It's really a shame that Sun took so long to join the party. They do this stuff better than IBM does. For all the success they've achieved, IBM's integration of various open source tools on AIX is... well... as ugly as the rest of AIX. Sun got it right and very few people seem to know about it. When you install the Software Companion CD in its entirety, a Solaris 8 or 9 box looks and quacks like a familiar Linux machine. The whole GNU toolchain is there, GNOME and KDE are both loaded, and everything acts just the way you expect it to.
I'm confused. I keep hearing about a "Microsoft Research" group somewhere in Redmond, but everyone knows that Microsoft Research is actually located in Cupertino, CA. To protect their trade secrets, it's cleverly disguised as a fruit store -- it even has a sign that says "APPLE" on the front of the main building.
They even have a completely independent platform that they use for testing new features, called "McIntosh" (it's a clever pun, you see, as McIntosh is a kind of apple, so it goes along with that fruit store disguise). If you want to see what next year's version of Windows will look like, all you have to do is take a look at this year's "McIntosh" test platform.
Some people say that the test platform is actually better than the real thing. That's why Microsoft deliberately made the test platform incompatible with shipping versions of Windows, even to the point of using a non-standard CPU in the test computers to run it on.
With such a complete and rigorous research group in Cupertino, I don't know why people continue to believe that there are any researchers at the Redmond campus.
Windows XP, for example, isn't all that great in this area, and often one process can too easily slow things down. This is even further emphasized when all the processes you're working with are actually the main "explorer.exe" process; eg, you do something in Windows Explorer that blocks (spin up a CD drive) and everything else (the "desktop", task bar, etc) all become unresponsive...
Unfortunately, even the best kernel process scheduler in the known universe would not fix this design flaw in Microsoft Windows, because what you're seeing is not a thread/process scheduling problem.
As you correctly observed, many Windows programs are forced to make "shell calls" -- which doesn't mean the same thing it does in Unix, where you fork a/bin/sh and tell it to do something for you. It means that you send "events" to the currently-running EXPLORER.EXE with an idea of what you want it to do for you.
The reason it bogs down when it's busy is because it is waiting on a single event queue. Mounting/unmounting of media, network lag, other processes sending/receiving messages, etc. all give EXPLORER.EXE more events to wait on. That's why it's a bottleneck, even when there's plenty of CPU to go around.
It's an awful design, and it's one of those things that's fundamentally broken about Windows.
"Services" is where the IT business is going. And yes, there are outsourcing companies in the USA and various other non-India, non-China nations. Skilled, flexible talent is very valuable to a services company. And it's satisfying work because you're not stuck with one environment all the time -- you get to play with lots of different customer environments, picking up new skills along the way.
Basically, what I'm saying here is, quit whining. Make yourself a valuable person and you will find employment. And don't rest on your laurels, either: you have to constantly adapt and pick up new skills.
Now I shall sit back and wait to get modded down by the unemployed, disgruntled Slashdot hive mind, but my position on this issue stands.
Somehow I doubt Wal-Mart has "geeks" in mind as the target audience. It does not help the geek community to patronize an online music store that provides WMA files. When those WMA's start including Palladium-enriched goodness, you won't be able to play them on Linux anymore. And maybe by then, Wal-Mart and Microsoft will have put iTunes and the more legit shops out of business.
Think about the big picture. Demand MP3 and OGG files. This cannot be understated.
Since it's impossible to track global downloads of the Linux 2.6.0 kernel, The SCO Group has set up a PayPal tip jar. Please abide by the honor system and send them your $699 after downloading the new kernel.
Iraq is not a free country. It is owned and operated by PNAC, under the auspices of the Bush Administration, which is in turn owned and operated by a number of large corporations and wealthy individuals.
Microsoft being one of the largest contributors, expect Windows Everywhere. It isn't just a coincidence that Windows is on the "allowed to export" list and Linux isn't.
