Here's the thing: GNOME isn't like a regular software product. The early adopters that haven't contributed code have done nothing for the project, so why should they be catered to? Why shouldn't the project take a direction that will open it up to a much wider audience?
Just think of it this way - GNOME is going for the kind of Just Works simplicity you get on OSX, and even better if possible.
Now, imagine if OSX and all OSX apps were available on x86 hardware. Imagine the market share that could garner! That's part of the reason that the past must be sacrificed for the future.
Arggh... I'm am sick of fools like you jumping into this discussion. You, like many zealots, have no real idea what you are talking about and just jump straight to the extremes without considering the middle ground.
*ahem*
Anyhow, GET A DIFFERENT FUCKING WINDOW MANANGER AND QUIT FUCKING COMPLAINING. There are lots of WMs that conform to the WM spec, try one out and shut your hole. Metacity is fast, and it Just Works. In fact, I've forgotten I even have a seperate window manager... just like it should be.
"maybe it will just be another place for advertisers to exploit."
Yeah, and maybe Microsoft would love to see SCO win their case with IBM...
Is there really any question that marketing people would love to exploit something like this? Any surface they can manage to slap a brand name onto, they'll use.
I'll leave you all with a little Bill Hicks:
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. No, really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, okay? Kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good. This is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. Just planting seeds... I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." There's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."
Man, could you have been more of a jerk to that guy? How about just a little tact?
I have three letters for you: G P L. Where's the problem here? Now that Helix is GPL, the community can start looking at Xine, GStreamer, and Helix on their technical merits alone.
So how exactly does Real GPL'ing Helix make them Evil(TM)?
I know all that, and they're many of the reasons I love Python.
Still, Python + C modules doesn't completely fix the problems - it alleviates much of the speed pain, but you still have memory footprint problems, and the lack of static type checking.
Python totally, completely rocks, but I think it's foolish to try to write an entire desktop with it at this stage... (I'd love to be proven wrong, mind you.:-)
Re:My Gnome Wish List
on
The GNOME Roadmap
·
· Score: 5, Informative
A few replies:
1. The Menus should be much more customizable; treated like folders that you can click and drag into (I hate to say this, but "Like Windows").
This is finally getting some serious attention. (thank god!) Check out the whole thread if you're interested. Looks like there's a decent chance we'll see this by 2.8.
2. Better Video control properties; take advantage of XFree's extended features and have options like TV switching and such.
This would be cool, though certainly less of a priority. I'd bet we'll see some custom ATI and nVidia proprietary solutions to this for a while to fill the gap, which is what Windows has now, and then somewhere down the road we'll get proper "generic" controls that work with more than one driver.
3. Better preferences; the control panels are quite lacking.
This is poorly defined - what do you mean by "better"? For some people (I'll pick on the KDE crowd here), more prefs is generally though of as "better". For others (such as GNOME's case), "less is more", where preferences like "Use XVideo or XShm for video output"* are eliminated, since it's thought that the code ought to be smart enough to know which should be used, and that burdening the user with such things is a great disservice to them. See Havoc's essay on this. Naturally, there's no One True Way, and that's why there are (and should be!) more than one desktop for Free platforms like Linux, FreeBSD, etc. However, GNOME's approach is almost certainly best for typical non-geeky end users, and is also very popular with anyone else who expects software to Just Work, and that having to figure out what XVideo and Xshm are just to get good performance from a movie player should be considered a bug. It's obvious where my opinion lies on this, but again, I'm very glad KDE and all the rest are out there too, since GNOME's One Size Fits Nearly Everyone is not truly One Size Fits All, and doesn't aim to be.
4. Other aesthetic enhancements that will make gnome pretty enough to compete with other window environments (like win XP's or OSX's). Smooth scrolling, the zoom-on-hover icons in OSX are sweet, and _drop shadows on windows_ would be real nice.
5. Some kind of Linux-version-of-Active-Desktop would be real nice, so I could have an IRC session running as part of my wallpaper,anchor the weather channel radar map to the background, etcetera.
I think you stumbled onto something very important here, though you're missing the big picture.
