You are distributing the source code, as required, and therefore you are legally in the clear.
With respect to charging for the binaries, that is permitted by the license. I would however argue that this is bad form, and against the community spirit. The GPL is intended to benefit users and developers, and restrictions (e.g. a monetary charge, however nominal) on the access to binaries restricts the user community to those able or willing to pay or to rebuild. Rebuilding is a hassle, and subject to Apples $99 yearly charge at a minimum for anyone wishing to load it onto a iPhone device.
While I understand you wish to recoup the costs of porting and new feature development, I believe it is morally wrong to charge for a program that is free (in beer, and in speech) on the original platform(s) after porting it.
While the GPL permits charging for binaries, I believe it is uncommon and undesirable for free source code not to be matched by free access to the generated binaries of the program.
Written by J. Gosling no less! Java, portable, has a text to speech output option anda UI that reacts gracefully to being resized and changed in horizontal or vertical orientation.
https://jnn.dev.java.net
Google finds a pretty damning critique
on
Hardcore Java
·
· Score: 1
I've created an RSS feed from the Project Gutenberg list of etexts. The RSS feed contains titles, authors, descriptions and links to the relevant page or file on http://www.gutenberg.net/
The key differentiators are price, customisability and the right to redistribute changes. Add to that a side order of functionalilty.
I would go so far as to say there is little than can be done with Linux that cannot also be done for Windows, often with the same software. I'd note the much of the key software that make Linux actually useful is already well established as a series of mature ports for Windows, and indeed sometimes the Windows port are superior to those for Linux. Software in this category would include for example, the Mozilla suite, Open Office, Audacity, Apache, a variety of language implementations and development tools, including GCC et al ( Cygwin and Services for Unix), the Sun JVM and Eclipse IDE, Perl and Python etc.
Often the Linux tools that are not (yet) maturely ported to Windows are those with native and older Windows equivalents. For example, the KDE and GNOME desktops are recreations of features available in traditional desktop OS's such as Windows, OS/2 and MacOS and their integrated tools.
The key difference is that anyone can see Linux, change Linux, and redistribute Linux. (and *BSD etc). Of those than can see and change Windows etc it is unlikely at best that changes can be redistributed.
Linux is also free of charge i.e. freely redistributable. This is often moot, as the cost in wages and time will probably dwarf the initial outlay.
While the Linux OS is customisable, so is every other aspect of the system. This is weakness and strength. It allows adaptation to any environment. It prevents assumptions of platform stabilty being made. The platform can and does evolve in a manner unpredictable to ISV's and packagers.
I can run DOS software from the 80's in Windows (urgh!). I can't run some software from the late 90's on Linux! The package formats, shared libraries and distributions have evolved so much. As an aside, on OSX I can run Class applications from the early 1980's.
So, for Operating System work, where it is critical to be able to see and alter the OS Kernel itself, Linux is most probably better. For users and ISV's, Windows remains as compelling as ever. All the good tools of Unix; All the hardware support of Windows; All the integration of Windows. What open source tools do not have a Windows port?
All in all, Windows has cut and paste that works; I wish I could say the same of Unix/X11.
Actually, you of course could use the X11 version in combination with Cygwin or Services for Unix and any X Server for windows. The X11 version of QT is QPL, GPL and commericial, but it is not restricted to Linux due to the cross platform nature of X11.
There are various reimplementations of Repton for Unix and Windows. This includes a version for the Linux console via SVGALib, for generic Unix / X11 through KDE (both 1.x and 3.x) and for both Windows, X11 and possibly OSX throught FX Repton using the FOX toolkit.
Since when did GNOME become the Linux desktop? And since when did hackers need money to hack? And where does this leaves the previous claims of GNOME being "integrated"?
Why can't those making the money, i.e. Ximian / Novell / SUN do the work for their profits?
I understand that OpenOffice has its own object / component model, with bindings to various langauges, including Java and Python.
