You understand wrongly. The Motif docs themselves state:
"On December 30, 1988, OSF announced that the user environment component offering will be based on several leading technologies: Digital Equipment Corporation's toolkit technology (widgets) and the joint Hewlett-Packard/Microsoft submission of H-P's 3-D appearance and Microsoft's Presentation Manager-compatible behavior (window manager)."
Or, to paraphrase: we copied Windows. If you want to be picky, you can say instead: they copied a joint IBM/Windows standard (CUA, isn't it?), but it amounts to the same thing.
This is backwards. Motif copied Windows. Credit where credit is due. Did you know that one of the stated design goals of Motif was to give X "the visual elegance of Microsoft Windows"? If Unix GUIs are still so goddamn awful today, it's in large part because of the years spent resolutely refusing to do independent thinking, and instead copying already-existing crud.
Seems to me as though the powers that be in the US Army should read more of the right kind of sci-fi: Frederick Pohl's "The Wizards of Pungs Corners" would do for a start. Sorry, can't find it on the net. Originally published 1959; you'll find it in Penguin's "Connoisseur's SF" anthology, and doubtless other collections. (Please God, let it be that at least one other reader of slashdot knows what the fuck I'm talking about...)
THERE IS POWER IN A UNION (JOE HILL) (1913)
Tune: "There Is Power in the Blood" (L. E. JONES)
First published in the 6 March 1913 edition of the Industrial Worker
"Little Red Songbook."
Would you have freedom from wage slavery,
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
Would you from mis'ry and hunger be free,
Then come! Do your share, like a man.
CHORUS:
There is pow'r, there is pow'r
In a band of workingmen.
When they stand hand in hand,
That's a pow'r, that's a pow'r
That must rule in every land --
One Industrial Union Grand.
Would you have mansions of gold in the sky,
And live in a shack, way in the back?
Would you have wings up in heaven to fly,
And starve here with rags on your back?
If you've had "nuff" of "the blood of the lamb,"
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
If, for a change, you would have eggs and ham.
Then come! Do your share, like a man.
If you like sluggers to beat off your head,
Then don't organize, all unions despise,
If you want nothing before you are dead,
Shake hands with your boss and look wise.
Come, all ye workers, from every land,
Come join in the grand Industrial band.
Then we our share of this earth shall demand.
Come on! Do your share, like a man.
[from www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/power.html, but it's doubtless
all over the place]
Are you a lawyer? I ask because you seem very ready with legal
advice. Cox clearly states that he has taken legal advice, and
is acting upon it by refusing to release these details to US kernel
developers. Are you actually competent to advise him differently,
or are you just mouthing off?
Re:The Glory of Emacs
on
GNU Emacs 21
·
· Score: 2
I'm a long time hard-core vi user. vi is *all* I use, for all
editing; I've got all these weird macros in.exrc; and in any other
editor, I'm shortly reduced to swearing and cursing because I can't
get into command mode! I had a brief fling with emacs, but it
didn't last: all this control meta stuff all the time wore me out.
But, inspired by this and a few other comments on/., I've just been
trying out viper-mode, and it is really impressive. It actually does
feel like vi. I was put off by emacs' attempts to emulate vi in
the past: the old vi mode was rotten. Now that there is a "real" vi
mode, the combination of vi's wonderful user interface combined with
the power of emacs is very attractive. Maybe I'll make the switch --
if only I could get rid of this damned blinking block cursor...
Re:Alright, the first emacs 21 question
on
GNU Emacs 21
·
· Score: 2
The cursor blinks in 20.4 too, here at least. And it's a big ugly block.
Any way of changing this? The solution given for 21 doesn't work.
Re:From inside an asbestos bunker...
on
GNU Emacs 21
·
· Score: 2
Well, Richard Stallman, the original author of GNU Emacs, is an old-school
Lisp hacker. I have the impression he thinks of GNU as the best of a bad
bunch; he'd probably rather be working on an old Symbolics Lisp Machine.
So he's doubtless not too bothered about "the Unix philosphy".