Linux, while not having a great share of the market now, will progressively gain user base simply because it is so capable of evolving with new technology.
Linux will gain user base because it's cheaper, and because some forward-thinking organizations are finally starting to see the benefits of not being chained to Microsoft.
Technology has nothing to do with it. Case in point: Intel shipped the 80386 in 1985, and it was ten years before Microsoft finally shipped a consumer-grade 32-bit operating system. (I say 'consumer grade' because Windows NT didn't count -- it required what was then considered high-end hardware that most consumers couldn't afford -- but even Windows NT was a good 5-6 years after the 386 shipped.) Despite the availability of a 32-bit processor that finally eliminated the stupid segmentation scheme of the 80286, there was no mass exodus to OS/2 or Xenix.
Don't count on consumers to be smart. They aren't. All they know is what the TV tells them to believe.
"The electronics industry recognizes that Microsoft is a formidable player, but consumer electronics makers do not want to become dependent on Microsoft. They need an interoperable and independent system," Peters said.
DRM sucks, DRM is evil, DRM is the tool of terrorists, robber barons, and Republicans. That having been said, though... I would much rather see a DRM standard that is vendor-neutral from a computer platform perspective, instead of Palladium Everywhere (also known as "Dystopia" to us Linux folks).
Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer to see no DRM at all, and I intend to vote with my wallet as much as possible. But if DRM does happen anyway, I would have a very strong preference for Intertrust instead of Palladium. At least with Intertrust there's the possibility that some vendor will offer a Linux version of the protected player.
Kind of like making
bash# ln -s/dev/lp/var/log/messages
If I may nitpick... you could also achieve the same effect, without the symbolic link, by simply pointing to/dev/lp in your/etc/syslog.conf file. That way it would write to both locations without them having to be linked together. Moreover, you could define different logging levels (for example, send everything to the text file but only critical logs to the printer).
This is actually good news. If lots of those unfortunate Windows users are complacent enough to stick with Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP... then they may just be complacent enough to pass on Longhorn when it comes out. Just think, all those users with "old" Windows installations. All those users who aren't using Palladium. All those users who are preventing Microsoft from forcing the world to use Palladium because it would lock out so many people.
Use Palladium to lock out Linux and Mac, and you lock out all previous versions of Windows as well. As far as I'm concerned, this is a good thing. Let's hope that in 2005-2006 there are plenty of people content enough with their current Windows systems that they won't bother to upgrade. (And, of course, we must hope that Linux uptake has accelerated by then, too.)
First of all, there is already AMD64 support in the Linux kernel tree -- if it isn't already production-quality, it'll be there long before most of us can afford an AMD64-based machine.
Secondly, what the parent post is claiming is that Solaris has been "64-bit clean" for years and Linux hasn't. This is a patently ridiculous claim. Linux has been 64-bit clean ever since the first Alpha ports! And since all the common tools that run atop the kernel are designed to run on any unix, be it 32-bit Linux, 64-bit Linux, 64-bit Solaris, or whatever... the userland tools and apps are all 64-bit clean as well.
Yes, there are some key differences between Solaris and Linux. But this isn't one of them.
Evolution is truly a first class application. Polished, debugged, good-looking, and professional.
That having been said, though, I am still disappointed by the fact that they are not supporting remote calendars out of the box. Sure, you can buy plugins to connect it to Exchange, or Netscape/iPlanet/SunONE/JES calendar server (whatever they're calling it this week), and presumably Groupwise (soon)... but where's the built-in support for remote calendars using an open protocol? Folks like me who are developing open source groupware servers are anxiously awaiting good clientware to connect to. How about putting WCAP in the standard build? It's well-documented and much simpler than the disgusting mess the IETF is proposing (CAP has the dubious honor of being the one protocol even uglier than IMAP).
