"Now Linux is very stable (although not with Gnome, if there are any Gnome developers reading this please make it more stable"
GNOME is very stable for me. It (the core components like panel and Nautilus) almost never crash, and if one core component crashes it will just restart and everything else will continue like nothing happened.
If GNOME crashes very often then you should fill a bug report and telling the developers exactly what crashes, when, and how to reproduce it. Just saying "it's unstable" doesn't really help since we can't read your mind, and we can only fix a problem if we are able to reproduce it.
"And if it performs as well as (say) Windows 2k or XP on modern hardware,"
Mine is. Out-of-the-box.
The only exception is some feature in OpenGL which is emulated in software (because the driver doesn't support that feature). But that's a driver problem, not a problem in X/XFree86's architecture.
There's a huge difference between being able to see/modify the source and being legally able to see/modify the source. Decompiling proprietary Java apps is not legal.
You're wrong, that's completely untrue. In fact, it's the exact opposite. Check those articles about jwz's "review" or one of those distribution reviews. Count the number of +3/4/5 Insightful/Informative/Interesting posts that say Linux is a usability nightmare or is nothing compared to Windows XP or how it will never succeed on the desktop.
I can't even understand why someone modded you up. Talking about how Slashdot is pro-Linux anti-MS always makes someone get modded up, even though the exact opposite of what they claim is true.
Anonymous Coward has a good point. People usually blame open source developers for being "elitists" but don't understand HOW and WHY they got that attitude in the first place.
It's work-in-progress. Of course it isn't stable or optimized yet. But GStreamer's code architecture is a lot more modular than MPlayer. That's why I hope GStreamer will win in the long term; in the short term, MPlayer is fine.
And you think everybody would be better off if the users keep up with their screw-the-developers give-ME-ME-ME-what-I-want-for-free attidude? Dude, go read a book about human relationships. A lot of Linux developers are not commercial developers.
"But if the community can't take criticism the product (or do you consider it a "gift," and not a product?)"
There's a big difference between constructive critism and destructive critism/flames/trolls. This "article" is destructive. It's just like all those people who flood me with bug reports with "it doesn't work. fix it". Great, so it doesn't work for you. It does work for me. Now what do I do? Hack into your box just so I can reproduce the problem and maybe find a solution for it?
Again: destructive critism like this article (and many others) are useless.
"Redhat Professional? SuSE Professional? Lycoris? That doesn't look like much of a gift to me. It looks like a big hole in her pocket."
Exactly. So if you have a problem and have nothing constructive to offer, then send your critism to them. They are the professionals here. You pay them, not us. So unless you have some useful information that allows us, volunteer developers, to fix your problem, either be quiet or send your destructive critism to RedHat/Mandrake/SuSE/OtherCompany.
The point is, the users are beginning to abuse and disrespect the developers so badly, that the developers would rather WANT Linux to never succeed on the desktop than that users keep flaming them every day for their voluntary work.
Try imagining yourself as a volunteer Windows developer. What would you think if people keep flaming and demanding things from you? There's only so much you can do voluntarily until you hit the "fsck them, this is MY free time and MY life"-border.
"I disagree. System Settings has "Date & Time", "Keyboard", "Display", "Language", "Login Screen" and "Users & Groups"... all things that are "Preferences" as far I am concerned."
But they're still system-wide settings. They affect all users.
"I look at my Red Hat "Start Menu" and there is a Preference option and a "System Settings" option... who the heck came up with that!?!"
It makes sense! Desktop Preferences - Well, desktop preferences. What You User prefers. Non-destructive settings that only apply to yourself. System Settings - Applies to the entire system and can possibly be destructive when done wrong.
It makes sense to seperate the "easy, low-risk" preferences from the "harder, more low-level, and possibly dangerous" system settings.
"Well then, this boils down to whether Red Hat has a viable business model or not."
Situation 1: RedHat sells everything GPL'ed. People copy & download massively, without ever thinking about ethics, while blaming RedHat for not having a good business model. End result: everybody complains.
Situation 2: RedHat bundles proprietary software so that nobody can redistribute their distribution. Everybody suddenly massively whine about how RedHat is evil. End result: everybody complains.
And blame yourself (and others) when they run out of business and can't contribute more! Sorry but this "i don't give a crap"-bullshit is just shortsighted. If you don't give a crap then you are cutting yourself in your fingers in the long term.
"You could run Win95, and do useful work with it, on a PC with 4 MB of RAM. More was better; I ran it with 8 MB. (In 1995, RAM was expensive!)"
You gotta be kidding! I know somebody who has a 486 with 8 MB RAM running Win95, and it was painfully slow. Even opening the Start menu makes the system swap like mad. My own Pentium 166 with 16 MB RAM was better, but still slow in many cases. Then I upgraded to 48 MB and the thing flied. 4 MB RAM would make Win95 completely unusable!
People visit websites for *content* and *information*, not to drool over pixel-accurate navigation bars. The least they could have done is making a HTML navigation bar for those who don't want/have Flash installed. But they don't even do that. This is just Flash abuse, period.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah Slashdot really is the most reliable news source about China.
Last time I went there (Janurary 2003) I could access CNN and SourceForge just fine (in contrast to Slashdot's "news").
But, if we can make Linux so easy that even grandma can install it, then we are even easier than Windows and have won.
Just like how the superior (but more expensive) Betamax lost and the inferior (but cheaper) VHS won?
"Now Linux is very stable (although not with Gnome, if there are any Gnome developers reading this please make it more stable"
GNOME is very stable for me. It (the core components like panel and Nautilus) almost never crash, and if one core component crashes it will just restart and everything else will continue like nothing happened.
