Dave, I appreciate and agree with your opinion. I agree totally. But what I am trying to point is that the opinion of a few slashdotters, as informed as it may be, doesn't count for much when the Open Source Discussion is just about to be held in the Boardroom. Trust me, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. When you are in the Boardroom, these people will have 15 minutes to listen to your argument about why they should do Open Source. You do not want to have to spend 10 minutes explaining why GCC all of the sudden stopped working. They will simply buy an Intel compiler or *gasp* Visual Studio, and be done with all the hassle.
This is all about perception, not about who is right and who is wrong. Do you honestly believe that SCO think they are right? They are not stupid, they know the game and they are playing it well, so far. Now they are in the "we are getting greedy" phase, and it will be their undoing - can you say "Enron"?
In the meantime, these actions and shenanigans are not going to show corporate purchasers and architects, let alone corporate senior management, anything about the stability and availability of open source software. Available as in "Can I use it in my business".
It also sets a very bad precedent. What if Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds get into a seriously major spat over Linus' continued use of Bitkeeper? Or Richard Stallman and the rest of the world for referring to Linux instead of GNU/Linux. When is the next time he will pick up his toys and leave the playground? After all is said and done, I think this will prove to be detrimental to the overall Free software movement. As soon as people start talking about "a little bit of harm to some members of the community to protect everybody", as it says in README.SCO, my skin starts to crawl, and a very visceral urge to run and keep running comes screaming at me with 200 mph. This is how the wich burnings started, the pogroms, the holocaust. Just about every other bit of evil in the world was preceded by words to that effect.
Bottom line is that victimising unsuspecting, innocent SCO users for a small and essentially meaningless political gain (what is the net effect gain in the scheme of things?) is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. It is the SCO users that stand to be hurt by this protest (for that is how this whole thing is labelled), not SCO itself.
And that is a stupid, shortsighted, self-serving, egotistical action.
Yes, it was in yesterday's Guardian. I just checked, and the article in question is online as well. You can find it here. I wasn't going to read the article initially, but that quote was printed as a bold sideline, and caught my eye......
What I (personally) *think* (don't assume you know what I am thinking, please. think before you answer. This place is increasingly looking like slashdot) is that this whole thing is a hoot. However, as you and many others here have pointed out, the license and the software itself are two different things, and thus they are free to change a couple of things in the software and thus render SCO support a thing of the past. This is stupid, because it will not hurt SCO, it will hurt SCO users. Some of these SCO users will also be open source developers, and will understand. THE VAST MAJORITY of current SCO users are CORPORATE SITES, who have no patience and time for open source politics, and just want to get on with life. This action may well alienate those customers, stumping the growth of open source within commercial environments.
You see, there are more sides to this story than just the "JAY!! FSF RULEZ, KICK SCO ASS" tack.....
Seriously, this is exactly the type of thing that will make people look at open source / free software and scream:"Look, they are against making money! Scumbag Communistic hippies!!"
As much as I loath the actions that SCO is taking, this is a difficult issue. Explicitly removing support for SCO systems from GCC goes against the open source definition, items 5 and 6:
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
Does this mean the FSF is no longer open source compatible? For the knee-jerkers out there, this is not a troll, it is a serious question. The issue is that Free software should be free, warts and all. Unintended consequences aside, you can't just remove the right to use GCC of any organisation that uses SCO software, it's not right....
What is impressive and life-changing about the segway is not the segway itself, but the technology it employs. The same technology that powers the segway also powers the IBOT, something like a wheelchair, delivering a previously unheard of amount of mobility to disabled users.
No, it isn't bananas, KDE is most definetly part of the Linux OS in the full meaning of Operating System". (According to dictionary.com, OS means "Software designed to control the hardware of a specific data-processing system in order to allow users and application programs to make use of it." Both windows as well as KDE fall within that catagory.)
You wanted to compare "Windows out of the box" with "KDE out of the box". That is comparing apples with oranges. KDE by itself is not an OS, Windows is. KDE is just a GDE. This isn't about the packaging system, this about a fair comparison of a standard WindowsXP box with a standard Linux box. (The fact that KDE will run on other platforms as well is simply a bonus.) Then, you are comparing like with like. I don't see how calling me a sycophant is relevant at all to this discussion. according to dictionary.com, sycophant means "A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people." What influential people?
As somebody who architects large IT projects for Fortune 100 companies, I have an agenda that stretches a bit beyond the "OMG LINUX IS RAD". I was willing to go with the "not a troll, just something to ponder" comment, but your agressive, name calling comeback to somebody who actually pondered your comment makes me think twice about that. Unless, of course, you are simply so insecure with yourself that you take this to be an ad-hominem attack as opposed to an opportunity for mature discussion.
"Do you want to get started on the path of what window comes with working, out of the box, compared to KDE?"