So how about it, codemonkeys? The sooner we get some real open source calendaring going, the sooner we can start to make a real challenge to Outlook. Microsoft loves the Outlook/Exchange lock-in. They love it so much that they're trying to do the same thing across their entire product line (Office 2003 has many ties to SharePoint server). The window of opportunity is open, but it won't be forever.
On the other hand, where is Windows today? Without Netscape being as threatening as they were, Microsoft might never have cared about the web, and the internet would have been nowhere near as widespread.
Ok, this is just patently ridiculous. If not for Microsoft caring about the web, the web would have happened just the same. We would have had Netscape everywhere. And perhaps there would be true innovation happening, instead of web technology dropping to a standstill once Internet Explorer captured the market.
I don't know why people always assume that Microsoft is the only company capable of widespread deployment. Microsoft's anti-competitive practices chill innovation, not encourage it. In fact, it's probably a reasonable guess that the industry has been set back ten years or more because of all the innovations that never happened because people simply didn't want to bother trying to compete with Microsoft.
So, as I understand it, you should be able to load Sunbird into Thunderbird as an extension.
And that's definitely good enough, as long as the integration is as simple as running a simple setup program. We definitely don't want to force users to hook it together manually.
The sad state of affairs in this area is very disheartening. We do have one complete, polished PIM suite (Evolution) and one that's shaping up to be just as good (Kontakt) but this is one area where we need something cross-platform, because most organizations have multiple desktop OS's around, and they all have to interoperate. What do you do when you want a PIM suite that runs everywhere? Well, there's Glow, but it's only at its beginning stages of development, and it's subject to Sun's stubborn refusal to fontconfig-ize Java so the display will look like crap for a long time. There's a project to connect Outlook to open source, and I hope they manage to pull it off, but this is Microsoft's home turf so it'll be an uphill battle.
Firebird and Sunbird are the free world's best hope for an open source, cross-platform, professional-quality PIM suite. That's the one that we'll hook up the open source groupware servers to. Why aren't IBM, Sun, Novell/Ximian/SuSE, et al pouring resources into this? Outlook must be taken down.
Mozilla Calendar really needs to be folded directly into the Thunderbird system. People want a calendar in their email client, and that's that. The sooner this is done, the sooner Thunderbird can start kicking Outlook's butt.
The place where Mozilla Calendar is a bit weak right now is its server support. Sure, you can publish and subscribe using WebDAV, but that's not the same thing as having a true server-side calendar. And you still can't send and receive meeting invitations, or check other users' free/busy times.
Fortunately, there is a group at Penn State working on fixing this. They're writing a new calendar API that can be used to hook into arbitrary servers. That means that modules will be able to be written for any back end, such as Citadel,Sun calendar server,Kolab, or whatever else appears out there in the future.
It's good to see something like this coming from Yahoo. Yahoo is a reasonably neutral participant on the Internet -- they don't own an ISP (like AOL or Microsoft), or an operating system (like Microsoft), or their own mail client software (like, oh, say, Microsoft) -- so they won't feel inclined to lock particular parts of the world out.
It's in Yahoo's best interest for this to become an open standard. And I'd much rather see an open standard than something like Palladium become a de-facto standard that the free world can't play with.
Before clicking through, you should know about a little bit of background information.
Check this Linux Today article. James Turner wrote an article about how Linux is DOA on the desktop because it was missing two drivers he needed for his laptop. He was scathing and he basically baited the readers into giving him the takedown he deserved (and possibly was expecting, if as is suspected he was just trolling for clicks).
In response, he announced that he was going to use this as justification for another clickbait article about how immature the Linux community is. The article in question is the new one which this Slashdot story is about.
So don't expect any substance here. This is as much about taunting Linux users for clicks as any piece by Rob Enderle or Jesse Berst -- it's merely that this time, we have someone who writes for a supposedly pro-Linux publication stooping to this level.
Actually, it's a poor craftsman who chooses poor tools.
