It was Apple, after all, who started the whole process of giving away computers to schools. Where the kids future customers of Apple? Looking at the market share today, the answer is no.
So why will giving away free Windows make future Windows users, but giving away free Apples in the past didn't make future Apple users?
Well yeah, but Sun ain't a monopoly. That changes everything. I don't think anyone would object to giving material to schools if all other things were equal
Somewhere during the early to mid 1990's...
Salesman: I'm sorry Principal Cleaver, I can't donate any more copies of Windows for your school.
Principal: Why? Last week you set up Jefferson High with a new computing lab!
Salesman: That was last week. This morning some lady in Colorado purchased Windows. That took us over some arbitrary number of users, and now we're a monopoly. We can't do any good deeds anymore. You must now pay full price for Windows because our CEO's wallet is getting thin.
If it's anything like Corel LinuxOS, then it will have one HUGE advantage over Mandrake: It won't install a crapload of software by default.
I'm serious. Mandrake isn't as bad as some distros (*cough* SuSE *cough* *cough*), but the default install is still bloated. A brand new user is intimidated by that much software.
If Xandros follows the Corel lead, then they will install usable but bare bones system and put an icon on the desktop for the user to install more software later.
Sigh... Why is it everyone thinks *NIX desktops looks like Windows?
Windowmaker, Blackbox, Enlightenment, XFCE. No comparison. Let's move on...
IceWM. Okay, there is a resemblance. I suspect it's deliberate. Let's move on...
The big two desktops on *Nix: KDE and GNOME. What exactly makes them look like Windows as opposed to Mac, OS/2, BeOS, CDE, etc?
As near as I can tell, it's because they have icons on the desktop, a panel on the bottom, a root menu on the panel, and window decorations with min/max/close buttons. But that's like complaining that Fords look like Chryslers because they both have hoods, trunks and steering wheels.
Looking at OS/2, Mac, CDE, BeOS, and QNX, I find that they all have those same elements. Some of them had them before Windows did. Some of those elements even predate DOS!
Authorship is irrelevent, and like I said, the license and copyright are still available to those who are interested enough to look for them.
Authorship is very relevant to the author. Just ask any author.
Without the about box, a user of a KDE application has only two means of determining authorship and licensing. Drop down to the command line with the --author and --license switches, or downloading the source just to look at the COPYING file. Both are somewhat viable options, but not even close to the convenience of the about box.
But that all begs the question. Why even get rid of the about box to begin with? Does it violate some obscure UI design guideline? I can see no possible reason to disable the dialog. As the old saying goes, if about boxes offend you, you don't have to display them.
If they made it impossible to find the original maintainer by removing the about box, then how were they pushing support back on said maintainer for the modified release?
Because they didn't (originally) modify the bug report dialog. And aboutbox type information isn't in there anyway.
Is there any way that redhat could blur the lines between Gnome and KDE witout starting a flame war?
Yes. Create a common look and feel. On the KDE side this would have involved new widget and kwin themes, and changes to certain.desktop files and startup scripts. Removing the aboutbox would not have been necessary. Renaming crucial services would not have been necessary. And sending bug reports straight to KDE would have been hunky dory.
Does it really matter when the 'official' release comes out, when distribution makers "roll-their-own" anyway?
I'm still wondering why distros feel the need to roll their own to begin with. Bug fixes are one thing, but backports in the default kernel borders on irresponsibility. Provide alternate kernels with all the bleeding edge stuff if you wish, but when a distro says it has linux-x.y.z, then I expect to get linux-x.y.z.
One of the points of Free Software is that it allows people to do exactly what RedHat have done.
I arguing that Redhat's actions are discourteous, not that they are illegal. There are millions of things I wish people wouldn't do with my code, but I won't prohibit them by force of law in my license.
There is custom in the Free Software community to submit bug fixes back to the original developer or maintainer. There is a custom in the Free Software community to alter the name of a package when it has been forked. There is a custom in the Free Software community to provide proper attribution of authorship. Redhat has not followed the community custom.
you and other KDE people wanting KDE to look exactly as you'd have it
Neither am I arguing against their retheming of KDE. In fact, there has been no KDE developer that has argued this. That's not the problem. They can write themes all day long and there will not be a problem. That's not the problem!