Yes, lets:-) I run SuSE 8.2 with a KDE setup (KDE is part of the Linux OS, just like the WindowsXP GUI is part of the WindowsXP OS), and last time I checked, it came with over 3000 usable, working applications. These applications are Free as well as being included in the purchase price. I have roughly 3 different options for Office suite to use, more email clients then I can shake a stick at, and a wide array of browsers. So as not to confuse anybody from the get-go, a sensible set of default applications are installed out of the box, while a very nice intuitive menu system lets me do a point and click install (for those who have never tried this little gem, on SuSE, click the "SuSE Work Menu/Administration/install software packages", and all the software you can install for that application/GUI combination is available as a one-click install). If that is too simple for your needs, or your application is not listed, you can invoke the powerful YaST software installer, that allows you to search on lots of criteria. After all, shipping 3000+ apps without a way to sensibly choose between them would be stupid.
There are Webservers, portal systems, mailers, exchange replacements, 4 different major DB systems, development environments, compilers, code management systems, version management systems, common infrastructure components, such as DNS, DHCP, windows file sharing, as well as other file management stuff, such as NFS, OpenAFS, and other nice toys like that. I have grid applications and toolkits, several scripting languages, including some BASIC variants, artificial intelligence applications, a BOATLOAD of cool games, debuggers, profiling tools, educational software, scientific software, graphics software, including some really top quality 3d rendering software. I have financial planners, business planner, Internet communication tools, stuff to work with a whole load of palmtops. the list goes on and on. Oh, yes, using something like WINE or Win4Lin, I can run most native windows applications as well.
I can spend a good year just assessing all the software that comes on my 2 DVD's that came in the SuSE package. I also have over 1000 pages of truly useful printed documentation, something those bastards in Redmond are too cheap to include. and to be sure, that same documentation is also included as softcopy. All this for 50 pounds sterling.
Besides all that, I have access to the source code of all these applications. If I were so inclined, I could actually start rummaging around in the guts of the thing, making it just the way I want it to be, or learning how something worked. I know who the developers are, and I can take any questions or problems straight to the source, so to speak. No secrets, no hidden gotcha's, no "call home" stuff that reports my every move. No registration, no nazi software gestapo, no jack-booted thugs that will come to raid my business for license compliance.
So, let's talk about what Windows ships with working out of the box, shall we? (not a troll, just something to ponder...)
Part of the love is of course the fact that IBM is one of the serious investors in SuSE.....
Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need
on
Kroupware Komplete
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· Score: 2, Informative
While the focus for the custom client is indeed KDE, you can use this with Evolution. It uses all the common open protocols, such as WebDAV, SMTP, POP/IMAP4 etc. Hooking this up with Evolution is no problem.
This will allow you to work with a smallish group of people, however, please note that the effort in management may not be your idea of worthwhile though. However, don dismiss it out of hand.
Alternatively, you may want to check out SuSE's OpenExchange, and excellent alternative to Exchange.
I usually refrain from the "mod parent up" type of comment, but...
mod parent up!
i share my office daily with intelligent, well learned, and astute information architects, we have a frank discussion about the fact that Gartner analysts would sell out their mothers if it would make them money, we all agree they are scum suckers, and off they go using Gartner as gospel. I guess there is a weird sense of comfort to be found in not having to think for yourself.....
Ah, I see. you mean, like the Debian team do, but then different.....
Seriously, I know what you are trying to say, but isn't that what all distro's do? and if Ximian is doing the same, does that make Ximian a distro? Isn't that the *definition* of a distro?
The way I see see it, Ximian is just a distro that doesn't implement the base layer, but just layers on top of my exisiting distro. That would be fine, were it not for the fact that that breaks whatever distro it sits on. consumers would now be asking: Who's security patches do I apply? Who is going to support, oh, say, the XML subsystem of my box? I paid £60 for my copy of SuSE 8.2, and more for support. If I install Ximian, what is SuSE going to say if I have an issue with that XML subsystem (I know: they will tell me to send a mail to miguel de Icaza, and ask him WTF happend to my perfectly good and stable distro.)
This is what I was aiming at when I was talking about supplying patches to upstream etc. The best way to maintain a stable 200 packages *from Ximians perspective* is to roll your own, and give those to your customers. The best way from the end users perspective is to use something that doesn't screw up your exisiting distro.
Hmm, well, whatever. In a different post, I defend my statements blow-by-blow. Please head over there to discuss them, since it is a big post, and I don't feel like re-iterating them here. I am not very angry, I just have an opinion. You may not like my opinion, and you may have a different opinion, but the fact that we do not share the same worldview does not make my statements FUD. FUD, for your information, stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, nonen of wich I attempt to sow. However, the fact that you can only conceive of me living in a "state" - i.e the US, shows the limitations of your worldview, so i'll just leave it at that.
Sorry, but "trolling" and "not sharing the same point of view are different things". As to you question why I can post at +2, well, that is adequately answered in the Slashdot FAQ. It means I have lots of Karma. Which in turn means I am known not to troll, and sometimes even say something sensible.
