Hmmm, wasnt Mr Belluzzo that guy (paid by MS all along) who almost destroyed several Unix companies by sending all their customers to Sun through 'NT' strategies and eventually got fired? Sounds like he's found the right position...
Well, this is common with Microsofts products. IE used to say it was a wannabe HTTP/1.1 compliant browser too, then blow up completely when getting fed HTTP/1.1 data. Imagine how fun I had troubleshooting that one until I found it and had to add force-fscking-downgrades for all MS crap in the apache configs.
FreeDB already *has* taken off. Considering I'm not very mainstream in my music taste and most of my cd's are listed (a few non-international cd's havent been found in freedb), I'd say that Escient can go shove it because I sure as hell dont need them.
Well, last I looked, grip already uses FreeDB by default (or maybe that's just the default Helix config), and I hadnt even noticed. So, if cddb goes the way of self-annihilation through irrelevance, no big loss.
Of course, the one thing that Microsofts forays into other areas has in common is... failure. They have no dominant market share or control in the other markets, and the other markets have seen how Microsoft behaves, and pretty much will shoot Microsofts collective foot off without asking questions rather than let it through the door.
Depends on which company you work for I'd guess. Mass market proprietary software developers will eventually be pretty much wiped out, and since you wont have to reinvent the wheel for ever mass market application the opensource developers wont be as many in that area, is my guess.
However, development (both proprietary and opensource) will likely move in stronger in the vertical markets. Specialized applications, systems integration, etc. More fun work actually going somewhere new, and less repetetive.
Re:License wars are a waste of energy
on
KDE Strikes Back
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· Score: 1
How seriously would that affect TrollTechs revenue stream? That clause is virtually unenforcable, since most minor company internal applications could be made open source and just not distributed (how many downloads of source for externally usually not-very-useful applications off an unpublished ftp server do you think you'd get?). The requirement to give TrollTech a copy of non-opensource company internal material is just an annoyance, and could be done that too.
But the point is moot. KDE remains dependent on Qt which is, ultimately, controlled by TrollTech. Gnome does not have any similar problem. Money has nothing to do with it. The point is *freedom*, and whatever Mr de Icaza says, whatever Sun or IBM or Redhat or HP says, Gnome remains GPL/LGPL and is forkable if they run amok.
Re:License wars are a waste of energy
on
KDE Strikes Back
·
· Score: 2
A GPL Qt could not really 'undercut' Troll Tech in any way. You could do nothing with a GPL Qt that you cannot do with QPL Qt today (well, from their point of view). You would still need to pay to get a separate license for the code to develop proprietary software, wether it's GPL or QPL.
The patch clause doesnt make a windows port unfeasable, and the 'give us your internal code' clause is rather unenforcable.
As far as I've seen the only reason they dont just GPL Qt free edition is because they feel it doesnt protect their library against *proprietary* use. Legal opinions differ (which is funny, since their free license is regarded as compatible with the GPL in all but the patch clause and internal use clause, neither of which would affect the ability for proprietary software to link to Qt, which pretty much seems like they replace the GPL with a license that make no difference for the one reason they do not use the GPL).
Re:GNOME vs KDE Episode 18: Pointlessness
on
KDE Strikes Back
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· Score: 1
Oh, I love your usability perspective. I agree completely. If 'consistency' really was as important as some want to pretend it is, I guess nobody is playing those computer games after all... after all, those game developers have made it an art to have a different ui in every game, and usually with small semi-documented icons only halfway related to what happens when you press them...
But some consistency is a good thing, of course. It just isnt the end of the world if things look a bit different. The only ones who care are the ones downloading and playing with an app for 5 seconds, not the ones actually using it because _they learn_.
Well, as far as the point of languages, its mostly a matter of preference. In my experience, his points make no sense tho. C++ is *always* less efficient in memory use. I've heard a zillion times that C++ can be as good as C, but I've never ever _ever_ seen it.
C++ is further a lot less portable, even between unix platforms (or even compilers!). Every experience I've had with building C++ projects on various forms of unix results in either the compiler being the 'wrong' compiler, the libs being wrong or whatever. Add to that the linking problems (nope, cant link a object file compiled with this C++ compiler to one compiled with that, etc).
Its interesting to see Mr Powell refer to GTK as venerable. He must have some entirely new meaning of the word, since I cannot think of one that in any way would be appropriate.
Anyway, it's sort of fun from a flameflinging point of view (and flamewars are always fun), but the author is obviously biased to the extreme and has no idea what he's talking about (read some of Mr Powells other articles for other fun opinion pieces).
Nope, it's Solaris libICE patchversions 5-8 or something on solaris 7. Obtain an original libICE and it should work.
Re:Overanalyzing the definition of "OS".
on
Is UNIX An OS?
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· Score: 1
>Will there be a prompt?
