tried not to reply, but I hate to be told what I think. Especially when it is wrong.
OK, sorry if I mischaracterized your opinion. I still maintain that you won't get twice the number of developers by eliminating either KDE or GNOME (hypothetically assuming that you could somehow do such a thing).
When I last checked, the cost for writing even a $5 shareware closed source app in KDE/QT was a minimum of $1500.
Don't forget, commercial != proprietary. Anyway, I am not terribly interested in attracting closed-source developers to Linux. Maybe you are, but I am definitely not.
That is a steep cost to get commercial apps on your OS and without some commercial apps the OS isn't going to make it.
Sorry, I disagree with both of these statements (that $1500 is too expensive for software companies, and that without closed-source developers, Linux will not "make it".)
How about those distros that actually WANT to get Linux on the desktop get together and decide on one DE
Sure, some distros could decide that it's a hassle for them to carry more than one DE, and they could easily make a choice in this area for their users. Do you think this will make them a more popular distro? That's not really rhetorical; I guess under some circumstances it could, but I think a lot of users like having the choice, and a lot of users even claim to mix-and-match apps from the two. So it would seem to be a dodgy business decision, at best.
You can code whatever you want, but I don't have to use it.
You seem to think that Linux is, like a corporation, an entity with one goal. It is not. It is a diverse community, with as many goals as it has developers. This is not a weakness, it is a strength.
> 2. There would be twice as many developers.
No, there wouldn't. What are you going to do? Given that Gnome and KDE can't be merged due to vastly different architectures, in order to bring about your One Desktop to Rule Them All, one of the DE's will need to be scrapped. Who's going to decide which one is kept? Havoc? Waldo? You?
As some other slashdotter said recently: Rule #1 of open-source club is: You don't tell open-source developers what to code. Rule #2 of open-source club is: You don't tell open-source developers what to code.
Here's what I code (please don't tell me I can't anymore!):
It's not a material structure at all, and the parent poster shouldn't have called it a "wormhole", either. It's simply the least-energy trajectory from A to B through the Solar system, given the gravitational effects of the planets. The paths are always changing (quite chaotically), simply because the planets are in moion.
NASA's been taking advantage of such "gravity assist" trajectories for a while. How do you get to Jupiter? Slingshot around Venus, flyby Earth twice, then you're on your way. It seems roundabout, but sometimes, paths like that are the easiest way.
Yeah, I agree that one is poorly worded. The problem with a strict reading of Rule 7 is it assumes existing theory is entirely correct, which is a *huge* scientific faux paus.
I would have said something like "If the discovery involves new laws of physics, the new laws should be shown to be equally good at explaining data that is currently understood via the theory it seeks to replace or extend, and it should also explain phenomena that the existing theory cannot". That describes both QM and Relativity perfectly:)
Huh? Qt is GPL'd, it's as Free as you can get. Nothing is preventing anyone (business or individual) from putting Qt on their servers.
Are you angry because Qt isn't under some kind of BSD or LGPL license? Is that why TrollTech can "suck it"? Whatever, buddy. The Trolls made a peerless GUI toolkit that the world can use for nothing as long as they keep their derived stuff Free. All they ask is that if you want to make money from your Qt-derived stuff, they get a licensing fee. What's the problem?
I find it a nearly reprehensible attitude to takehat says users, consumers, etc. cannot offer valid critique or requests unless they actually contribute.
That would indeed be reprehensible!...thank God that's not the reality! Go to bugs.kde.org (and probably its Gnome equivalent); there you will see "valid critiques and requests" from users handled far more efficiently, courteously, and with more professionalism than the way commercial software makers typically handle such requests.
That said, there's a BIG difference between offering valid critiques and requests and saying, essentially: "you developers are doing the completely wrong thing. The thing you've labored on and given me (for free) is nothing but a shitty knock-off. Why can't *any* of you invent, design and implement a completely new desktop paradigm?? I have no idea what it would look like, but I want it! Now!"
