I've just read the rebuttal. To be honest, IamTheRealMike once again proves he couldn't argue his way out of a wet paper bag. Let's see, where shall we begin.
The first few paragraphs are contentless fluff. He nitpicks on various overreaching statements, but does not address the core of Mosfet's argument: The idea that 'less is more' necessarily means eliminating preferences that real users want and use... instead of organizing the preferences in a more coherent fashion. A choice quote:
Perhaps his definition of dialog box is different to mine, but most useful apps provide at least some functionality via them. To claim that KDE provides every single dialog box is ridiculous, it does not, and even when apps have custom dialogs they still need to be internally consistant.
Useless nitpicking that does not lead to any serious rebuttal of Mosfet's argument. It is very clear that Mosfet was touting the benefit of API provided dialog's and KDE's extensive use of them. Mosfet was exaggerating to be sure, but this does not refute the argument.
Assertions without supporting evidence do not make an argument. I don't know what that last sentance is meant to be, perhaps a jab at Nautilus, but I don't know of any "free code that's been commercially influenced" which is now "unmaintainable".
And people say KDE developers are paranoid!? Perhaps Mosfet *was* talking about Nautilus or perhaps he was talking about a multitude of other commercial Free Software applications/libraries. Perhaps Mosfet was talking about Qt. Note to IamTheRealMike: Assertions without supporting evidence do not make an argument;)
Mosfet is either ignoring or ignorant of the fact that at least Waldo Bastian and David Faure have been employed to hack on KDE, and I recall somebody named Lars working for TrollTech on KDE a while ago, dunno if it's the same person.
IamTheRealMike is ignoring the fact that Mosfet never claimed that some of these people were employed by various companies working on KDE at some time or other. IamTheRealMike might be ignorant of the fact that many of these same people have and do much of the boring coding in there own free time and as volunteers. The two are not mutually exclusive.
More distinctly dubious thinking. The people who make the most noise are not your "userbase". They are merely people who are making a lot of noise. You've always got to remember the silent majority who are just using the software, not bitching at the developers.
More distinctly dubious thinking. IamTheRealMike seems to believe that if a user makes a lot of noise or get's upset because a developer removes a preference that the user finds useful then they are not really part of the "userbase", but rather just some unpleasant individual that wants to cause problems for his favorite software project. If a user complains enough because he liked that feature and the developer does not agree then he is not a user... he is a troll. With more dubious thinking like this KDE won't have to worry about users.
"Auto-generating your gui" is not using a visual designer like QT Designer or Glade. Havoc was talking about people who thought you could for instance take a list of properties and dynamically generate the labels, layouts and edit boxes at runtime. Mosfet has totally misunderstood this throwaway statement, choosing instead to yet again pimp KDE and Qt, which isn't related to his argument and can therefore be safely ignored.
If Mosfet 'misunderstood' then he didn't *choose* anything... he misunderstood. I don't see how you can blame Mosfet for interpreting Havoc's ambiguous statement.
"He apparently hasn't looked into the GNOME2 architecture in any depth. Most stuff isn't "hard coded", it's lifted from GConf.
Whaaa?? Read the article again. Havoc touts the benefits of hard coding a preference many, many times. The statement you quoted was Mosfet's direct rebuttal to this kind of thinking. Once again with the paranoia... Mosfet was not saying anything about GNOME he was arguing with Havoc's contention that hard coding preferences for the sake of 'The One True Way' philosophy was wrong.
odd, but I haven't heard of any users being upset about settings being in GConf, maybe because using a registry-style editor is actually easier than editing config files?
Then you are either willfully burying your head in the sand or you have not looked around enough. Maybe one of the disenfranchised users can help out IamTheRealMike here... Oh wait, I forgot your dubious definition of 'user'.
I could go on, but most of IamTheRealMike's counter-arguments are not really addressing Mosfet's rebuttal. He seems really distressed by Mosfet's article and chooses to look at it as an attack on his favorite desktop environment. Although he makes a few nittpicking points, the way he presents them makes his viewpoint far less compelling. Whenever Mosfet makes a valid point, IamTheRealMike responds by ignoring it and choosing to misrepresent other quotes or indulge in paranoia - which is not a counter argument.
You mean 'The Technology Formerly Known As Palladium';)
What is particularly maddening about Palladium is the repeated claims that this offers a security benefit for end users. Microsoft is trying very hard to trojan in this DRM technology as a part of the Trusted Computing initiative. If this is the form of 'trust' they are speaking of then I want nothing to do with it.
Buy your processors now before they are infected with all of this Palladium/TCPA nonsense.