See OpenOffice.org
Of course, the Windows OS provides COM as a standard for applications to use, and on Unix, each application provides its own incompatible object model. KDE has KParts, GNOME has Bonobo, Open Office has UNO and maybe Mozilla has its own too.
The following site has many, non trivial, applications. Some are even free. Swing Sightings
Multilanguage programmability?
on
KDE Adopting Mono
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The use of Qt has not been a problem in allowing the use of various languages to program for KDE. There are bindings for Python, Java, Objc-C, C, Perl, and
interaction over XMLRPC and via command line tools for shell scripts. C# is just another one of the languages which can now program with the libraries,
and presumably, so are any other Mono supported systems.
Interested readers may wish to checkout the KDEBindings package in CVS, which is part of the KDE desktop officially since 3.0.
Web CVS
Binary packages are made by distributors. KDE only provides source code. If your distribution isn't supported, complain to them. SuSE provide builds of KDE all nicely packaged on its linuks web page.
Virtual desktops as a dock applet, available on versiontracker.
Multiple menubars - UI disaster, slows menu selection etc. _You_ can still write programs this way, but MacOS has _standards_
Menu bar applets - the volume control applets is an example, as is the battery power meter.
Kcontrol is not, by any stretch of the imagination, all settings. There are settings tweakable in rc files without a UI for the setting. It doesn't handle things like filesharing, remote access, that are outside the scope of KDE. MacOS X has these in the control panel, all organised for you.
MMB for pasting selection - works only for text in Linux. MacOS has support for cut and paste for complex formatted objects - tables, images, and cun and paste are consistent across applications.
Respawning browser windows? Use a browser like opera that supports it.
You don't seem terribly familiar with MacOS X.
I could of course just run X11 on MacOS X as well with GNOME if I wanted.
Right click on any KDE toolbar. Choose icon size, one of small (16x16), medium (22x22), or large (32,32).
Choose text position. Icons only, Text only, Text beside icons, Text underneath icons.
Configurable on a per toolbar, per application, and globally.
As the the large wharf / dock icons in GnuStep, in KDE, choose a large panel, large panel icons. To comply with fitts law, just push the mouse to the edge of the screen at the panel and it will still hit the button. No repositioning, and quick, ala Apple's menubar.
The K menu, by default, is in the corner for this reason - just push into the corner and click to activate.
So, you don't know KDE. Try again. Turn on the next widget theme, kwin theme / style, and feel at home. Get the 3rd party panel add on to dock your window maker applets, and to emulate the dock.
Have fun.
Re:QT forces non standard c++ use
on
GTK-- vs. QT
·
· Score: 1
Its not the remit of a GUI toolkit, but Qt isn't just a GUI toolkit;-) , it also is a cross platform development platform. So it provides cross platform facilities for many activities - file access, sockets, database access, printing, font handling, Unicode and internationalisation, preference handling, XML support including SVG, various image formats, regexps, data and time classes, multimedia classes as well as a GUI builder.
Since it tries to be as cross platform as possible, it uses the subset of C++ which is fairly portable amongst various compilers including GCC, and proprietary compilers for AIX and other Unices. Part of being portable is being tolerant of compiler differences, bugs, unsupported portions of the language and the fact that you cannot assume the most recent compiler version is available for use.
Re:Several new features of konqueror
on
KDE 2.2 Tagged
·
· Score: 1
All of these features are plugins to konqueror, except for the previews. Its also easy to add plugins to the editor, kate, in KDE, and takes suprisingly few lines of code to write a new plugin.
Yes, any C++ application on Linux is slow to start up due to symbol relocation in linking, and the weak support for C++ in the GNU toolchain, from compiler to linker.
Strange that Mozilla, StarOffice / OpenOffice are all C++, all slow to start up.
Fwiw, I use Knode from CVS and it runs in ~8 seconds from a twm based X session, no other KDE desktop tools running. On a machine with twice the Mhz and half the RAM.
The excessive load time is probably misconfigured DNS, btw.
