Apple buying NeXT doesn't, however, give Apple the ability to patent old technology the other company invented twenty years ago. Don't pretend that the patent was applied for back when the company was NeXT and bought along with it.
There's no doubt that NextStep was way ahead of its time (and really needed the hardware to catch up) and NeXT deserves a lot of credit, but I don't think that buying a company and using eleven-year-old technology in a new patent to be granted almost twenty years after the tech originally appeared gives Apple anything. The fact that there were tens of competing implementations in the years between the first appearance and the filing date just means that there's even less of link (and yes, that's now less than nothing)!
As long as Apple is patenting this very specific use of the dock the way it appears that they are, I have no more problem with it than I would any other software or UI patent.
I'm going to open my mouth when I probably shouldn't, but I've been out of the intel field for enough years that no one is going to get pissed off for me talking.
Satellite imaging is really pretty good. Better than you think. The military stuff is excellent. Imagine what we're doing now with atmospheric telescopes that we couldn't have done twenty years ago and realize that the same principles apply when the direction is reversed.
What really pisses me off is that I would have gone to jail back in the day for what they are green-lighting now. Much less than that, even. Disgusting.
I'm really glad I left all that intel stuff behind or I would end up in jail when I refused to follow orders.
If you think MS doesn't have patents on parts of the Win32 API, then you're really messed up. The cross-patent licensing deal with Novell was for all patents. It would also include any Win32 patents. NET vs. Wine isn't relevant there since the patents involved weren't divulged..
Mono started as a way for.NET apps to run on Linux. People now write for Mono. Wine started as a way to compile Windows Apps for use on Unix. People now also write and certify their applications for Wine. You also appear to think this is different, and somehow get people to mod you up for your poor reasoning.
Since they passed "Vista Capable" standards, I think part of the fault was MS', but it doesn't really matter because the assertion that Vista's problem was 6-year-old hardware was absolutely incorrect.
First of all, stating that "Windows has had" something since Win98 doesn't mean that there were third-party applications available for it, or you wouldn't have bothered comparing Gnome to Win 98 with the phrase "It is nice to see more features that Windows had 10 years ago." Gnome also had third-party clients for most of these things years ago. They just weren't part of the standard desktop. You can adjust your score back down to 20-30% again.;)
You also fail to understand the difference between the Gnome Deskbar and a taskbar. (Gnome doesn't call them taskbars: it has "panels.") The Deskbar is similar to Vista's Instant Search, but does a lot more than desktop search by default. Gnome has also had this for a while. It just added some new features like updating Twitter and using recommended searches from Yahoo!.
Regarding localization, I Googled and provided a Microsoft link stating what their retail languages were. I assumed it was accurate. Based on your and another poster's response, I guess I chose the wrong page and that there are many more, but I stand by my original assertion that Thai is still not supported by MS. Based on their release of the "Thai Starter Pack," which had about seven words translated, I would also guess that the translations they do have are not as complete as you think they are. All I can say is that MS must do a better job of localization there in Europe than they do here in Asia. It really stinks here.
Anyway, I'm pretty much done with this thread, so you can flame away without worry of a rebuttal from me.
There is a difference between support for entry of a language and the OS being localized in it. I did a Google search and took the announcement at face value. I assumed that XP had settled on its localized languages by the time SP3 came out. The list verified with all the versions I'd ever used (which include Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) so it seemed accurate. In short, Windows isn't localized into Thai in XP -- at least it wasn't the last time I checked. Thai's still not on the list you provided, so I guess I'm not wrong on that count, anyway.
There are a lot of localities that would like Windows localized for them, but it doesn't and hasn't happened. With the kind of money MS makes from Windows, I think that's a shame.
I'm not going to argue with you about the problem of applets on the panels or with another poster about the slow loading time in menus. These issues suck.
I am going to clarify some things for you, though.
I don't consider myself qualified to compare Gnome to Vista on every bullet point because I don't use it often enough to judge. Trust me, I want to compare apples to apples, though.
Whether the desktop is available in a language you read or not is certainly a usability issue. The Thais I mentioned don't have a Latin alphabet, so staring at English for them is like staring at Thai for you. Since Windows isn't really available in Thai, I suggest that you try running a Windows desktop in Korean or Japanese for a while. Localization is extremely important and is something that MS doesn't give enough time to, considering how much money they make off of the product. Lower-class Thais have no real opportunity to use even community Windows computers.