Python should not be used for core libraries or core apps like Nautilus. As completely excellent as Python is, it's just a fact that it just doesn't run as fast as C (or even Java or Mono) for nearly any operation. Also, using Nautilus as an example again, while Nautilus is finally fast enough as of 2.6, it still needs work in terms of memory footprint. Going to Java or Mono wouldn't help this, but going with Python for something like Nautilus would probably make it Much Much Worse(TM). Finally, while PyChecker is a beautiful complement to Python, it's simply not a complete replacement for static type checking.
What you did hit on, though, was that Python (IMHO) ought to be pushed as the Linux equivlant role as VB does for MS - with hooks for it into everything, wherever possible. I don't see any reason why Python shouldn't be A) used like VB is for making quick custom desktop apps, but B) (and I know I'll get flamed for this), like VB, Python makes for a great system *and* web scripting language (ie: why push PHP when Python could do a much better job and offer familiarity between web scripting and system scripting)
If Python could get the approximately the same speed, memory footprint, and built-in sanity checking as Java or Mono, then it could be a contender for core app/library programming. Sadly, this isn't likely, and even if a concerted effort were launched to this effect immediately, it still wouldn't materialize for a couple years. Java and Mono, however, are here now.
The store rep said that a 10/100 hub will find the slowest connecting device on the network and then put everything at that speed, while a 10/100 switch will let everyone talk at the maximum speed they support.
but, uhm... isn't that the case? On a hub, every device must "dumb down" to the slowest link, whereas on a switch, every port can have its own speed settings (duplex, 10 vs 100mbps, etc)
heh... your sig, "Current Linux desktops won't succeed because people DON'T WANT endless choices" is funny. You know there's a whole Linux desktop that understands that principle? It's called GNOME - maybe you've heard of it?:-)
As for installers, that's a breeze compared to building something like RPM, which is already done. Give it time - it'll come. For now, the consumer is not a primary target for Linux - limited application environments are, like call centers. The much drooled after Home Desktop will come, but it's at least a year or two off.
buh-dum ching! Thank you, I'll be here all weekend! Try the buffet!
That said, C# does seem cool... basically Java++. Now if only MS would make a legally binding document saying they won't sue the Mono guys...:-P
Re:Is Nautilus still a buggy bloated POS?
on
GNOME 2.6 Reviewed
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Slow, buggy, and lacking features?
Well, coming from Fedora Core 2 test 2, I can tell you this about Nautilus:
1) It's not slow anymore - Nautilus 2.6 is damn fast (finally!:-)
2) I haven't really come across any bugs yet - not that they aren't there, but there are no big ones that I can see
3) This is the best Nautilus yet for features, too, though some people insist on a file manager they can tweak the hell out of. If that's what you want, stop using Nautilus immediately, because it will never be what you're looking for. That said, there are some groovy new features in Nautilus now, like the nice removable device handling, better network drive support, etc... Oh, and breaking with the slashbots, I like spatial mode, dammit.. Yeah, it's different, but it makes sense after you use it for a bit. I wouldn't go back now.
Re:Windows?
on
Gimp Hits 2.0
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Ok, that was cold, harsh, and probably just another brick in the wall to mainstream Linux adoption, due to elitism. It was also really damn funny. Have a sense of humor, people!
Well, personally, I'd advocate both positions, though simply getting the gov't to require these standards might even be enough.... but fat chance of that happening.:-P
When are governments going to get a clue? Screw fines - almost no amount of money you can take from them will really have an effect on their behavior or the market. What the EU ought to do is to tell MS that if they want to do future business in Europe, they need to make the Office file formats an EMCA standard, and that any patents they have on the formats must be licenesed royalty-free. That would create real change and competition in the market - let them compete on implementation, as it ought to be!
You can bet that if Karl Rove worked for Microsoft, there'd be at least 50 different "LUNIX RUL3Z, M$ IS T3H SUX0R" worms already out there, all written by people on the Rove payroll.
Wow, Stephen, while you're at it, why don't you call Linux users terrorists or Nazis, too? What about all the other worms that have bowled over Windows machines for years. I suppose those were all written by those eeeeeevil Lunix h4x0rs, too, right?