Are you seriously asking for an explanation on how creativity and intelligence can increase the survival rate of a population? I have no idea how it would have spread so quickly though...
"What was the names of all those worms produced for apache again?"
Let me assist you in finding your clue: You can't remember the names of those worms because they had no discernible impact compared to Code Red or Slammer.
Everyone knows about Code Red and Slammer because they were frightening worms that caused a massive amount of damage. Hell, Gartner is telling people to not use IIS and migrate away because it is so damn buggy!
People do not hate IIS because it isn't *cool* they hate it because it is shit software that has caused millions and millions in damages.
Unix/Linux dominate the market for servers and databases. Oracle is the most widely used database the last time I checked and SQL Server was third. Unix/Linux *is* ubiquitous for servers. Microsoft is the niche player and it is Microsoft that is producing softare so buggy that it is hobbling the internet.
Whaa?? You think SQLServer is widely known outside the geek/tech community? I do not grant that SQLServer has more brand awareness then Oracle outside of the geek community, but even if it did please explain how this affects the bugs. Are you asserting that slammer was written by someone unaffiliated with computers and would fall outside of the 'geek' community? What kind of logic is this?
Last time I checked, Linux/Unix dwarfed Windows in the enterprise. Windows has a majority on the desktop, but it is only *one of many* players amongst servers and is not the most widely used.
There is a difference between 'Free Software' and the 'Free Software Movement'. The Open Source movement is just the subset of the Free Software movement devoid of the ideals and ethics of honesty and community that so many of us care about. It is entirely possible for an 'Open Source' company to behave as dishonestly and corruptly as Microsoft has done in the past. The same can not be said for a Free Software company as this implies an understanding and respect for the Free Software Movement.
Yah, for people like this the ideals of the Free Software movement upon which 'Open Source' was built is just something to be discarded when necessary and the virtues of community and ethics with it.
People like this are entirely capable of Microsoft like tactics and ethics and this makes the 'Open Source' movement only a little different than Microsoft's Shared Source initiative. Make no mistake, Microsoft could have been an 'Open Source' company and exhibited all of the shitty business practices and questionable ethics it has become so famous for... it just wouldn't have been nearly as successful in doing so.
That is where the Free Software movement shines... Microsoft could never have been a Free Software company by it's very definition.
I disagree. There are plenty of security issues with IIS and Apache. The only difference is that people attack Apache far more often. Luckily, it doesn't matter if Apache has twice the ill will of Microsoft, because the worms find it far harder to break into Apache.
Point? You have no proof whatsoever that crackers target IIS any more than they target Apache... but we _know_ Apache is used far more often.
While I can certainly understand the patent concerns, it is important to note that discussions have taken place between the DotGNU Portable.NET project and the people working on the next generation perl runtime. This provides a very good way out in case Microsoft goes after Mono and Portable.NET with patent claims.
Re:Open source + government interest = ?
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Corporate KDE
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· Score: 1
Would you rather the 'evil' governments used Microsoft software which is heavily supported by the US government?
Re:kde with gnome
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Corporate KDE
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Very well put. This is the true shining star of the KDE project. I find it funny that RedHat would relegate KDE to a regular window manager when the RedHat developers are very involved with the GNOME usability standards which emphasize the benefits of all desktop applications working and feeling the same way.
An excellent tutorial on the KDE kiosk framework
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Corporate KDE
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· Score: 3, Informative
Another excellent article that includes a tutorial on the new KDE kiosk framework:
1. Because evolution,gaim,eclipse are not native KDE applications. This means they differ in subtle (but important to some) ways from other integrated KDE applications. One of the great strengths of KDE is the uniform set of application UI's. Even GNOME is trying to make a consistent set of application UI's by adopting clear standards. One way KDE implements uniform UI standards is with the actual API interfaces. This makes for a consistent look and feel across KDE applications with minimal effort on the part of the programmer.
2. The Kroupware is creating a new server for PIM applications called Kolab. AFAIK, this has no counterpart in evolution.
Re:The best socialism...
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Corporate KDE
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Would you rather your tax dollars were spent on proprietary software that is buggy, insecure and unmodifable? Perhaps, you like that the US government waists an enormous amount of money on useless proprietary software by hiring a bunch of contractors/consultants who digest the government largess like a bunch of bottom fish.
At least this way the software has a chance to be useful to a great number of individuals.
Reposted from dot.kde.org
on
Corporate KDE
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· Score: 5, Informative
Ingo Klöcker says,
Hi everybody!