It's maybe not such a good idea to take stuff such as "The Cathedral
and the Bazaar" as a description of how software development, free or
otherwise, ought to be handled. Here is
some good analysis and criticism of "CatB" et al.
.
Re:grr spell check grrr
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
·
· Score: 2
Huh? You want a spell check feature in a web browser? What are
you planning on doing? Playing "spelling nazi" with other people's
web sites?
OK, so no more Eazel. Maybe now IBM will finally wise up and implement
a version of OS/2's Workplace Shell for Linux. It's hard to believe: I
was using this superior GUI in 1994, and 7 years later everyone is still
enthusing about the possibilities of making Linux into a "like Windows
only not as good" system.
My point stands. Dictionary definitions are all well and good, but if
you rely on Websters to tell you what "fascism" was or is, then I feel
sorry for you. Lohengrin is a fascist opera? Yes, and I'm a Dutchman
(non-flying variety).
Wagner was not a fascist: nor a Nazi, which is what I suspect you meant.
Not only is it anachronistic to call him so, but it is plain wrong in
any case. Wagner, by the standards of his time, was on the left --
he fought on the barricades in '48, if I remember rightly. He was a
nationalist and an anti-semite, certainly. But the latter term probably
describes most people in those days, to some degree.
I know it's always said, but I don't think Wagner was Hitler's
favourite composer in fact. I seem to recall reading somewhere that he
listened mostly to operetta; and when something more serious was wanted,
he favoured Bruckner. But no one ever calls Bruckner a "Nazi composer"
just because Hitler liked his music. The idea is clearly absurd.
"open source"? What's that? Whatever; I was merely pointing out the irony of an
interface to Freenet being developed for a non-free platform. It's
not a very profound point, perhaps, but it's certainly not "FUD" -- no need to go wetting
yourself.
Re:I'd say pour the work into Mozilla first
on
Eazel On The Ropes
·
· Score: 2
I tried out Mozilla on my 486 (yeah, yeah, you spend your money on
hardware, I have a life, okay?) last year, and was dumbfounded at the
slowness of the thing. It was just wretched, really unbelievably slow.
I didn't and still don't understand why. This is not rocket science.
OK, so the machine was only a 486 with 24Mb RAM and a similarly-aged
m/b; but netscape can run decently well on the same platform,
why not mozilla? Granted, I'm comparing netscape "pre-bloat"
(3.04) to what is in effect the end-product of years of bloatware
(netscape 4 et seq). Whatever, that's history. Now, I have a Pentium
166 with 128Mb of RAM and a less obsolete m/b. And you know what?
Mozilla is usable. It doesn't fly, but it does well enough for sites
that I can't see properly in lynx. And it works, it doesn't crash
-- I've *never* had netscape stay up under intensive use for long,
and while I haven't pushed mozilla as hard, so far it seems much more
stable. So, here's one nay-sayer who's halfway-converted, at least.
And that's good, because mozilla is in many ways the test
case of free software. At present, it has reached the point that
Richard Stallman refers to when he says he'd rather use an inferior
free application than a super-duper bells and whistles non-free one.
That's mozilla now: usable but inferior; and maybe it can reach the
point of being a true netscape (or, dare I say it, IE) replacement.
This is very necessary; it's all very well saying, "hey! just use lynx"
(and I often do say it), but if users of free software don't want to
be cut off from large swathes of the web, they need a modern browser,
and right now it's mozilla or bust. By comparison, Gnome and KDE
and Eazel and all this stuff is just iceing on the cake.
Wow! You used 769 words to completely miss the point. Is that some
kind of record? "If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it"
is exactly the argument these huge conglomerates use -- that should
make anyone a bit suspicious straight off. Is that all freedom
means to you? The choice between Brand X and Brand Y? Has it never
occurred to you that society might be composed of anything other
than atomised consumers making trivial consumer "choices" between
two types of coloured sugar water or monogrammed running shoes?
Thanks for explaining what MAPS does, which I knew already. What point
are you making that I haven't already addressed? The original post,
which you obviously haven't read, had nothing to do with my ISP per
se; go read it.