"someone, please shut him up" O shit, sorry, forgot, can only agree with the majority view, right. what a twat you are. Intelligent discourse is what broadens your horizons, not conformance to some random norm.
Thanks for your reply. Had you considered IMAP/LDAP/DAV/SMTP? I find that works nicely, even with MSX, and even cross-platform, and pretty much surfs around any backend integration issues. Calendaring is not nice and broken, on just about any platform, but DAV as a transport has worked well for me in the past.
As you gather, I do not agree with saving in MS format - the argument of "mixed environment" c"easy compatibility" etc,, only work if you accept them without challenge. In this case, the con's *seriously* outweigh the pro's. There many different solutions to document compatibility. Saving in a broken format is the worst of them all, especially when you take into into account the relatively high failure rate of OOo saving in Ms format - it will just lead to a terrible ser experience. What do prefer: hassle when saving a file, or corrupted files? the hassle when saving a file can be sorted out with competent technology, especially when you have the specifications to the file format at your disposal.
"about 8" means 7 firm pilots (i.e. bought and paid for by a customer as pilots) and one was really a pilot, but not officially so. I am not saying that Red Carpet or GNOME don't work, I am questioning "fitness for purpose". Virtual Folders are neither new nor unique, and extensive search capabillities are available to me all over the place.
I am neither spreading FUD, nor do I use Outlook (I use Horde ) And please point out the difference between FUD and opinions that are not the same as yours. And yes, I have used the g-conf editor. I have even architected an application around GConf. (involving CVS, RSYNC, LDAP and a lot of other stuff).
Based on your website, I would never let you near any of my datacenters.
Well, I expected to be flamed to bits for this post, but am also prepared to back up my claims. I am, however, at work, and that means my replies may not be as comprehensive as I would like them to be. you asked me to list some reasons as to why KDE consistently comes out on top of the pilots I have lead or been involved with. Well, there are many. Polished, looking good, fit for purpose, easy to configure, easy to manage, sane backend architecture and infrastructure are some of the ones that most frequently come up. On the other hand, GNOME is frequently found to be more robust in the individual components (whereas KDE is found to be more robust overall.) Those are just some of the reasons. I have well over 600 pages of documentation that back up this fact. Some are public domain. Most are not, sadly.
You ask me to list the reasons why XD2 will scare off any serious sysadmin. Here goes a brief list. XD2, as well as GNOME, employ a philosophy that "less is more" however, that concept is, initself, seriously debatable. Less is more may work for a sub-class of your end-user base (task-workers, typically 65% of the linux-deployable desktop users), but there are users where this doesn't work at all (knowledge-workers, about 30% of the linux-deployable users. Typcally, about 80% of a given Fortune 100 company is "linux deployable" on the desktop. These are, of course, generalisations and simplifications, but the point is clear). So at the end of the day, you will end up with a situation where you need a fast, flexible, scalable and manageable approach to administering and customising the desktop environment. different users have different needs, and these needs change form company to company. For Ximian to assume that "they know best for all" is ridiculous.
As th whether or not i use drugs, I don't. My knick is a reference to the Slashdot madness, and my willingness to participate in that. You, on the other hand, do not address the issue of lock in, that most certainly exists.
People buy the Ximian Connector for the same reasons MS is the market leader today: smart marketing, and selective education. I think we can at least both agree that the Linux desktop, in whatever form, is often the better solution to the MS desktop, although I suspect our reasons will probably significantly differ. Nevertheless, MS has the vast majority of market share. Go Figure! why do they buy that?
As to supporting an unix client on exchange: IMAP, SMTP, LDAP, WebDAV. etc. etc. They actually work, you know?
As long as the killscript ships with the default distro it comes with (in this case, redhat) I am working on the asumption it is required.
You can call me many things, but ignorant I am most certainly not. I may not share your opinion, and you may love CORBA while most enterprises don't use it, but still, that does not make me ignorant. CORBA is dying. Your sleigh of hand with mentioning lesser implementations still don't make CORBA much more alive. Moreover, you don't support your assertion that CORBA is alive and kicking. Why don't you search for "CORBA developer" and "J2EE developer" on any jobsite. or "CORBA Architect" and "J2EE Architect". That usually gives you an idea of how wanted a certain technology is in the marketplace.
Regarding the GConf comment, are you saying that binary databases are not used as GConf backends? that they are not possible? Sure XML is used now, but that is only after some seriousl flamewars a few years ago.