The C|Net article claims that "the first elements [of Kroupware] have appeared in the new KDE 3.1"[1]. That's (unfortunately) wrong. As you can check yourself cvs was "frozen for feature commits that are not listed in the planned-feature document"[2] on July 1, 2002 while the Kroupware "project began in September."[1]. So it wasn't possible to include anything from the Kroupware project in KDE 3.1.
In particular the article claims: "Two elements of the client work are in the new KDE 3.1, released Tuesday: the KMail software can handle encrypted e-mail attachments, and the KOrganizer calendar software can communicate with Exchange 2000 servers."
Both elements are not part of the Kroupware project. The KMail improvements, i.e. support for PGP/MIME (RFC 3156) and S/MIME, were made by the Ägypten project[3] (which incidentally also was ordered by Germany's agency for information technology security). The KOrganizer plugin[4] for connections to Microsoft Exchange 2000® servers was written by Jan-Pascal van Best completely independant of the Kroupware project.
Anyway, you can all look forward to KDE 3.2 which will include most (if not all) of the client side elements of the Kroupware project.
Re:Not surprising for other reasons...
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KDE 3.1 Released
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· Score: 1
This just illustrates why people who *expect* the latest version of KDE should stay clear of RedHat. Trying to support RedHat inclined users of the latest KDE/Qt software is a nightmare. If RedHat itself cannot do it then how can anyone expect the KDE project too?
An excellent post on why people should stay clear of RedHat. If you expect to have the latest Free Software from the coolest software projects you can not get that with RedHat. Thank you very much for your informative post on *why not to use RedHat*.
Re:Longtime GNOMEr Ready to Try
on
KDE 3.1 Released
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· Score: 1
Because Evolution/Galeon are not native KDE applications. This means they differ in subtle (but important to some) ways from other integrated KDE applications. One of the great strengths of KDE is the uniform set of application UI's. Even GNOME is trying to make a consistent set of application UI's by adopting clear standards. One way KDE implements uniform UI standards is with the actual API interfaces. This makes for a consistent look and feel across KDE applications with minimal effort on the part of the programmer.
Personally, I would stear clear from everything that is not implemented in the ECMA specs as much as possible. Mono and Portable.NET are good tools, but they should not be thought of as drop in replacements for.NET... that will never happen unless the likes of IBM get on board (and even then maybe not).
Just because they are not going to be drop in replacements does not mean Mono and Portable.NET can not be used for native linux development and as a conversion platform for MS developers looking to migrate to Linux. IMHO, the Great Migration will happen, is only a matter of when;)
Mono and Portable.NET really shine in allowing former Windows developers to get involved with Linux and still have a comfortable and semi-familiar place to start.
I don't see Mono or Portable.NET as cross-platform technologies (unless you mean cross-platform across Unices) because Mono and Portable.NET grew up on Unix and will be used here the most. Besides, Microsoft has simply created too many API's and hence the barrier to a *quality* cross-platform development environment is too great.
Rather, Mono and Portable.NET will be good for rapid prototyping and as a conversion tool for Windows Application developers. Is also important for providing an alternative when the great migration begins of Smart Clients begin from Windows to Linux.
As for the rest of the article: Yah, I'm sure the Microsoft developers who created.NET are enthusiastic about Mono, but the higher-ups (see: PHB's) have no love for Mono or Linux.
Oh wait... Palladi...Next..Generation...blah...blah won't fix stuff like the SQL Server bug and in fact has nothing resembling what we normally think of as security. My bad.
Slashdot Mirror
The first few paragraphs are contentless fluff. He nitpicks on various overreaching statements, but does not address the core of Mosfet's argument: The idea that 'less is more' necessarily means eliminating preferences that real users want and use
Useless nitpicking that does not lead to any serious rebuttal of Mosfet's argument. It is very clear that Mosfet was touting the benefit of API provided dialog's and KDE's extensive use of them. Mosfet was exaggerating to be sure, but this does not refute the argument.
And people say KDE developers are paranoid!? Perhaps Mosfet *was* talking about Nautilus or perhaps he was talking about a multitude of other commercial Free Software applications/libraries. Perhaps Mosfet was talking about Qt. Note to IamTheRealMike: Assertions without supporting evidence do not make an argument
IamTheRealMike is ignoring the fact that Mosfet never claimed that some of these people were employed by various companies working on KDE at some time or other. IamTheRealMike might be ignorant of the fact that many of these same people have and do much of the boring coding in there own free time and as volunteers. The two are not mutually exclusive.
