KOffice may still need quite a bit of work, but Konqueror and KMail are already really good applications. All three benefit greatly from their integration with and/or reuse of other KDE components, which you don't get with the alternatives you suggest.
If you actually gave them a fair chance and used them on a daily basis as I do, I think you'd see the difference.
1. The C Language Security Holes, Constant Reinvention of the wheel due to lack of portability and good component model.
This is no more a Linux problem than it is a Windows problem, currently.
"Portability"? C is among the most source-portable languages in existence. What do you mean?
2. Anti-XML Sentiment Delimited Files Are Terrible.
But editing XML files by hand is an absolute nightmare. OK, I grant you that we should not be editing files by hand these days. I would have to ask though, if you don't edit them by hand then why would you care whether they are encoded in XML or not?
5. RPM
Use a distribution that supports the newer frontends (yum, apt-rpm, etc.) that don't suffer from "dependency hell", or use a distribution not based on RPM at all. I see you have been using Ubuntu so I guess you have already done this.
The effect that the UN has had is not necessarily directly measurable. How do you measure the amount of goodwill and good relations that the UN has fostered simply by bringing representatives together to meet?
Mostly, X is not the problem. It's the drivers that cause most of the crashes that bring down X.
Rewriting X from scratch is not a good solution. Aside from the massive effort that would be required to duplicate X's basic functionality, there will be even more work to maintain compatibility. If you don't maintain full backwards-compatibility with X then you'll also have to rewrite all the current environments, applications and libraries that run on it. A lot of developers won't be interested in doing this and so not everyone will be able to / want to use the new system. You'll have an even worse problem getting companies like nVidia and ATI to write drivers for it.
The truth is that X is a good solid base upon which a very decent desktop can be built. What we really need is the drivers to be more stable (and only hardware manufacturers can help here), but also in general get everyone working more closely together. I think we're already moving towards that.
It's GPL. That's the license you acquired it under, that's the license that you need to use it under.
Just to clarify - technically, it's the licence under which it was released, and it is the only thing that allows you to distribute it. The GPL says nothing about use, only distribution.
I'm glad you took the opportunity to give specific examples of areas where desktop Linux is lacking, rather than resorting to ad-hominem attacks. It's almost "staggaring" to see a bit of maturity around here for a change.
Familiar Linux for iPAQs and other handhelds (presumably the X50 soon) provides images that include Opie and/or GPE by default.
It might also be pointed out that the Sharp Zaurus runs Linux natively, and manages to be both a useful PDA and a powerful computing platform at the same time, so the two are not mutually exclusive as you seem to imply.
The problem with Gambas is you can't use it to develop proprietary software without purchasing a Qt licence, which is currently very expensive for the kinds of people who would want to use it for commercial development.
all of the KDEers that whine about Apple not giving back to the KHTML team
All that was said (by one person in a blog, I might add) was, people should stop trumpeting how great Apple is for supporting KHTML development, when they really aren't doing that very well at all.
Ok... so let's say that Google in some wierd twist of fate one day ends up buying Microsoft. So then Google would have their hands dirty with all of Microsoft's evil deeds? That is incorrect and you know it.
I'm sorry, but there is no comparison. Microsoft hasn't killed anyone - the Bhopal disaster killed 20,000 people and continues to affect the lives of survivors and the people still living in the area which has still not been fully decontaminated because buck-passing corporations like the one you are apparently defending hold up their hands and say "it's not our problem".
Check out handhelds.org and the Familiar project. Most of the new stuff is on the wiki, and on the mailing lists (recent archives of which can be viewed through gmane.org).
We think Familiar provides a base operating system and application set that seriously rivals (if not outdoes) other mobile offerings. The only major issue we have on devices such as the iPAQ that don't run Linux out of the box is that getting all of the hardware supported is a difficult job. However, this situation is improving - commercially-sponsored projects to port Linux to specific handheld devices are currently going on, as are others driven by developers working individually.
Companies taking Familiar and using it as a base for something to be used in commercial products would be a good thing (provided that the GPL is followed, of course). We'd definitely like to see more of that happening.
Linus and the other kernel devs have no control over any of that. The only people who can do anything about the marketing of Linux are vendors, because they are the only people with enough money and clout.
Except this is a civil matter, not a criminal one, and therefore a jury does not come into it. So they really only have to convince one person (the judge), and so far they haven't really done very well on that front at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly some companies are prepared to open their old software when they close up shop, though. Take TurboPower, for example.
Just some minor corrections:
a file manager that can do sftp, ftp, smb, nfs, etc. I'll agree that those elements make the code bigger and possibly slower
Not really, as each protocol is a separate ioslave and only gets loaded when it is requested.
Kate, Kedit and Kdevelop all use the same editor
I think you mean KWrite, not KEdit. But you got the general idea.
KOffice may still need quite a bit of work, but Konqueror and KMail are already really good applications. All three benefit greatly from their integration with and/or reuse of other KDE components, which you don't get with the alternatives you suggest.
If you actually gave them a fair chance and used them on a daily basis as I do, I think you'd see the difference.
1. The C Language
Security Holes, Constant Reinvention of the wheel due to lack of portability and good component model.