Phew, almost there.... Now, with respect to OpenOffice.org saving in MS format, that is just wrong in so many ways, it is an essay on its own (which I am, in fact, writing, and will be presenting as a discussion paper in a conference sometime soon). However, As MS has so successfully shown, Technology can NEVER replace education. when is the last time *you* researched document and information flow within the enterprise? I have, just recently, and found that roughly 65% of the information flow in a typical enterprise is internal, and the
A question I have had for a *very* long time. Why ship all those packages? Why essentially make a distro-in-a-distro? I appreciate that some of the stuff you would need would require some patching, but why not do what everyone else does, and submit upstream? You are, at the end of the day, not only forking Linux to an extent, but also invalidating any hope of support the unsuspecting victim may have from his original distro. when I orginally got XD1, I noticed Ximian was installing 200+ packages that *were already on my machine*. Not a good sign. More like a sign of hopeless architecture, to me. Not to knock Ximian too hard (I do that in another post;-) ) , but I would really like to understand the technical reasoning behind that particular design decision.
Oh, and "can't be bothered / can't convince the upstream amaintainers to accept my patches" is not an answer. So far, all I can see is that Ximian is trying to get the same lock-in on my desktop that Microsoft has....
installations, or downloads? and is that including me? I installed Evo, as well as XD1 a few times, but am no longer using it. I imagine there are quite a few others like me that have done the same. Do you including re-installs in that count? When you quote stats, could you please be clear? thanks.
Trust you? why? Do you have *any* credentials in the corporate linux market? The fact that GNOME and Sun are now practically joined at the hip, and that RedHat has GNOME switched on on all their serves by default does *not* mean they are somehow an unstoppable force on the corporate desktop.
On the other hand, I have designed and managed about 8 large scale pilots (think thousands of seats) for linux on the desktop, and have been involved with many more, all aimed at the Corporate/Government market. So far, for every single one of them, KDE has been the top choice of both admins as well as users, for a tremendous amount of reasons. The Ximian/GNOME team are really not heading in the right direction, when it comes to desktop design, and they have pretty much made sure that the design decisions that went into XD2 will scare off any serious systems manager, or at the very least, give them the same amount of lock-in and dependency that Ms offers them today.
The Ximian Connector you so highly tout only delivers value to Ximian, not to the end user (it enables Ximian to get more users on Evolution). I can easily connect and collaborate with Exchange servers, in a variety of ways, including a fat-client, if I would wish to do so -- without having to use Evolution, *or* suffer a major loss of functionality. Evolution, besides being a badly-implemented Outlook Clone, does not really offer me any unique solutions, and combined with the tight GNOME coupling, again makes for an uncompelling argument. Moreover, any application that requires a 3k killscript, just to get the system back to a usable state when (not if, when) the application crashes, need to be taken out back and shot. several times. Just check out/usr/bin/killev for the joys of CORBA programming . Years after CORBA is dumped in just about any enterprise as an archaic, slow-moving and basically retarded piece of middleware (mainly due to design-by-comittee politics, not technology, I hasten to add), the GNOME/XIMIANS dudes and dudettes jump and say: "Hey! how cool! lets use CORBA. Sometimes I really wonder how much Microsoft is paying Ximian.
As roll-out managers go, Red Carpet (as well as the Red Hat Network) would only truly entice ex Microsoft Menu Monkeys and admins of the braindead vegetable type. There are SO MANY good application admin solutions for Linux, that could tie in with your overall enterprise management strategy if you wanted to, that the use of what is, essentially, a massive security hole, should be termed a capital crime. So far, all the stuff cooming out of the GNOME camp has been aimed at doing away with the strengths of the Linux platform and the weaknesses of the Microsoft Platform: less configuration options, those config options that are available are tucked away in a "registry" type, binary databse, outlook look-alikes, doing away with text-based management and the tremendous amount of flexibility that gives you, and now with XD2, they even set OpenOffice.org to save by default in MS formats!! how fscked up is that?!?
So, to make a long rant short, I reiterate my original remark: What are you credentials in the corporate linux market so that I should "trust you" at your word, as you ask?
O yeah, before anyone freaks out, I have nothing to do with KDE project, and have used GNOME and KDE for about the same amount of time. I am now a happy KDE user, most of the time. And no, this is not a troll, or anything like that. It is honest opinion.
As resellers to a corporate market, my organisation regularly attempts to demo the ink software on tablets. the demo's invariably fail to impress, with most users switching to the keyboard within five minutes.
Many people and "anal-ysts" claim that price is keeping sales low, however, that is total bullocks. They are not selling because it doesn't do what it says on the tin: flawless handwriting recognition, and effortless computing.
MS is selling this as the digital equivalent of a notepad - something that is totally flexible, and totally intuitive to use. instead, it is just a different form-factor PC, with all the limitations and hassles that come with it.
And once it is a PC, it's just *gotta* have Linux on it!
Indeed - right you are. You don't die or suffer physical harm. Instead, you are made to pay up, go to jail or both. The land of the free indeed -- you do know that "the land of freedom" has the largest percentage of their population in jail as compared to *any* other country in the world, do you....?
Slashdot Mirror
it was a joke. tongue in cheek, sense of humour. ha ha.