If GNOME crashes very often then you should fill a bug report and telling the developers exactly what crashes, when, and how to reproduce it. Just saying "it's unstable" doesn't really help since we can't read your mind, and we can only fix a problem if we are able to reproduce it.
"And if it performs as well as (say) Windows 2k or XP on modern hardware,"
Mine is. Out-of-the-box.
The only exception is some feature in OpenGL which is emulated in software (because the driver doesn't support that feature). But that's a driver problem, not a problem in X/XFree86's architecture.
There's a huge difference between being able to see/modify the source and being legally able to see/modify the source.
Decompiling proprietary Java apps is not legal.
You're wrong, that's completely untrue. In fact, it's the exact opposite.
Check those articles about jwz's "review" or one of those distribution reviews. Count the number of +3/4/5 Insightful/Informative/Interesting posts that say Linux is a usability nightmare or is nothing compared to Windows XP or how it will never succeed on the desktop.
I can't even understand why someone modded you up. Talking about how Slashdot is pro-Linux anti-MS always makes someone get modded up, even though the exact opposite of what they claim is true.
Anonymous Coward has a good point. People usually blame open source developers for being "elitists" but don't understand HOW and WHY they got that attitude in the first place.
It's work-in-progress. Of course it isn't stable or optimized yet.
But GStreamer's code architecture is a lot more modular than MPlayer. That's why I hope GStreamer will win in the long term; in the short term, MPlayer is fine.
And you think everybody would be better off if the users keep up with their screw-the-developers give-ME-ME-ME-what-I-want-for-free attidude? Dude, go read a book about human relationships. A lot of Linux developers are not commercial developers.
"But if the community can't take criticism the product (or do you consider it a "gift," and not a product?)"
There's a big difference between constructive critism and destructive critism/flames/trolls. This "article" is destructive.
It's just like all those people who flood me with bug reports with "it doesn't work. fix it". Great, so it doesn't work for you. It does work for me. Now what do I do? Hack into your box just so I can reproduce the problem and maybe find a solution for it?
Again: destructive critism like this article (and many others) are useless.
"Redhat Professional? SuSE Professional? Lycoris? That doesn't look like much of a gift to me. It looks like a big hole in her pocket."
Exactly. So if you have a problem and have nothing constructive to offer, then send your critism to them. They are the professionals here. You pay them, not us. So unless you have some useful information that allows us, volunteer developers, to fix your problem, either be quiet or send your destructive critism to RedHat/Mandrake/SuSE/OtherCompany.
The point is, the users are beginning to abuse and disrespect the developers so badly, that the developers would rather WANT Linux to never succeed on the desktop than that users keep flaming them every day for their voluntary work.
Try imagining yourself as a volunteer Windows developer. What would you think if people keep flaming and demanding things from you? There's only so much you can do voluntarily until you hit the "fsck them, this is MY free time and MY life"-border.
"I disagree. System Settings has "Date & Time", "Keyboard", "Display", "Language", "Login Screen" and "Users & Groups"... all things that are "Preferences" as far I am concerned."
But they're still system-wide settings. They affect all users.
"I look at my Red Hat "Start Menu" and there is a Preference option and a "System Settings" option... who the heck came up with that!?!"
It makes sense!
Desktop Preferences - Well, desktop preferences. What You User prefers. Non-destructive settings that only apply to yourself.
System Settings - Applies to the entire system and can possibly be destructive when done wrong.
It makes sense to seperate the "easy, low-risk" preferences from the "harder, more low-level, and possibly dangerous" system settings.
Because they don't know what "alpha" or "beta" means.
Believe me, those peope *do* exist.
Then wrap dollar bills around Alan Cox or some other talented kernel hacker.
"Well then, this boils down to whether Red Hat has a viable business model or not."
Situation 1: RedHat sells everything GPL'ed. People copy & download massively, without ever thinking about ethics, while blaming RedHat for not having a good business model.
End result: everybody complains.
Situation 2: RedHat bundles proprietary software so that nobody can redistribute their distribution. Everybody suddenly massively whine about how RedHat is evil.
End result: everybody complains.
Can you come up with a better business model?
So you're implying you'd rather want them to base their business on something that takes away your freedom?
And blame yourself (and others) when they run out of business and can't contribute more!
Sorry but this "i don't give a crap"-bullshit is just shortsighted. If you don't give a crap then you are cutting yourself in your fingers in the long term.
Isn't using a buffer overflow like this violating the DMCA or whatever?
If you truly purchased Linux distros then why don't you just call your distributor's tech support?
And is it one end user who decides what other end users' needs are?
If you don't give us money, we'll still give you a free codec.
Discussion closed.
The Mac codebase isn't even based on the Windows codebase so that doesn't count. All they have in common is the name.
"You could run Win95, and do useful work with it, on a PC with 4 MB of RAM. More was better; I ran it with 8 MB. (In 1995, RAM was expensive!)"
You gotta be kidding! I know somebody who has a 486 with 8 MB RAM running Win95, and it was painfully slow. Even opening the Start menu makes the system swap like mad. My own Pentium 166 with 16 MB RAM was better, but still slow in many cases. Then I upgraded to 48 MB and the thing flied.
4 MB RAM would make Win95 completely unusable!
And visitors care because?
People visit websites for *content* and *information*, not to drool over pixel-accurate navigation bars.
The least they could have done is making a HTML navigation bar for those who don't want/have Flash installed. But they don't even do that.
This is just Flash abuse, period.
"How exactly would web designers test these CSS2 pages, unless at least some browsers are standards compliant?"
Use W3c's validator.