The about dialogue boxes are, perhaps, a little silly.
The about boxes are not silly, because they are the primary means for a KDE application to notify a user of their legal rights with regards to the software. What good is Free Software if the user doesn't know it's Free?
You are so childish if you think it is disrespectful to put a GNOME guy in charge of making KDE more "gnomeish".
The guy in charge is the guy who called KDE "crapland".
A single employee expressing an opinion in a single piece of mail != Red Hat.
It was my understanding that that single employee was the guy Redhat chose to lead the KDE rework. If that's the attitude by the guy in charge, I don't expect much from Redhat's fork of KDE.
So when are they going to make GNU Emacs look and feel like GEdit? When are they going to make the Windowmaker dock look and feel like the GNOME Panel?
Mechanically, changing wallpapers affects nothing, but, changing window layouts affects everything. Some things should remain unalterable. The basic layout and appearance of a window is one of those things.
So why must Redhat be at the forefront of this UI revolution? After all, no other operating system enforces this, even for their own software. Look at Quicktime under OSX. Look at Windows Media Player under Windows. Heck, just look at MSOffice!
I hear a lot of people claiming that users won't use Linux (BSD, Solaris, etc) until there is a single look and feel for every application. Yet these same users appear to be quite happy running Word alongside MediaPlayer or WinAmp alongside Quicktime or RealPlayer.
But the best example is the internet. Every webpage has a different interface from the next. Yet last I heard the web was the hottest thing since Grandma started baking those special brownies...
Bullshit. You're in violation or you're not. This is clearly NOT violation. About boxes are stupid anyway.
Clause 2c of the GPL might apply in this situation. I am not saying it does, because I am not a lawyer, but the way I read it, it's damn close.
And about boxes are not stupid. They are a GUI application's primary means of informing the user of authorship, copyright and licensing terms. To deliberately block an application's call to display copyright and license information is extremely problematic.
If they decide to fork, then that's fine too.
Of course it is. But there are commonly accepted ways of creating a fork. But only if they don't dump the responsibility of supporting the fork back on the original developer. That was what Redhat was doing until KDE raised a stink about it.
Actually, this is far from a GPL violation. You are not obligated in any way to preserve authorship credit in GPL'ed software.
GPL Chapter 1, Verse 2: "keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty".
GPL Chapter 2c, Verse 1: "you must cause it... to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty"
These clauses might not necessarily apply to the alteration of the About Box, which is why I said "borders on" a GPL violation. It's definitely against the spirit of the GPL though.
What you've described here would be a violation of the BSD license
Some parts of KDE are under the BSD license. The two main parts that I am aware of (kicker and kwin) don't normally display an About Box. But Cervisia does, and Cervisia is under the QPL! And the QPL says "Modifications must not alter or remove any copyright notices in the Software."
Changing the underlying KAboutDialog, which is under the LGPL, is not a problem in and of itself. But changing that dialog in such a way that it blocks calls to display an application's licensing terms is extremely problematic.
That's why Debian tries to funnel all bugreports through its bug tracking system.
But with Redhat, they did not change the bug report dialog to forward bugs to Redhat until AFTER some KDE developers complained. It's okay to fork the code, just don't expect the original developer to support your changes.
Should GCC complain because Apple and NetBSD and Debian all apply different patches to the compiler to get to work right for them?
Debian and NetBSD send their patches on to to GCC developers. I suspect that Apple does as well, but if they don't then it's up to Apple to support their version. Redhat did NOT send their patches to KDE, but until KDE called them on it, expected KDE to support the Redhat version.
Whether you like or not, the rest of the world doesn't want "freedom of choice" when it comes to their desktop appearance. They want freedom from choice.
So explain why there are hundreds of Propaganda wallpapers instead of just one. If users truly want "freedom from choice", why did you offer them so many?
