My point was that if your idea of "cross platform" is Windows, Macs, and Linux, then just about any modern set of tools will get you there. Heck, you can target Linux, Macs and Windows with C# if you are willing to mix in a bit of Mono.
The question is what happens when you want to mix in some FreeBSD, or perhaps you have a PowerPC Linux box. Java doesn't help you one bit there. Yet Free Software development kits run on these platforms without any problems.
What Sun really is selling with Java is a write once, run wherever Sun says is acceptable. Now, that's fine if you just want to hit the major platforms, but even then Mac OS X doesn't have a 1.5 JVM.
Exactly, I have always thought that Sun's vaunted cross platform capability was over-rated. Sure, Java is cross platform, as long as you don't include any of the BSDs. Then again, everyone knows that the BSDs are dying.
Nearly every Free Software toolkit is far more cross platform capable than Java. gcc is ubiquitous and will compile for basically every platform known to man. That gives similar reach to languages like Python, Perl, Ruby, or Guile. Heck, Python runs on my ancient Handspring, for crying out loud. When you start counting up supported platforms even Mono gives Sun's JVM a run for its money.
Hmm... That's interesting I thought that Thunderbird used the mbox format.
If you can set up an IMAP server I know of a trick that does work (as I have used it successfully a number of times. UW IMAP stores its folders in mbox format by default. You can then use your email client to transfer files to your IMAP server and you end up with mbox files.
Exactly. Microsoft floated the one gambit that had any chance at all of getting them off the hook with Burst. If they could have gotten a judge to buy into their story then Microsoft had a chance at trial. Once that scheme fell through settling was really the only option.
Still, Microsoft forced Burst and Burst's attorneys to put up an expensive fight. This litigation went on for a long time. By taking the litigation this far Microsoft has shown that it is not a "soft" target. If you aren't well-financed and if you can't afford excellent legal counsel then don't even think about suing Microsoft, even if Microsoft is clearly in the wrong.
Of course, on the other hand I imagine that lots of lawyers would work for a percentage of the settlement. Microsoft certainly has plenty of cash.
I actually use maildir for my current mail as well. However, it is far easier to find tools to convert to mbox than to convert to maildir, and once you have your mail in mbox format you can always convert to maildir:).
Almost every email client around can import and export mbox formats. Getting your email in a format that is going to be readable in 20 years is the first step, otherwise why bother?
Worse comes to worst mbox is readable as plain text.
It's quite simple. The loss of the data wasn't unintentional, rather it was deliberate. Microsoft simply went in front of a judge to see if he would buy the story, when he didn't and a jury trial was emminent, Microsoft wisely settled. Microsoft's, "the dog ate my homework," defense was a long shot, but Microsoft spends a lot of time in the court room, and it can't really afford to roll over every time someone sues.
I am all for anything that promotes hackers getting paid to write Free Software. Especially if the software that gets written allows me to replace proprietary software.
Yes, and that would be great if the Gnome hackers believed that the perfect target for Gnome is people who hang out on technology websites, know how to post to bugzilla, or email Gnome development lists.
Guess what, Gnome hackers already listened to those people. That's why Gnome 1 featured a window manager that was scriptable in a lisp variant and a file chooser dialog whose only redeeming feature was that it allowed for tab completion of filenames a la bash and readline. In short, Gnome 1 was a hackers paradise.
The problem was that when the Gnome hackers tried to sell this desktop companies laughed them right out of the room.
So now Gnome is all about simplification. Gnome hackers are building something that the sales departments in their various companies can sell to actual people. Gnome hackers get their end user feedback not from web forms or mailing lists, but from actual users.
Eugenia's solution wouldn't have solved any problem because the "problem" isn't a lack of information. The Gnome hackers know precisely what they are doing. What they are doing is building a desktop that your grandma can use, and that means far less features than the chrome-filled Gnome of yesterday.
Gnome hackers are more than interested in listening to end users, but they aren't interested in listening to end users like Eugenia.
Yeah, Eugenia offered to script a voting system on top of bugzilla. That would be great if you wanted to get the opinions of the sort of people that use bugzilla. If Gnome wants to end up with an interface like Emacs that's the way to go. Ask a bunch of hackers what they want Gnome to do and you'll get the sort of lisp-scripted, readline supporting, stuff that Gnome 1 was made of. Gnome wants feedback from CIOs and you grandma, not from Eugenia. They certainly don't want to give folks like Eugenia the power to choose what features should or should not get developed just because she whipped up a PHP script.
Gnome is currently getting user feedback the same way that Microsoft gets user feedback. Salesfolks from Novell, Sun, Red Hat, and even IBM go out and talk to customers about what it would take to get them to switch to Linux. Then these salefolks come back and give the hackers their marching orders. That's why successive versions of Gnome have been more about removing features than adding them. The problem with Gnome wasn't that it was lacking features. The problem was that it was too complex.