This is one of the most frequently abused quotes on Slashdot, especially by idiot armchair-Libertarians*, since the misquote usually says "those that would give up liberty to gain safety deserve neither", which means that anyone who gives up ANY liberty for ANY amount of safety is somehow no longer entitled to either. Franklin's point was that while some liberties can be worth relinquishing in the name of real and necessary safeties, it's when one is ready to trade in essential liberties for a little temporary safety that one is being cowardly and foolish.
As for the GPL, I think the tradeoff of liberty is 100% worth the safety received. Do you really think that we wouldn't have seen a zillion proprietary forks of the Linux kernel by now if it weren't protected by something like the GPL? We haven't seen the BSDs fork too terribly, true, but they also never became as popular. In fact, I don't think *BSD ever could have become as popular as Linux is now, since you there's no way you could get an industry consortium to all contribute to the same kernel that was under a BSD licence, since every business involved would be too worried that one of the others would eventually fork and stop contributing back, whereas the GPL ensures that no one company can just say "Ha ha, screw you guys, we're taking your work and not giving a damn thing back!" Naturally, the GPL isn't for everything - even RMS agreed that the Vorbis decoding libraries should be BSD licensed, not GPL or LGPL. (So anyone who insists that he's completely insane/inflexible can suck it. He can be annoying with the GNU/Linux thing, though...)
* note to the humorless and/or spastic: No, I am not implying that the parent poster is necessarily one of these, nor am I saying that all Libertarians are idiots, so put your flamethrower down and think before hitting "Submit", please.
(Note: I'm just in a snarky mood - my sarcasm should be taken as playful, not mean.)
While you're right about the storage medium problem to a degree, you've forgotten about... printers. You know, those magical devices that produce pieces of paper with a replica of what we see on screen? Also, I would expect that businesses will build over the years specically for regaining data from old, unused formats of media, etc, for those who don't migrate/backup their data to more modern mediums as time progresses. That said, I would like a more permenant medium - magnetic media slowly fails, and so do all current forms of optical media...
As for your first paragraph, you are strictly talking about a level of detail, of resolution - that's it. There's nothing magical about film that gives it the qualities you're implying it has, it's just that the film and photo paper used for the photo you refer to had really fine grain, and the picture was (we assume) taken with good focus and exposure. There is nothing magic about the chemicals of photography - it's all a matter of resoulution (or Megapixels, for the unwashed masses).
The real point here is that while one can argue that current digital tech isn't as fine-grained as high quality film tech, that's not an inherant property, it's just the way it is for now. Since the industry is obviously leaning in the digital direction (with good reason!), it can only be a matter of time before film will be completely surpassed in quality by digital.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the thing: GNOME isn't like a regular software product. The early adopters that haven't contributed code have done nothing for the project, so why should they be catered to? Why shouldn't the project take a direction that will open it up to a much wider audience?
Just think of it this way - GNOME is going for the kind of Just Works simplicity you get on OSX, and even better if possible.
Now, imagine if OSX and all OSX apps were available on x86 hardware. Imagine the market share that could garner! That's part of the reason that the past must be sacrificed for the future.
Arggh... I'm am sick of fools like you jumping into this discussion. You, like many zealots, have no real idea what you are talking about and just jump straight to the extremes without considering the middle ground.
*ahem*
Anyhow, GET A DIFFERENT FUCKING WINDOW MANANGER AND QUIT FUCKING COMPLAINING. There are lots of WMs that conform to the WM spec, try one out and shut your hole. Metacity is fast, and it Just Works. In fact, I've forgotten I even have a seperate window manager... just like it should be.
Yeah, and maybe Microsoft would love to see SCO win their case with IBM...
Is there really any question that marketing people would love to exploit something like this? Any surface they can manage to slap a brand name onto, they'll use.
I'll leave you all with a little Bill Hicks:
Man, could you have been more of a jerk to that guy? How about just a little tact?