This is no more a Linux problem than it is a Windows problem, currently.
"Portability"? C is among the most source-portable languages in existence. What do you mean?
2. Anti-XML Sentiment
Delimited Files Are Terrible.
But editing XML files by hand is an absolute nightmare. OK, I grant you that we should not be editing files by hand these days. I would have to ask though, if you don't edit them by hand then why would you care whether they are encoded in XML or not?
5. RPM
Use a distribution that supports the newer frontends (yum, apt-rpm, etc.) that don't suffer from "dependency hell", or use a distribution not based on RPM at all. I see you have been using Ubuntu so I guess you have already done this.
most people will look at a Linux command line and immediately feel overwhelmed
So then, my advice to those people would be to simply not look at a command line. For everyday tasks you really don't have to anymore.
The effect that the UN has had is not necessarily directly measurable. How do you measure the amount of goodwill and good relations that the UN has fostered simply by bringing representatives together to meet?
And who was it who initiated the recent war in Iraq?
Yeah, I thought so.
Mostly, X is not the problem. It's the drivers that cause most of the crashes that bring down X.
Rewriting X from scratch is not a good solution. Aside from the massive effort that would be required to duplicate X's basic functionality, there will be even more work to maintain compatibility. If you don't maintain full backwards-compatibility with X then you'll also have to rewrite all the current environments, applications and libraries that run on it. A lot of developers won't be interested in doing this and so not everyone will be able to / want to use the new system. You'll have an even worse problem getting companies like nVidia and ATI to write drivers for it.
The truth is that X is a good solid base upon which a very decent desktop can be built. What we really need is the drivers to be more stable (and only hardware manufacturers can help here), but also in general get everyone working more closely together. I think we're already moving towards that.
the fact that on a PC, if you minimize a window, there's a 50% chance the program will crash before you restore it again.
I'm sorry, but that is not a fact, it's FUD. I'm aware some applications have stability issues, but let's not get carried away.
It's GPL. That's the license you acquired it under, that's the license that you need to use it under.
Just to clarify - technically, it's the licence under which it was released, and it is the only thing that allows you to distribute it. The GPL says nothing about use, only distribution.
But it won't be a Mac. It'll be OS X running on a PC, which is entirely different.
I'm glad you took the opportunity to give specific examples of areas where desktop Linux is lacking, rather than resorting to ad-hominem attacks. It's almost "staggaring" to see a bit of maturity around here for a change.
Perhaps you have not seen these:
http://opie.handhelds.org/
http://gpe.handhelds.org/
Familiar Linux for iPAQs and other handhelds (presumably the X50 soon) provides images that include Opie and/or GPE by default.
It might also be pointed out that the Sharp Zaurus runs Linux natively, and manages to be both a useful PDA and a powerful computing platform at the same time, so the two are not mutually exclusive as you seem to imply.
The problem with Gambas is you can't use it to develop proprietary software without purchasing a Qt licence, which is currently very expensive for the kinds of people who would want to use it for commercial development.
Yeah, that joke never gets old.
The application in question is supposed to be a web application, therefore the Win32 API and MFC aren't really relevant.
you'll pull two Uzi's out of your stylish black trenchcoat
Technically, that would be two MP5Ks, but anyway...
Actually it's no worse than WinCE's, other than the fact that Opie doesn't do recognition outside of the writing area.
all of the KDEers that whine about Apple not giving back to the KHTML team
All that was said (by one person in a blog, I might add) was, people should stop trumpeting how great Apple is for supporting KHTML development, when they really aren't doing that very well at all.
Ok... so let's say that Google in some wierd twist of fate one day ends up buying Microsoft. So then Google would have their hands dirty with all of Microsoft's evil deeds? That is incorrect and you know it.
I'm sorry, but there is no comparison. Microsoft hasn't killed anyone - the Bhopal disaster killed 20,000 people and continues to affect the lives of survivors and the people still living in the area which has still not been fully decontaminated because buck-passing corporations like the one you are apparently defending hold up their hands and say "it's not our problem".
STFU.
Check out handhelds.org and the Familiar project. Most of the new stuff is on the wiki, and on the mailing lists (recent archives of which can be viewed through gmane.org).
We think Familiar provides a base operating system and application set that seriously rivals (if not outdoes) other mobile offerings. The only major issue we have on devices such as the iPAQ that don't run Linux out of the box is that getting all of the hardware supported is a difficult job. However, this situation is improving - commercially-sponsored projects to port Linux to specific handheld devices are currently going on, as are others driven by developers working individually.
Companies taking Familiar and using it as a base for something to be used in commercial products would be a good thing (provided that the GPL is followed, of course). We'd definitely like to see more of that happening.
I live in NY but used to work in NJ.
I assume therefore you were not telecommuting, as in the case in question? That is the issue with the ruling here.
Linus and the other kernel devs have no control over any of that. The only people who can do anything about the marketing of Linux are vendors, because they are the only people with enough money and clout.
Except this is a civil matter, not a criminal one, and therefore a jury does not come into it. So they really only have to convince one person (the judge), and so far they haven't really done very well on that front at all.