So, my points are (a) don't take comments on slashdot as indicative of attitudes of KDE/Gnome/whatever developers toward users, and (b) unrealistic comments about completely inventing a shiny new, totally different desktop paradigm (while offering absolutely no information on what it should be like, except different) already get more attention than they deserve.
In gnome 1 I was able to put applets for gaim and xmms in my sidebar. They are unobtrusive there and available on all my desktops. It was wonderful. KDE doesn't have these.
But it does have system tray applets for noatun and kopete (the KDE equivalents of the Gtk apps you mentioned). I agree it would be nice if there was enough KDE/Gnome compatibility to allow gtk applets to appear in kicker (and vice versa), but at this point, it's just not realistic. I don't think it can be counted as among the "problems with KDE", however...after all, I can't place a panel applet for noatun in my Gnome sidebar either.:)
Now, defining 'kind' in a meaningfull way is a problem.
That's because it doesn't express a meaningful idea. It's an arbitrary division of a continuous distribution (the variation of biota) into aritficial "bins". The concept of "species" suffers from the same problem, even taking its most rigorous scientific definition. Once you realize that "kinds" and "species" are artificial organizational aids imposed on a natural system that gives them no regard whatever, you will understand that the distinction between so-called "microevolution" and "macroevolution" is equally meaningless.
Imagine a population that splits in half, such that the two halves become reproductively isolated, and subject to different survival pressures. The two sub-populations begin to adapt to their new environments, and this results in divergent evolution. At some point, the two populations become different enough that they would no longer be able to cross-breed. Speciation has occured.
Not so long ago, most Creationists would say that the preceding description was a fantasy, and never, ever ocurred in the history of the Earth. Now, of course, we have many concrete examples, such as the article presented here, so many Creationists have adjusted, and now say: "Ok, ok, so maybe speciation occurs, but only within 'kinds', by God!"
What they don't seem to realize (or maybe refuse to realize) is that whatever your definition of "kinds", it's at least as arbitrary as the definition of species. So, what, exactly, is going to stop isolated subpopulations from evolving? If they continue on their divergent evolutionary paths, taking tiny steps each generation, the cumulative effect will be that, eventually, the two subpopulations are completely un-alike by any objective measure. All you need is time. And time, we have plenty of (unless you are a young-Earth Creationist, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt).
Odd, that sounds amazingly like the Scientific Method.
Yes, exactly! Except the part where they claim it's what they believed all along, and the part where they they claim their answer is THE ANSWER, END OF DISCUSSION, not the best answer available, subject to change on discovery of new evidence.
A Creationist knows the answer already. To him, "science" is the search for data that fits the answer, and the attempt to explain away all evidence that doesn't fit. Real science presumes that the answer is *not* known, and tries to guess an answer based on what is actually evident in the world.
The first rule of Creation Club is: as soon as your "theory" is disproven, just change your definitions and claim that's what you meant all along.
"I don't think the official meaning of creationism includes the idea that all species are static and will never change"
Creationism certainly did mean exactly that, until science showed, beyond any reasonable doubt, that species do go extinct, species do adapt, species do evolve. Then the Creationist changed their tune, started talking about species "changing, but only within their kind". They conceded "microevolution", but not "macroevolution" (phrases which they coined, and have absolutely no meaning in the real world).
"just that the first species were created, rather then evoloved"
Of course, by the definition of the word "first", this statement must be true. The first species could not possibly have evolved from a previous species. It's an empty statement.
Anyway, your definition of Creationism is much more limited than the more virulent strain that's been repeatedly disproven by findings like this. Believe it or not, there are people who refuse to believe that new species can evolve, period. According to them, all species that ever existed, or will ever exist, were created during Genesis.
Also, "J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds" by Peter Goodchild. Really well-researched. It focuses on Oppy, but also provides good insight into the Manhattan Project overall.
Everything you said is true for proprietary software as well (difficult to prove it's been used in another program). Just because GPL source code is easier to obtain doesn't make stealing it less illegal.