The advantage that Gnome has over Microsoft is that individual hackers that are enthused about a particular idea can get involved directly. Sometimes this works out well, other times it doesn't, but either way progress is made.
The Gnome users are not ignoring users. They are simply ignoring the sort of users that post to the Gnome development mailing lists and that know what "bugzilla" is.
Here's the thing. When Gnome first was started it was written by hackers for hackers. The Window Manager was scriptable is lisp, for crying out loud, and the desktop had a hojillion configurable widgets.
When the Gnome hackers tried to sell this desktop to actual end users they quickly found that the "right" amount of complexity for hackers was "way too much" complexity for normal users. Since that time Gnome has been all about simplification. Personally, I think that they are doing a pretty darn good job. I miss some of the chrome from earlier versions of Gnome, but my wife can use it now.
In a sense Gnome *has* stopped listening to its users. Gnome is no longer targeting the typical Linux hacker, but instead it is targeting "normal" computer users. You don't find out what normal users want from bugzilla or from a mailing list. Instead you try and sell them some software and you see what kind of feedback you get.
The Gnome hackers are listening to their customers, they just aren't listening to Eugenia. Instead they are listening to the marketing departments at places like Red Hat, Novell, or Sun. The marketing departments talk to customers and find out what it would take to sell Gnome desktops. Then the developers are then given marching orders.
Once upon a time the Gnome developers were given free reign to design whatever the heck that they wanted and they designed a hyper-configurable desktop scriptable in a variant of Lisp. Now the Gnome developers are listening to actual customers, and the bottom line is that they are ripping out as much configuration as possible. This loss of functionality makes some former Gnome users (like Eugenia) upset, but that's what happens when you try and design software that is approachable by normal folks.
The thing to remember is that the Gnome folks aren't targetting the kind of people that write to development mailing lists or know anything about bugzilla, and that's a good thing. The less the Gnome hackers listen to Eugenia the more likely they are to create something that is useable by my grandma.
Open Source is no different from proprietary software. In the long run the features that people pay money to implement get implemented. Eugenia is just upset because the Gnome folks aren't particularly interested in courting existing Gnome users. Gnome doesn't want Eugenia's input, it wants your CIO's input, and then after that it wants your grandmother's input.
Gnome already went down the path of listening to hackers, and they ended up with a ridiculously configurable desktop with a Window manager (sawfish) that was scriptable in lisp. Now, I don't have anything against lisp. Heck, I spend the better part of my day in Emacs. The problem is that hackers want an entirely different kind of system than normal users (Emacs is an excellent example of this). As Gnome simplifies its desktop folks like Eugenia get all upset. They liked the Gnome with a hojillion options, and they wish they could force the project back in that direction (without writing code, of course).
End user input is pouring into Gnome at a fantastic pace. It just isn't coming in from bugzilla, or from the mailing lists, or some other "hacker" interface, but rather it is coming in from the marketing departments at Red Hat, Novell, and Sun. Those guys are talking to actual customers and finding out ways to sell them Free Software. Then they march back to their respective companies and they give the hackers their marching orders.
Do I miss some of the cool Gnome features that have been removed or hidden? Yeah, I do. I miss the easy access to readline completion in file open dialogs, I don't like having to hit "SHIFT" to turn snap to Window on, and piles of other little niggles. However, I would rather have Gnome listen to normal customers and succeed than listen exclusively to hackers and fail. Push comes to shove I will always have Emacs...
There's no question that Gnome 2 is easier for my wife to use, and that's what really matters.
First of all, I actually believe you about your conversation with the Microsoft guy. I was simply trying to make a point about how easy it is to get a hold of Free Software developers, and how impossible it is to get a hold of developers at Microsoft. It says something about Microsoft's openness that you hooked up with your Microsoft contact on/. instead of on some sort of Microsoft sanctioned forum. I mean, honestly, that's a pretty big stretch.
I also must admit that your Thunderbird bug is an excellent example of a genuine bug that no one has gotten around to sorting out. It's essentially the highest ranking Thunderbird issue that no one is working on. It sort of makes you wonder if the Thunderbird developers actually use Thunderbird's notify features:).
Your Sally example is so stretched as to be pathetic. I honestly have a hard time imagining wanting to work in a place similar to what you describe. What's more, these sorts of work places, if they did exist, would be self-limiting for the very reasons that you point out in your example. If you offer a truly horrible work place then you are not likely to be able to recruit and keep quality people. Every time a real business has to replace a skilled worker it costs them a serious amount of money. Time is spent reviewing candidates and interviewing. More time and expense is spent training the person. The new hire is often given sensitive information that would help competitors, and learns the ins and outs of the business. It often costs a significant portion of an employee's yearly salary to replace an employee, and the employee has little guarantee about the quality of the person that they are hiring. That's why most sane businesses try very hard to retain good employees.