Dave, I appreciate and agree with your opinion. I agree totally. But what I am trying to point is that the opinion of a few slashdotters, as informed as it may be, doesn't count for much when the Open Source Discussion is just about to be held in the Boardroom. Trust me, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. When you are in the Boardroom, these people will have 15 minutes to listen to your argument about why they should do Open Source. You do not want to have to spend 10 minutes explaining why GCC all of the sudden stopped working. They will simply buy an Intel compiler or *gasp* Visual Studio, and be done with all the hassle.
This is all about perception, not about who is right and who is wrong. Do you honestly believe that SCO think they are right? They are not stupid, they know the game and they are playing it well, so far. Now they are in the "we are getting greedy" phase, and it will be their undoing - can you say "Enron"?
In the meantime, these actions and shenanigans are not going to show corporate purchasers and architects, let alone corporate senior management, anything about the stability and availability of open source software. Available as in "Can I use it in my business".
It also sets a very bad precedent. What if Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds get into a seriously major spat over Linus' continued use of Bitkeeper? Or Richard Stallman and the rest of the world for referring to Linux instead of GNU/Linux. When is the next time he will pick up his toys and leave the playground? After all is said and done, I think this will prove to be detrimental to the overall Free software movement. As soon as people start talking about "a little bit of harm to some members of the community to protect everybody", as it says in README.SCO, my skin starts to crawl, and a very visceral urge to run and keep running comes screaming at me with 200 mph. This is how the wich burnings started, the pogroms, the holocaust. Just about every other bit of evil in the world was preceded by words to that effect.
Bottom line is that victimising unsuspecting, innocent SCO users for a small and essentially meaningless political gain (what is the net effect gain in the scheme of things?) is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. It is the SCO users that stand to be hurt by this protest (for that is how this whole thing is labelled), not SCO itself.
And that is a stupid, shortsighted, self-serving, egotistical action.
Yes, it was in yesterday's Guardian. I just checked, and the article in question is online as well. You can find it here. I wasn't going to read the article initially, but that quote was printed as a bold sideline, and caught my eye......
What I (personally) *think* (don't assume you know what I am thinking, please. think before you answer. This place is increasingly looking like slashdot) is that this whole thing is a hoot. However, as you and many others here have pointed out, the license and the software itself are two different things, and thus they are free to change a couple of things in the software and thus render SCO support a thing of the past. This is stupid, because it will not hurt SCO, it will hurt SCO users. Some of these SCO users will also be open source developers, and will understand. THE VAST MAJORITY of current SCO users are CORPORATE SITES, who have no patience and time for open source politics, and just want to get on with life. This action may well alienate those customers, stumping the growth of open source within commercial environments.
You see, there are more sides to this story than just the "JAY!! FSF RULEZ, KICK SCO ASS" tack.....
Seriously, this is exactly the type of thing that will make people look at open source / free software and scream:"Look, they are against making money! Scumbag Communistic hippies!!"
- 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
- 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
Does this mean the FSF is no longer open source compatible? For the knee-jerkers out there, this is not a troll, it is a serious question. The issue is that Free software should be free, warts and all. Unintended consequences aside, you can't just remove the right to use GCC of any organisation that uses SCO software, it's not right....The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
What is impressive and life-changing about the segway is not the segway itself, but the technology it employs. The same technology that powers the segway also powers the IBOT, something like a wheelchair, delivering a previously unheard of amount of mobility to disabled users.
No, it isn't bananas, KDE is most definetly part of the Linux OS in the full meaning of Operating System". (According to dictionary.com, OS means "Software designed to control the hardware of a specific data-processing system in order to allow users and application programs to make use of it." Both windows as well as KDE fall within that catagory.)
You wanted to compare "Windows out of the box" with "KDE out of the box". That is comparing apples with oranges. KDE by itself is not an OS, Windows is. KDE is just a GDE. This isn't about the packaging system, this about a fair comparison of a standard WindowsXP box with a standard Linux box. (The fact that KDE will run on other platforms as well is simply a bonus.) Then, you are comparing like with like. I don't see how calling me a sycophant is relevant at all to this discussion. according to dictionary.com, sycophant means "A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people." What influential people?
As somebody who architects large IT projects for Fortune 100 companies, I have an agenda that stretches a bit beyond the "OMG LINUX IS RAD". I was willing to go with the "not a troll, just something to ponder" comment, but your agressive, name calling comeback to somebody who actually pondered your comment makes me think twice about that. Unless, of course, you are simply so insecure with yourself that you take this to be an ad-hominem attack as opposed to an opportunity for mature discussion.
"Do you want to get started on the path of what window comes with working, out of the box, compared to KDE?"