Even if we don't live in a closed, oscillating Universe, it's still possible that the Universe could "reboot" itself after the heat death. [Disclaimer: complete speculation follows. I am an astronomer, but by no means am I a cosmologist]
If we live in a non-oscillatory universe, then the Big Bang was not a "bounce" due to a preceeding Big Crunch. Rather, the Big Bang arose from a quantum fluctuation in the vast nothingness that was (or was not?) before. So, if the Universe of the very distant future has expanded to ~zero density and ~zero temperature, then it looks basically just like the pre-Big Bang vacuum. In that case, another Universe might very well pop up from another quantum fluctuation in the vacuum.
Hell, who knows? Maybe a sufficiently empty vacuum is extremely unstable to such Universe-spawning fluctuations, so they are pretty much certain to occur once the density and temperature get low enough. If so, there you go: we can have our heat death and still have Universal rebirth.
The point is that you are free to not agree with the GPL, at which point you are bound by ordinary copyright law and nothing else. But not agreeing to the GPL will get you nowhere.
For modification-with-redistribution, I agree. However, if you aren't modiying and redistributing the code, then you can happily use GPL'd software without agreeing to anything.
From what I understand, the GPL (and most software licenses it seems) has never been tested in court.
Your parenthetic clause is important here. I can't imagine a situation where the GPL could be ruled invalid without basically saying no software licenses are valid. I don't think Microsoft would be very happy about that.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't SCO stand for Santa Cruz Operation? When did they move to Utah?
Actually, I'm kinda glad. I used to live in SC, and I can't bear the thought that there is an evil-yet-boneheaded corporation there.
That's exactly the sort of situation up with which I shall not put!
tried not to reply, but I hate to be told what I think. Especially when it is wrong.
;)
OK, sorry if I mischaracterized your opinion. I still maintain that you won't get twice the number of developers by eliminating either KDE or GNOME (hypothetically assuming that you could somehow do such a thing).
When I last checked, the cost for writing even a $5 shareware closed source app in KDE/QT was a minimum of $1500.
Don't forget, commercial != proprietary. Anyway, I am not terribly interested in attracting closed-source developers to Linux. Maybe you are, but I am definitely not.
That is a steep cost to get commercial apps on your OS and without some commercial apps the OS isn't going to make it.
Sorry, I disagree with both of these statements (that $1500 is too expensive for software companies, and that without closed-source developers, Linux will not "make it".)
How about those distros that actually WANT to get Linux on the desktop get together and decide on one DE
Sure, some distros could decide that it's a hassle for them to carry more than one DE, and they could easily make a choice in this area for their users. Do you think this will make them a more popular distro? That's not really rhetorical; I guess under some circumstances it could, but I think a lot of users like having the choice, and a lot of users even claim to mix-and-match apps from the two. So it would seem to be a dodgy business decision, at best.
You can code whatever you want, but I don't have to use it.
That's okay, I'm not doing it for you
You seem to think that Linux is, like a corporation, an entity with one goal. It is not. It is a diverse community, with as many goals as it has developers. This is not a weakness, it is a strength.
> 2. There would be twice as many developers.
No, there wouldn't. What are you going to do? Given that Gnome and KDE can't be merged due to vastly different architectures, in order to bring about your One Desktop to Rule Them All, one of the DE's will need to be scrapped. Who's going to decide which one is kept? Havoc? Waldo? You?
As some other slashdotter said recently:
Rule #1 of open-source club is: You don't tell open-source developers what to code.
Rule #2 of open-source club is: You don't tell open-source developers what to code.
Here's what I code (please don't tell me I can't anymore!):
It's not a material structure at all, and the parent poster shouldn't have called it a "wormhole", either. It's simply the least-energy trajectory from A to B through the Solar system, given the gravitational effects of the planets. The paths are always changing (quite chaotically), simply because the planets are in moion.