So let's say that Sally's employer did exist, and that somewhere there is a company that is both desperate to recruit new talent and yet somehow so ridiculously broken that they would fire an existing employee on the suspicion that they said something negative to a prospective hire. Note, Sally didn't write in her public blog (where it could be verified) that she didn't like working at Evil Corporation. She simply steered a friend away from accepting a job offer. When pressed about the issue she could easily deny that she said anything negative, because she didn't make the suggestion to her friend in a public manner. If you work for a company that is likely to target you for termination with that sort of flimsy evidence then you are screwed no matter what you do. Tomorrow they might fire you because they don't like the color of your socks. Life is too short to work at a place like that.
This isn't about controlling what a person thinks, it is about controlling what a person says in public. Blogs are public spaces, meant by their very nature to be read by complete strangers. You have every right to say what you want in your blog, but don't be surprised if what you write in your blog influences what your employer thinks about you.
Sure, but the fact that it's an open process doesn't give you any more guarantee that the response you get will be positive than the closed processes operated by commercial software vendors. Being able to see someone mark your bug as "WONTFIX" or "NOTABUG" doesn't mean you're any more likely to get the code changed.
Generally speaking when bugs get marked WONTFIX or NOTABUG there is a good reason for doing so. Developers make choices about stuff that they are going to support (or not support) all of the time. With Free Software at least you have an opportunity to be a part of the process. Worse comes to worst you can send the developer an email and explain to them why you think that there is a problem. Microsoft is getting better at emulating this sort of contact with their customers, but you can't really pretend that they come close. Chances are good that I wouldn't even be given the name of the guy that made the decision to remove my feature request at Microsoft. With Free Software you almost certainly know precisely who you need to convince to get your feature in. You might not be able to convince them, but with Microsoft you don't even get that chance.
Unless, of course, you are Anonymous Brave Guy with your mystical/. Microsoft connection.
My own personal experience with Free Software is that Free Software developers tend to be very helpful. I am curious if you have a WONTFIX story to go along with your mystical Microsoft encounter. My guess is that if you do there is another side to the story that is compelling. What's more, chances are good that the entire episode will be easy to verify.
Sure you can, and in fact one of my peers did exactly that while typesetting his masters thesis years ago. The macros required must have taken him at least 15 minutes to write, though.
I guarantee you that your buddy's 15 minute Excell macros weren't as complete as Gnumeric's LaTeX exporter. Anyone can generate formatted text from Excell, but Gnumeric does colors, fonts, borders, the whole smear. It allows me to lay out the tables in Gnumeric, export them and add a single line to my LaTeX document. As your buddy could probably attest, that sort of functionality is very handy, and Microsoft is never going to provide it, no matter how many times you request the feature.
Don't get me wrong. If you were arguing that commercial software is more complete, more polished, offers better manuals, is more likely to work on your average computer, etc. then I would agree with you 100%. But when you are talking about the ability of your average Joe to effect the process Free Software wins hands down. Gnumeric is not as nice a spreadsheet as Excell, but a single person has a reasonable chance of getting a pet feature into Gnumeric. They have no chance of getting a pet feature into Excell.
As an employee your job is to please your employer. It's really as simple as that. My personal opinion believes that this extends to how you talk about your employer in public. Employees are always talking about how they want their employers to separate their private life from their professional life. I personally don't think that it is too much to ask to extend employers the same courtesy. Use your free time to blog about something besides work. If you absolutely have to say something about work, at least make sure that it is something positive for crying out loud. If your employer is so horrible that you feel the world should know the depths of their depravity why in the world are you still taking their money?
This has absolutely nothing to do with big business, other than it's only idiots that work at large corporations that think that they can get away with this kind of crap. No one is talking monitoring your every move. Heck, even if you worked at a lemonade stand your boss would expect you to not badmouth the business in public. It doesn't have anything to do with blogging either. If these idiots got up to the pulpit in church and bad mouthed their employers the same thing would have happened. You have the right to say any crazy, stupid, or inane thing that you want, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to face the consequences on Monday.
This is about being stupid, pure and simple. If you work for an employer that is so horrible that you can't help but say terrible things about them in a public forum then you need to find another job. It's really that simple. If you are caught saying bad things about your employer in a public place you shouldn't be surprised if you find yourself looking for another job. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Everyone has had a job at one time that they didn't like. Most of them keep the job until they find another job because they keep their mouths shut in public. That's not really too much for an employer to ask. They are, after all, paying you a salary. The classy (and smart) folks even go so far as to not badmouth past employers. You never know when you might need an old job back, and venting private problems in public rarely solves the problem.
