The one drawback, I think, is that binaries may generate a lot of unhelpful bug reports. (See this one, for example.)
Binaries are susceptible to all sorts of little inconsistencies between installations that source can pave over. The result is a flood of "I get this this error on Storm Linux with XFree86 and GTK whatever." mails. Also, releasing source-only creates a small barrier to entry that restricts distribution to people who understand what "pre-alpha" means.
Screenshots, on the other hand, seem like they're always a good thing.
Repeating the conspiracy theory doesn't make it "hard fact". Among other things, the Senate hearings you refer to were in the 70's. Ten seconds with Google turns up a wealth of information. Here's a short link and a longer one. By the way, a sure sign of a conspiracy is that the "facts" are different in every telling. I've hear the story with auto companies, oil companies, tire companies...as the villains.
Uhh, yeah. This sort of thing is precisely why patents exist. This isn't Linux - biotech venture capitalists aren't stupid enough to sink billions into harebrained schemes to recoup costs by selling hard drive space or airplane tickets.
We're talking about different things. In theory, the author controls enforcement of his own GPL'd code. In practice, other people can create huge headaches for projects that have used GPL code whether or not the author himself has any objections. In fact, they can create those headaches even if no GPL code was used at all, if a sufficiently well-connected person wants to beat up on a project.
Only 171 commments? Six months ago there would have been at least 800 on this story. I'm thinking Andrew Leonard was right.
As the year 2000 limps to a close, the days when Slashdot's name was at the tip of every tech pundit's tongue, and Linux's rise to world domination seemed a foregone conclusion, are suddenly long gone. The prominence of free software in the tech and financial press has sharply declined. I mean, you know the buzz is fading fast when media outlets become so bored that they can't even muster the energy to harp on the declining stock prices of Linux companies. Sure, the dot-com downturn is responsible for a lot of the deflation, as is the normal news cycle that treats yesterday's news as, well, yesterday's news, but was it really only a year ago that VA Linux was breaking all records for IPO debuts?
Yeah, this article is naked flamebait. But I'm trapped inside by a freaking hurricane (in Boston in December!) and the Patriots still suck so I'll bite...
I used to use the GPL for my software because I liked the idea of having control over my code. But two points came up during the KDE/QPL dispute that made me change my mind.
1) The idea that free software should only be reused in free software is attractive. But the viral nature of the GPL means that a line of code that is copied from one project to another contaminates other code that might be used in a third project. That's the intent of the GPL - to eventually encumber the entire free software pool. To me, it's distasteful that a line or two of code ties the hands of developers who have written a huge project of their own and who may never have seen a line from the original GPL project.
2) And it's not even up to the original author. IIRC, there was no case where an author of GPL code objected to its use in KDE. (RMS's "forgiveness" notwithstanding.) As soon as the words "GPL violation" are used, the Slashdot/Technocrat/FSF lynch mob heads out, apparently in the belief that since they're Members Of The Community, they somehow get to act as the aggrieved party. I'd prefer to keep control of my code, but I'd rather see it wind up in Windows than have it used to ruin a well-intentioned project.
Hopefully this will be the final straw that forced people to see through the facade that is the GPL.
No, the final straw was when Qt was released under the GPL. Suddenly the Slashbots realized that the GPL is the opposite of 'free'. Fortunately the QPL is still applicable, too.
The key here is that this is under lab conditions. PETA notwithstanding, lab animals are raised under extremely healthy conditions and have excellent medical care. (Generally, better medical care than the grad student and postdoc researchers receive, but that's another issue.) I'm very skeptical that caloric restriction would be favorable in the real world.
In grad school, I cloned a Drosophila gene I wanted to name good 'n' plenty, for reasons I'll forgo explaining. My boss made me ask the Leaf Candy Co. for permission, which they refused. Had that happened a few years later, I could have enlisted Michael and the Your Rights Online mob to fight for my right to misappropriate other people's intellectual property.
My all-time favorite is the gene where mutant males, but not females, have some extra pigmentation. The researchers named it male chauvinist pigmentation. Unfortunately it was renamed during the same bout of political correctness that caused fruity (mutant males try to mate with other males) to be renamed fruitless.