Its only when you stop using the Big 2, Nutscrape and Exploder, that you realize. Javascript code checking for NS,IE > 3 and rejecting all else. Embedded Java needing someones broken VM, or broken becase of someones broken VM. Single platform plugins. Specified fonts. New image formats. New markup (bastardised html, xml + variants, *script, DHTML, etc...) Alt tags missing text (and who isn't guilty?). CSS that works, um, differently every time you use another browser. And poor fallbacks for lesser capability browsers.
The table was the beginning of the end. IMHO. Blink, Frame and Marquee, Applet and more.
It can be prevented. Use server side where possible, cross platform client side where not, and proprietary as a last resort. But most importantly, use a browser from outside the big two to test your own works. Noone will change theirs if you complain - its up to you to fix your own and inpsire others to do the same.
Fwiw, Konqueror comes close to being adequate, with CSS, JS, and ns plugin integration, plus supporting realplayer very nicely. Its font handling is also goo. Text zoom, minimum font sizes. Its Java support is broken for me though.
Mozilla is too slow, and NS 6 too buggy. On an 800Mhz Athlon Linux system with 128Mb RAM too!
Opera is supposed to be quite good. And links is better than w3m is better than lynx for console (imho)
At least I know what the NS 4.76 bugs are, and it mostly works....
Back to the good old days - pay for expensive hardware, pay for expensive Unix. No thanks. The micro revoloution freed us from expensive hardware, the Open Source revoloution from expensive OS's, and now Apple wish to become a belated workstation vendor?
I'll take my Unix free, thank you. And I like my hardware without a profit premium for branding and translucent plastic.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.
You are distributing the source code, as required, and therefore you are legally in the clear.
With respect to charging for the binaries, that is permitted by the license. I would however argue that this is bad form, and against the community spirit. The GPL is intended to benefit users and developers, and restrictions (e.g. a monetary charge, however nominal) on the access to binaries restricts the user community to those able or willing to pay or to rebuild. Rebuilding is a hassle, and subject to Apples $99 yearly charge at a minimum for anyone wishing to load it onto a iPhone device.
While I understand you wish to recoup the costs of porting and new feature development, I believe it is morally wrong to charge for a program that is free (in beer, and in speech) on the original platform(s) after porting it.
While the GPL permits charging for binaries, I believe it is uncommon and undesirable for free source code not to be matched by free access to the generated binaries of the program.
Safari tabs must be enabled explicitly in the preferences.
Printing to the screen versus printing to paper?
Why distinguish? An application should be able to use the same commands to draw on screen as to a printer, which is just a different display device.
Written by J. Gosling no less! Java, portable, has a text to speech output option anda UI that reacts gracefully to being resized and changed in horizontal or vertical orientation.
https://jnn.dev.java.net
The google cache link is below
Google cache
PDF Critique
OReilly book page with sample chapter.
I've created an RSS feed from the Project Gutenberg list of etexts. The RSS feed contains titles, authors, descriptions and links to the relevant page or file on http://www.gutenberg.net/
PGDB.rss PGDB.rss.gz
The key differentiators are price, customisability and the right to redistribute changes. Add to that a side order of functionalilty.
I would go so far as to say there is little than can be done with Linux that cannot also be done for Windows, often with the same software. I'd note the much of the key software that make Linux actually useful is already well established as a series of mature ports for Windows, and indeed sometimes the Windows port are superior to those for Linux. Software in this category would include for example, the Mozilla suite, Open Office, Audacity, Apache, a variety of language implementations and development tools, including GCC et al ( Cygwin and Services for Unix), the Sun JVM and Eclipse IDE, Perl and Python etc.
Often the Linux tools that are not (yet) maturely ported to Windows are those with native and older Windows equivalents. For example, the KDE and GNOME desktops are recreations of features available in traditional desktop OS's such as Windows, OS/2 and MacOS and their integrated tools.
The key difference is that anyone can see Linux, change Linux, and redistribute Linux. (and *BSD etc). Of those than can see and change Windows etc it is unlikely at best that changes can be redistributed.