The difference between the two processes is that the Free Software process is out in the open. You can see the entire deliberation process, and if you are willing to get your hands dirty you can even participate. You happened to get lucky and make a connection with a Microsoft developer who actually liked your ideas, and so some of your ideas made it into the product. However, I would bet that not all of your suggestions made it into the product, and you have no idea why. More importantly, if you had to do the same thing again with another feature that happened to be important to you your original feat would be almost impossible to duplicate. Your suggestions were either so obvious as to be something that was wanted universally or you won the lottery. Either way congratulations are hardly in order.
The bugs and the upset customers are all there with proprietary software. The difference is that the process is not transparent and so the average customer doesn't see the evidence of the discontent. Microsoft doesn't make its bug tracking system public, and its developers don't discuss the product on public mailing lists.
Now, that doesn't mean that sometimes it doesn't make sense to use proprietary alternatives. At the end of the day we are all looking for software that meets our needs. However, don't feed me a line about how proprietary software is more responsive to customers than Free Software because some Free Software projects have feature requests that never get fulfilled. How long did IE users have to wait for pop-up blocking? Are you going to try and tell me that Microsoft's customers weren't begging for that particular feature? The advantage that Microsoft and the other large proprietary developers have is that they have plenty of cash to pay for the features that they think users will want, but that's hardly a guarantee that the feature *I* want will make it into the next release.
The funny thing about Free Software is that for every truly useful requested feature that goes unnoticed and unfulfilled there are two or three esoteric features that would never be included in most commercial packages. For example, the other day I had a spreadsheet that I wanted to include in a document I was writing written in LaTeX. It turns out that Gnumeric has will happily take MS Office spreadsheets and export them to LaTeX. I was very surprised at how slick this setup was. There are probably only a handful of folks that are interested in that sort of a feature. If I talked to the MS Office folks about such a feature they would probably die from laughter. Because Gnumeric is Free Software someone else that needed such a feature took the time to write it. You can't do that with Excel, even if you wanted to.
Yes, and how long do you think that your average numbskull that is badmouthing his employers on a blog is likely to last once his employers found out. Especially when you consider that the employer has complete access to the employee's computer, proxy logs, and whatever else they need. I've seen employers look for probable cause (they were looking to fire Union personnel), and in the end they always got what they wanted.
The reason for this was simple. The folks that they wanted to fire were doing a crappy job. If you don't like your employers and your morale is so bad that you are mouthing off on a public blog then chances are good that you are doing a piss-poor job.
Slashdot has no real competition so there really isn't much incentive for the quality of service to improve. Most of the slashdot experience comes from flaming people on message boards so it doesn't matter that much that the story postings are low quality. The most important thing is that they generate discussion.
Fah, Slashdot has piles of competition. The reality is that the only people that care about dupes are the type of people that spend all day clicking on/. so that they can get a first post, or alternatively the type of people that act like a duplicate story is the end of the world and spend all their time writing on the message boards about how we already discussed this subject.
Interestingly enough these folks never seem to just *go away*, and they always have plenty to say.
Yes, many people think that the government isn't doing a very good job. However, ask most voters if they think that their representatives are doing a good job and you generally get a completely different answer. This is especially true in states with representatives that are overwhelmingly popular.
Tom Daschle is a case in point. Yes, the Republican party threw a lot of money at that race, but the reason that they did so was because they knew that Daschle was vulernable. Daschle's politics weren't popular with South Dakotans and yet it still took an extremly well-funded opponent to remove him from office. If Daschle hadn't been a front man for the Democrats he would still be a senator. Unfortunately for him he spent too much time focusing on the Democratic party's political structure and too little time on South Dakotan politics. The reason that you don't see this sort of thing more often is that most politicians are far more adept at sensing changes in the wind.
I don't know how it works where you live, but in Ohio, where the gerrymandering is among the worst in the nation, everyone at the national level has a safe seat.
Tell that to Tom Daschle. The guy was a Senate minority leader and he still managed to get himself run.
The reason that most of the national-level elected officials have safe seats is quite obvious. Generally speaking these politicians either have very "safe" views on major issues, or they are powerful enough and important enough that they get the pragmatic vote. After all, the longer that an congressman or senator spends in Washington the more political clout they end up wielding.
Tom Daschle proves that even if you are powerful, and can influence legislation so that it strongly favors your home state if your base politics don't match your the core values of your voter base you are potentially in trouble. Tom Daschle was essentially the most powerful Democrat in Washington D.C. If he can get run, there is no such thing as a "safe seat."
That's the sort of legislation that is very hard to "buy." Everyone wants cheap prescription medicine. Politicians can and do lose elections, especially when they stand up for legislation that is widely unpopular.
Just think of the commercials. "My opponent voted against legislation that would have lowered the price of prescription medications by up to 45%." That's the sort of thing that could easily lose a politician the election.
