GIMP is not a popular business app (although it is working towards HIG compliance and is doing a nice job, especially in the 1.3 series). Mozilla is not a GTK poster boy, it simply uses GTK as a drawing layer.
There isn't really such a thing as a GNOME app. GNOME provides a framework of libraries (glib, gtk, pango, glade, libart, bonobo, gconf, etc.) and it's possible for an app to depend on any combination of these - you could use gconf in a KDE or command-line app, for example. There are very few "pure" GTK apps these days. Those that do exist (GAIM, Abiword, XFCE, and GIMP, for example) almost always attempt to comply with the GNOME HIG. In fact, I can't think of any major apps that don't comply.
Open-source Radeon drivers do 3D-accelleration for all Radeon cards except 9500 and greater. That means that everything from the original to the 9200 is fully supported by open-source drivers. To get 3D accelleration on the 9500, 9600, 9700, and 9800, you have to use ATI's binary drivers (although the open drivers still work fine if all you need is 2D).
Bruce Perens founded the LSB. I don't think he's planning on competing with it. Presumably UnitedLinux will attempt to implement the LSB, just as Debian does.
GTK can't even do MDI-style interfaces, for crying out loud.
GTK can do tabbed-based MDI, as found in gedit and friends. Microsoft-style window-in-window MDI is not supported by GTK because it's generally considered to be bad for usability. Note that even new releases of MS Office have moved away from window-in-window MDI in favor of multi-window SDI, and that MacOS has never supported MDI in any form.
KDE's not a window manager. It's a desktop. KWin is a window manager.
I wouldn't use UserLinux if forced to use Gnome.
You're not forced to use GNOME. You can apt-get install kde at any time. That said, if you know enough about the two desktops two make an informed choice between them, you're not in UserLinux's target user base.
Component technology: Bonobo works fine, and is being used. Just because your file manager and web browser aren't the same program doesn't mean the technology's not there to do it.
Web-integrated desktop: That sounds like a buzzword to me. I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If it's something like MS's Active Desktop, gdesklets provides much of the same functionality and looks much better at the same time.
File-location transparency: Look up gnome-vfs sometime. Ximian's even patched OpenOffice to use it.
Slackware would never do that. It's a geek's distro, and geeks are all about choice. Knoppix, Mandrake, SuSE, Xandros, Lycoris, Lindows, Libranet, and in fact just about every commercial distro except for Fedora/RedHat ship KDE as default. I think some (Lindows at least) don't even offer GNOME as an option.
the fact that it has had a usable file selector for years, and GNOME has just decided to try to fix theirs (although it doesn't seem to be much of an improvement)
<zealot type=GNOME>
GTK's current fileselector is, IMHO, the best I have ever used. It's no-nonsense and supports globbing and instant tab-completion. The new fileselector, for which there is no UI yet (the screenshots floating around are just demonstrations of the API, which is a huge redesign and will allow the GUI to be easily switched in the future) will hopefully retain those features, while adding all the eye-candy found in other dialogs.
there is very little consistency between GTK applications
What have you been smoking? Practically all modern GTK apps follow the GNOME HIG to the letter. There are occasional exceptions (GIMP and Mozilla, notably), but 99% of GTK/GNOME apps are extremely consistant. That can't really be said for QT apps.
Granted, QT docs are better than GTK docs (although the GTK docs are quite usable). On the flip side, GTK has many more language bindings, so programmers can be much more flexible in how they want to code (C, C++, Java, C#, Python, Perl, etc.).
Before QT became GPL'd, there was a project called Harmony (Google for it) that tried to do exactly that. That effort died down because of the difficulty and relative futility (now that QT was GPL) of its goal.
Isn't KDE a lot smoother and more consistent over all then Gnome?
No. I may be biased as a GNOME user, but just about everyone I know thinks that GNOME is much more visually consistant (thanks to the HIG) and good-looking (thanks to tigert, jimmac, and the lack of Keramik) than KDE. Practically all of the best-of-breed business apps (Mozilla Firebird, OpenOffice, Gnumeric, Evolution, Planner, Gnucash, etc.) are GNOME apps or GNOME-integrated. KOffice is a nice effort, and I hope it does well, but it's currently not quite ready for prime time corparate use.
A lot of people feel that KDE is technically superior, and they prefer the power and configurability that KDE offers. KDE is much more of a hacker's desktop, and that's probably why Linus uses it. That said, UserLinux doesn't want a hacker's desktop, they want a corparate desktop. GNOME probably fits that bill better. GNOME probably fits that bill better.
Technically, Emacs is an interpreter for the LISP programming language, whose primary purpose is to implement a scriptable, extensible, flexible text editor. Emacs's ability to run arbitrary LISP scripts results in a kitchen-sink approach. It can do just about everything you'd ever want in a text editor, and a lot of things you wouldn't (like web browsing, Tetris, and psychoanalysis). Its main competetor in the world of arcane UNIX text-editors is vi, which is a much simpler (yet still quite powerful) editor designed to use as little bandwidth as possible (back in the days where you could often type faster than your console connection could keep up with).