I only saw Sun give out StarOffice, nobody else has or had a competetive office suite available either gratis or licensed under the GPL. Where were those OSS zealots out to undercut Corel with a competetive office suite? Koffice and Gnome office is coming, but it'll be a year or two yet.
That's the question, isn't it? Given that Corel wasn't selling their office apps, was their main competition: A) Free/free office suites B) HTML documents written in emacs and printed with Netscape C) Corel giving its software away D) Nothing - web servers and routers don't need an office suite E) Booting into Windows
My completely off the cuff estimate: A -5%, B -1%, C - 4%, D - 50%, E - 40%. It would behoove whoever wants to take over their business to know the answer to that question.
Kept adding/backporting staff to KDE 1.1 which eventually ended up in KDE2 (corel wrote a great file-manager for KDE1, but there's konqueror now!), which (KDE2) was never included in their distro.
In the last couple of weeks, they've started merging some major work into the 2.1 CVS. I couldn't help suspecting that they're winding things down there. (Like in those suicide awareness brochures in high school where they warn you to worry if someone starts giving away his/her possessions.)
Personally, I think adding 5-6 MB to kdesupport is going to scare off new users and that there has to be a better way to distribute 1000+ large printer description files but what do I know?
Gamers are the new artists, visionaries, and story-tellers of our time, sparked by astonishingly inventive new technologies like the PS 2.
Uh, no. Game developers are, maybe. And I'll include gamers who make levels or skins. But players? They're at best the new audience for artists and story-tellers.
Anyone else get the impression that Slashdot now functions largely as a self-esteem booster for teenagers? First, everyone here was made out to be an "open-source hacker". As the site filled with readers who can't compile, let alone code, everyone with a Red Hat CD he may or may not have installed became a "member of The Community".
Then the Columbine stuff drew a crowd that a) couldn't care less about Linux and b) craves flattery even more than the old gang did. Jon Katz steps forward with article after article about how Napster kiddiez, game console owners and pompous, disgruntled teenagers are "geeks", "visionaries", "artists", "revolutionaries"...
Come on, kids. If you're not willing to go outdoors or to talk to girls, at least learn to use your computer. Read this largely unnoticed Ask Slashdot and see what being a geek is really about.
I'm not a Timothy basher (I think he and Hemos are the best of the/. editors) but both the submitter and he picked one bit of unrepresentative flamebait out of a long, long interview.
There's a lot here about open source, VA, Sun, IBM, RMS... Nothing I found particularly interesting, and he's ducking the hard questions (the word "Mozilla" is nowhere to be seen - the man who was so eager to wrap himself in the glory of that project now pretends it doesn't exist) - but focusing on that one bit of nonsense completely misses the point.
Oh well. Let's get back to the lengthy flamefest conducted by people who haven't read the article!
Thank heavens! At least one Slashdot editor isn't posting repeat stories! Jon Katz has already covered this topic. Sample quote: According to a computing engineer who asked not to be quoted, prototypes of sexbots already exist in Japan. "I guarantee you," he e-mailed me, "that within 25 years, programmable, digital sexbots will be in many, if not most, American homes and apartments." Unfortunately, some idiot troll has wiped out the comments.
I can't resist -- here's another quote: Or perhaps, Snell speculates, a new category of sexuality might emerge among humans - the technovirgin, people who find it simpler, perhaps even preferable, to have sex exclusively with sexbots. This would avoid all the emotional and physical complications of having sex with people.
IIRC, Rob added the ability to filter by author in response to this article.
We will need to make a well-defined list of features and accept new features only after thoughtful discussion on the mailing-list.
Translation: When is Adobe going to come out with Photoshop 6.0? We've run out of features to copy (CMYK support is too hard and it's not like Linux users need it to paste penguins on pictures of lingerie models) and the Open Source Movement certainly isn't coming up with any on its own.
So, when are we getting a story on the SEC investigation of the VA Systems IPO?
My impression was that it's about what is going to be the central repository / standards body for XML schemas. In other words, will the "official" or "standard" airline industry XML be the one at biztalk.org or the one at oasis.org?
By the way, "Biztalk Server 2000" is the worst name since the "Shouptronic".
This reminds me of the comments you always see here on any KDE or Gnome story. "They're just reimplementing the same ideas. I want to see a completely new and better GUI."