:-) I run SuSE 8.2 with a KDE setup (KDE is part of the Linux OS, just like the WindowsXP GUI is part of the WindowsXP OS), and last time I checked, it came with over 3000 usable, working applications. These applications are Free as well as being included in the purchase price. I have roughly 3 different options for Office suite to use, more email clients then I can shake a stick at, and a wide array of browsers. So as not to confuse anybody from the get-go, a sensible set of default applications are installed out of the box, while a very nice intuitive menu system lets me do a point and click install (for those who have never tried this little gem, on SuSE, click the "SuSE Work Menu/Administration/install software packages", and all the software you can install for that application/GUI combination is available as a one-click install). If that is too simple for your needs, or your application is not listed, you can invoke the powerful YaST software installer, that allows you to search on lots of criteria. After all, shipping 3000+ apps without a way to sensibly choose between them would be stupid.
Yes, lets
There are Webservers, portal systems, mailers, exchange replacements, 4 different major DB systems, development environments, compilers, code management systems, version management systems, common infrastructure components, such as DNS, DHCP, windows file sharing, as well as other file management stuff, such as NFS, OpenAFS, and other nice toys like that. I have grid applications and toolkits, several scripting languages, including some BASIC variants, artificial intelligence applications, a BOATLOAD of cool games, debuggers, profiling tools, educational software, scientific software, graphics software, including some really top quality 3d rendering software. I have financial planners, business planner, Internet communication tools, stuff to work with a whole load of palmtops. the list goes on and on. Oh, yes, using something like WINE or Win4Lin, I can run most native windows applications as well.
I can spend a good year just assessing all the software that comes on my 2 DVD's that came in the SuSE package. I also have over 1000 pages of truly useful printed documentation, something those bastards in Redmond are too cheap to include. and to be sure, that same documentation is also included as softcopy. All this for 50 pounds sterling.
Besides all that, I have access to the source code of all these applications. If I were so inclined, I could actually start rummaging around in the guts of the thing, making it just the way I want it to be, or learning how something worked. I know who the developers are, and I can take any questions or problems straight to the source, so to speak. No secrets, no hidden gotcha's, no "call home" stuff that reports my every move. No registration, no nazi software gestapo, no jack-booted thugs that will come to raid my business for license compliance.
So, let's talk about what Windows ships with working out of the box, shall we? (not a troll, just something to ponder...)
Part of the love is of course the fact that IBM is one of the serious investors in SuSE.....
While the focus for the custom client is indeed KDE, you can use this with Evolution. It uses all the common open protocols, such as WebDAV, SMTP, POP/IMAP4 etc. Hooking this up with Evolution is no problem.
This will allow you to work with a smallish group of people, however, please note that the effort in management may not be your idea of worthwhile though. However, don dismiss it out of hand.
Alternatively, you may want to check out SuSE's OpenExchange, and excellent alternative to Exchange.
I usually refrain from the "mod parent up" type of comment, but...
mod parent up!
i share my office daily with intelligent, well learned, and astute information architects, we have a frank discussion about the fact that Gartner analysts would sell out their mothers if it would make them money, we all agree they are scum suckers, and off they go using Gartner as gospel. I guess there is a weird sense of comfort to be found in not having to think for yourself.....
One of the reasons I ran like hell from XD1 was the dependency hell. Maybe XD2 has fixed that. As you say, Maybe XD3 will.
.sig gives me a headache.
Just trying to get my brain around your
Ah, I see. you mean, like the Debian team do, but then different.....
Seriously, I know what you are trying to say, but isn't that what all distro's do? and if Ximian is doing the same, does that make Ximian a distro? Isn't that the *definition* of a distro?
The way I see see it, Ximian is just a distro that doesn't implement the base layer, but just layers on top of my exisiting distro. That would be fine, were it not for the fact that that breaks whatever distro it sits on. consumers would now be asking: Who's security patches do I apply? Who is going to support, oh, say, the XML subsystem of my box? I paid £60 for my copy of SuSE 8.2, and more for support. If I install Ximian, what is SuSE going to say if I have an issue with that XML subsystem (I know: they will tell me to send a mail to miguel de Icaza, and ask him WTF happend to my perfectly good and stable distro.)
This is what I was aiming at when I was talking about supplying patches to upstream etc. The best way to maintain a stable 200 packages *from Ximians perspective* is to roll your own, and give those to your customers. The best way from the end users perspective is to use something that doesn't screw up your exisiting distro.
Hmm, well, whatever. In a different post, I defend my statements blow-by-blow. Please head over there to discuss them, since it is a big post, and I don't feel like re-iterating them here. I am not very angry, I just have an opinion. You may not like my opinion, and you may have a different opinion, but the fact that we do not share the same worldview does not make my statements FUD. FUD, for your information, stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, nonen of wich I attempt to sow. However, the fact that you can only conceive of me living in a "state" - i.e the US, shows the limitations of your worldview, so i'll just leave it at that.
Sorry, but "trolling" and "not sharing the same point of view are different things". As to you question why I can post at +2, well, that is adequately answered in the Slashdot FAQ. It means I have lots of Karma. Which in turn means I am known not to troll, and sometimes even say something sensible.