More distinctly dubious thinking. IamTheRealMike seems to believe that if a user makes a lot of noise or get's upset because a developer removes a preference that the user finds useful then they are not really part of the "userbase", but rather just some unpleasant individual that wants to cause problems for his favorite software project. If a user complains enough because he liked that feature and the developer does not agree then he is not a user
If Mosfet 'misunderstood' then he didn't *choose* anything
Whaaa?? Read the article again. Havoc touts the benefits of hard coding a preference many, many times. The statement you quoted was Mosfet's direct rebuttal to this kind of thinking. Once again with the paranoia
Then you are either willfully burying your head in the sand or you have not looked around enough. Maybe one of the disenfranchised users can help out IamTheRealMike here
I could go on, but most of IamTheRealMike's counter-arguments are not really addressing Mosfet's rebuttal. He seems really distressed by Mosfet's article and chooses to look at it as an attack on his favorite desktop environment. Although he makes a few nittpicking points, the way he presents them makes his viewpoint far less compelling. Whenever Mosfet makes a valid point, IamTheRealMike responds by ignoring it and choosing to misrepresent other quotes or indulge in paranoia - which is not a counter argument.
You mean 'The Technology Formerly Known As Palladium' ;)
What is particularly maddening about Palladium is the repeated claims that this offers a security benefit for end users. Microsoft is trying very hard to trojan in this DRM technology as a part of the Trusted Computing initiative. If this is the form of 'trust' they are speaking of then I want nothing to do with it.
Buy your processors now before they are infected with all of this Palladium/TCPA nonsense.
Are you seriously asking for an explanation on how creativity and intelligence can increase the survival rate of a population? I have no idea how it would have spread so quickly though...
"What was the names of all those worms produced for apache again?"
Let me assist you in finding your clue: You can't remember the names of those worms because they had no discernible impact compared to Code Red or Slammer.
Everyone knows about Code Red and Slammer because they were frightening worms that caused a massive amount of damage. Hell, Gartner is telling people to not use IIS and migrate away because it is so damn buggy!
People do not hate IIS because it isn't *cool* they hate it because it is shit software that has caused millions and millions in damages.
Unix/Linux dominate the market for servers and databases. Oracle is the most widely used database the last time I checked and SQL Server was third. Unix/Linux *is* ubiquitous for servers. Microsoft is the niche player and it is Microsoft that is producing softare so buggy that it is hobbling the internet.
Whaa?? You think SQLServer is widely known outside the geek/tech community? I do not grant that SQLServer has more brand awareness then Oracle outside of the geek community, but even if it did please explain how this affects the bugs. Are you asserting that slammer was written by someone unaffiliated with computers and would fall outside of the 'geek' community? What kind of logic is this?
Last time I checked, Linux/Unix dwarfed Windows in the enterprise. Windows has a majority on the desktop, but it is only *one of many* players amongst servers and is not the most widely used.
:)
Time for a new theory
The preceding post has been brought to you buy the letter 'X' :-)
There is a difference between 'Free Software' and the 'Free Software Movement'. The Open Source movement is just the subset of the Free Software movement devoid of the ideals and ethics of honesty and community that so many of us care about. It is entirely possible for an 'Open Source' company to behave as dishonestly and corruptly as Microsoft has done in the past. The same can not be said for a Free Software company as this implies an understanding and respect for the Free Software Movement.
Yah, for people like this the ideals of the Free Software movement upon which 'Open Source' was built is just something to be discarded when necessary and the virtues of community and ethics with it.
... it just wouldn't have been nearly as successful in doing so.
... Microsoft could never have been a Free Software company by it's very definition.
People like this are entirely capable of Microsoft like tactics and ethics and this makes the 'Open Source' movement only a little different than Microsoft's Shared Source initiative. Make no mistake, Microsoft could have been an 'Open Source' company and exhibited all of the shitty business practices and questionable ethics it has become so famous for
That is where the Free Software movement shines
I disagree. There are plenty of security issues with IIS and Apache. The only difference is that people attack Apache far more often. Luckily, it doesn't matter if Apache has twice the ill will of Microsoft, because the worms find it far harder to break into Apache.
... but we _know_ Apache is used far more often.
Point? You have no proof whatsoever that crackers target IIS any more than they target Apache
While I can certainly understand the patent concerns, it is important to note that discussions have taken place between the DotGNU Portable.NET project and the people working on the next generation perl runtime. This provides a very good way out in case Microsoft goes after Mono and Portable.NET with patent claims.
Would you rather the 'evil' governments used Microsoft software which is heavily supported by the US government?
Very well put. This is the true shining star of the KDE project. I find it funny that RedHat would relegate KDE to a regular window manager when the RedHat developers are very involved with the GNOME usability standards which emphasize the benefits of all desktop applications working and feeling the same way.