NASA's been taking advantage of such "gravity assist" trajectories for a while. How do you get to Jupiter? Slingshot around Venus, flyby Earth twice, then you're on your way. It seems roundabout, but sometimes, paths like that are the easiest way.
Ah, jeez, you are absolutely correct. Thanks for pointing that out.
Yeah, I agree that one is poorly worded. The problem with a strict reading of Rule 7 is it assumes existing theory is entirely correct, which is a *huge* scientific faux paus.
:)
I would have said something like "If the discovery involves new laws of physics, the new laws should be shown to be equally good at explaining data that is currently understood via the theory it seeks to replace or extend, and it should also explain phenomena that the existing theory cannot". That describes both QM and Relativity perfectly
Huh? Qt is GPL'd, it's as Free as you can get. Nothing is preventing anyone (business or individual) from putting Qt on their servers.
Are you angry because Qt isn't under some kind of BSD or LGPL license? Is that why TrollTech can "suck it"? Whatever, buddy. The Trolls made a peerless GUI toolkit that the world can use for nothing as long as they keep their derived stuff Free. All they ask is that if you want to make money from your Qt-derived stuff, they get a licensing fee. What's the problem?
Canopy only owns 5% of TrollTech; hardly a controlling interest.
Which of the rules do you perceive QM as breaking?
Just curious...
I find it a nearly reprehensible attitude to takehat says users, consumers, etc. cannot offer valid critique or requests unless they actually contribute.
That would indeed be reprehensible!...thank God that's not the reality! Go to bugs.kde.org (and probably its Gnome equivalent); there you will see "valid critiques and requests" from users handled far more efficiently, courteously, and with more professionalism than the way commercial software makers typically handle such requests.
That said, there's a BIG difference between offering valid critiques and requests and saying, essentially: "you developers are doing the completely wrong thing. The thing you've labored on and given me (for free) is nothing but a shitty knock-off. Why can't *any* of you invent, design and implement a completely new desktop paradigm?? I have no idea what it would look like, but I want it! Now!"
So, my points are (a) don't take comments on slashdot as indicative of attitudes of KDE/Gnome/whatever developers toward users, and (b) unrealistic comments about completely inventing a shiny new, totally different desktop paradigm (while offering absolutely no information on what it should be like, except different) already get more attention than they deserve.
In gnome 1 I was able to put applets for gaim and xmms in my sidebar. They are unobtrusive there and available on all my desktops. It was wonderful. KDE doesn't have these.
:)
But it does have system tray applets for noatun and kopete (the KDE equivalents of the Gtk apps you mentioned). I agree it would be nice if there was enough KDE/Gnome compatibility to allow gtk applets to appear in kicker (and vice versa), but at this point, it's just not realistic. I don't think it can be counted as among the "problems with KDE", however...after all, I can't place a panel applet for noatun in my Gnome sidebar either.
Now, defining 'kind' in a meaningfull way is a problem.
That's because it doesn't express a meaningful idea. It's an arbitrary division of a continuous distribution (the variation of biota) into aritficial "bins". The concept of "species" suffers from the same problem, even taking its most rigorous scientific definition. Once you realize that "kinds" and "species" are artificial organizational aids imposed on a natural system that gives them no regard whatever, you will understand that the distinction between so-called "microevolution" and "macroevolution" is equally meaningless.
Imagine a population that splits in half, such that the two halves become reproductively isolated, and subject to different survival pressures. The two sub-populations begin to adapt to their new environments, and this results in divergent evolution. At some point, the two populations become different enough that they would no longer be able to cross-breed. Speciation has occured.
Not so long ago, most Creationists would say that the preceding description was a fantasy, and never, ever ocurred in the history of the Earth. Now, of course, we have many concrete examples, such as the article presented here, so many Creationists have adjusted, and now say: "Ok, ok, so maybe speciation occurs, but only within 'kinds', by God!"