Both editors have been around forever, have a steep learning curve, and are supposed to be extraordinarily productivity-enhancing for those who invest the effort to master them. As with many other sets of competing projects (Linux/BSD, GNOME/KDE, OSX/Windows), they are both probably better classified as religions rather than software products, and are excellent material for flamewars.
QT and GTK are toolkits - libraries that display stuff (windows, toolbars, buttons, text boxes, etc.) on the screen. KDE is a desktop environment - a set of programs that use the QT toolkit to create a user interface. ATK is a set of accessability standards, which are now supported by KDE and GNOME, the two majro desktop environments.
I don't know how WMA DRM works, but I imagine DRM'd files won't play unless you specifically authorize a computer to play them. Since Oggs wouldn't need to be authorized, that saves a step. That step could be replaced with installing a tiny (fits on a floppy, USB dongle, or downloads in a few seconds) Vorbis DLL. Most people wouldn't know the difference.
As for portable players, the Rio Karma, Neuros, and various iRiver products already support Vorbis. An Ogg-based store could partner with one of them, just as Napster partnered with Samsung for the "Napster" player. This would also provide a good incentive for other player manufacturers to add Vorbis support.
OGG? Then 99% of their customers will demand why they can not play the file they just paid 88 cents for
That's not an issue. As long as you're distributing client software, it'd be trivial to include a tiny Vorbis DLL in the package. The only real problem with Vorbis in a music store is the same as with MP3 - no DRM.
Why would they do the analysis on the server? Checking for an invalid character can be done in one line of C code (a few more to check for all possible invalid chars). No programmer with an IQ above freezing would go to all the extra trouble to implement a special server to run that code when it works much better in the client. All the server is is one CGI script that dresses up and echos back the parameters it was sent.
Ah, but my good Mr. Coward, far from being pointless, the patch puts Microsoft in a delicious conundrum! Either accept and distribute an open source patch (thereby publicly validating the open source model), or ignore the patch and get sued by customers, because a patch existed that they did not publicize.
Third option: release their own, better patch. This one is something of an ugly hack, there's no doubt MS could implement a much better solution.
dear moron:
The patch only redirects URLs that it has already verified are being spoofed. The only time a request is redirected is if you've tried to access a spoofed page.
Firebird's partial vulnerability means nothing. An attacker can't spoof the location bar in any way. The only thing they can do is quasi-spoof the status bar (a junk character is shown, which ought to tip someone off). That's easy to do using Javascript in any browser. This "vulnerability" only affects people who surf with Javascript off, blindly trust their status bars, and never glance at their location bars.
OSS and Quicktime have nothing to do with each other. OSS is an API for communicating with a sound card. Quicktime is a hugely complex media framework for reading, editing, playing, displaying, and otherwise working with many types of files, from text to movies to audio. Gstreamer and Quicktime would be a more accurate matchup. Unfortunately, Gstreamer is not quite ready for major use at the moment.
Aside from some remotely related basic components, an OSX GUI program and a Linux GUI program are completely different in every way. It'd probably be easier to port the Windows version than the Mac version.
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There isn't really such a thing as a GNOME app. GNOME provides a framework of libraries (glib, gtk, pango, glade, libart, bonobo, gconf, etc.) and it's possible for an app to depend on any combination of these - you could use gconf in a KDE or command-line app, for example. There are very few "pure" GTK apps these days. Those that do exist (GAIM, Abiword, XFCE, and GIMP, for example) almost always attempt to comply with the GNOME HIG. In fact, I can't think of any major apps that don't comply.
Open-source Radeon drivers do 3D-accelleration for all Radeon cards except 9500 and greater. That means that everything from the original to the 9200 is fully supported by open-source drivers. To get 3D accelleration on the 9500, 9600, 9700, and 9800, you have to use ATI's binary drivers (although the open drivers still work fine if all you need is 2D).
Bruce Perens founded the LSB. I don't think he's planning on competing with it. Presumably UnitedLinux will attempt to implement the LSB, just as Debian does.
GTK can do tabbed-based MDI, as found in gedit and friends. Microsoft-style window-in-window MDI is not supported by GTK because it's generally considered to be bad for usability. Note that even new releases of MS Office have moved away from window-in-window MDI in favor of multi-window SDI, and that MacOS has never supported MDI in any form.
GNOME's menu icon can be invoked with Ctrl-F1. The GNOME desktop is theoretically entirely keyboard-navigable. Details can be found here.
KDE's not a window manager. It's a desktop. KWin is a window manager.
I wouldn't use UserLinux if forced to use Gnome.
You're not forced to use GNOME. You can apt-get install kde at any time. That said, if you know enough about the two desktops two make an informed choice between them, you're not in UserLinux's target user base.