Yes, and where do you think that Microsoft is going to find another SCO-type patsy in the future? After what happened to SCO, and considering Microsoft's long history of stabbing its partners in the back I'm not overly concerned.
The fact of the matter is that it's probably smarter to sue Microsoft than to partner with Microsoft. As long as Microsoft has those billions in the bank hungry lawyers are going to be far more interested in suing Microsoft than in harassing Free Software. That's just the way the world works.
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My point was that if your idea of "cross platform" is Windows, Macs, and Linux, then just about any modern set of tools will get you there. Heck, you can target Linux, Macs and Windows with C# if you are willing to mix in a bit of Mono.
The question is what happens when you want to mix in some FreeBSD, or perhaps you have a PowerPC Linux box. Java doesn't help you one bit there. Yet Free Software development kits run on these platforms without any problems.
What Sun really is selling with Java is a write once, run wherever Sun says is acceptable. Now, that's fine if you just want to hit the major platforms, but even then Mac OS X doesn't have a 1.5 JVM.
Exactly, I have always thought that Sun's vaunted cross platform capability was over-rated. Sure, Java is cross platform, as long as you don't include any of the BSDs. Then again, everyone knows that the BSDs are dying.
Nearly every Free Software toolkit is far more cross platform capable than Java. gcc is ubiquitous and will compile for basically every platform known to man. That gives similar reach to languages like Python, Perl, Ruby, or Guile. Heck, Python runs on my ancient Handspring, for crying out loud. When you start counting up supported platforms even Mono gives Sun's JVM a run for its money.
Hmm... That's interesting I thought that Thunderbird used the mbox format.
If you can set up an IMAP server I know of a trick that does work (as I have used it successfully a number of times. UW IMAP stores its folders in mbox format by default. You can then use your email client to transfer files to your IMAP server and you end up with mbox files.
Er, someone has tried this before. Take a look at MHonArc.
Exactly. Microsoft floated the one gambit that had any chance at all of getting them off the hook with Burst. If they could have gotten a judge to buy into their story then Microsoft had a chance at trial. Once that scheme fell through settling was really the only option.
Still, Microsoft forced Burst and Burst's attorneys to put up an expensive fight. This litigation went on for a long time. By taking the litigation this far Microsoft has shown that it is not a "soft" target. If you aren't well-financed and if you can't afford excellent legal counsel then don't even think about suing Microsoft, even if Microsoft is clearly in the wrong.
Of course, on the other hand I imagine that lots of lawyers would work for a percentage of the settlement. Microsoft certainly has plenty of cash.
I actually use maildir for my current mail as well. However, it is far easier to find tools to convert to mbox than to convert to maildir, and once you have your mail in mbox format you can always convert to maildir :).
Almost every email client around can import and export mbox formats. Getting your email in a format that is going to be readable in 20 years is the first step, otherwise why bother?
Worse comes to worst mbox is readable as plain text.
It's quite simple. The loss of the data wasn't unintentional, rather it was deliberate. Microsoft simply went in front of a judge to see if he would buy the story, when he didn't and a jury trial was emminent, Microsoft wisely settled. Microsoft's, "the dog ate my homework," defense was a long shot, but Microsoft spends a lot of time in the court room, and it can't really afford to roll over every time someone sues.
I am all for anything that promotes hackers getting paid to write Free Software. Especially if the software that gets written allows me to replace proprietary software.
Yes, and that would be great if the Gnome hackers believed that the perfect target for Gnome is people who hang out on technology websites, know how to post to bugzilla, or email Gnome development lists.
Guess what, Gnome hackers already listened to those people. That's why Gnome 1 featured a window manager that was scriptable in a lisp variant and a file chooser dialog whose only redeeming feature was that it allowed for tab completion of filenames a la bash and readline. In short, Gnome 1 was a hackers paradise.
The problem was that when the Gnome hackers tried to sell this desktop companies laughed them right out of the room.
So now Gnome is all about simplification. Gnome hackers are building something that the sales departments in their various companies can sell to actual people. Gnome hackers get their end user feedback not from web forms or mailing lists, but from actual users.
Eugenia's solution wouldn't have solved any problem because the "problem" isn't a lack of information. The Gnome hackers know precisely what they are doing. What they are doing is building a desktop that your grandma can use, and that means far less features than the chrome-filled Gnome of yesterday.
Gnome hackers are more than interested in listening to end users, but they aren't interested in listening to end users like Eugenia.
Yeah, Eugenia offered to script a voting system on top of bugzilla. That would be great if you wanted to get the opinions of the sort of people that use bugzilla. If Gnome wants to end up with an interface like Emacs that's the way to go. Ask a bunch of hackers what they want Gnome to do and you'll get the sort of lisp-scripted, readline supporting, stuff that Gnome 1 was made of. Gnome wants feedback from CIOs and you grandma, not from Eugenia. They certainly don't want to give folks like Eugenia the power to choose what features should or should not get developed just because she whipped up a PHP script.