What RedHat have done is really pretty insignificant. They've create a new artwork set that is applied by default to both KDE and GNOME
This is not what Redhat has done. If that's all it was then no one would be bitching about it. All they would need to do this would be menuconfig, some artwork, new KDE widget and kwin themes, and changes to various.desktop files. But that is not what Redhat has done. A unified desktop may be their goal, but they are attempting to achieve it by gnomifying KDE. And they are gnomifying KDE is distinctly uncourteous ways.
Here's an example of Redhat's lack of courtesy: They disabled the KDE About Box. Now users cannot easily know what license an application is under, nor who the author is. Frankly, this borders on a GPL violation, but no matter, the discourtesy is by far the greater sin.
Another example is Redhat's failure to submit changes to the code base to the code base authors. This is an egregious sin. It doesn't violate any licenses, but it is very rude. If a code change is an bug fix, then community citizenship says that you should submit the fix to the author. If it is not a bug fix, then you have in essence forked the code, and community citizenship says that you should alter the name of the package so that the user knows they aren't running the original version.
Note that is wasn't until after the KDE developers complained that Redhat decided to make the bug dialog redirect bug reports to Redhat instead of KDE.
Finally, in a brazen display of disrespect, they put their head GNOME guy in charge of "fixing" KDE.
Okay, I can see you still don't get what the problem is. Let me offer you an analogy. LinuxMall wants a Unified Linux, instead of all these disparate distributions. That way they don't have to worry about customer confusion, and can offer a single meta-distribution. Step one is to remove the Redhat logos from Redhat. Step two is to make linuxconf look like YaST. Step four is to rewrite RPM without naming it or submitting the changes to Redhat. Oh, by the way, they hired Debian to be in charge of the retrofit.
This change is to remove a bewildering either-or choice that paralyzes many newcomers.
If this choice is bewildering, then perhaps those newcomers would be happier with Windows or OSX.
I mean that seriously. First of all, it isn't an "either-or" choice, it's an "one, the other, or both, or neither" choice. Second, if Redhat wants to remove this "either-or" choice, then they had better start retheming Windowmaker, Blackbox as well. And dump Galeon in favor of Mozilla, or vice versa. And dump Star/OpenOffice in favor of Gnumeric/Abiword/etal, or vice versa.
If a user is going to get confused by seeing a GNOME application running on top of a KDE desktop, then they will also get confused seeing GNU Emacs running on top of GNOME. Maybe Redhat should start retheming GNU Emacs, changing its keybindings, and reworking its menu.
Well KDE can either change to a proprietary license, or go to hell.
The KDE developers aren't concerned that Redhat is modifying their source code. Instead they are concerned that Redhat is not exercising common courtesy when they do so. There is a big difference.
The two primary concerns in my mind are Redhat's removal of the KDE About Box, and their forking of the code base without renaming it. The former means that no user can know who wrote an application or what license it is under unless they look at the source code. The latter means that bug reports from Redhat users are valueless.
This is impossible! Everyone knows that the United States is the world's most corrupt nation, and violates more individual liberties than the next five corrupt nations combined. The US is the home of Microsoft, the MPAA and the RIAA. Alan Cox boycotts the US, not Australia.
your "voice" (er.. audio) just becomes bits that your programs can manipulate before sending.
And just why does this require IP? Did you ever stop to realize that circuits can be digital? Why go to all this trouble to grind the internet to a halt just so you can get packet switching instead of circuitry?
You don't understand. VoIP is a buzzword. That means all the cool companies must have it in order to stay cool. It doesn't matter if it works or not. It doesn't matter if you can't understand the guy on the other end of the line. It doesn't matter if it overloads your network to the point of unusability. It's cool so cool companies must have it.
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Why the focus on on United Linux? Is it because of it's tenuous association with Ransom Love? Why are other betas under NDAs not targeted by the FSF?
Doom wasn't even written yet at the time Apple was giving away computers to schools.
It was Apple, after all, who started the whole process of giving away computers to schools. Where the kids future customers of Apple? Looking at the market share today, the answer is no.