Web-integrated desktop: That sounds like a buzzword to me. I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If it's something like MS's Active Desktop, gdesklets provides much of the same functionality and looks much better at the same time.
File-location transparency: Look up gnome-vfs sometime. Ximian's even patched OpenOffice to use it.
Slackware would never do that. It's a geek's distro, and geeks are all about choice. Knoppix, Mandrake, SuSE, Xandros, Lycoris, Lindows, Libranet, and in fact just about every commercial distro except for Fedora/RedHat ship KDE as default. I think some (Lindows at least) don't even offer GNOME as an option.
<zealot type=GNOME>
GTK's current fileselector is, IMHO, the best I have ever used. It's no-nonsense and supports globbing and instant tab-completion. The new fileselector, for which there is no UI yet (the screenshots floating around are just demonstrations of the API, which is a huge redesign and will allow the GUI to be easily switched in the future) will hopefully retain those features, while adding all the eye-candy found in other dialogs.
</zealot>
That's the problem. GTK is LGPL. That's Perens' solution.
What have you been smoking? Practically all modern GTK apps follow the GNOME HIG to the letter. There are occasional exceptions (GIMP and Mozilla, notably), but 99% of GTK/GNOME apps are extremely consistant. That can't really be said for QT apps.
Granted, QT docs are better than GTK docs (although the GTK docs are quite usable). On the flip side, GTK has many more language bindings, so programmers can be much more flexible in how they want to code (C, C++, Java, C#, Python, Perl, etc.).
Before QT became GPL'd, there was a project called Harmony (Google for it) that tried to do exactly that. That effort died down because of the difficulty and relative futility (now that QT was GPL) of its goal.
Freudian slip?
No. I may be biased as a GNOME user, but just about everyone I know thinks that GNOME is much more visually consistant (thanks to the HIG) and good-looking (thanks to tigert, jimmac, and the lack of Keramik) than KDE. Practically all of the best-of-breed business apps (Mozilla Firebird, OpenOffice, Gnumeric, Evolution, Planner, Gnucash, etc.) are GNOME apps or GNOME-integrated. KOffice is a nice effort, and I hope it does well, but it's currently not quite ready for prime time corparate use.
A lot of people feel that KDE is technically superior, and they prefer the power and configurability that KDE offers. KDE is much more of a hacker's desktop, and that's probably why Linus uses it. That said, UserLinux doesn't want a hacker's desktop, they want a corparate desktop. GNOME probably fits that bill better. GNOME probably fits that bill better.
Both editors have been around forever, have a steep learning curve, and are supposed to be extraordinarily productivity-enhancing for those who invest the effort to master them. As with many other sets of competing projects (Linux/BSD, GNOME/KDE, OSX/Windows), they are both probably better classified as religions rather than software products, and are excellent material for flamewars.
QT and GTK are toolkits - libraries that display stuff (windows, toolbars, buttons, text boxes, etc.) on the screen. KDE is a desktop environment - a set of programs that use the QT toolkit to create a user interface. ATK is a set of accessability standards, which are now supported by KDE and GNOME, the two majro desktop environments.
As for portable players, the Rio Karma, Neuros, and various iRiver products already support Vorbis. An Ogg-based store could partner with one of them, just as Napster partnered with Samsung for the "Napster" player. This would also provide a good incentive for other player manufacturers to add Vorbis support.
That's not an issue. As long as you're distributing client software, it'd be trivial to include a tiny Vorbis DLL in the package. The only real problem with Vorbis in a music store is the same as with MP3 - no DRM.
Why would they do the analysis on the server? Checking for an invalid character can be done in one line of C code (a few more to check for all possible invalid chars). No programmer with an IQ above freezing would go to all the extra trouble to implement a special server to run that code when it works much better in the client. All the server is is one CGI script that dresses up and echos back the parameters it was sent.
And what's wrong with that?
Third option: release their own, better patch. This one is something of an ugly hack, there's no doubt MS could implement a much better solution.
dear moron: The patch only redirects URLs that it has already verified are being spoofed. The only time a request is redirected is if you've tried to access a spoofed page.
Firebird's partial vulnerability means nothing. An attacker can't spoof the location bar in any way. The only thing they can do is quasi-spoof the status bar (a junk character is shown, which ought to tip someone off). That's easy to do using Javascript in any browser. This "vulnerability" only affects people who surf with Javascript off, blindly trust their status bars, and never glance at their location bars.
OSS and Quicktime have nothing to do with each other. OSS is an API for communicating with a sound card. Quicktime is a hugely complex media framework for reading, editing, playing, displaying, and otherwise working with many types of files, from text to movies to audio. Gstreamer and Quicktime would be a more accurate matchup. Unfortunately, Gstreamer is not quite ready for major use at the moment.
Aside from some remotely related basic components, an OSX GUI program and a Linux GUI program are completely different in every way. It'd probably be easier to port the Windows version than the Mac version.