Generally I frown on "Oh yeah? Write it yourself!" responses but in this case they're appropriate. You think people are opposed to the idea of a new paradigm that makes life perfect? It's just a lot harder to come up with them than it is to sneer at and berate people for doing things the old way.
And having Joan Baez endorse Jaron Lanier's views on software engineering doesn't make me take him more seriously. On the contrary.
On the subject of spam, are people familiar with PopLaunch? I just got one of these today, filled with innocent URL's in fake F0RM tags. Is the main linked URL real? I was really pissed off by this and would like to make sure I nail the guy behind it.
Here's a FAQ on the subject by a company that has the misfortune to make a product with the same name.
So an SEC investigation of the VA Systems IPO isn't News For Nerds?;-)
Note the mockup of the "Eazel Nautilus interface" where the Gnome panel is listed as an Eazel innovation. I'd feel sorry for the Gnome developers if they weren't always implying that Unix lacked a GUI until they came along.
Honestly, I don't understand how Eazel manages to maintain the hype it does for its Emperor's new clothes. They're making a file browser for Gnome. It works OK, it beats gmc and when it's done maybe it will be better than Konqueror. But it's hardly a "graphical interface" in its own right. But they generate such rabidly positive press about their great innovations. Like what? Embedded MP3 playing! And, uh, embedded MP3 previewing! How much funding do they have - $12 million?
The Bubbling Load Monitor people ought to strike a deal with Compaq or Sony to preload computers with the Bubbling Load Monitor desktop. Until now, Linux users had to struggle with a cryptic command-line interface. But some brilliant programmers are revolutionizing the GUI. Now you can display system load as bubbles! They plan to make money selling subscriptions.
Like a lot of Mac users, I found Mozilla versions before M17 utterly useless on MacOS. They have made tremendous progress since then, and recent versions are reasonably usable. (The browser, at least. I haven't tried the mail or news.) I'm suspicious about the people who respond to every criticism of Mozilla with "Oh, but the latest nightlies are much better!" but users who are disappointed with M18 should try recent nightlies, which are much better.
When you find Mac-specific bugs, report them!! My impression is that for all the emphasis on cross-platform, the Mozilla core only really pays attention to Win32. and to a lesser extent, Unix. If users don't report and vote for those bugs, they'll never get noticed or fixed.
For the most part, companies that sell flaky hardware and buggy software are addressing the reality that people want the latest and flashiest on their desktops, and are willing to put up with crashes and occasional repairs and returns. (Hint, that's how markets work.) That's why there are more people using Linux than OpenBSD. That's why users will put up with daily reboots of their Windows/MacOS boxes in order to use Word instead of PatheticWriter. That's why you don't see "Level 5 certified" Indian companies leading the FPS market.
Where quality is more important than new features, quality rules. Notice the author isn't complaining about bugs in her car's brake system.
Has anyone had experience using Konqueror without the rest of KDE running?
Works fine for me, in WindowMaker and icewm.
One annoyance I had with 2.0 were the number of kdeinit/kio processes started up with Konqueror, that would persist even after it was terminated. (Which also made memory usage comparisons with NS4 a rather tricky affair)
Those shouldn't be using a major amount of memory. The current CVS (2.1) now has a fix to keep the KDE processes from persisting after they're no longer needed, although I find having to keep restarting kded is more of a nuisance than the old situation was.
Aside from that, the deluge of debugging messages and inability to display local directories turned me back to NS4, but I'm willing to give Konqy another go at it...
Didn't display local directories? Unless I'm misunderstanding you, something is broken, then. That's its primary job. As far as the messages go, either send them to/dev/null or just add Konqueror to a desktop menu in whatever WM you're using.
Slashdot Mirror
Binaries are susceptible to all sorts of little inconsistencies between installations that source can pave over. The result is a flood of "I get this this error on Storm Linux with XFree86 and GTK whatever." mails. Also, releasing source-only creates a small barrier to entry that restricts distribution to people who understand what "pre-alpha" means.
Screenshots, on the other hand, seem like they're always a good thing.
Errr, make that a sure sign of a dubious conspiracy is that the "facts" are different in every telling.