So why will giving away free Windows make future Windows users, but giving away free Apples in the past didn't make future Apple users?
Well yeah, but Sun ain't a monopoly. That changes everything. I don't think anyone would object to giving material to schools if all other things were equal
Somewhere during the early to mid 1990's...
Salesman: I'm sorry Principal Cleaver, I can't donate any more copies of Windows for your school.
Principal: Why? Last week you set up Jefferson High with a new computing lab!
Salesman: That was last week. This morning some lady in Colorado purchased Windows. That took us over some arbitrary number of users, and now we're a monopoly. We can't do any good deeds anymore. You must now pay full price for Windows because our CEO's wallet is getting thin.
If it's anything like Corel LinuxOS, then it will have one HUGE advantage over Mandrake: It won't install a crapload of software by default.
I'm serious. Mandrake isn't as bad as some distros (*cough* SuSE *cough* *cough*), but the default install is still bloated. A brand new user is intimidated by that much software.
If Xandros follows the Corel lead, then they will install usable but bare bones system and put an icon on the desktop for the user to install more software later.
Sigh... Why is it everyone thinks *NIX desktops looks like Windows?
Windowmaker, Blackbox, Enlightenment, XFCE. No comparison. Let's move on...
IceWM. Okay, there is a resemblance. I suspect it's deliberate. Let's move on...
The big two desktops on *Nix: KDE and GNOME. What exactly makes them look like Windows as opposed to Mac, OS/2, BeOS, CDE, etc?
As near as I can tell, it's because they have icons on the desktop, a panel on the bottom, a root menu on the panel, and window decorations with min/max/close buttons. But that's like complaining that Fords look like Chryslers because they both have hoods, trunks and steering wheels.
Looking at OS/2, Mac, CDE, BeOS, and QNX, I find that they all have those same elements. Some of them had them before Windows did. Some of those elements even predate DOS!
A LinuxAndMain article has some references.
Authorship is irrelevent, and like I said, the license and copyright are still available to those who are interested enough to look for them.
.desktop files and startup scripts. Removing the aboutbox would not have been necessary. Renaming crucial services would not have been necessary. And sending bug reports straight to KDE would have been hunky dory.
Authorship is very relevant to the author. Just ask any author.
Without the about box, a user of a KDE application has only two means of determining authorship and licensing. Drop down to the command line with the --author and --license switches, or downloading the source just to look at the COPYING file. Both are somewhat viable options, but not even close to the convenience of the about box.
But that all begs the question. Why even get rid of the about box to begin with? Does it violate some obscure UI design guideline? I can see no possible reason to disable the dialog. As the old saying goes, if about boxes offend you, you don't have to display them.
If they made it impossible to find the original maintainer by removing the about box, then how were they pushing support back on said maintainer for the modified release?
Because they didn't (originally) modify the bug report dialog. And aboutbox type information isn't in there anyway.
Is there any way that redhat could blur the lines between Gnome and KDE witout starting a flame war?
Yes. Create a common look and feel. On the KDE side this would have involved new widget and kwin themes, and changes to certain
Does it really matter when the 'official' release comes out, when distribution makers "roll-their-own" anyway?
I'm still wondering why distros feel the need to roll their own to begin with. Bug fixes are one thing, but backports in the default kernel borders on irresponsibility. Provide alternate kernels with all the bleeding edge stuff if you wish, but when a distro says it has linux-x.y.z, then I expect to get linux-x.y.z.
One of the points of Free Software is that it allows people to do exactly what RedHat have done.
I arguing that Redhat's actions are discourteous, not that they are illegal. There are millions of things I wish people wouldn't do with my code, but I won't prohibit them by force of law in my license.
There is custom in the Free Software community to submit bug fixes back to the original developer or maintainer. There is a custom in the Free Software community to alter the name of a package when it has been forked. There is a custom in the Free Software community to provide proper attribution of authorship. Redhat has not followed the community custom.
you and other KDE people wanting KDE to look exactly as you'd have it
Neither am I arguing against their retheming of KDE. In fact, there has been no KDE developer that has argued this. That's not the problem. They can write themes all day long and there will not be a problem. That's not the problem!