Gnome is currently getting user feedback the same way that Microsoft gets user feedback. Salesfolks from Novell, Sun, Red Hat, and even IBM go out and talk to customers about what it would take to get them to switch to Linux. Then these salefolks come back and give the hackers their marching orders. That's why successive versions of Gnome have been more about removing features than adding them. The problem with Gnome wasn't that it was lacking features. The problem was that it was too complex.
The advantage that Gnome has over Microsoft is that individual hackers that are enthused about a particular idea can get involved directly. Sometimes this works out well, other times it doesn't, but either way progress is made.
The Gnome users are not ignoring users. They are simply ignoring the sort of users that post to the Gnome development mailing lists and that know what "bugzilla" is.
Here's the thing. When Gnome first was started it was written by hackers for hackers. The Window Manager was scriptable is lisp, for crying out loud, and the desktop had a hojillion configurable widgets.
When the Gnome hackers tried to sell this desktop to actual end users they quickly found that the "right" amount of complexity for hackers was "way too much" complexity for normal users. Since that time Gnome has been all about simplification. Personally, I think that they are doing a pretty darn good job. I miss some of the chrome from earlier versions of Gnome, but my wife can use it now.
In a sense Gnome *has* stopped listening to its users. Gnome is no longer targeting the typical Linux hacker, but instead it is targeting "normal" computer users. You don't find out what normal users want from bugzilla or from a mailing list. Instead you try and sell them some software and you see what kind of feedback you get.
The Gnome hackers are listening to their customers, they just aren't listening to Eugenia. Instead they are listening to the marketing departments at places like Red Hat, Novell, or Sun. The marketing departments talk to customers and find out what it would take to sell Gnome desktops. Then the developers are then given marching orders.
Once upon a time the Gnome developers were given free reign to design whatever the heck that they wanted and they designed a hyper-configurable desktop scriptable in a variant of Lisp. Now the Gnome developers are listening to actual customers, and the bottom line is that they are ripping out as much configuration as possible. This loss of functionality makes some former Gnome users (like Eugenia) upset, but that's what happens when you try and design software that is approachable by normal folks.
The thing to remember is that the Gnome folks aren't targetting the kind of people that write to development mailing lists or know anything about bugzilla, and that's a good thing. The less the Gnome hackers listen to Eugenia the more likely they are to create something that is useable by my grandma.
Open Source is no different from proprietary software. In the long run the features that people pay money to implement get implemented. Eugenia is just upset because the Gnome folks aren't particularly interested in courting existing Gnome users. Gnome doesn't want Eugenia's input, it wants your CIO's input, and then after that it wants your grandmother's input.
Gnome already went down the path of listening to hackers, and they ended up with a ridiculously configurable desktop with a Window manager (sawfish) that was scriptable in lisp. Now, I don't have anything against lisp. Heck, I spend the better part of my day in Emacs. The problem is that hackers want an entirely different kind of system than normal users (Emacs is an excellent example of this). As Gnome simplifies its desktop folks like Eugenia get all upset. They liked the Gnome with a hojillion options, and they wish they could force the project back in that direction (without writing code, of course).
End user input is pouring into Gnome at a fantastic pace. It just isn't coming in from bugzilla, or from the mailing lists, or some other "hacker" interface, but rather it is coming in from the marketing departments at Red Hat, Novell, and Sun. Those guys are talking to actual customers and finding out ways to sell them Free Software. Then they march back to their respective companies and they give the hackers their marching orders.
Do I miss some of the cool Gnome features that have been removed or hidden? Yeah, I do. I miss the easy access to readline completion in file open dialogs, I don't like having to hit "SHIFT" to turn snap to Window on, and piles of other little niggles. However, I would rather have Gnome listen to normal customers and succeed than listen exclusively to hackers and fail. Push comes to shove I will always have Emacs...
There's no question that Gnome 2 is easier for my wife to use, and that's what really matters.
First of all, I actually believe you about your conversation with the Microsoft guy. I was simply trying to make a point about how easy it is to get a hold of Free Software developers, and how impossible it is to get a hold of developers at Microsoft. It says something about Microsoft's openness that you hooked up with your Microsoft contact on /. instead of on some sort of Microsoft sanctioned forum. I mean, honestly, that's a pretty big stretch.
I also must admit that your Thunderbird bug is an excellent example of a genuine bug that no one has gotten around to sorting out. It's essentially the highest ranking Thunderbird issue that no one is working on. It sort of makes you wonder if the Thunderbird developers actually use Thunderbird's notify features :).
Thanks for the conversation.