The skilled craftsman knows a good tool (Unix, Linux, Netware) when he sees it. It might be a little dirty, but that's from lots of use. It's well worn in. It's built to exacting specifications and it gets the job done, every time.
The naive craftsman will simply reach for the shiniest tool in the toolbox (Windows) and learn the hard way that he's chosen a tool that, although pretty, is poorly designed and built, and he's going to end up taking twice as long to get the job done, and he still won't be as happy with his finished work later.
They are absolutely solving the wrong problem. I was in college from 1988 to 1993 (yeah, the old five year plan) and I only had limited access to computers while I was there. I brought one along to type up term papers and make the occasional long-distance call to my BBS at home, but for the most part I didn't spend much time at the keyboard, even though I pursued a CS minor.
And you know what? I'm really happy about it. So many different experiences transpired during those five years. Horizons broadened, friendships deepened, memories were made. All because I wasn't spending all my time behind the keyboard.
With lots of power and lots of connectivity, will today's university students have the good sense to leave the dorm once in a while? The average geek who got picked on by everyone in high school is suddenly going to realize that in college, the stigma is gone, and finally come out of his or her shell... but only after getting out from behind the keyboard.
No, this isn't a troll, or a fanboy comment. Think about it.
Sun employees are able to work from anywhere they site because Sun uses the X Window System -- famous for remotability of applications. You can truly call up any application from any location and it runs. Your home directory is, quite literally, your desktop.
Not so easy for Windows-using companies. Yes, I know all about Terminal Services. I deploy it for customers all the time, and therefore I know that it isn't nearly flexible enough for this type of work. Can you have lots of different apps running from lots of different hosts on your screen at the same time? Maybe, but you have to deal with each of them running in a 'desktop-in-a-window'. Forget about cutting and pasting between them. And god forbid the user saves something to their 'C drive' and tries to pull it up in another application.
Windows users and Windows applications think very much inside the 'My Computer' mindset. Not only is it the name of the little icon, but it's the way the whole framework is set up. Attempts to free Windows users from a single desktop almost always fail. I've seen it. People move to a different computer and wonder where that file they saved is. They wonder what happened to their bookmarks, or some other obscure setting they selected. Truly, the only way to get Windows users to roam effectively is to give them all laptops.
Unix and Linux users, on the other hand, are truly free to roam. Case in point: Largo, Florida. Remember the architecture they described? Every time they deploy a new application, they bring online a server to run it from. Then they have a few integration servers coordinating the desktop framework and firing up those apps, wherever they live, and sending them to the desktops, wherever the user happens to be. You log on to any computer and your desktop is there. And since Unix/Linux has been saving user preferences and user files in your home directory for three decades, as long as you have the same home directory NFS-mounted everywhere, you're good to go. I've deployed this, too, and I can attest that it works beautifully.
Want to ditch the cubicle farm? Ditch Windows first.
Re:Yeehaw! A roundup!!
on
SCO News Roundup
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
C'mon Jeff, you did an entire spoof piece called "SCOhide" and not once did you use "McBride" in the rhymes? Do over!:)
This is good for everyone. It's good for Sun, who will hopefully continue to stay afloat now that they seem to be scoring some new big customers. They also will be more strongly motivated to stick with the Linux game in earnest this time around instead of being schizophrenic about it. It's good for Linux, with yet another big name player now firmly in the open source camp. And it's good for all of us, who depend on OpenOffice in order for our Linux desktops to remain viable and interoperable in an office suite dominated world.
The only party for whom this is a bad thing is Microsoft. And that's exactly how it should be. While it is certainly way too early to declare the Great Satan of Redmond defeated, we can call this one more important step on that journey. I applaud Sun for this and hope they score more Linux wins.
Slashdot Mirror
It's really a shame that Sun took so long to join the party. They do this stuff better than IBM does. For all the success they've achieved, IBM's integration of various open source tools on AIX is... well... as ugly as the rest of AIX. Sun got it right and very few people seem to know about it. When you install the Software Companion CD in its entirety, a Solaris 8 or 9 box looks and quacks like a familiar Linux machine. The whole GNU toolchain is there, GNOME and KDE are both loaded, and everything acts just the way you expect it to.