I have three letters for you: G P L. Where's the problem here? Now that Helix is GPL, the community can start looking at Xine, GStreamer, and Helix on their technical merits alone.
So how exactly does Real GPL'ing Helix make them Evil(TM)?
You're correct, but they could explicitly license the Java trademark to whomever they please, and that would still fulfill the defense requirement.
I've been saying this since the whole idea of OSS Java came up. It's a simple but excellent solution to prevent (non-amicable) forks.
Why doesn't anyone else (but the parent poster) seem to see this?
Well, for basic scripting, PHP might be fine - that's probably personal preference.
For the kinds of GUI tasks that VB gets used for though, OO is really nice, and why wait for PHP to catch up when Python has great OO right now?
I know all that, and they're many of the reasons I love Python.
:-)
Still, Python + C modules doesn't completely fix the problems - it alleviates much of the speed pain, but you still have memory footprint problems, and the lack of static type checking.
Python totally, completely rocks, but I think it's foolish to try to write an entire desktop with it at this stage... (I'd love to be proven wrong, mind you.
I think you stumbled onto something very important here, though you're missing the big picture.
Python should not be used for core libraries or core apps like Nautilus. As completely excellent as Python is, it's just a fact that it just doesn't run as fast as C (or even Java or Mono) for nearly any operation. Also, using Nautilus as an example again, while Nautilus is finally fast enough as of 2.6, it still needs work in terms of memory footprint. Going to Java or Mono wouldn't help this, but going with Python for something like Nautilus would probably make it Much Much Worse(TM). Finally, while PyChecker is a beautiful complement to Python, it's simply not a complete replacement for static type checking.
What you did hit on, though, was that Python (IMHO) ought to be pushed as the Linux equivlant role as VB does for MS - with hooks for it into everything, wherever possible. I don't see any reason why Python shouldn't be A) used like VB is for making quick custom desktop apps, but B) (and I know I'll get flamed for this), like VB, Python makes for a great system *and* web scripting language (ie: why push PHP when Python could do a much better job and offer familiarity between web scripting and system scripting)
If Python could get the approximately the same speed, memory footprint, and built-in sanity checking as Java or Mono, then it could be a contender for core app/library programming. Sadly, this isn't likely, and even if a concerted effort were launched to this effect immediately, it still wouldn't materialize for a couple years. Java and Mono, however, are here now.
but, uhm... isn't that the case? On a hub, every device must "dumb down" to the slowest link, whereas on a switch, every port can have its own speed settings (duplex, 10 vs 100mbps, etc)
How is this not so?
as easy as BSD to install?
Good god, if that's your benchmark for easy, what does hard look like??
(yes, I know it's not "hard" for meganerds, but wouldn't a better benchmark for "easy" be something like Fedora, Windows, or Xandros?)
A bumper sticker I once owned said it best:
WORK BUY
CONSUME DIE
heh... your sig, "Current Linux desktops won't succeed because people DON'T WANT endless choices" is funny. You know there's a whole Linux desktop that understands that principle? It's called GNOME - maybe you've heard of it? :-)
As for installers, that's a breeze compared to building something like RPM, which is already done. Give it time - it'll come. For now, the consumer is not a primary target for Linux - limited application environments are, like call centers. The much drooled after Home Desktop will come, but it's at least a year or two off.
You mean to the Java folks, then?
buh-dum ching! Thank you, I'll be here all weekend! Try the buffet!
That said, C# does seem cool... basically Java++. Now if only MS would make a legally binding document saying they won't sue the Mono guys...Slow, buggy, and lacking features?
:-)
Well, coming from Fedora Core 2 test 2, I can tell you this about Nautilus:
1) It's not slow anymore - Nautilus 2.6 is damn fast (finally!
2) I haven't really come across any bugs yet - not that they aren't there, but there are no big ones that I can see
3) This is the best Nautilus yet for features, too, though some people insist on a file manager they can tweak the hell out of. If that's what you want, stop using Nautilus immediately, because it will never be what you're looking for. That said, there are some groovy new features in Nautilus now, like the nice removable device handling, better network drive support, etc... Oh, and breaking with the slashbots, I like spatial mode, dammit.. Yeah, it's different, but it makes sense after you use it for a bit. I wouldn't go back now.