Re:The aliens have left the phones off the hook
on
Explaining SETI
·
· Score: 5
It's Erich von Däniken here on/.! Cool! Come on, tell me you're
joking. I find it hard to believe that anyone still takes this stuff
seriously. This "chariot of the Gods" stuff has been debunked time
and time again. Do-it-yourself debunking is easy (hint: apply logic);
but if you can't be bothered, here are some links:
Slashdot Mirror
You understand wrongly. The Motif docs themselves state:
"On December 30, 1988, OSF announced that the user environment
component offering will be based on several leading technologies:
Digital Equipment Corporation's toolkit technology (widgets)
and the joint Hewlett-Packard/Microsoft submission of H-P's 3-D
appearance and Microsoft's Presentation Manager-compatible behavior
(window manager)."
Or, to paraphrase: we copied Windows. If you want to be picky,
you can say instead: they copied a joint IBM/Windows standard (CUA,
isn't it?), but it amounts to the same thing.
> Windows is basically a clone of Motif
This is backwards. Motif copied Windows. Credit where credit
is due. Did you know that one of the stated design goals of Motif
was to give X "the visual elegance of Microsoft Windows"? If Unix
GUIs are still so goddamn awful today, it's in large part because
of the years spent resolutely refusing to do independent thinking,
and instead copying already-existing crud.
Seems to me as though the powers that be in the US Army should read
more of the right kind of sci-fi: Frederick Pohl's "The Wizards
of Pungs Corners" would do for a start. Sorry, can't find it on
the net. Originally published 1959; you'll find it in Penguin's
"Connoisseur's SF" anthology, and doubtless other collections.
(Please God, let it be that at least one other reader of slashdot
knows what the fuck I'm talking about...)
Is switching to FreeBSD an option? The virtual memory management there is much better than in Linux under stress.
Mind now, or you'll take someone's eye out with that!
Yes, I read it, but I mis-remembered. Quite right: a Lisp Machine might be his preferred platform, but certainly not a Symbolics box.
The media are spreading disinformation. So what? That's what they are there for. It's called the society of the spectacle.
Tune: "There Is Power in the Blood" (L. E. JONES)
First published in the 6 March 1913 edition of the Industrial Worker "Little Red Songbook."
Would you have freedom from wage slavery,
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
Would you from mis'ry and hunger be free,
Then come! Do your share, like a man.
CHORUS:
There is pow'r, there is pow'r
In a band of workingmen.
When they stand hand in hand,
That's a pow'r, that's a pow'r
That must rule in every land --
One Industrial Union Grand.
Would you have mansions of gold in the sky,
And live in a shack, way in the back?
Would you have wings up in heaven to fly,
And starve here with rags on your back?
If you've had "nuff" of "the blood of the lamb,"
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
If, for a change, you would have eggs and ham.
Then come! Do your share, like a man.
If you like sluggers to beat off your head,
Then don't organize, all unions despise,
If you want nothing before you are dead,
Shake hands with your boss and look wise.
Come, all ye workers, from every land,
Come join in the grand Industrial band.
Then we our share of this earth shall demand.
Come on! Do your share, like a man.
[from www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/power.html, but it's doubtless all over the place]
A superb rebuttal of "open source", using Linux as an example.
Are you a lawyer? I ask because you seem very ready with legal
advice. Cox clearly states that he has taken legal advice, and
is acting upon it by refusing to release these details to US kernel
developers. Are you actually competent to advise him differently,
or are you just mouthing off?
I'm a long time hard-core vi user. vi is *all* I use, for all .exrc; and in any other
/., I've just been
editing; I've got all these weird macros in
editor, I'm shortly reduced to swearing and cursing because I can't
get into command mode! I had a brief fling with emacs, but it
didn't last: all this control meta stuff all the time wore me out.
But, inspired by this and a few other comments on
trying out viper-mode, and it is really impressive. It actually does
feel like vi. I was put off by emacs' attempts to emulate vi in
the past: the old vi mode was rotten. Now that there is a "real" vi
mode, the combination of vi's wonderful user interface combined with
the power of emacs is very attractive. Maybe I'll make the switch --
if only I could get rid of this damned blinking block cursor...