What they don't seem to realize (or maybe refuse to realize) is that whatever your definition of "kinds", it's at least as arbitrary as the definition of species. So, what, exactly, is going to stop isolated subpopulations from evolving? If they continue on their divergent evolutionary paths, taking tiny steps each generation, the cumulative effect will be that, eventually, the two subpopulations are completely un-alike by any objective measure. All you need is time. And time, we have plenty of (unless you are a young-Earth Creationist, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt).
Thank you for illustrating the point. :p
Odd, that sounds amazingly like the Scientific Method.
Yes, exactly! Except the part where they claim it's what they believed all along, and the part where they they claim their answer is THE ANSWER, END OF DISCUSSION, not the best answer available, subject to change on discovery of new evidence.
A Creationist knows the answer already. To him, "science" is the search for data that fits the answer, and the attempt to explain away all evidence that doesn't fit. Real science presumes that the answer is *not* known, and tries to guess an answer based on what is actually evident in the world.
The first rule of Creation Club is: as soon as your "theory" is disproven, just change your definitions and claim that's what you meant all along.
"I don't think the official meaning of creationism includes the idea that all species are static and will never change"
Creationism certainly did mean exactly that, until science showed, beyond any reasonable doubt, that species do go extinct, species do adapt, species do evolve. Then the Creationist changed their tune, started talking about species "changing, but only within their kind". They conceded "microevolution", but not "macroevolution" (phrases which they coined, and have absolutely no meaning in the real world).
"just that the first species were created, rather then evoloved"
Of course, by the definition of the word "first", this statement must be true. The first species could not possibly have evolved from a previous species. It's an empty statement.
Anyway, your definition of Creationism is much more limited than the more virulent strain that's been repeatedly disproven by findings like this. Believe it or not, there are people who refuse to believe that new species can evolve, period. According to them, all species that ever existed, or will ever exist, were created during Genesis.
aren't these things supposed to be related to actual performance by the actor compared to his contemporaries, and not crooked lobbying?
No, that's the other Academy of Motion Pictures you're thinking of. You know, the one that doesn't exist.
Also, "J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds" by Peter Goodchild. Really well-researched. It focuses on Oppy, but also provides good insight into the Manhattan Project overall.
That is so cool! Way to go, man :)
*clap* *clap* *clap*
Mod +1, Damn Straight.
Hmm, well I'm going to assume you are kidding. If you aren't you might want to look here.
Hmm...shouldn't you avoid arguing by analogy, considering your sig? ;)
Everything you said is true for proprietary software as well (difficult to prove it's been used in another program). Just because GPL source code is easier to obtain doesn't make stealing it less illegal.
Even if we don't live in a closed, oscillating Universe, it's still possible that the Universe could "reboot" itself after the heat death. [Disclaimer: complete speculation follows. I am an astronomer, but by no means am I a cosmologist]
If we live in a non-oscillatory universe, then the Big Bang was not a "bounce" due to a preceeding Big Crunch. Rather, the Big Bang arose from a quantum fluctuation in the vast nothingness that was (or was not?) before. So, if the Universe of the very distant future has expanded to ~zero density and ~zero temperature, then it looks basically just like the pre-Big Bang vacuum. In that case, another Universe might very well pop up from another quantum fluctuation in the vacuum.
Hell, who knows? Maybe a sufficiently empty vacuum is extremely unstable to such Universe-spawning fluctuations, so they are pretty much certain to occur once the density and temperature get low enough. If so, there you go: we can have our heat death and still have Universal rebirth.
The point is that you are free to not agree with the GPL, at which point you are bound by ordinary copyright law and nothing else. But not agreeing to the GPL will get you nowhere.
For modification-with-redistribution, I agree. However, if you aren't modiying and redistributing the code, then you can happily use GPL'd software without agreeing to anything.
From what I understand, the GPL (and most software licenses it seems) has never been tested in court.
:)
Your parenthetic clause is important here. I can't imagine a situation where the GPL could be ruled invalid without basically saying no software licenses are valid. I don't think Microsoft would be very happy about that.