Repeating the conspiracy theory doesn't make it "hard fact". Among other things, the Senate hearings you refer to were in the 70's. Ten seconds with Google turns up a wealth of information. Here's a short link and a longer one. By the way, a sure sign of a conspiracy is that the "facts" are different in every telling. I've hear the story with auto companies, oil companies, tire companies...as the villains.
Uhh, yeah. This sort of thing is precisely why patents exist. This isn't Linux - biotech venture capitalists aren't stupid enough to sink billions into harebrained schemes to recoup costs by selling hard drive space or airplane tickets.
We're talking about different things. In theory, the author controls enforcement of his own GPL'd code. In practice, other people can create huge headaches for projects that have used GPL code whether or not the author himself has any objections. In fact, they can create those headaches even if no GPL code was used at all, if a sufficiently well-connected person wants to beat up on a project.
Only 171 commments? Six months ago there would have been at least 800 on this story. I'm thinking Andrew Leonard was right.
As the year 2000 limps to a close, the days when Slashdot's name was at the tip of every tech pundit's tongue, and Linux's rise to world domination seemed a foregone conclusion, are suddenly long gone. The prominence of free software in the tech and financial press has sharply declined. I mean, you know the buzz is fading fast when media outlets become so bored that they can't even muster the energy to harp on the declining stock prices of Linux companies. Sure, the dot-com downturn is responsible for a lot of the deflation, as is the normal news cycle that treats yesterday's news as, well, yesterday's news, but was it really only a year ago that VA Linux was breaking all records for IPO debuts?
I used to use the GPL for my software because I liked the idea of having control over my code. But two points came up during the KDE/QPL dispute that made me change my mind.
1) The idea that free software should only be reused in free software is attractive. But the viral nature of the GPL means that a line of code that is copied from one project to another contaminates other code that might be used in a third project. That's the intent of the GPL - to eventually encumber the entire free software pool. To me, it's distasteful that a line or two of code ties the hands of developers who have written a huge project of their own and who may never have seen a line from the original GPL project.
2) And it's not even up to the original author. IIRC, there was no case where an author of GPL code objected to its use in KDE. (RMS's "forgiveness" notwithstanding.) As soon as the words "GPL violation" are used, the Slashdot/Technocrat/FSF lynch mob heads out, apparently in the belief that since they're Members Of The Community, they somehow get to act as the aggrieved party. I'd prefer to keep control of my code, but I'd rather see it wind up in Windows than have it used to ruin a well-intentioned project.
No, the final straw was when Qt was released under the GPL. Suddenly the Slashbots realized that the GPL is the opposite of 'free'. Fortunately the QPL is still applicable, too.
The key here is that this is under lab conditions. PETA notwithstanding, lab animals are raised under extremely healthy conditions and have excellent medical care. (Generally, better medical care than the grad student and postdoc researchers receive, but that's another issue.) I'm very skeptical that caloric restriction would be favorable in the real world.
My all-time favorite is the gene where mutant males, but not females, have some extra pigmentation. The researchers named it male chauvinist pigmentation. Unfortunately it was renamed during the same bout of political correctness that caused fruity (mutant males try to mate with other males) to be renamed fruitless.
That's the question, isn't it? Given that Corel wasn't selling their office apps, was their main competition:
A) Free/free office suites
B) HTML documents written in emacs and printed with Netscape
C) Corel giving its software away
D) Nothing - web servers and routers don't need an office suite
E) Booting into Windows
My completely off the cuff estimate: A -5%, B -1%, C - 4%, D - 50%, E - 40%. It would behoove whoever wants to take over their business to know the answer to that question.
In the last couple of weeks, they've started merging some major work into the 2.1 CVS. I couldn't help suspecting that they're winding things down there. (Like in those suicide awareness brochures in high school where they warn you to worry if someone starts giving away his/her possessions.)
Personally, I think adding 5-6 MB to kdesupport is going to scare off new users and that there has to be a better way to distribute 1000+ large printer description files but what do I know?
Uh, no. Game developers are, maybe. And I'll include gamers who make levels or skins. But players? They're at best the new audience for artists and story-tellers.
Anyone else get the impression that Slashdot now functions largely as a self-esteem booster for teenagers? First, everyone here was made out to be an "open-source hacker". As the site filled with readers who can't compile, let alone code, everyone with a Red Hat CD he may or may not have installed became a "member of The Community".