Linux is also free of charge i.e. freely redistributable. This is often moot, as the cost in wages and time will probably dwarf the initial outlay.
While the Linux OS is customisable, so is every other aspect of the system. This is weakness and strength. It allows adaptation to any environment. It prevents assumptions of platform stabilty being made. The platform can and does evolve in a manner unpredictable to ISV's and packagers.
I can run DOS software from the 80's in Windows (urgh!). I can't run some software from the late 90's on Linux! The package formats, shared libraries and distributions have evolved so much. As an aside, on OSX I can run Class applications from the early 1980's.
So, for Operating System work, where it is critical to be able to see and alter the OS Kernel itself, Linux is most probably better. For users and ISV's, Windows remains as compelling as ever. All the good tools of Unix; All the hardware support of Windows; All the integration of Windows. What open source tools do not have a Windows port?
All in all, Windows has cut and paste that works; I wish I could say the same of Unix/X11.
Actually, you of course could use the X11 version in combination with Cygwin or Services for Unix and any X Server for windows. The X11 version of QT is QPL, GPL and commericial, but it is not restricted to Linux due to the cross platform nature of X11.
There are various reimplementations of Repton for Unix and Windows. This includes a version for the Linux console via SVGALib, for generic Unix / X11 through KDE (both 1.x and 3.x) and for both Windows, X11 and possibly OSX throught FX Repton using the FOX toolkit.
This is the site, at http://www.keelhaul.demon.co.uk/krepton/ and also of interest may be the Repton appreciation society.
AFAIK, he claims to have used Open Office in writing this book; guess what? The file format it uses is XML.
Previously the same author has used the docbook XML document processing system for writing books.
Since when did GNOME become the Linux desktop? And since when did hackers need money to hack? And where does this leaves the previous claims of GNOME being "integrated"?
Why can't those making the money, i.e. Ximian / Novell / SUN do the work for their profits?
I understand that OpenOffice has its own object / component model, with bindings to various langauges, including Java and Python.
See OpenOffice.org
Of course, the Windows OS provides COM as a standard for applications to use, and on Unix, each application provides its own incompatible object model. KDE has KParts, GNOME has Bonobo, Open Office has UNO and maybe Mozilla has its own too.
The following site has many, non trivial, applications. Some are even free. Swing Sightings
The use of Qt has not been a problem in allowing the use of various languages to program for KDE. There are bindings for Python, Java, Objc-C, C, Perl, and interaction over XMLRPC and via command line tools for shell scripts. C# is just another one of the languages which can now program with the libraries, and presumably, so are any other Mono supported systems.
Interested readers may wish to checkout the KDEBindings package in CVS, which is part of the KDE desktop officially since 3.0. Web CVS
The ViaVoice SDK had a better sound quality than any other TTS API I could find on Linux. The API was also very simple to use.
For alternatives, try FreeTTS (written in Java 1.4 !), Flite or Festival. These are all free software.
Binary packages are made by distributors. KDE only provides source code. If your distribution isn't supported, complain to them. SuSE provide builds of KDE all nicely packaged on its linuks web page.
Virtual desktops as a dock applet, available on versiontracker.
Multiple menubars - UI disaster, slows menu selection etc. _You_ can still write programs this way, but MacOS has _standards_
Menu bar applets - the volume control applets is an example, as is the battery power meter.
Kcontrol is not, by any stretch of the imagination, all settings. There are settings tweakable in rc files without a UI for the setting. It doesn't handle things like filesharing, remote access, that are outside the scope of KDE. MacOS X has these in the control panel, all organised for you.
MMB for pasting selection - works only for text in Linux. MacOS has support for cut and paste for complex formatted objects - tables, images, and cun and paste are consistent across applications.
Respawning browser windows? Use a browser like opera that supports it.
You don't seem terribly familiar with MacOS X.
I could of course just run X11 on MacOS X as well with GNOME if I wanted.
Third party taskbars are of course available.
Right click on any KDE toolbar. Choose icon size, one of small (16x16), medium (22x22), or large (32,32).