Your Sally example is so stretched as to be pathetic. I honestly have a hard time imagining wanting to work in a place similar to what you describe. What's more, these sorts of work places, if they did exist, would be self-limiting for the very reasons that you point out in your example. If you offer a truly horrible work place then you are not likely to be able to recruit and keep quality people. Every time a real business has to replace a skilled worker it costs them a serious amount of money. Time is spent reviewing candidates and interviewing. More time and expense is spent training the person. The new hire is often given sensitive information that would help competitors, and learns the ins and outs of the business. It often costs a significant portion of an employee's yearly salary to replace an employee, and the employee has little guarantee about the quality of the person that they are hiring. That's why most sane businesses try very hard to retain good employees.
So let's say that Sally's employer did exist, and that somewhere there is a company that is both desperate to recruit new talent and yet somehow so ridiculously broken that they would fire an existing employee on the suspicion that they said something negative to a prospective hire. Note, Sally didn't write in her public blog (where it could be verified) that she didn't like working at Evil Corporation. She simply steered a friend away from accepting a job offer. When pressed about the issue she could easily deny that she said anything negative, because she didn't make the suggestion to her friend in a public manner. If you work for a company that is likely to target you for termination with that sort of flimsy evidence then you are screwed no matter what you do. Tomorrow they might fire you because they don't like the color of your socks. Life is too short to work at a place like that.
This isn't about controlling what a person thinks, it is about controlling what a person says in public. Blogs are public spaces, meant by their very nature to be read by complete strangers. You have every right to say what you want in your blog, but don't be surprised if what you write in your blog influences what your employer thinks about you.
Generally speaking when bugs get marked WONTFIX or NOTABUG there is a good reason for doing so. Developers make choices about stuff that they are going to support (or not support) all of the time. With Free Software at least you have an opportunity to be a part of the process. Worse comes to worst you can send the developer an email and explain to them why you think that there is a problem. Microsoft is getting better at emulating this sort of contact with their customers, but you can't really pretend that they come close. Chances are good that I wouldn't even be given the name of the guy that made the decision to remove my feature request at Microsoft. With Free Software you almost certainly know precisely who you need to convince to get your feature in. You might not be able to convince them, but with Microsoft you don't even get that chance.
Unless, of course, you are Anonymous Brave Guy with your mystical /. Microsoft connection.
My own personal experience with Free Software is that Free Software developers tend to be very helpful. I am curious if you have a WONTFIX story to go along with your mystical Microsoft encounter. My guess is that if you do there is another side to the story that is compelling. What's more, chances are good that the entire episode will be easy to verify.
I guarantee you that your buddy's 15 minute Excell macros weren't as complete as Gnumeric's LaTeX exporter. Anyone can generate formatted text from Excell, but Gnumeric does colors, fonts, borders, the whole smear. It allows me to lay out the tables in Gnumeric, export them and add a single line to my LaTeX document. As your buddy could probably attest, that sort of functionality is very handy, and Microsoft is never going to provide it, no matter how many times you request the feature.
Don't get me wrong. If you were arguing that commercial software is more complete, more polished, offers better manuals, is more likely to work on your average computer, etc. then I would agree with you 100%. But when you are talking about the ability of your average Joe to effect the process Free Software wins hands down. Gnumeric is not as nice a spreadsheet as Excell, but a single person has a reasonable chance of getting a pet feature into Gnumeric. They have no chance of getting a pet feature into Excell.
As an employee your job is to please your employer. It's really as simple as that. My personal opinion believes that this extends to how you talk about your employer in public. Employees are always talking about how they want their employers to separate their private life from their professional life. I personally don't think that it is too much to ask to extend employers the same courtesy. Use your free time to blog about something besides work. If you absolutely have to say something about work, at least make sure that it is something positive for crying out loud. If your employer is so horrible that you feel the world should know the depths of their depravity why in the world are you still taking their money?
This has absolutely nothing to do with big business, other than it's only idiots that work at large corporations that think that they can get away with this kind of crap. No one is talking monitoring your every move. Heck, even if you worked at a lemonade stand your boss would expect you to not badmouth the business in public. It doesn't have anything to do with blogging either. If these idiots got up to the pulpit in church and bad mouthed their employers the same thing would have happened. You have the right to say any crazy, stupid, or inane thing that you want, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to face the consequences on Monday.
This is about being stupid, pure and simple. If you work for an employer that is so horrible that you can't help but say terrible things about them in a public forum then you need to find another job. It's really that simple. If you are caught saying bad things about your employer in a public place you shouldn't be surprised if you find yourself looking for another job. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Everyone has had a job at one time that they didn't like. Most of them keep the job until they find another job because they keep their mouths shut in public. That's not really too much for an employer to ask. They are, after all, paying you a salary. The classy (and smart) folks even go so far as to not badmouth past employers. You never know when you might need an old job back, and venting private problems in public rarely solves the problem.
