> Your point also falls flat because the cost of completely replacing Office on every machine is realized everytime a new version of Office comes out. No one is still using an old version of Office.
True. But newer versions of MS [Word | Excel | Powerpoint |...] at least have (fully functional) conversion programs to import documents made with earlier versions of the same program. I can still use MSWord '97 to read an MSWord 2.0 document.
"Other" programs do not, as long as the MS document standard is closed. There are conversion programs out there, but how many (that are not themselves proprietary) can boast conversion of anything approaching 100% of the features?
And don't kid yourself by saying it isn't necessary. The customers that matter (the ones who buy copies of Office, etc. in multiples of 1000) do use a lot of esoteric features. Or at the very least, they want to be able to handle them, if the need arises. -- - Sean
Ok, preamble/disclaimer: I'm not an entirely disinterested party here, so if any moderator out there feels this is inappropriate, feel free to moderate it down into oblivion.
But. I work for a company called Attachmate; we write (among other things) an X Window server for MS-Windows (called Extra! X). One of the features our particular server offers, is for the user to specify their own (unix/X) window manager. This means that if you don't like the Windows wm (which provides the title bar, window frame and so on), you can specify your own (presumably residing on the same host as the client apps you want to run), which can be any wm you choose (WMaker, fvwm2, kwm, Enlightenment, IceWM and so on...).
Now, even though it may sound like it, I'm not plugging our particular product, as such. The reason being that we gear towards corporate users, and so include many features that most people probably have no need for. The product tends to be pricey (I don't have exact figures, but it's up in the 100's of dollars US per seat).
We are also firmly closed source. (I hang my head in shame:-)
However, what I am getting at is that there is a wide variety of X servers for MS-Windows out there. If you are happy with yours, fine. But if the ability to select a different wm from the one supplied by MS-Windows is something that interests you, then you may want to check out some of the others, many of which are probably less pricey than the one I mentioned, or may even be free (beer/speech). And they may have that capability (of choosing your own window manager).
I'm afraid I can't really recommend any, since the only ones I know well are in the same market as ours, and so operate in much the same price range. If you're really interested, companies such as Persoft and Hummingbird, to name a few, also make high-end "enterprise-level" X servers for Windows.
Anyway... just some food for thought, more than anything else. -- - Sean
"A descriptive term tells the consumer something about the product and may only become a trademark after it has acquired secondary meaning. This occurs after a period of time during which the term's association with that product is exclusive."
Note the last 10 words, boys and girls: "during which the term's association with that product is exclusive."
Kinda hard for anyone to trademark "Open Source" as things stand... there you go, from a (more-or-less) definitive source! -- - Sean
Seriously, to trademark "Open Source" would go against what it represents, IMHO. The term should be protected only by repeatedly using it correctly, hence making it obvious when it is used incorrectly.
Hmm... the same way it's obvious to most people when the word "hacker" is used incorrectly...? -- - Sean
(With the latest -- 3.60 -- I believe you can change the position of the button bar, but I could be wrong.)
It happens. For me, the interface works brilliantly. I just turn the URL bar, the scrollbars and the button bar off entirely. I use keyboard only. Love Opera for the fact that I can run it without ever even touching the mouse.
Alt-Left and Alt-Right navigate forwards and back. Up/Dn and PgUp/PgDn for scrolling. TAB to the proper link or imagemap or whatever and hit spacebar to activate.
For mouseless navigating, it works like a charm.
Now, Netscape, I hate. Especially the Linux version. -- - Sean
Sure it's little. That's what makes it great (as you pointed out).
Late? Well... maybe a bit.
But CSS is alreay there, and HTML 4.0 with be there in Opera 4.0 (which will be the first one to hit Linux).
They've been fairly consistent in matching the Opera major version numbers to the HTML standard level they support (ie: Opera 1.x supports HTML 1.x, Opera 2.x supports HTML 2.x, and so on...).
Ok, so maybe they aren't quite bleeding edge, but how many sites require that anyway?
As far as I'm concerned, if Opera won't render a site, that site ain't worth going to for me.
(Ok... one exception: Microsoft Support Pages -- required for work):-( -- - Sean
When I first got Opera, I'll admit I wasn't terribly impressed with the MDI way of doing things (to understate just a bit:-)
And it was exactly the same with a number of friends who I have since introduced Opera to.
But. Having said that, I have to add that one gets used to it very quickly. I will often have 10 to 15 browser windows open at the same time. Just the idea of doing that in Netscape, or some other browser which opens a separate window per session makes me shudder. And again, it is the same with all of my friends who also now use Opera.
I agree, the whole MDI thing is a bit of a kludge, but dammit, it just works!