Choose text position. Icons only, Text only, Text beside icons, Text underneath icons.
Configurable on a per toolbar, per application, and globally.
As the the large wharf / dock icons in GnuStep, in KDE, choose a large panel, large panel icons. To comply with fitts law, just push the mouse to the edge of the screen at the panel and it will still hit the button. No repositioning, and quick, ala Apple's menubar.
The K menu, by default, is in the corner for this reason - just push into the corner and click to activate.
So, you don't know KDE. Try again. Turn on the next widget theme, kwin theme / style, and feel at home. Get the 3rd party panel add on to dock your window maker applets, and to emulate the dock.
Have fun.
Its not the remit of a GUI toolkit, but Qt isn't just a GUI toolkit ;-) , it also is a cross platform development platform. So it provides cross platform facilities for many activities - file access, sockets, database access, printing, font handling, Unicode and internationalisation, preference handling, XML support including SVG, various image formats, regexps, data and time classes, multimedia classes as well as a GUI builder.
Since it tries to be as cross platform as possible, it uses the subset of C++ which is fairly portable amongst various compilers including GCC, and proprietary compilers for AIX and other Unices. Part of being portable is being tolerant of compiler differences, bugs, unsupported portions of the language and the fact that you cannot assume the most recent compiler version is available for use.
All of these features are plugins to konqueror, except for the previews. Its also easy to add plugins to the editor, kate, in KDE, and takes suprisingly few lines of code to write a new plugin.
Yes, any C++ application on Linux is slow to start up due to symbol relocation in linking, and the weak support for C++ in the GNU toolchain, from compiler to linker.
Strange that Mozilla, StarOffice / OpenOffice are all C++, all slow to start up.
Fwiw, I use Knode from CVS and it runs in ~8 seconds from a twm based X session, no other KDE desktop tools running. On a machine with twice the Mhz and half the RAM.
The excessive load time is probably misconfigured DNS, btw.
fwiw, Qt 2.2.3 has 115455 lines of code in its src/kernel directory, as report by wc -l *.cpp *.h
There are more loc, I didn't count widgets, extensions, or examples.
Qt is big, KDE is several million loc, GTK/GNOME are equivalent or more in loc due to verbose C code.
Unification is a pipe dream. Thank X11, and its toolkit wars for this.
Posted from Konqueror in KDE 2.1 Release
Its only when you stop using the Big 2, Nutscrape and Exploder, that you realize. Javascript code checking for NS,IE > 3 and rejecting all else. Embedded Java needing someones broken VM, or broken becase of someones broken VM. Single platform plugins. Specified fonts. New image formats. New markup (bastardised html, xml + variants, *script, DHTML, etc...) Alt tags missing text (and who isn't guilty?). CSS that works, um, differently every time you use another browser. And poor fallbacks for lesser capability browsers.
The table was the beginning of the end. IMHO. Blink, Frame and Marquee, Applet and more.
It can be prevented. Use server side where possible, cross platform client side where not, and proprietary as a last resort. But most importantly, use a browser from outside the big two to test your own works. Noone will change theirs if you complain - its up to you to fix your own and inpsire others to do the same.
Fwiw, Konqueror comes close to being adequate, with CSS, JS, and ns plugin integration, plus supporting realplayer very nicely. Its font handling is also goo. Text zoom, minimum font sizes. Its Java support is broken for me though.
Mozilla is too slow, and NS 6 too buggy. On an 800Mhz Athlon Linux system with 128Mb RAM too!
Opera is supposed to be quite good. And links is better than w3m is better than lynx for console (imho)
At least I know what the NS 4.76 bugs are, and it mostly works....
Roll on KDE 2.1 and konqueror.
Back to the good old days - pay for expensive hardware, pay for expensive Unix. No thanks. The micro revoloution freed us from expensive hardware, the Open Source revoloution from expensive OS's, and now Apple wish to become a belated workstation vendor?
I'll take my Unix free, thank you. And I like my hardware without a profit premium for branding and translucent plastic.