IBM could learn a few things here.
I'm confused. I keep hearing about a "Microsoft Research" group somewhere in Redmond, but everyone knows that Microsoft Research is actually located in Cupertino, CA. To protect their trade secrets, it's cleverly disguised as a fruit store -- it even has a sign that says "APPLE" on the front of the main building.
They even have a completely independent platform that they use for testing new features, called "McIntosh" (it's a clever pun, you see, as McIntosh is a kind of apple, so it goes along with that fruit store disguise). If you want to see what next year's version of Windows will look like, all you have to do is take a look at this year's "McIntosh" test platform.
Some people say that the test platform is actually better than the real thing. That's why Microsoft deliberately made the test platform incompatible with shipping versions of Windows, even to the point of using a non-standard CPU in the test computers to run it on.
With such a complete and rigorous research group in Cupertino, I don't know why people continue to believe that there are any researchers at the Redmond campus.
Windows XP, for example, isn't all that great in this area, and often one process can too easily slow things down. This is even further emphasized when all the processes you're working with are actually the main "explorer.exe" process; eg, you do something in Windows Explorer that blocks (spin up a CD drive) and everything else (the "desktop", task bar, etc) all become unresponsive...
/bin/sh and tell it to do something for you. It means that you send "events" to the currently-running EXPLORER.EXE with an idea of what you want it to do for you.
Unfortunately, even the best kernel process scheduler in the known universe would not fix this design flaw in Microsoft Windows, because what you're seeing is not a thread/process scheduling problem.
As you correctly observed, many Windows programs are forced to make "shell calls" -- which doesn't mean the same thing it does in Unix, where you fork a
The reason it bogs down when it's busy is because it is waiting on a single event queue. Mounting/unmounting of media, network lag, other processes sending/receiving messages, etc. all give EXPLORER.EXE more events to wait on. That's why it's a bottleneck, even when there's plenty of CPU to go around.
It's an awful design, and it's one of those things that's fundamentally broken about Windows.
Easy solution:
Get a job working with an outsourcer. Duh.
"Services" is where the IT business is going. And yes, there are outsourcing companies in the USA and various other non-India, non-China nations. Skilled, flexible talent is very valuable to a services company. And it's satisfying work because you're not stuck with one environment all the time -- you get to play with lots of different customer environments, picking up new skills along the way.
Basically, what I'm saying here is, quit whining. Make yourself a valuable person and you will find employment. And don't rest on your laurels, either: you have to constantly adapt and pick up new skills.
Now I shall sit back and wait to get modded down by the unemployed, disgruntled Slashdot hive mind, but my position on this issue stands.
Somehow I doubt Wal-Mart has "geeks" in mind as the target audience. It does not help the geek community to patronize an online music store that provides WMA files. When those WMA's start including Palladium-enriched goodness, you won't be able to play them on Linux anymore. And maybe by then, Wal-Mart and Microsoft will have put iTunes and the more legit shops out of business.
Think about the big picture. Demand MP3 and OGG files. This cannot be understated.
Since it's impossible to track global downloads of the Linux 2.6.0 kernel, The SCO Group has set up a PayPal tip jar. Please abide by the honor system and send them your $699 after downloading the new kernel.
Iraq is not a free country. It is owned and operated by PNAC, under the auspices of the Bush Administration, which is in turn owned and operated by a number of large corporations and wealthy individuals.
Microsoft being one of the largest contributors, expect Windows Everywhere. It isn't just a coincidence that Windows is on the "allowed to export" list and Linux isn't.
Linux, while not having a great share of the market now, will progressively gain user base simply because it is so capable of evolving with new technology.