And using the hotkeys is a very good way of quickly switching between windows. In Linux (where I'm forced to use an inferior browser, a.k.a. Netscape), my Gnome-panel is always filled up with more Netscape icons than I can easily keep track of. And having to use the mouse all the time is beyond annoying. I'm a keyboard-centric worker. Both my hands stay rooted to the keyboard, and only wander to the mouse when needed. Unfortunately, under Netscape, that is far more often than I'd like.
Finally, I like being able to just minimize my entire browser with a single click, rather than having to go around and minimize every open browser window, as I have to do in Netscape. I like my desktop to be uncluttered. Opera's MDI helps me achieve that goal.
To me, one of my favourite parts of writing a program is doing the user manual (dead tree version) at the end. (Company I work for requires them). Just so happens that I love that sorta stuff. Most of the developers hand it over to the documentation team to do. I much prefer doing it myself. -- - Sean
From what I understand, RMS is an absolute perfectionist, and insists that everything be done over and over and over and over and over... again until it is done exactly right, and perfect to his liking.
This (again, to my understanding), is where most people's problems with him come from.
To someone (such as myself), who is also a perfectionist (in most things), this wouldn't be much of a problem, as I tend to impose the same sort of stringent guidelines on myself anyway. -- - Sean
> What would you folks, as the target audience, like to see in a "comprehensive" GNOME book?
Obviously, I'm only speaking for myself here, but what I would like to see is a book that assumes the reader knows about GNOME and so on, maybe a coupla chapters at the beginning about (A) Gtk+, and a quick overview, and (B) the concept/theory behind the object component modeling (bonobo) system, again as a quick refresher.
The meat of the book would ideally be made up of paired-off chapters, with the first of each pair going through the theory of the control/object/component/memory space/whatever, and the second some actual code and examples.
I think C would be a good language to use, as pretty much everyone knows C (programmers, that is). Python, Tcl and so on are common, true, but there are a number of people who aren't familiar with them. But pretty much anyone who would be reading the book could be assumed to know C.
A good idea might be appendices in the back with language bindings, function/object declarations, etc... for a couple of common languages, to help those who are interested in using something other than C. The first of the chapter pairs (the theory part) would also come in handy here as well.
That's pretty much it for the basics, I think. I can't think off the top of my head of anything else I might want, although I'm sure I will once I hit the "Submit" button.
As for scope and so on... ie: how far to take it... well, I don't know, since I really don't know everything that is involved. That's why I'd want to read the book! -- - Sean
If a product is shoddy, it should not be on the shelves in the first place!
I dunno about you, but I should not have to read a review of a product to figure out whether or not it works before I buy it.
Performance "problems"? Ok... maybe I'll give you that. Depends on the problems. If the program is simply slow (or something), that's one thing. When I buy a car, I will talk to knowledgeable people and read reviews (comparaison shop) before I buy one.
But I expect the car to run. I expect it to do what it was designed to do, at a bare minimum. I expect it to perform to specification.
If not, that's false advertising, among other things. Companies that make other types of products are accountable to this. Why the hell not software makers?
If the product works, but poorly, ok. But if it doesn't work to spec, it should not be for sale at all!!! -- - Sean
And... just as much as Star Wars is George Lucas., so is it all the things that Mr. Lucas infuses into the script. Including all those "cutesy" aspects. A non-cute Star Wars just could not work.
Not to take anything away from those other directors you mentioned, but there is no possible way that any of them could do a half-decent job of directing a Star Wars film.
Sorry... I believe I could take just about anything, but the one single thing that is central to Star Wars... is George Lucas. Any other director would make a different movie. End of story. I repeat:
Slashdot Mirror
> Your point also falls flat because the cost of completely replacing Office on every machine is realized everytime a new version of Office comes out. No one is still using an old version of Office.
...] at least have (fully functional) conversion programs to import documents made with earlier versions of the same program. I can still use MSWord '97 to read an MSWord 2.0 document.
True. But newer versions of MS [Word | Excel | Powerpoint |
"Other" programs do not, as long as the MS document standard is closed. There are conversion programs out there, but how many (that are not themselves proprietary) can boast conversion of anything approaching 100% of the features?
And don't kid yourself by saying it isn't necessary. The customers that matter (the ones who buy copies of Office, etc. in multiples of 1000) do use a lot of esoteric features. Or at the very least, they want to be able to handle them, if the need arises.
--
- Sean
> Maybe Slashdot should post a sampling of some of the messages they receive from anti-Linux people.
/. should post a sampling from all areas. Both raging anti-Linux idiots, and raging pro-Linux idiots.
No... I think
We should, at least, try to be balanced.
--
- Sean
> "Screensaver? cat /dev/mem"
:-)
Hmmm... my impression was always that screensavers were NOT supposed to create giant security holes...