>Will cpio work?
Is that relevant tho? If the OS just loads up a webserver and there is no user interaction in any way but over the net, does it not run an OS? Even if it just boots up, and starts a program with no input or output, it's still running an OS.
I think his point is invalid. The concept of an OS has nothing to do with desktop user environments.
Re:The Author DOES Know What An OS is...
on
Is UNIX An OS?
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· Score: 1
No, any modern OS does not have to provide such an environment. Computers without monitors running internet services have no such need. A hand held will have entirely different needs. A desktop has it's own set. That does not change that they all have operating systems which do nothing but provide an environment for running programs in and interfacing with the hardware.
Believing that the term 'OS' should include things like 3d api's and desktop environments comes from a desktop-user-centric view of computers. Those things are needed for a desktop environment, but it has nothing to do with the OS.
Attempting to confuse and obfuscate terms like operating system doesnt really do any good. Use something else like desktop environment to describe what you mean.
True, KDE switching away from Qt is unlikely to even happen. However, with the situation as it is it pretty much guarantees that a large number of companies and programmers will never accept KDE becoming any form of standard. Rock and hard place situation.
As regards your PS's; Trolltech is entirely in the right even (altho wrong about the GPL). It's a good idea. Had they not been supporting the use of Qt as a major component of a potential dominant GUI there would be no problem. As is, anyone remotely paranoid or cynical about corporate behaviour in the computing market will get the idea of perpetual licensing fees for any (including _company internal or private_ (not even the GPL does that)) proprietary development.
As far as judging from their actions... well, the threat to sue any developers of the clean-room free Qt replacement Harmony pretty much settled any doubts about Troll Techs intentions in my opinion.
Nothing has changed really; Qt is still controlled by Troll Tech and has commercial licensing strings (for proprietary development). GTK/Gnome are still free and (L)GPL. Corporate backing and funding are not the same as corporate control and steering.
It seems unlikely that any relicensing of KDE will ever happen, as several of the KDE developers have strongly stated that they will do no such thing and they do not agree there is a problem at all.
Further they say they have in certain cases no right to change the license. Which sounds like they havent had complete tracking of the code, and would have serious problems finding out who owns what part and/or have incorporated/borrowed code from other places without asking permission.
The only likely way out is Qt going GPL compatible and that, at least, sounds somewhat likely.
Hmmm, I dunno about that, I believe Solaris CDE got a new icon in the panel just a few releases ago. We held an install party at the office. Or I may be imagining things.
This, of course, is a very good thing to do. The ability to build upon other software makes for less work for the developers. With a limited number of developers it is, of course, better if they dont reinvent the wheel more times than necessary.
KDE has done the same in some cases, altho the same old licensing issue will appear every time; they need permission to link to Qt with any GPL code, so they cant do it as easy as Gnome can.
It's too bad that TrollTech has yet to learn from Motif too; the original non-free license and the later free-but-not-gpl-compatible license had a large part of the free software community leery with Motif in mind. And even if they satisfy the free software community by going GPL compatible, that still leaves proprietary software developers with the choice of pay-for Troll Tech controlled Qt/KDE versus free (speech/beer) Gtk/Gnome.
While one can appreciate the argument that people are willing to pay small fees to develop for 'company backed high quality' toolkits as Qt, the argument doesnt hold if one is developing for Linux and/or KDE/Gnome, since you'll already be knee deep in free software, and if you had any objection to such 'freeness' you wouldnt be there. And if you're aiming at 'free (speech/beer)' as the foundations of your free or proprietary application why not go all the way?
Motif pretty much shot itself to irrelevance through licensing and vendor control. And I definitely prefer an entirely free foundation for any apps I write.
That's why you should use Helix:). Download the installer and run it, and it will do all the downloading and dependency tracking for you. One single program to run. That's all.
(of course, with Solaris 7 beware there's a bug in libICE on some patchlevels right now that will blow up gnome session management so you might want to wait a week to try it. Solaris 8 worked out of the box tho.).
This issue has indeed been the single largest obstacle for KDE adoption there has been.
Of course, even if Troll Tech satisfies the FSF crowd and goes GPL compliant, that wont exactly improve the situation from commercial software standpoint. GNOME/GTK is almost entirely LGPL and thus very friendly for commercial development, while a GPL equivalent Qt would require payment for commercial proprietary development. Exchanging Motif/CDE for another proprietary royalty encumbered toolkit might not be as palatable as exchanging it for a free one.
The same old story as always, of course. QPL isnt GPL compatible, KDE cannot use GPL code written by others in KDE. Unless the QPL has the recently suggested clauses changed or any third party code is explicitly relicensed with permission to link to Qt.
You know, on a closed source os, just throw a few lines into something like/usr/src/login/login.c and replace the original binary. Hard, huh?