Linux will gain user base because it's cheaper, and because some forward-thinking organizations are finally starting to see the benefits of not being chained to Microsoft.
Technology has nothing to do with it. Case in point: Intel shipped the 80386 in 1985, and it was ten years before Microsoft finally shipped a consumer-grade 32-bit operating system. (I say 'consumer grade' because Windows NT didn't count -- it required what was then considered high-end hardware that most consumers couldn't afford -- but even Windows NT was a good 5-6 years after the 386 shipped.) Despite the availability of a 32-bit processor that finally eliminated the stupid segmentation scheme of the 80286, there was no mass exodus to OS/2 or Xenix.
Don't count on consumers to be smart. They aren't. All they know is what the TV tells them to believe.
From TFA:
... I would much rather see a DRM standard that is vendor-neutral from a computer platform perspective, instead of Palladium Everywhere (also known as "Dystopia" to us Linux folks).
"The electronics industry recognizes that Microsoft is a formidable player, but consumer electronics makers do not want to become dependent on Microsoft. They need an interoperable and independent system," Peters said.
DRM sucks, DRM is evil, DRM is the tool of terrorists, robber barons, and Republicans. That having been said, though
Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer to see no DRM at all, and I intend to vote with my wallet as much as possible. But if DRM does happen anyway, I would have a very strong preference for Intertrust instead of Palladium. At least with Intertrust there's the possibility that some vendor will offer a Linux version of the protected player.
Kind of like making /dev/lp /var/log/messages
... you could also achieve the same effect, without the symbolic link, by simply pointing to /dev/lp in your /etc/syslog.conf file. That way it would write to both locations without them having to be linked together. Moreover, you could define different logging levels (for example, send everything to the text file but only critical logs to the printer).
bash# ln -s
If I may nitpick
syslog is a wonderfully flexible facility.
This is actually good news. If lots of those unfortunate Windows users are complacent enough to stick with Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP ... then they may just be complacent enough to pass on Longhorn when it comes out. Just think, all those users with "old" Windows installations. All those users who aren't using Palladium. All those users who are preventing Microsoft from forcing the world to use Palladium because it would lock out so many people.
Use Palladium to lock out Linux and Mac, and you lock out all previous versions of Windows as well. As far as I'm concerned, this is a good thing. Let's hope that in 2005-2006 there are plenty of people content enough with their current Windows systems that they won't bother to upgrade. (And, of course, we must hope that Linux uptake has accelerated by then, too.)
I call bullshit. Mod parent down please.
... the userland tools and apps are all 64-bit clean as well.
First of all, there is already AMD64 support in the Linux kernel tree -- if it isn't already production-quality, it'll be there long before most of us can afford an AMD64-based machine.
Secondly, what the parent post is claiming is that Solaris has been "64-bit clean" for years and Linux hasn't. This is a patently ridiculous claim. Linux has been 64-bit clean ever since the first Alpha ports! And since all the common tools that run atop the kernel are designed to run on any unix, be it 32-bit Linux, 64-bit Linux, 64-bit Solaris, or whatever
Yes, there are some key differences between Solaris and Linux. But this isn't one of them.
Evolution is truly a first class application. Polished, debugged, good-looking, and professional.
... but where's the built-in support for remote calendars using an open protocol? Folks like me who are developing open source groupware servers are anxiously awaiting good clientware to connect to. How about putting WCAP in the standard build? It's well-documented and much simpler than the disgusting mess the IETF is proposing (CAP has the dubious honor of being the one protocol even uglier than IMAP).
That having been said, though, I am still disappointed by the fact that they are not supporting remote calendars out of the box. Sure, you can buy plugins to connect it to Exchange, or Netscape/iPlanet/SunONE/JES calendar server (whatever they're calling it this week), and presumably Groupwise (soon)
So how about it, codemonkeys? The sooner we get some real open source calendaring going, the sooner we can start to make a real challenge to Outlook. Microsoft loves the Outlook/Exchange lock-in. They love it so much that they're trying to do the same thing across their entire product line (Office 2003 has many ties to SharePoint server). The window of opportunity is open, but it won't be forever.