--
- Sean
Ok, preamble/disclaimer: I'm not an entirely disinterested party here, so if any moderator out there feels this is inappropriate, feel free to moderate it down into oblivion.
:-)
But. I work for a company called Attachmate; we write (among other things) an X Window server for MS-Windows (called Extra! X). One of the features our particular server offers, is for the user to specify their own (unix/X) window manager. This means that if you don't like the Windows wm (which provides the title bar, window frame and so on), you can specify your own (presumably residing on the same host as the client apps you want to run), which can be any wm you choose (WMaker, fvwm2, kwm, Enlightenment, IceWM and so on...).
Now, even though it may sound like it, I'm not plugging our particular product, as such. The reason being that we gear towards corporate users, and so include many features that most people probably have no need for. The product tends to be pricey (I don't have exact figures, but it's up in the 100's of dollars US per seat).
We are also firmly closed source. (I hang my head in shame
However, what I am getting at is that there is a wide variety of X servers for MS-Windows out there. If you are happy with yours, fine. But if the ability to select a different wm from the one supplied by MS-Windows is something that interests you, then you may want to check out some of the others, many of which are probably less pricey than the one I mentioned, or may even be free (beer/speech). And they may have that capability (of choosing your own window manager).
I'm afraid I can't really recommend any, since the only ones I know well are in the same market as ours, and so operate in much the same price range. If you're really interested, companies such as Persoft and Hummingbird, to name a few, also make high-end "enterprise-level" X servers for Windows.
Anyway... just some food for thought, more than anything else.
--
- Sean
EOF.
--
- Sean
No, MS is not going to trademark it.
.htm.
They can't, and neither can anyone else. Here's why:
http://www.wld.com/conbus/weal/wtradmk1
Pay special attention to Paragraph 7 (the one that starts, "A descriptive term...")
--
- Sean
Pure BS. No trademark can exist for "Open Source."
.htm
Check it out:
http://www.wld.com/conbus/weal/wtradmk1
--
- Sean
Note the last 10 words, boys and girls: "during which the term's association with that product is exclusive."
Kinda hard for anyone to trademark "Open Source" as things stand... there you go, from a (more-or-less) definitive source!
--
- Sean
Seriously, to trademark "Open Source" would go against what it represents, IMHO. The term should be protected only by repeatedly using it correctly, hence making it obvious when it is used incorrectly.
Hmm... the same way it's obvious to most people when the word "hacker" is used incorrectly...?
--
- Sean
3rd vote for "Community Software".
(CommunityWare...? Naah!)
--
- Sean
That is what I meant :-)
--
- Sean
--
- Sean
Ok... so the interface doesn't work for you.
(With the latest -- 3.60 -- I believe you can change the position of the button bar, but I could be wrong.)
It happens. For me, the interface works brilliantly. I just turn the URL bar, the scrollbars and the button bar off entirely. I use keyboard only. Love Opera for the fact that I can run it without ever even touching the mouse.
Alt-Left and Alt-Right navigate forwards and back. Up/Dn and PgUp/PgDn for scrolling. TAB to the proper link or imagemap or whatever and hit spacebar to activate.
For mouseless navigating, it works like a charm.
Now, Netscape, I hate. Especially the Linux version.
--
- Sean
> and the people who are likely to fork out for a browser are not the kind of people who'd be ideologically opposed to QT.
Umm... not necessarily. Free beer, Free speech, yada, yada, yada...
(PS. Having said that, I'm not obsessed with either, really. GPL is good. Non-GPL ain't the end of the world.)
(PPS. Yeah, I know. Opera ain't free either way. But that's not what you said.)
--
- Sean
...and will pay again.
I paid for two 3.x licenses... one for home and one for work.
I fully intend to pay for the 4.x upgrade for work and any upgrades for the 4.0 version for Linux for home (when it comes out).
--
- Sean
Sure it's little. That's what makes it great (as you pointed out).
:-(
Late? Well... maybe a bit.
But CSS is alreay there, and HTML 4.0 with be there in Opera 4.0 (which will be the first one to hit Linux).
They've been fairly consistent in matching the Opera major version numbers to the HTML standard level they support (ie: Opera 1.x supports HTML 1.x, Opera 2.x supports HTML 2.x, and so on...).
Ok, so maybe they aren't quite bleeding edge, but how many sites require that anyway?
As far as I'm concerned, if Opera won't render a site, that site ain't worth going to for me.
(Ok... one exception: Microsoft Support Pages -- required for work)
--
- Sean
Well... I just have to add my coupla cents.
:-)
When I first got Opera, I'll admit I wasn't terribly impressed with the MDI way of doing things (to understate just a bit
And it was exactly the same with a number of friends who I have since introduced Opera to.