The difference between the two processes is that the Free Software process is out in the open. You can see the entire deliberation process, and if you are willing to get your hands dirty you can even participate. You happened to get lucky and make a connection with a Microsoft developer who actually liked your ideas, and so some of your ideas made it into the product. However, I would bet that not all of your suggestions made it into the product, and you have no idea why. More importantly, if you had to do the same thing again with another feature that happened to be important to you your original feat would be almost impossible to duplicate. Your suggestions were either so obvious as to be something that was wanted universally or you won the lottery. Either way congratulations are hardly in order.
The bugs and the upset customers are all there with proprietary software. The difference is that the process is not transparent and so the average customer doesn't see the evidence of the discontent. Microsoft doesn't make its bug tracking system public, and its developers don't discuss the product on public mailing lists.
Now, that doesn't mean that sometimes it doesn't make sense to use proprietary alternatives. At the end of the day we are all looking for software that meets our needs. However, don't feed me a line about how proprietary software is more responsive to customers than Free Software because some Free Software projects have feature requests that never get fulfilled. How long did IE users have to wait for pop-up blocking? Are you going to try and tell me that Microsoft's customers weren't begging for that particular feature? The advantage that Microsoft and the other large proprietary developers have is that they have plenty of cash to pay for the features that they think users will want, but that's hardly a guarantee that the feature *I* want will make it into the next release.
The funny thing about Free Software is that for every truly useful requested feature that goes unnoticed and unfulfilled there are two or three esoteric features that would never be included in most commercial packages. For example, the other day I had a spreadsheet that I wanted to include in a document I was writing written in LaTeX. It turns out that Gnumeric has will happily take MS Office spreadsheets and export them to LaTeX. I was very surprised at how slick this setup was. There are probably only a handful of folks that are interested in that sort of a feature. If I talked to the MS Office folks about such a feature they would probably die from laughter. Because Gnumeric is Free Software someone else that needed such a feature took the time to write it. You can't do that with Excel, even if you wanted to.
Yes, and how long do you think that your average numbskull that is badmouthing his employers on a blog is likely to last once his employers found out. Especially when you consider that the employer has complete access to the employee's computer, proxy logs, and whatever else they need. I've seen employers look for probable cause (they were looking to fire Union personnel), and in the end they always got what they wanted.
The reason for this was simple. The folks that they wanted to fire were doing a crappy job. If you don't like your employers and your morale is so bad that you are mouthing off on a public blog then chances are good that you are doing a piss-poor job.
Fah, Slashdot has piles of competition. The reality is that the only people that care about dupes are the type of people that spend all day clicking on /. so that they can get a first post, or alternatively the type of people that act like a duplicate story is the end of the world and spend all their time writing on the message boards about how we already discussed this subject.
Interestingly enough these folks never seem to just *go away*, and they always have plenty to say.
Yes, many people think that the government isn't doing a very good job. However, ask most voters if they think that their representatives are doing a good job and you generally get a completely different answer. This is especially true in states with representatives that are overwhelmingly popular.
Tom Daschle is a case in point. Yes, the Republican party threw a lot of money at that race, but the reason that they did so was because they knew that Daschle was vulernable. Daschle's politics weren't popular with South Dakotans and yet it still took an extremly well-funded opponent to remove him from office. If Daschle hadn't been a front man for the Democrats he would still be a senator. Unfortunately for him he spent too much time focusing on the Democratic party's political structure and too little time on South Dakotan politics. The reason that you don't see this sort of thing more often is that most politicians are far more adept at sensing changes in the wind.
Tell that to Tom Daschle. The guy was a Senate minority leader and he still managed to get himself run.
The reason that most of the national-level elected officials have safe seats is quite obvious. Generally speaking these politicians either have very "safe" views on major issues, or they are powerful enough and important enough that they get the pragmatic vote. After all, the longer that an congressman or senator spends in Washington the more political clout they end up wielding.
Tom Daschle proves that even if you are powerful, and can influence legislation so that it strongly favors your home state if your base politics don't match your the core values of your voter base you are potentially in trouble. Tom Daschle was essentially the most powerful Democrat in Washington D.C. If he can get run, there is no such thing as a "safe seat."
That's the sort of legislation that is very hard to "buy." Everyone wants cheap prescription medicine. Politicians can and do lose elections, especially when they stand up for legislation that is widely unpopular.
Just think of the commercials. "My opponent voted against legislation that would have lowered the price of prescription medications by up to 45%." That's the sort of thing that could easily lose a politician the election.
Yes, and where do you think that Microsoft is going to find another SCO-type patsy in the future? After what happened to SCO, and considering Microsoft's long history of stabbing its partners in the back I'm not overly concerned.
The fact of the matter is that it's probably smarter to sue Microsoft than to partner with Microsoft. As long as Microsoft has those billions in the bank hungry lawyers are going to be far more interested in suing Microsoft than in harassing Free Software. That's just the way the world works.