On the other hand, where is Windows today? Without Netscape being as threatening as they were, Microsoft might never have cared about the web, and the internet would have been nowhere near as widespread.
Ok, this is just patently ridiculous. If not for Microsoft caring about the web, the web would have happened just the same. We would have had Netscape everywhere. And perhaps there would be true innovation happening, instead of web technology dropping to a standstill once Internet Explorer captured the market.
I don't know why people always assume that Microsoft is the only company capable of widespread deployment. Microsoft's anti-competitive practices chill innovation, not encourage it. In fact, it's probably a reasonable guess that the industry has been set back ten years or more because of all the innovations that never happened because people simply didn't want to bother trying to compete with Microsoft.
Open standards are the free world's only hope.
So, as I understand it, you should be able to load Sunbird into Thunderbird as an extension.
And that's definitely good enough, as long as the integration is as simple as running a simple setup program. We definitely don't want to force users to hook it together manually.
The sad state of affairs in this area is very disheartening. We do have one complete, polished PIM suite (Evolution) and one that's shaping up to be just as good (Kontakt) but this is one area where we need something cross-platform, because most organizations have multiple desktop OS's around, and they all have to interoperate. What do you do when you want a PIM suite that runs everywhere? Well, there's Glow, but it's only at its beginning stages of development, and it's subject to Sun's stubborn refusal to fontconfig-ize Java so the display will look like crap for a long time. There's a project to connect Outlook to open source, and I hope they manage to pull it off, but this is Microsoft's home turf so it'll be an uphill battle.
Firebird and Sunbird are the free world's best hope for an open source, cross-platform, professional-quality PIM suite. That's the one that we'll hook up the open source groupware servers to. Why aren't IBM, Sun, Novell/Ximian/SuSE, et al pouring resources into this? Outlook must be taken down.
Mozilla Calendar really needs to be folded directly into the Thunderbird system. People want a calendar in their email client, and that's that. The sooner this is done, the sooner Thunderbird can start kicking Outlook's butt.
The place where Mozilla Calendar is a bit weak right now is its server support. Sure, you can publish and subscribe using WebDAV, but that's not the same thing as having a true server-side calendar. And you still can't send and receive meeting invitations, or check other users' free/busy times.
Fortunately, there is a group at Penn State working on fixing this. They're writing a new calendar API that can be used to hook into arbitrary servers. That means that modules will be able to be written for any back end, such as Citadel, Sun calendar server, Kolab, or whatever else appears out there in the future.
It's good to see something like this coming from Yahoo. Yahoo is a reasonably neutral participant on the Internet -- they don't own an ISP (like AOL or Microsoft), or an operating system (like Microsoft), or their own mail client software (like, oh, say, Microsoft) -- so they won't feel inclined to lock particular parts of the world out.
It's in Yahoo's best interest for this to become an open standard. And I'd much rather see an open standard than something like Palladium become a de-facto standard that the free world can't play with.
Godspeed, Yahoo.
And one I hope to see laughed at soon...
"Linux will never make it on the desktop"
Before clicking through, you should know about a little bit of background information.
Check this Linux Today article. James Turner wrote an article about how Linux is DOA on the desktop because it was missing two drivers he needed for his laptop. He was scathing and he basically baited the readers into giving him the takedown he deserved (and possibly was expecting, if as is suspected he was just trolling for clicks).
In response, he announced that he was going to use this as justification for another clickbait article about how immature the Linux community is. The article in question is the new one which this Slashdot story is about.
So don't expect any substance here. This is as much about taunting Linux users for clicks as any piece by Rob Enderle or Jesse Berst -- it's merely that this time, we have someone who writes for a supposedly pro-Linux publication stooping to this level.