Then the Columbine stuff drew a crowd that a) couldn't care less about Linux and b) craves flattery even more than the old gang did. Jon Katz steps forward with article after article about how Napster kiddiez, game console owners and pompous, disgruntled teenagers are "geeks", "visionaries", "artists", "revolutionaries"...
Come on, kids. If you're not willing to go outdoors or to talk to girls, at least learn to use your computer. Read this largely unnoticed Ask Slashdot and see what being a geek is really about.
There's a lot here about open source, VA, Sun, IBM, RMS... Nothing I found particularly interesting, and he's ducking the hard questions (the word "Mozilla" is nowhere to be seen - the man who was so eager to wrap himself in the glory of that project now pretends it doesn't exist) - but focusing on that one bit of nonsense completely misses the point.
Oh well. Let's get back to the lengthy flamefest conducted by people who haven't read the article!
I can't resist -- here's another quote: Or perhaps, Snell speculates, a new category of sexuality might emerge among humans - the technovirgin, people who find it simpler, perhaps even preferable, to have sex exclusively with sexbots. This would avoid all the emotional and physical complications of having sex with people.
IIRC, Rob added the ability to filter by author in response to this article.
Errr, make that 7.0....
Translation: When is Adobe going to come out with Photoshop 6.0? We've run out of features to copy (CMYK support is too hard and it's not like Linux users need it to paste penguins on pictures of lingerie models) and the Open Source Movement certainly isn't coming up with any on its own.
So, when are we getting a story on the SEC investigation of the VA Systems IPO?
By the way, "Biztalk Server 2000" is the worst name since the "Shouptronic".
Generally I frown on "Oh yeah? Write it yourself!" responses but in this case they're appropriate. You think people are opposed to the idea of a new paradigm that makes life perfect? It's just a lot harder to come up with them than it is to sneer at and berate people for doing things the old way.
And having Joan Baez endorse Jaron Lanier's views on software engineering doesn't make me take him more seriously. On the contrary.
Here's a FAQ on the subject by a company that has the misfortune to make a product with the same name.
So an SEC investigation of the VA Systems IPO isn't News For Nerds? ;-)
Honestly, I don't understand how Eazel manages to maintain the hype it does for its Emperor's new clothes. They're making a file browser for Gnome. It works OK, it beats gmc and when it's done maybe it will be better than Konqueror. But it's hardly a "graphical interface" in its own right. But they generate such rabidly positive press about their great innovations. Like what? Embedded MP3 playing! And, uh, embedded MP3 previewing! How much funding do they have - $12 million?
The Bubbling Load Monitor people ought to strike a deal with Compaq or Sony to preload computers with the Bubbling Load Monitor desktop. Until now, Linux users had to struggle with a cryptic command-line interface. But some brilliant programmers are revolutionizing the GUI. Now you can display system load as bubbles! They plan to make money selling subscriptions.
When you find Mac-specific bugs, report them!! My impression is that for all the emphasis on cross-platform, the Mozilla core only really pays attention to Win32. and to a lesser extent, Unix. If users don't report and vote for those bugs, they'll never get noticed or fixed.
Where quality is more important than new features, quality rules. Notice the author isn't complaining about bugs in her car's brake system.
I think Andover will make you a Slashdot editor.
True -- my point wasn't what it is as much as what it isn't. It isn't a dedicated web browser project.
Works fine for me, in WindowMaker and icewm.
One annoyance I had with 2.0 were the number of kdeinit/kio processes started up with Konqueror, that would persist even after it was terminated. (Which also made memory usage comparisons with NS4 a rather tricky affair)
Those shouldn't be using a major amount of memory. The current CVS (2.1) now has a fix to keep the KDE processes from persisting after they're no longer needed, although I find having to keep restarting kded is more of a nuisance than the old situation was.
Aside from that, the deluge of debugging messages and inability to display local directories turned me back to NS4, but I'm willing to give Konqy another go at it...
Didn't display local directories? Unless I'm misunderstanding you, something is broken, then. That's its primary job. As far as the messages go, either send them to /dev/null or just add Konqueror to a desktop menu in whatever WM you're using.