But. Having said that, I have to add that one gets used to it very quickly. I will often have 10 to 15 browser windows open at the same time. Just the idea of doing that in Netscape, or some other browser which opens a separate window per session makes me shudder. And again, it is the same with all of my friends who also now use Opera.
I agree, the whole MDI thing is a bit of a kludge, but dammit, it just works!
And using the hotkeys is a very good way of quickly switching between windows. In Linux (where I'm forced to use an inferior browser, a.k.a. Netscape), my Gnome-panel is always filled up with more Netscape icons than I can easily keep track of. And having to use the mouse all the time is beyond annoying. I'm a keyboard-centric worker. Both my hands stay rooted to the keyboard, and only wander to the mouse when needed. Unfortunately, under Netscape, that is far more often than I'd like.
Finally, I like being able to just minimize my entire browser with a single click, rather than having to go around and minimize every open browser window, as I have to do in Netscape. I like my desktop to be uncluttered. Opera's MDI helps me achieve that goal.
Opera and MDI: Ugly but it works!
--
- Sean
To me, one of my favourite parts of writing a program is doing the user manual (dead tree version) at the end. (Company I work for requires them). Just so happens that I love that sorta stuff. Most of the developers hand it over to the documentation team to do. I much prefer doing it myself.
--
- Sean
From what I understand, RMS is an absolute perfectionist, and insists that everything be done over and over and over and over and over... again until it is done exactly right, and perfect to his liking.
This (again, to my understanding), is where most people's problems with him come from.
To someone (such as myself), who is also a perfectionist (in most things), this wouldn't be much of a problem, as I tend to impose the same sort of stringent guidelines on myself anyway.
--
- Sean
> What would you folks, as the target audience, like to see in a "comprehensive" GNOME book?
Obviously, I'm only speaking for myself here, but what I would like to see is a book that assumes the reader knows about GNOME and so on, maybe a coupla chapters at the beginning about (A) Gtk+, and a quick overview, and (B) the concept/theory behind the object component modeling (bonobo) system, again as a quick refresher.
The meat of the book would ideally be made up of paired-off chapters, with the first of each pair going through the theory of the control/object/component/memory space/whatever, and the second some actual code and examples.
I think C would be a good language to use, as pretty much everyone knows C (programmers, that is). Python, Tcl and so on are common, true, but there are a number of people who aren't familiar with them. But pretty much anyone who would be reading the book could be assumed to know C.
A good idea might be appendices in the back with language bindings, function/object declarations, etc... for a couple of common languages, to help those who are interested in using something other than C. The first of the chapter pairs (the theory part) would also come in handy here as well.
That's pretty much it for the basics, I think. I can't think off the top of my head of anything else I might want, although I'm sure I will once I hit the "Submit" button.
As for scope and so on... ie: how far to take it... well, I don't know, since I really don't know everything that is involved. That's why I'd want to read the book!
--
- Sean
Yeah. Grokker. As in, someone who groks (code/computers/techstuff/whatever).
(If you don't grok grok, look it up in The Jargon File.)
(or howsabout glurker...? Naah!)
Ooh... I can't resist:
Got Grok?
--
- Sean
If a product is shoddy, it should not be on the shelves in the first place!
I dunno about you, but I should not have to read a review of a product to figure out whether or not it works before I buy it.
Performance "problems"? Ok... maybe I'll give you that. Depends on the problems. If the program is simply slow (or something), that's one thing. When I buy a car, I will talk to knowledgeable people and read reviews (comparaison shop) before I buy one.
But I expect the car to run. I expect it to do what it was designed to do, at a bare minimum. I expect it to perform to specification.
If not, that's false advertising, among other things. Companies that make other types of products are accountable to this. Why the hell not software makers?
If the product works, but poorly, ok. But if it doesn't work to spec, it should not be for sale at all!!!
--
- Sean
> I've made it a point to replace any two button mice that come my way
:-)
Normally, I'd agree with you, but in this case, the 2-button is an old Dexxa (from 1986) that they don't make anymore, and that I absolutely love.
I'll switch when it breaks. Not before.
--
- Sean
And... just as much as Star Wars is George Lucas., so is it all the things that Mr. Lucas infuses into the script. Including all those "cutesy" aspects. A non-cute Star Wars just could not work.
(And hey... I like Jar-jar.)
--
- Sean
Sorry... Star Wars is George Lucas.
Not to take anything away from those other directors you mentioned, but there is no possible way that any of them could do a half-decent job of directing a Star Wars film.
Sorry... I believe I could take just about anything, but the one single thing that is central to Star Wars... is George Lucas. Any other director would make a different movie. End of story. I repeat:
Star Wars is George Lucas.
--
- Sean