Another excellent article that includes a tutorial on the new KDE kiosk framework:
http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-11/kde_01.html
Two reasons:
1. Because evolution,gaim,eclipse are not native KDE applications. This means they differ in subtle (but important to some) ways from other integrated KDE applications. One of the great strengths of KDE is the uniform set of application UI's. Even GNOME is trying to make a consistent set of application UI's by adopting clear standards. One way KDE implements uniform UI standards is with the actual API interfaces. This makes for a consistent look and feel across KDE applications with minimal effort on the part of the programmer.
2. The Kroupware is creating a new server for PIM applications called Kolab. AFAIK, this has no counterpart in evolution.
Would you rather your tax dollars were spent on proprietary software that is buggy, insecure and unmodifable? Perhaps, you like that the US government waists an enormous amount of money on useless proprietary software by hiring a bunch of contractors/consultants who digest the government largess like a bunch of bottom fish.
At least this way the software has a chance to be useful to a great number of individuals.
Ingo Klöcker says,
- 3.1-release-plan.htmln /en/html/index.html
Hi everybody!
The C|Net article claims that "the first elements [of Kroupware] have appeared in the new KDE 3.1"[1]. That's (unfortunately) wrong. As you can check yourself cvs was "frozen for feature commits that are not listed in the planned-feature document"[2] on July 1, 2002 while the Kroupware "project began in September."[1]. So it wasn't possible to include anything from the Kroupware project in KDE 3.1.
In particular the article claims:
"Two elements of the client work are in the new KDE 3.1, released Tuesday: the KMail software can handle encrypted e-mail attachments, and the KOrganizer calendar software can communicate with Exchange 2000 servers."
Both elements are not part of the Kroupware project.
The KMail improvements, i.e. support for PGP/MIME (RFC 3156) and S/MIME, were made by the Ägypten project[3] (which incidentally also was ordered by Germany's agency for information technology security).
The KOrganizer plugin[4] for connections to Microsoft Exchange 2000® servers was written by Jan-Pascal van Best completely independant of the Kroupware project.
Anyway, you can all look forward to KDE 3.2 which will include most (if not all) of the client side elements of the Kroupware project.
Regards,
Ingo
[1] http://news.com.com/2100-1001-982816.html
[2] http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde
[3] http://www.gnupg.org/aegypten/index.html
[4] http://korganizer.kde.org/workshops/ExchangePlugi
This just illustrates why people who *expect* the latest version of KDE should stay clear of RedHat. Trying to support RedHat inclined users of the latest KDE/Qt software is a nightmare. If RedHat itself cannot do it then how can anyone expect the KDE project too?
An excellent post on why people should stay clear of RedHat. If you expect to have the latest Free Software from the coolest software projects you can not get that with RedHat. Thank you very much for your informative post on *why not to use RedHat*.
Because Evolution/Galeon are not native KDE applications. This means they differ in subtle (but important to some) ways from other integrated KDE applications. One of the great strengths of KDE is the uniform set of application UI's. Even GNOME is trying to make a consistent set of application UI's by adopting clear standards. One way KDE implements uniform UI standards is with the actual API interfaces. This makes for a consistent look and feel across KDE applications with minimal effort on the part of the programmer.
This is very well put.
.NET ... that will never happen unless the likes of IBM get on board (and even then maybe not).
;)
Personally, I would stear clear from everything that is not implemented in the ECMA specs as much as possible. Mono and Portable.NET are good tools, but they should not be thought of as drop in replacements for
Just because they are not going to be drop in replacements does not mean Mono and Portable.NET can not be used for native linux development and as a conversion platform for MS developers looking to migrate to Linux. IMHO, the Great Migration will happen, is only a matter of when
Mono and Portable.NET really shine in allowing former Windows developers to get involved with Linux and still have a comfortable and semi-familiar place to start.
.NET are enthusiastic about Mono, but the higher-ups (see: PHB's) have no love for Mono or Linux.
I don't see Mono or Portable.NET as cross-platform technologies (unless you mean cross-platform across Unices) because Mono and Portable.NET grew up on Unix and will be used here the most. Besides, Microsoft has simply created too many API's and hence the barrier to a *quality* cross-platform development environment is too great.
Rather, Mono and Portable.NET will be good for rapid prototyping and as a conversion tool for Windows Application developers. Is also important for providing an alternative when the great migration begins of Smart Clients begin from Windows to Linux.
As for the rest of the article: Yah, I'm sure the Microsoft developers who created
Why on earth do you think they would make this bargain retroactive?
Oh wait... Palladi...Next..Generation...blah...blah won't fix stuff like the SQL Server bug and in fact has nothing resembling what we normally think of as security. My bad.