Wether or not the source is available is irrelevant, you can use most off-the-shelf open source and replace an original and/or install a trojan into any closed source system. Or even write your own.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm, wasnt Mr Belluzzo that guy (paid by MS all along) who almost destroyed several Unix companies by sending all their customers to Sun through 'NT' strategies and eventually got fired? Sounds like he's found the right position...
Well, this is common with Microsofts products. IE used to say it was a wannabe HTTP/1.1 compliant browser too, then blow up completely when getting fed HTTP/1.1 data. Imagine how fun I had troubleshooting that one until I found it and had to add force-fscking-downgrades for all MS crap in the apache configs.
FreeDB already *has* taken off. Considering I'm not very mainstream in my music taste and most of my cd's are listed (a few non-international cd's havent been found in freedb), I'd say that Escient can go shove it because I sure as hell dont need them.
Protocol update, customer key included, some new internet standard of micropayments.
No, infrastructure for it doesnt really exist in a major way yet, but it will (wanna bet it'll be Windows only, shipped as an OS part?)
Well, last I looked, grip already uses FreeDB by default (or maybe that's just the default Helix config), and I hadnt even noticed. So, if cddb goes the way of self-annihilation through irrelevance, no big loss.
Of course, the one thing that Microsofts forays into other areas has in common is... failure. They have no dominant market share or control in the other markets, and the other markets have seen how Microsoft behaves, and pretty much will shoot Microsofts collective foot off without asking questions rather than let it through the door.
Depends on which company you work for I'd guess. Mass market proprietary software developers will eventually be pretty much wiped out, and since you wont have to reinvent the wheel for ever mass market application the opensource developers wont be as many in that area, is my guess.
However, development (both proprietary and opensource) will likely move in stronger in the vertical markets. Specialized applications, systems integration, etc. More fun work actually going somewhere new, and less repetetive.
How seriously would that affect TrollTechs revenue stream? That clause is virtually unenforcable, since most minor company internal applications could be made open source and just not distributed (how many downloads of source for externally usually not-very-useful applications off an unpublished ftp server do you think you'd get?). The requirement to give TrollTech a copy of non-opensource company internal material is just an annoyance, and could be done that too.
I doubt TrollTech gets very much from that part.
But the point is moot. KDE remains dependent on Qt which is, ultimately, controlled by TrollTech. Gnome does not have any similar problem. Money has nothing to do with it. The point is *freedom*, and whatever Mr de Icaza says, whatever Sun or IBM or Redhat or HP says, Gnome remains GPL/LGPL and is forkable if they run amok.
A GPL Qt could not really 'undercut' Troll Tech in any way. You could do nothing with a GPL Qt that you cannot do with QPL Qt today (well, from their point of view). You would still need to pay to get a separate license for the code to develop proprietary software, wether it's GPL or QPL.
The patch clause doesnt make a windows port unfeasable, and the 'give us your internal code' clause is rather unenforcable.
As far as I've seen the only reason they dont just GPL Qt free edition is because they feel it doesnt protect their library against *proprietary* use. Legal opinions differ (which is funny, since their free license is regarded as compatible with the GPL in all but the patch clause and internal use clause, neither of which would affect the ability for proprietary software to link to Qt, which pretty much seems like they replace the GPL with a license that make no difference for the one reason they do not use the GPL).
Oh, I love your usability perspective. I agree completely. If 'consistency' really was as important as some want to pretend it is, I guess nobody is playing those computer games after all... after all, those game developers have made it an art to have a different ui in every game, and usually with small semi-documented icons only halfway related to what happens when you press them...
But some consistency is a good thing, of course. It just isnt the end of the world if things look a bit different. The only ones who care are the ones downloading and playing with an app for 5 seconds, not the ones actually using it because _they learn_.
Well, as far as the point of languages, its mostly a matter of preference. In my experience, his points make no sense tho. C++ is *always* less efficient in memory use. I've heard a zillion times that C++ can be as good as C, but I've never ever _ever_ seen it.
C++ is further a lot less portable, even between unix platforms (or even compilers!). Every experience I've had with building C++ projects on various forms of unix results in either the compiler being the 'wrong' compiler, the libs being wrong or whatever. Add to that the linking problems (nope, cant link a object file compiled with this C++ compiler to one compiled with that, etc).
Its interesting to see Mr Powell refer to GTK as venerable. He must have some entirely new meaning of the word, since I cannot think of one that in any way would be appropriate.
Anyway, it's sort of fun from a flameflinging point of view (and flamewars are always fun), but the author is obviously biased to the extreme and has no idea what he's talking about (read some of Mr Powells other articles for other fun opinion pieces).
Nope, it's Solaris libICE patchversions 5-8 or something on solaris 7. Obtain an original libICE and it should work.
>Will there be a prompt?
>Will cpio work?