Ok, that was cold, harsh, and probably just another brick in the wall to mainstream Linux adoption, due to elitism. It was also really damn funny. Have a sense of humor, people!
Well, personally, I'd advocate both positions, though simply getting the gov't to require these standards might even be enough.... but fat chance of that happening. :-P
When are governments going to get a clue? Screw fines - almost no amount of money you can take from them will really have an effect on their behavior or the market. What the EU ought to do is to tell MS that if they want to do future business in Europe, they need to make the Office file formats an EMCA standard, and that any patents they have on the formats must be licenesed royalty-free. That would create real change and competition in the market - let them compete on implementation, as it ought to be!
You can bet that if Karl Rove worked for Microsoft, there'd be at least 50 different "LUNIX RUL3Z, M$ IS T3H SUX0R" worms already out there, all written by people on the Rove payroll.
Wow, Stephen, while you're at it, why don't you call Linux users terrorists or Nazis, too? What about all the other worms that have bowled over Windows machines for years. I suppose those were all written by those eeeeeevil Lunix h4x0rs, too, right?
Yeah, but much like cockroaches, Walmart will still refuse to die.
*sigh*
The quote goes like this:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety"
And it was Benjamin Franklin, not Thomas Jefferson.
This is one of the most frequently abused quotes on Slashdot, especially by idiot armchair-Libertarians*, since the misquote usually says "those that would give up liberty to gain safety deserve neither", which means that anyone who gives up ANY liberty for ANY amount of safety is somehow no longer entitled to either. Franklin's point was that while some liberties can be worth relinquishing in the name of real and necessary safeties, it's when one is ready to trade in essential liberties for a little temporary safety that one is being cowardly and foolish.
As for the GPL, I think the tradeoff of liberty is 100% worth the safety received. Do you really think that we wouldn't have seen a zillion proprietary forks of the Linux kernel by now if it weren't protected by something like the GPL? We haven't seen the BSDs fork too terribly, true, but they also never became as popular. In fact, I don't think *BSD ever could have become as popular as Linux is now, since you there's no way you could get an industry consortium to all contribute to the same kernel that was under a BSD licence, since every business involved would be too worried that one of the others would eventually fork and stop contributing back, whereas the GPL ensures that no one company can just say "Ha ha, screw you guys, we're taking your work and not giving a damn thing back!" Naturally, the GPL isn't for everything - even RMS agreed that the Vorbis decoding libraries should be BSD licensed, not GPL or LGPL. (So anyone who insists that he's completely insane/inflexible can suck it. He can be annoying with the GNU/Linux thing, though...)
* note to the humorless and/or spastic: No, I am not implying that the parent poster is necessarily one of these, nor am I saying that all Libertarians are idiots, so put your flamethrower down and think before hitting "Submit", please.
Well put - welcome to my /. "Friends" list. :-)
(Note: I'm just in a snarky mood - my sarcasm should be taken as playful, not mean.)
...
While you're right about the storage medium problem to a degree, you've forgotten about... printers. You know, those magical devices that produce pieces of paper with a replica of what we see on screen? Also, I would expect that businesses will build over the years specically for regaining data from old, unused formats of media, etc, for those who don't migrate/backup their data to more modern mediums as time progresses. That said, I would like a more permenant medium - magnetic media slowly fails, and so do all current forms of optical media
As for your first paragraph, you are strictly talking about a level of detail, of resolution - that's it. There's nothing magical about film that gives it the qualities you're implying it has, it's just that the film and photo paper used for the photo you refer to had really fine grain, and the picture was (we assume) taken with good focus and exposure. There is nothing magic about the chemicals of photography - it's all a matter of resoulution (or Megapixels, for the unwashed masses).
The real point here is that while one can argue that current digital tech isn't as fine-grained as high quality film tech, that's not an inherant property, it's just the way it is for now. Since the industry is obviously leaning in the digital direction (with good reason!), it can only be a matter of time before film will be completely surpassed in quality by digital.