The about dialogue boxes are, perhaps, a little silly.
The about boxes are not silly, because they are the primary means for a KDE application to notify a user of their legal rights with regards to the software. What good is Free Software if the user doesn't know it's Free?
You are so childish if you think it is disrespectful to put a GNOME guy in charge of making KDE more "gnomeish".
The guy in charge is the guy who called KDE "crapland".
Hey let's get cynical why don't we? Just because they're in desperate need of psychiatric intervention doesn't mean you should make fun of them!
A single employee expressing an opinion in a single piece of mail != Red Hat.
It was my understanding that that single employee was the guy Redhat chose to lead the KDE rework. If that's the attitude by the guy in charge, I don't expect much from Redhat's fork of KDE.
Redhat was trying to fix that
So when are they going to make GNU Emacs look and feel like GEdit? When are they going to make the Windowmaker dock look and feel like the GNOME Panel?
Mechanically, changing wallpapers affects nothing, but, changing window layouts affects everything. Some things should remain unalterable. The basic layout and appearance of a window is one of those things.
So why must Redhat be at the forefront of this UI revolution? After all, no other operating system enforces this, even for their own software. Look at Quicktime under OSX. Look at Windows Media Player under Windows. Heck, just look at MSOffice!
I hear a lot of people claiming that users won't use Linux (BSD, Solaris, etc) until there is a single look and feel for every application. Yet these same users appear to be quite happy running Word alongside MediaPlayer or WinAmp alongside Quicktime or RealPlayer.
But the best example is the internet. Every webpage has a different interface from the next. Yet last I heard the web was the hottest thing since Grandma started baking those special brownies...
Bullshit. You're in violation or you're not. This is clearly NOT violation. About boxes are stupid anyway.
Clause 2c of the GPL might apply in this situation. I am not saying it does, because I am not a lawyer, but the way I read it, it's damn close.
And about boxes are not stupid. They are a GUI application's primary means of informing the user of authorship, copyright and licensing terms. To deliberately block an application's call to display copyright and license information is extremely problematic.
If they decide to fork, then that's fine too.
Of course it is. But there are commonly accepted ways of creating a fork. But only if they don't dump the responsibility of supporting the fork back on the original developer. That was what Redhat was doing until KDE raised a stink about it.
Actually, this is far from a GPL violation. You are not obligated in any way to preserve authorship credit in GPL'ed software.
... to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty"
GPL Chapter 1, Verse 2: "keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty".
GPL Chapter 2c, Verse 1: "you must cause it
These clauses might not necessarily apply to the alteration of the About Box, which is why I said "borders on" a GPL violation. It's definitely against the spirit of the GPL though.
What you've described here would be a violation of the BSD license
Some parts of KDE are under the BSD license. The two main parts that I am aware of (kicker and kwin) don't normally display an About Box. But Cervisia does, and Cervisia is under the QPL! And the QPL says "Modifications must not alter or remove any copyright notices in the Software."
Changing the underlying KAboutDialog, which is under the LGPL, is not a problem in and of itself. But changing that dialog in such a way that it blocks calls to display an application's licensing terms is extremely problematic.
That's why Debian tries to funnel all bugreports through its bug tracking system.
But with Redhat, they did not change the bug report dialog to forward bugs to Redhat until AFTER some KDE developers complained. It's okay to fork the code, just don't expect the original developer to support your changes.
Should GCC complain because Apple and NetBSD and Debian all apply different patches to the compiler to get to work right for them?
Debian and NetBSD send their patches on to to GCC developers. I suspect that Apple does as well, but if they don't then it's up to Apple to support their version. Redhat did NOT send their patches to KDE, but until KDE called them on it, expected KDE to support the Redhat version.
Whether you like or not, the rest of the world doesn't want "freedom of choice" when it comes to their desktop appearance. They want freedom from choice.