"someone, please shut him up" O shit, sorry, forgot, can only agree with the majority view, right. what a twat you are. Intelligent discourse is what broadens your horizons, not conformance to some random norm.
Thanks for your reply. Had you considered IMAP/LDAP/DAV/SMTP? I find that works nicely, even with MSX, and even cross-platform, and pretty much surfs around any backend integration issues. Calendaring is not nice and broken, on just about any platform, but DAV as a transport has worked well for me in the past.
As you gather, I do not agree with saving in MS format - the argument of "mixed environment" c"easy compatibility" etc,, only work if you accept them without challenge. In this case, the con's *seriously* outweigh the pro's. There many different solutions to document compatibility. Saving in a broken format is the worst of them all, especially when you take into into account the relatively high failure rate of OOo saving in Ms format - it will just lead to a terrible ser experience. What do prefer: hassle when saving a file, or corrupted files? the hassle when saving a file can be sorted out with competent technology, especially when you have the specifications to the file format at your disposal.
"about 8" means 7 firm pilots (i.e. bought and paid for by a customer as pilots) and one was really a pilot, but not officially so. I am not saying that Red Carpet or GNOME don't work, I am questioning "fitness for purpose". Virtual Folders are neither new nor unique, and extensive search capabillities are available to me all over the place.
I am neither spreading FUD, nor do I use Outlook (I use Horde ) And please point out the difference between FUD and opinions that are not the same as yours. And yes, I have used the g-conf editor. I have even architected an application around GConf. (involving CVS, RSYNC, LDAP and a lot of other stuff).
Based on your website, I would never let you near any of my datacenters.
Well, I expected to be flamed to bits for this post, but am also prepared to back up my claims. I am, however, at work, and that means my replies may not be as comprehensive as I would like them to be.
you asked me to list some reasons as to why KDE consistently comes out on top of the pilots I have lead or been involved with. Well, there are many. Polished, looking good, fit for purpose, easy to configure, easy to manage, sane backend architecture and infrastructure are some of the ones that most frequently come up. On the other hand, GNOME is frequently found to be more robust in the individual components (whereas KDE is found to be more robust overall.) Those are just some of the reasons. I have well over 600 pages of documentation that back up this fact. Some are public domain. Most are not, sadly.
You ask me to list the reasons why XD2 will scare off any serious sysadmin. Here goes a brief list. XD2, as well as GNOME, employ a philosophy that "less is more" however, that concept is, initself, seriously debatable. Less is more may work for a sub-class of your end-user base (task-workers, typically 65% of the linux-deployable desktop users), but there are users where this doesn't work at all (knowledge-workers, about 30% of the linux-deployable users. Typcally, about 80% of a given Fortune 100 company is "linux deployable" on the desktop. These are, of course, generalisations and simplifications, but the point is clear). So at the end of the day, you will end up with a situation where you need a fast, flexible, scalable and manageable approach to administering and customising the desktop environment. different users have different needs, and these needs change form company to company. For Ximian to assume that "they know best for all" is ridiculous.
As th whether or not i use drugs, I don't. My knick is a reference to the Slashdot madness, and my willingness to participate in that. You, on the other hand, do not address the issue of lock in, that most certainly exists.
People buy the Ximian Connector for the same reasons MS is the market leader today: smart marketing, and selective education. I think we can at least both agree that the Linux desktop, in whatever form, is often the better solution to the MS desktop, although I suspect our reasons will probably significantly differ. Nevertheless, MS has the vast majority of market share. Go Figure! why do they buy that?
As to supporting an unix client on exchange: IMAP, SMTP, LDAP, WebDAV. etc. etc. They actually work, you know?
As long as the killscript ships with the default distro it comes with (in this case, redhat) I am working on the asumption it is required.
You can call me many things, but ignorant I am most certainly not. I may not share your opinion, and you may love CORBA while most enterprises don't use it, but still, that does not make me ignorant. CORBA is dying. Your sleigh of hand with mentioning lesser implementations still don't make CORBA much more alive. Moreover, you don't support your assertion that CORBA is alive and kicking. Why don't you search for "CORBA developer" and "J2EE developer" on any jobsite. or "CORBA Architect" and "J2EE Architect". That usually gives you an idea of how wanted a certain technology is in the marketplace.
Regarding the GConf comment, are you saying that binary databases are not used as GConf backends? that they are not possible? Sure XML is used now, but that is only after some seriousl flamewars a few years ago.