Is that relevant tho? If the OS just loads up a webserver and there is no user interaction in any way but over the net, does it not run an OS? Even if it just boots up, and starts a program with no input or output, it's still running an OS.
I think his point is invalid. The concept of an OS has nothing to do with desktop user environments.
No, any modern OS does not have to provide such an environment. Computers without monitors running internet services have no such need. A hand held will have entirely different needs. A desktop has it's own set. That does not change that they all have operating systems which do nothing but provide an environment for running programs in and interfacing with the hardware.
Believing that the term 'OS' should include things like 3d api's and desktop environments comes from a desktop-user-centric view of computers. Those things are needed for a desktop environment, but it has nothing to do with the OS.
Attempting to confuse and obfuscate terms like operating system doesnt really do any good. Use something else like desktop environment to describe what you mean.
True, KDE switching away from Qt is unlikely to even happen. However, with the situation as it is it pretty much guarantees that a large number of companies and programmers will never accept KDE becoming any form of standard. Rock and hard place situation.
As regards your PS's; Trolltech is entirely in the right even (altho wrong about the GPL). It's a good idea. Had they not been supporting the use of Qt as a major component of a potential dominant GUI there would be no problem. As is, anyone remotely paranoid or cynical about corporate behaviour in the computing market will get the idea of perpetual licensing fees for any (including _company internal or private_ (not even the GPL does that)) proprietary development.
As far as judging from their actions... well, the threat to sue any developers of the clean-room free Qt replacement Harmony pretty much settled any doubts about Troll Techs intentions in my opinion.
Nothing has changed really; Qt is still controlled by Troll Tech and has commercial licensing strings (for proprietary development). GTK/Gnome are still free and (L)GPL. Corporate backing and funding are not the same as corporate control and steering.
It seems unlikely that any relicensing of KDE will ever happen, as several of the KDE developers have strongly stated that they will do no such thing and they do not agree there is a problem at all.
Further they say they have in certain cases no right to change the license. Which sounds like they havent had complete tracking of the code, and would have serious problems finding out who owns what part and/or have incorporated/borrowed code from other places without asking permission.
The only likely way out is Qt going GPL compatible and that, at least, sounds somewhat likely.
Hmmm, I dunno about that, I believe Solaris CDE got a new icon in the panel just a few releases ago. We held an install party at the office. Or I may be imagining things.
This, of course, is a very good thing to do. The ability to build upon other software makes for less work for the developers. With a limited number of developers it is, of course, better if they dont reinvent the wheel more times than necessary.
KDE has done the same in some cases, altho the same old licensing issue will appear every time; they need permission to link to Qt with any GPL code, so they cant do it as easy as Gnome can.
It's too bad that TrollTech has yet to learn from Motif too; the original non-free license and the later free-but-not-gpl-compatible license had a large part of the free software community leery with Motif in mind. And even if they satisfy the free software community by going GPL compatible, that still leaves proprietary software developers with the choice of pay-for Troll Tech controlled Qt/KDE versus free (speech/beer) Gtk/Gnome.
While one can appreciate the argument that people are willing to pay small fees to develop for 'company backed high quality' toolkits as Qt, the argument doesnt hold if one is developing for Linux and/or KDE/Gnome, since you'll already be knee deep in free software, and if you had any objection to such 'freeness' you wouldnt be there. And if you're aiming at 'free (speech/beer)' as the foundations of your free or proprietary application why not go all the way?
Motif pretty much shot itself to irrelevance through licensing and vendor control. And I definitely prefer an entirely free foundation for any apps I write.
That's why you should use Helix :). Download the installer and run it, and it will do all the downloading and dependency tracking for you. One single program to run. That's all.
(of course, with Solaris 7 beware there's a bug in libICE on some patchlevels right now that will blow up gnome session management so you might want to wait a week to try it. Solaris 8 worked out of the box tho.).
This issue has indeed been the single largest obstacle for KDE adoption there has been.
Of course, even if Troll Tech satisfies the FSF crowd and goes GPL compliant, that wont exactly improve the situation from commercial software standpoint. GNOME/GTK is almost entirely LGPL and thus very friendly for commercial development, while a GPL equivalent Qt would require payment for commercial proprietary development. Exchanging Motif/CDE for another proprietary royalty encumbered toolkit might not be as palatable as exchanging it for a free one.
The same old story as always, of course. QPL isnt GPL compatible, KDE cannot use GPL code written by others in KDE. Unless the QPL has the recently suggested clauses changed or any third party code is explicitly relicensed with permission to link to Qt.
You know, on a closed source os, just throw a few lines into something like /usr/src/login/login.c and replace the original binary. Hard, huh?
Wether or not the source is available is irrelevant, you can use most off-the-shelf open source and replace an original and/or install a trojan into any closed source system. Or even write your own.