The cursor blinks in 20.4 too, here at least. And it's a big ugly block. Any way of changing this? The solution given for 21 doesn't work.
Well, Richard Stallman, the original author of GNU Emacs, is an old-school Lisp hacker. I have the impression he thinks of GNU as the best of a bad bunch; he'd probably rather be working on an old Symbolics Lisp Machine. So he's doubtless not too bothered about "the Unix philosphy".
It's maybe not such a good idea to take stuff such as "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" as a description of how software development, free or otherwise, ought to be handled. Here is some good analysis and criticism of "CatB" et al. .
Huh? You want a spell check feature in a web browser? What are you planning on doing? Playing "spelling nazi" with other people's web sites?
OK, so no more Eazel. Maybe now IBM will finally wise up and implement a version of OS/2's Workplace Shell for Linux. It's hard to believe: I was using this superior GUI in 1994, and 7 years later everyone is still enthusing about the possibilities of making Linux into a "like Windows only not as good" system.
My point stands. Dictionary definitions are all well and good, but if you rely on Websters to tell you what "fascism" was or is, then I feel sorry for you. Lohengrin is a fascist opera? Yes, and I'm a Dutchman (non-flying variety).
I know it's always said, but I don't think Wagner was Hitler's favourite composer in fact. I seem to recall reading somewhere that he listened mostly to operetta; and when something more serious was wanted, he favoured Bruckner. But no one ever calls Bruckner a "Nazi composer" just because Hitler liked his music. The idea is clearly absurd.
"open source"? What's that? Whatever; I was merely pointing out the irony of an interface to Freenet being developed for a non-free platform. It's not a very profound point, perhaps, but it's certainly not "FUD" -- no need to go wetting yourself.
A Windows(TM)-only interface to Freenet? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
Someone beat you to it.
I tried out Mozilla on my 486 (yeah, yeah, you spend your money on hardware, I have a life, okay?) last year, and was dumbfounded at the slowness of the thing. It was just wretched, really unbelievably slow. I didn't and still don't understand why. This is not rocket science. OK, so the machine was only a 486 with 24Mb RAM and a similarly-aged m/b; but netscape can run decently well on the same platform, why not mozilla? Granted, I'm comparing netscape "pre-bloat" (3.04) to what is in effect the end-product of years of bloatware (netscape 4 et seq). Whatever, that's history. Now, I have a Pentium 166 with 128Mb of RAM and a less obsolete m/b. And you know what? Mozilla is usable. It doesn't fly, but it does well enough for sites that I can't see properly in lynx. And it works, it doesn't crash -- I've *never* had netscape stay up under intensive use for long, and while I haven't pushed mozilla as hard, so far it seems much more stable. So, here's one nay-sayer who's halfway-converted, at least. And that's good, because mozilla is in many ways the test case of free software. At present, it has reached the point that Richard Stallman refers to when he says he'd rather use an inferior free application than a super-duper bells and whistles non-free one. That's mozilla now: usable but inferior; and maybe it can reach the point of being a true netscape (or, dare I say it, IE) replacement. This is very necessary; it's all very well saying, "hey! just use lynx" (and I often do say it), but if users of free software don't want to be cut off from large swathes of the web, they need a modern browser, and right now it's mozilla or bust. By comparison, Gnome and KDE and Eazel and all this stuff is just iceing on the cake.
Wow! You used 769 words to completely miss the point. Is that some kind of record? "If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it" is exactly the argument these huge conglomerates use -- that should make anyone a bit suspicious straight off. Is that all freedom means to you? The choice between Brand X and Brand Y? Has it never occurred to you that society might be composed of anything other than atomised consumers making trivial consumer "choices" between two types of coloured sugar water or monogrammed running shoes?
Thanks for explaining what MAPS does, which I knew already. What point are you making that I haven't already addressed? The original post, which you obviously haven't read, had nothing to do with my ISP per se; go read it.