Phew, almost there.... Now, with respect to OpenOffice.org saving in MS format, that is just wrong in so many ways, it is an essay on its own (which I am, in fact, writing, and will be presenting as a discussion paper in a conference sometime soon). However, As MS has so successfully shown, Technology can NEVER replace education. when is the last time *you* researched document and information flow within the enterprise? I have, just recently, and found that roughly 65% of the information flow in a typical enterprise is internal, and the
A question I have had for a *very* long time. Why ship all those packages? Why essentially make a distro-in-a-distro? I appreciate that some of the stuff you would need would require some patching, but why not do what everyone else does, and submit upstream? You are, at the end of the day, not only forking Linux to an extent, but also invalidating any hope of support the unsuspecting victim may have from his original distro. when I orginally got XD1, I noticed Ximian was installing 200+ packages that *were already on my machine*. Not a good sign. More like a sign of hopeless architecture, to me. Not to knock Ximian too hard (I do that in another post ;-) ) , but I would really like to understand the technical reasoning behind that particular design decision.
Oh, and "can't be bothered / can't convince the upstream amaintainers to accept my patches" is not an answer. So far, all I can see is that Ximian is trying to get the same lock-in on my desktop that Microsoft has....
installations, or downloads? and is that including me? I installed Evo, as well as XD1 a few times, but am no longer using it. I imagine there are quite a few others like me that have done the same. Do you including re-installs in that count? When you quote stats, could you please be clear? thanks.
Trust you? why? Do you have *any* credentials in the corporate linux market? The fact that GNOME and Sun are now practically joined at the hip, and that RedHat has GNOME switched on on all their serves by default does *not* mean they are somehow an unstoppable force on the corporate desktop.
/usr/bin/killev for the joys of CORBA programming . Years after CORBA is dumped in just about any enterprise as an archaic, slow-moving and basically retarded piece of middleware (mainly due to design-by-comittee politics, not technology, I hasten to add), the GNOME/XIMIANS dudes and dudettes jump and say: "Hey! how cool! lets use CORBA. Sometimes I really wonder how much Microsoft is paying Ximian.
On the other hand, I have designed and managed about 8 large scale pilots (think thousands of seats) for linux on the desktop, and have been involved with many more, all aimed at the Corporate/Government market. So far, for every single one of them, KDE has been the top choice of both admins as well as users, for a tremendous amount of reasons. The Ximian/GNOME team are really not heading in the right direction, when it comes to desktop design, and they have pretty much made sure that the design decisions that went into XD2 will scare off any serious systems manager, or at the very least, give them the same amount of lock-in and dependency that Ms offers them today.
The Ximian Connector you so highly tout only delivers value to Ximian, not to the end user (it enables Ximian to get more users on Evolution). I can easily connect and collaborate with Exchange servers, in a variety of ways, including a fat-client, if I would wish to do so -- without having to use Evolution, *or* suffer a major loss of functionality. Evolution, besides being a badly-implemented Outlook Clone, does not really offer me any unique solutions, and combined with the tight GNOME coupling, again makes for an uncompelling argument. Moreover, any application that requires a 3k killscript, just to get the system back to a usable state when (not if, when) the application crashes, need to be taken out back and shot. several times. Just check out
As roll-out managers go, Red Carpet (as well as the Red Hat Network) would only truly entice ex Microsoft Menu Monkeys and admins of the braindead vegetable type. There are SO MANY good application admin solutions for Linux, that could tie in with your overall enterprise management strategy if you wanted to, that the use of what is, essentially, a massive security hole, should be termed a capital crime. So far, all the stuff cooming out of the GNOME camp has been aimed at doing away with the strengths of the Linux platform and the weaknesses of the Microsoft Platform: less configuration options, those config options that are available are tucked away in a "registry" type, binary databse, outlook look-alikes, doing away with text-based management and the tremendous amount of flexibility that gives you, and now with XD2, they even set OpenOffice.org to save by default in MS formats!! how fscked up is that?!?
So, to make a long rant short, I reiterate my original remark: What are you credentials in the corporate linux market so that I should "trust you" at your word, as you ask?
O yeah, before anyone freaks out, I have nothing to do with KDE project, and have used GNOME and KDE for about the same amount of time. I am now a happy KDE user, most of the time. And no, this is not a troll, or anything like that. It is honest opinion.
As resellers to a corporate market, my organisation regularly attempts to demo the ink software on tablets. the demo's invariably fail to impress, with most users switching to the keyboard within five minutes. Many people and "anal-ysts" claim that price is keeping sales low, however, that is total bullocks. They are not selling because it doesn't do what it says on the tin: flawless handwriting recognition, and effortless computing. MS is selling this as the digital equivalent of a notepad - something that is totally flexible, and totally intuitive to use. instead, it is just a different form-factor PC, with all the limitations and hassles that come with it. And once it is a PC, it's just *gotta* have Linux on it!
Indeed - right you are. You don't die or suffer physical harm. Instead, you are made to pay up, go to jail or both. The land of the free indeed -- you do know that "the land of freedom" has the largest percentage of their population in jail as compared to *any* other country in the world, do you....?
try http://www.backfiresecurity.co.uk/aprilfool.htm for more jokes.......