David said "They now have sound themes that don't conflict with music playback," to which I replied that ESD has mixed sounds for forever. It wasn't a general comment about the Linux sound system. If he had used ESD for everything, he wouldn't have had a problem. My comment was a little snarky, but it was a serious comment, not an attack. Maybe he didn't know to set his non-Gnome applications to use ESD. Linux is also not the only platform Gnome runs on.
On UI consistency, consider my other post on this. That is not consistency. Those are all MS apps designed for their desktop.
In my experience, contextual menus in Windows XP (again, I haven't spent enough time in Vista to memorize anything) are hit and miss. In one MS application, they'll operate one way, and in another, there'll be another.
Window management is a large topic, but Windows still fails on this. No "always on top." I have to click to use a scroll wheel. Etc. The original link has more information.
Windows has multiple desktops as an add-on, but basically everyone agrees that the behavior is broken and half-done. My friends also claim it's unstable, but I've never seen that problem.
I like having two copy buffers without resorting to a clip manager. Middle-click gives me that.
I mentioned the user file system. Gnome works on many systems. Linux isn't the only one. I wasn't talking about the LSB. Having my files, folders, and configurations in one place makes backing up easy.
Menu layout in Windows is the joke. You're confusing the slow load times (which, again, suck) and the panel problem you mentioned earlier with the menu layout. Open someone else's Windows' menu and try to find the word processor if you don't know which one they have installed. If they don't have anything extra, it's in Accessories. If they have MS Office, it's in that menu item and waaay at the bottom of other stuff. What if it's OO.o? Star Office? Their copy of Hanword they brought over from Korea? These would all be in the "Office" menu in Gnome.
I'm not a Gnome fanatic. They had the awful bug of not being able to click a button when it appears under your mouse and it didn't get fixed for something like seven years. There are lots of problems. You mentioned some of them.
There are also a lot of issues under Gnome on Linux and Solaris. I expect Sun, Red Hat, Canonical, and the other Gnome desktop vendors to help fix that stuff. I don't blame the Gnome devs for those problems, though. That would be silly.
Something that doesn't get mentioned enough in discussions like these right now is FreeDesktop.org's role. They are creating a lot of specs that are making different Unix desktops work together quite well. Configuration is handled a certain way. Trash is handled one way. There are standard names for system icons. XRandR is a godsend. There's a new spec to handle previews and thumbnails. This is the kind of stuff that peopl
If you want to talk about the programming merits of the Gnome devs, you should break things into layers and look at the layer that Gnome occupies.
This is a story about Gnome and we were discussing Gnome (and it's faults), so I think we've already done that. The GP was trying to bring something into the conversation which isn't relevant.
Nah. It's a sad fact that the pirated versions will be superior to the commercially-available ones and include everything the average use wants out of the box. Computer on a disk, all at Panthip Plaza!
Agreed. I'd like to see more options and previews in the file dialog. Freedesktop.org has had a recent, long discussion about thumbnails and has a spec up for it. I hope this means that we can look for more integration of thumbnails into file dialogs.
Again, the behavior of what? The graphics subsystem affects the behavior of the graphics subsystem, not Gnome. The administration utilities for each system reflect that system and nothing else. Windows uses its system. OSX uses its own. Some Unix systems use X, but some don't. Don't confuse system administration with user experience. If you want to talk about a specific operating system's problems, then do that. Don't conflate them with the Gnome desktop.
Do you want the world to standardize on one graphics layer? Never mind. Looking at your responses, it's obvious that you do and which one you think that should be.
How is what UI consistency? That has no sensible antecedent here.
Gnome has the HIG, which makes Gnome applications and the desktop function consistently. It means that Gnome does the same thing that Apple does for Mac in this regard. No, I don't want to get into an argument about whether Macs or Gnome are more usable. I'm saying that Gnome is consistent with itself. The developers judge applications based on the HIG before those apps are allowed to become part of the official Gnome desktop.
Windows applications, on the other hand, have no standard and every one is completely different, which Windows users seem to enjoy. Sometimes a context menu on the desktop will get you what you expect. Other times, though, it won't.
Re:Catching up ever so slowly
on
GNOME 2.24 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The graphics sussytem is not a part of Gnome, or Gnome wouldn't run on so many systems. Heck, you can almost get Gnome to run on Windows.
Gnome can hide panel icons that you don't use. You put them in a "drawer."
Managing the network is the job of the operating system, not a desktop environment.