So explain why there are hundreds of Propaganda wallpapers instead of just one. If users truly want "freedom from choice", why did you offer them so many?
What RedHat have done is really pretty insignificant. They've create a new artwork set that is applied by default to both KDE and GNOME
.desktop files. But that is not what Redhat has done. A unified desktop may be their goal, but they are attempting to achieve it by gnomifying KDE. And they are gnomifying KDE is distinctly uncourteous ways.
This is not what Redhat has done. If that's all it was then no one would be bitching about it. All they would need to do this would be menuconfig, some artwork, new KDE widget and kwin themes, and changes to various
Here's an example of Redhat's lack of courtesy: They disabled the KDE About Box. Now users cannot easily know what license an application is under, nor who the author is. Frankly, this borders on a GPL violation, but no matter, the discourtesy is by far the greater sin.
Another example is Redhat's failure to submit changes to the code base to the code base authors. This is an egregious sin. It doesn't violate any licenses, but it is very rude. If a code change is an bug fix, then community citizenship says that you should submit the fix to the author. If it is not a bug fix, then you have in essence forked the code, and community citizenship says that you should alter the name of the package so that the user knows they aren't running the original version.
Note that is wasn't until after the KDE developers complained that Redhat decided to make the bug dialog redirect bug reports to Redhat instead of KDE.
Finally, in a brazen display of disrespect, they put their head GNOME guy in charge of "fixing" KDE.
Okay, I can see you still don't get what the problem is. Let me offer you an analogy. LinuxMall wants a Unified Linux, instead of all these disparate distributions. That way they don't have to worry about customer confusion, and can offer a single meta-distribution. Step one is to remove the Redhat logos from Redhat. Step two is to make linuxconf look like YaST. Step four is to rewrite RPM without naming it or submitting the changes to Redhat. Oh, by the way, they hired Debian to be in charge of the retrofit.
This change is to remove a bewildering either-or choice that paralyzes many newcomers.
If this choice is bewildering, then perhaps those newcomers would be happier with Windows or OSX.
I mean that seriously. First of all, it isn't an "either-or" choice, it's an "one, the other, or both, or neither" choice. Second, if Redhat wants to remove this "either-or" choice, then they had better start retheming Windowmaker, Blackbox as well. And dump Galeon in favor of Mozilla, or vice versa. And dump Star/OpenOffice in favor of Gnumeric/Abiword/etal, or vice versa.
If a user is going to get confused by seeing a GNOME application running on top of a KDE desktop, then they will also get confused seeing GNU Emacs running on top of GNOME. Maybe Redhat should start retheming GNU Emacs, changing its keybindings, and reworking its menu.
Well KDE can either change to a proprietary license, or go to hell.
The KDE developers aren't concerned that Redhat is modifying their source code. Instead they are concerned that Redhat is not exercising common courtesy when they do so. There is a big difference.
The two primary concerns in my mind are Redhat's removal of the KDE About Box, and their forking of the code base without renaming it. The former means that no user can know who wrote an application or what license it is under unless they look at the source code. The latter means that bug reports from Redhat users are valueless.
I personally wish there were 5 different high quality desktops to choose from.
Amen! People who don't want to make choices should assign that responsibility to Bill Gates.
This is impossible! Everyone knows that the United States is the world's most corrupt nation, and violates more individual liberties than the next five corrupt nations combined. The US is the home of Microsoft, the MPAA and the RIAA. Alan Cox boycotts the US, not Australia.
This story cannot be true.
your "voice" (er .. audio) just becomes bits that your programs can manipulate before sending.
And just why does this require IP? Did you ever stop to realize that circuits can be digital? Why go to all this trouble to grind the internet to a halt just so you can get packet switching instead of circuitry?
You don't understand. VoIP is a buzzword. That means all the cool companies must have it in order to stay cool. It doesn't matter if it works or not. It doesn't matter if you can't understand the guy on the other end of the line. It doesn't matter if it overloads your network to the point of unusability. It's cool so cool companies must have it.