Its a poor craftsman who blames his tools.
Actually, it's a poor craftsman who chooses poor tools.
The skilled craftsman knows a good tool (Unix, Linux, Netware) when he sees it. It might be a little dirty, but that's from lots of use. It's well worn in. It's built to exacting specifications and it gets the job done, every time.
The naive craftsman will simply reach for the shiniest tool in the toolbox (Windows) and learn the hard way that he's chosen a tool that, although pretty, is poorly designed and built, and he's going to end up taking twice as long to get the job done, and he still won't be as happy with his finished work later.
If you're going to do an analogy, do it right.
They are absolutely solving the wrong problem. I was in college from 1988 to 1993 (yeah, the old five year plan) and I only had limited access to computers while I was there. I brought one along to type up term papers and make the occasional long-distance call to my BBS at home, but for the most part I didn't spend much time at the keyboard, even though I pursued a CS minor.
... but only after getting out from behind the keyboard.
And you know what? I'm really happy about it. So many different experiences transpired during those five years. Horizons broadened, friendships deepened, memories were made. All because I wasn't spending all my time behind the keyboard.
With lots of power and lots of connectivity, will today's university students have the good sense to leave the dorm once in a while? The average geek who got picked on by everyone in high school is suddenly going to realize that in college, the stigma is gone, and finally come out of his or her shell
No, this isn't a troll, or a fanboy comment. Think about it.
Sun employees are able to work from anywhere they site because Sun uses the X Window System -- famous for remotability of applications. You can truly call up any application from any location and it runs. Your home directory is, quite literally, your desktop.
Not so easy for Windows-using companies. Yes, I know all about Terminal Services. I deploy it for customers all the time, and therefore I know that it isn't nearly flexible enough for this type of work. Can you have lots of different apps running from lots of different hosts on your screen at the same time? Maybe, but you have to deal with each of them running in a 'desktop-in-a-window'. Forget about cutting and pasting between them. And god forbid the user saves something to their 'C drive' and tries to pull it up in another application.
Windows users and Windows applications think very much inside the 'My Computer' mindset. Not only is it the name of the little icon, but it's the way the whole framework is set up. Attempts to free Windows users from a single desktop almost always fail. I've seen it. People move to a different computer and wonder where that file they saved is. They wonder what happened to their bookmarks, or some other obscure setting they selected. Truly, the only way to get Windows users to roam effectively is to give them all laptops.
Unix and Linux users, on the other hand, are truly free to roam. Case in point: Largo, Florida. Remember the architecture they described? Every time they deploy a new application, they bring online a server to run it from. Then they have a few integration servers coordinating the desktop framework and firing up those apps, wherever they live, and sending them to the desktops, wherever the user happens to be. You log on to any computer and your desktop is there. And since Unix/Linux has been saving user preferences and user files in your home directory for three decades, as long as you have the same home directory NFS-mounted everywhere, you're good to go. I've deployed this, too, and I can attest that it works beautifully.
Want to ditch the cubicle farm? Ditch Windows first.
C'mon Jeff, you did an entire spoof piece called "SCOhide" and not once did you use "McBride" in the rhymes? Do over! :)
This is good for everyone. It's good for Sun, who will hopefully continue to stay afloat now that they seem to be scoring some new big customers. They also will be more strongly motivated to stick with the Linux game in earnest this time around instead of being schizophrenic about it. It's good for Linux, with yet another big name player now firmly in the open source camp. And it's good for all of us, who depend on OpenOffice in order for our Linux desktops to remain viable and interoperable in an office suite dominated world.
The only party for whom this is a bad thing is Microsoft. And that's exactly how it should be. While it is certainly way too early to declare the Great Satan of Redmond defeated, we can call this one more important step on that journey. I applaud Sun for this and hope they score more Linux wins.
Wow ... imagine, using computers to connect people to each other!
I wonder if, at any time in the last 25 years, they've seen a BBS.