I'll quote myself, since you obviously didn't read my post the first time:
Gnome configures everything for Gnome and always has. Since Gnome runs on a large number of operating systems, it doesn't deal withthe underlying system, and you'll have to be specific about which one isn't configurable and take that up with the OS vendor. That's not the job of a cross-platform desktop.
Getting slow icons is certainly annoying, and has been improved in recent versions, but it's not more annoying than clicking on the Start menu and waiting for five seconds to have it show up. You can turn off icons in the menu, too, if you want that.
Re:Catching up ever so slowly
on
GNOME 2.24 Released
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
No, I call it trolling for being misinformation. 95%? Let's look at the details:
2.1. Stay in Touch
This is about voice / video and the new IM client in Gnome. Has Windows had integrated AOL or Yahoo! Chat since Win98? No? Does it now? I didn't think so.
2.2. Track Your Time Better
Did Windows 98 have an integrated time-tracker? No?
2.3. Ekiga 3.0
Has Windows had an integrated Voice / Video / Text SIP client since Win98? Hmmm....
2.4. File Management
Complex Asian characters in Win98? Tabbed file browser? Tab completion in the file browser?
2.5. Do More With Deskbar
Calculator, Google search, Yahoo suggestions, Twitter updates, and indexed search from a key press? Not even to this day.
2.6. New Screen Resolution Controls
Windows has had this one for a while.
2.7. New Sound Theme Support
Windows, annoyingly, has had this one since like Win95. I think it says a lot about Microsoft's priorities.
2.8. Better Digital TV
I'd be really surprised if Win98 had DVB capability.
2.9. Extra Pretty
Desktop backgrounds. Again, Windows has had numerous wallpapers for years, but it says something about what they think is important when they still haven't gotten window management to work correctly.
Two out of nine. 22%. Not quite 95%, eh? I give you a D+.
Let's talk about localization. Windows XP3 offers retail installs for Chinese Simplified, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish [1] (that's eight), while Gnome offers forty-five languages.
Re:Catching up ever so slowly
on
GNOME 2.24 Released
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
BS.
Comparing Gnome 2.24 to Win2000 is a joke. Heck, comparing it to WinXP is a joke. Gnome 2.24 is a modern desktop just like Windows Vista is, only faster. Same bling available. Better consistency. Better features than WinXP (though probably not Vista). In fact, using Windows XP makes my ears bleed after only a few minutes.
X (not Gnome) has handled multiple monitor setups since before I started using it in 1997.
Gnome has strict accessibility and localization requirements and has since 2.2. Windows wasn't even localized in Thai until Gnome adoption there forced it to be, and even then they just half-assed the "start menu" and nothing else. A generation of Thais learned to do computing in a language they didn't understand.
ESD never had a problem with mixing stuff if you used it instead of OSS or ALSA. It even mixes stuff locally and outputs it to another computer if you want it to. Maybe your problem is that you didn't know what you were doing....
Gnome configures everything for Gnome and always has. Since Gnome runs on a large number of operating systems, it doesn't deal withthe underlying system, and you'll have to be specific about which one isn't configurable and take that up with the OS vendor. That's not the job of a cross-platform desktop.
Since we're playing this game, these are the places Windows doesn't live up to Gnome:
You just asked for the same functionality. You didn't state a need for Exchange as the back-end, or I wouldn't have bothered answering.
BTW, there's a MAPI adapter for Evolution. File a bug with Novell (the main developers) if you need something specific that it doesn't have already. The problems you're having are with the OWA adapter, I'm sure.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple buying NeXT doesn't, however, give Apple the ability to patent old technology the other company invented twenty years ago. Don't pretend that the patent was applied for back when the company was NeXT and bought along with it.
There's no doubt that NextStep was way ahead of its time (and really needed the hardware to catch up) and NeXT deserves a lot of credit, but I don't think that buying a company and using eleven-year-old technology in a new patent to be granted almost twenty years after the tech originally appeared gives Apple anything. The fact that there were tens of competing implementations in the years between the first appearance and the filing date just means that there's even less of link (and yes, that's now less than nothing)!
As long as Apple is patenting this very specific use of the dock the way it appears that they are, I have no more problem with it than I would any other software or UI patent.
I'm going to open my mouth when I probably shouldn't, but I've been out of the intel field for enough years that no one is going to get pissed off for me talking.
Satellite imaging is really pretty good. Better than you think. The military stuff is excellent. Imagine what we're doing now with atmospheric telescopes that we couldn't have done twenty years ago and realize that the same principles apply when the direction is reversed.
