then the rest of the world will know why they haven't gone your way :)
Clearly they are not the only digital animation shop on the planet. So others that switch to Linux will face the same problems. And I know of a few in London that do switch to Linux.
So if they and all the others would give back what they fixed and developed, the investment would suddenly shrink and everybody would gain.
But then most studios are afraid to disclose what they are doing and how. For the simple reason that technology is one of the key parts of creating a good digital animation. So if everybody has got the receipe, they'd loose their advantage in the competition against all the other hundreds of shops.
Burning my karma here, but please don't call it Reichstag. The building is the old Reichstag, but it has got nothing to do with the current use of it. The Nazis are gone a long time ago and now they call it 'Der Bundestag' in the Reichstag building.
The Germans use Reichstag to describe the building. The political institution Reichstag is gone a long time ago.
Rgds,
REB
http://www.linux-verband.de/ and
http://fsfeurope.org/
In comparison to the UK, Germany is way ahead when it comes to Linux in commercial or govermental environments. When quoting for a Free Software solution in Germany you normally don't have to explain the whole 'free as in free speach, not free beer' malaki.
IBM Germany and SuSE are also very active trying to convince government organisations to employ Free Software where ever they can.
There is also a big decission coming up whether to use free Software on the backend and / or on desktops for the parliament and its members. If you google for it you should be able to find quite some stuff about it.
There is one odity. There is one fraction in the EU that promotes the use of FS and in parallel there are initiatives that go against it by trying to intriduce weired patent laws.
Come to think of it, IMHO France and Germany are Europes biggest promoters for FS in governmental organisations.
Rgds,
REB
IMHO we have to move away from the idea a central resource allocation for projects is good. The currecnt debate about SourceForge and VA is the best example.
It is just dangerous to rely on one or two main sites run by corporates. Why not try to find many corporations that can share the load and also minimise the risk for the project of being affected by companies woes?
One main server that is the central source for many, many mirrors and without direct access for the end-user might be the way ahead.
Regards,
REB
It would also help, if /. would not put direct links to kernel.org but would instead provide or link to a list of mirrors.
BTW, the following message I just got back from www dot kernel dot org:
The Linux Kernel Archives is currently offline due to a hardware failure. However, mirror sites are receiving updates; please use a mirror site instead.
May be this is the beginning of the end to direct access to them?!
Regards,
REB
Even more so: Is this not a prove that commercial interests and pressure can lead to an Open Source Development?
To me it seems that Troll Tech will take this step because they see that some big commercial players have decided to go Gnome rather than KDE for the reason of being Open Source.
The good and right reaction is to go Open Source as well. Because 'proprietary' pieces of software will in the long term not be able to compete with OSS.
So let's celebrate this as a success fpr Open Source!
May the best Desktop Manager win!!!!
Graf Zahl
Do we need to be paranoid about it? I don't think so. Lets be honest--what can you do?
Well, we as individuals will not be able to do much against any kind of secret services activities. For me the question is more: What can They do with all this?
Since I learned that the Germans have established a massive force of machinery that checks international phone calls on a random base for keywords like: bomb, explosion, etc I am not surprised by anything.
But let's face it, what exactly are they going to do with the contents of my phone calls to my mum, lover, wife, etc? How many staff do they need to filter out all the relevant information from all the phone calls there are? If they really need information that is transmitted via phone, they will target the right connections.
Though there is always some scope for mis-use, this seems to be IMHO of very little likelihood. All technology has got this risk. Alfred Nobel never intended the use of explosives for military purposes. The same with Zuse.
Graf Zahl