What really pisses me off is that I would have gone to jail back in the day for what they are green-lighting now. Much less than that, even. Disgusting.
I'm really glad I left all that intel stuff behind or I would end up in jail when I refused to follow orders.
Anyone writing for Gnome should use Vala, Gnome's own c#-alike language.
If you think MS doesn't have patents on parts of the Win32 API, then you're really messed up. The cross-patent licensing deal with Novell was for all patents. It would also include any Win32 patents. NET vs. Wine isn't relevant there since the patents involved weren't divulged..
.NET apps to run on Linux. People now write for Mono. Wine started as a way to compile Windows Apps for use on Unix. People now also write and certify their applications for Wine. You also appear to think this is different, and somehow get people to mod you up for your poor reasoning.
Mono started as a way for
your done learning to read
...but not to write.
In reality, there's a ton of stuff over the 5th-grade reading level. Most of the books worth reading are there.
Paul Newman, dead at 83. Truly an American icon.
Since they passed "Vista Capable" standards, I think part of the fault was MS', but it doesn't really matter because the assertion that Vista's problem was 6-year-old hardware was absolutely incorrect.
First of all, stating that "Windows has had" something since Win98 doesn't mean that there were third-party applications available for it, or you wouldn't have bothered comparing Gnome to Win 98 with the phrase "It is nice to see more features that Windows had 10 years ago." Gnome also had third-party clients for most of these things years ago. They just weren't part of the standard desktop. You can adjust your score back down to 20-30% again. ;)
You also fail to understand the difference between the Gnome Deskbar and a taskbar. (Gnome doesn't call them taskbars: it has "panels.") The Deskbar is similar to Vista's Instant Search, but does a lot more than desktop search by default. Gnome has also had this for a while. It just added some new features like updating Twitter and using recommended searches from Yahoo!.
Regarding localization, I Googled and provided a Microsoft link stating what their retail languages were. I assumed it was accurate. Based on your and another poster's response, I guess I chose the wrong page and that there are many more, but I stand by my original assertion that Thai is still not supported by MS. Based on their release of the "Thai Starter Pack," which had about seven words translated, I would also guess that the translations they do have are not as complete as you think they are. All I can say is that MS must do a better job of localization there in Europe than they do here in Asia. It really stinks here.
Anyway, I'm pretty much done with this thread, so you can flame away without worry of a rebuttal from me.
There is a difference between support for entry of a language and the OS being localized in it. I did a Google search and took the announcement at face value. I assumed that XP had settled on its localized languages by the time SP3 came out. The list verified with all the versions I'd ever used (which include Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) so it seemed accurate. In short, Windows isn't localized into Thai in XP -- at least it wasn't the last time I checked. Thai's still not on the list you provided, so I guess I'm not wrong on that count, anyway.
There are a lot of localities that would like Windows localized for them, but it doesn't and hasn't happened. With the kind of money MS makes from Windows, I think that's a shame.
I am going to clarify some things for you, though.
I'm not a Gnome fanatic. They had the awful bug of not being able to click a button when it appears under your mouse and it didn't get fixed for something like seven years. There are lots of problems. You mentioned some of them.
There are also a lot of issues under Gnome on Linux and Solaris. I expect Sun, Red Hat, Canonical, and the other Gnome desktop vendors to help fix that stuff. I don't blame the Gnome devs for those problems, though. That would be silly.
Something that doesn't get mentioned enough in discussions like these right now is FreeDesktop.org's role. They are creating a lot of specs that are making different Unix desktops work together quite well. Configuration is handled a certain way. Trash is handled one way. There are standard names for system icons. XRandR is a godsend. There's a new spec to handle previews and thumbnails. This is the kind of stuff that peopl
If you want to talk about the programming merits of the Gnome devs, you should break things into layers and look at the layer that Gnome occupies.
This is a story about Gnome and we were discussing Gnome (and it's faults), so I think we've already done that. The GP was trying to bring something into the conversation which isn't relevant.
Nah. It's a sad fact that the pirated versions will be superior to the commercially-available ones and include everything the average use wants out of the box. Computer on a disk, all at Panthip Plaza!
The problem with Vista was people tried to use current software on 6+ year old computers.
The problem with Vista was that it wouldn't run decently on the computers it was being sold on .
Ha ha. Point well taken.
Compare
Next, compare
Now tell me with a straight face that Windows knows how to look like Windows.
Agreed. I'd like to see more options and previews in the file dialog. Freedesktop.org has had a recent, long discussion about thumbnails and has a spec up for it. I hope this means that we can look for more integration of thumbnails into file dialogs.
Again, the behavior of what? The graphics subsystem affects the behavior of the graphics subsystem, not Gnome. The administration utilities for each system reflect that system and nothing else. Windows uses its system. OSX uses its own. Some Unix systems use X, but some don't. Don't confuse system administration with user experience. If you want to talk about a specific operating system's problems, then do that. Don't conflate them with the Gnome desktop.
Do you want the world to standardize on one graphics layer? Never mind. Looking at your responses, it's obvious that you do and which one you think that should be.
Gnome uses the preview pane by default, but you can just DnD from Nautilus if you prefer.
How is what UI consistency? That has no sensible antecedent here.
Gnome has the HIG, which makes Gnome applications and the desktop function consistently. It means that Gnome does the same thing that Apple does for Mac in this regard. No, I don't want to get into an argument about whether Macs or Gnome are more usable. I'm saying that Gnome is consistent with itself. The developers judge applications based on the HIG before those apps are allowed to become part of the official Gnome desktop.
Windows applications, on the other hand, have no standard and every one is completely different, which Windows users seem to enjoy. Sometimes a context menu on the desktop will get you what you expect. Other times, though, it won't.
Gnome can hide panel icons that you don't use. You put them in a "drawer."
Managing the network is the job of the operating system, not a desktop environment.
I'll quote myself, since you obviously didn't read my post the first time:
Gnome configures everything for Gnome and always has. Since Gnome runs on a large number of operating systems, it doesn't deal withthe underlying system, and you'll have to be specific about which one isn't configurable and take that up with the OS vendor. That's not the job of a cross-platform desktop.
Getting slow icons is certainly annoying, and has been improved in recent versions, but it's not more annoying than clicking on the Start menu and waiting for five seconds to have it show up. You can turn off icons in the menu, too, if you want that.
This is about voice / video and the new IM client in Gnome. Has Windows had integrated AOL or Yahoo! Chat since Win98? No? Does it now? I didn't think so.
Did Windows 98 have an integrated time-tracker? No?
Has Windows had an integrated Voice / Video / Text SIP client since Win98? Hmmm
Complex Asian characters in Win98? Tabbed file browser? Tab completion in the file browser?
Calculator, Google search, Yahoo suggestions, Twitter updates, and indexed search from a key press? Not even to this day.
Windows has had this one for a while.
Windows, annoyingly, has had this one since like Win95. I think it says a lot about Microsoft's priorities.
I'd be really surprised if Win98 had DVB capability.
Desktop backgrounds. Again, Windows has had numerous wallpapers for years, but it says something about what they think is important when they still haven't gotten window management to work correctly.
Two out of nine. 22%. Not quite 95%, eh? I give you a D+.
Let's talk about localization. Windows XP3 offers retail installs for Chinese Simplified, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish [1] (that's eight), while Gnome offers forty-five languages.
Comparing Gnome 2.24 to Win2000 is a joke. Heck, comparing it to WinXP is a joke. Gnome 2.24 is a modern desktop just like Windows Vista is, only faster. Same bling available. Better consistency. Better features than WinXP (though probably not Vista). In fact, using Windows XP makes my ears bleed after only a few minutes.
X (not Gnome) has handled multiple monitor setups since before I started using it in 1997.
Gnome has strict accessibility and localization requirements and has since 2.2. Windows wasn't even localized in Thai until Gnome adoption there forced it to be, and even then they just half-assed the "start menu" and nothing else. A generation of Thais learned to do computing in a language they didn't understand.
ESD never had a problem with mixing stuff if you used it instead of OSS or ALSA. It even mixes stuff locally and outputs it to another computer if you want it to. Maybe your problem is that you didn't know what you were doing
Gnome configures everything for Gnome and always has. Since Gnome runs on a large number of operating systems, it doesn't deal withthe underlying system, and you'll have to be specific about which one isn't configurable and take that up with the OS vendor. That's not the job of a cross-platform desktop.
Since we're playing this game, these are the places Windows doesn't live up to Gnome:
Gnome vs. Win95 or Win2000? Pshaw!
You just asked for the same functionality. You didn't state a need for Exchange as the back-end, or I wouldn't have bothered answering.
BTW, there's a MAPI adapter for Evolution. File a bug with Novell (the main developers) if you need something specific that it doesn't have already. The problems you're having are with the OWA adapter, I'm sure.
Say "Thank you, Nabble."