A database that knows how you like your toast? That'd be fantastic!
Seriously though, things like that wouldn't be terribly bad. Being able to set preferences about how your kitchen appliances operate, etc. would be a great step forward in usability. Intelligent networking would be even better for tech-oriented types. Only problem is the price tag.....
This article brings up many points which need thinking about. I'm having trouble sorting them out in my mind, so I'll just put them in a list and hope that someone more eloquent than I can express them.
Many people like to bash Red Hat for succeeding in the distribution business, saying "XYZ is better". Question: Given that businesses exist for the purpose of making money, can -any- commercial distribution maintian it's 'integrity' once the business behind it grows beyond its founding members?
As Suck points out, there are a few individuals who are getting rich off the sale of software they had little/no role in creating. Not everyone can handle fame and fortune as well as our humble Linus. Will the 'chosen few' use their wealth in a constructive manner, or will they build a monster home in Seattle?
Suck played up the Red Hat stock offering quite a bit. I admit, that making $30,000 US (my calculation based on 500 shares) is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not the difference between "sackcloth and ashes and a lifetime supply of fatted calves".
"Shouldn't the programmers get a dip in the money bath like anyone else?"... Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the point of the RHAT offering to repay the programmers? I realize that they couldn't get everyone, but they did pick up the kernel developers list, amongst other things, right?
Suck has a point about there being a buck for the first one to pander to the morons out there who want to feel 'cool' running Linux but don't want to think for themselves. When commercial Linux distributions were small, the community as a whole could say 'RTFM' and be done with it. But now, with Corel and SGI jumping on the bandwagon, how are we to guard against the paperclip? Use slackware?
In conclusion, I was scared by this article. I can picture a future where the community is so angry at one distro that people begin saying, "I don't want my program to be included in their package." Once that starts, what's next???
(FreeBSD users are laughing their asses off at this article's truth right now, before resuming their superior glow.);)
Well, I had a kneejerk reaction to Apache 1.3.9 being announced here too, so you're not alone. This announcement isn't a software announcement, though. This port is in pre-alpha stage, so it's 'developers only', and what better way to attract developers to a worthy project than announce it on/.?
It can be debated whether this announcement is 'worthy', but I don't care. It's not Freshmeat material, it belongs here if anywhere.
BeOS is already pervasively multithreaded, unlike almost any other OS out there. Its nature makes debugging your apps a pain in the ass, but allows a 95% increase in processing power if you add a second CPU. Or so I've been told.
This chip would seem to take the pressure off the OS, and henceforth the programmers. *whew*
Hey, Slashdot wouldn't be so popular if Rob n' co. didn't listen to "What the people want". In this case, it seems the majority of people want to hear about killer app releases, so we will hear about killer app releases. I'm sure that Rob would not claim that everything about slashdot was -his idea-.
What I see in the GNOME vs. KDE is a lack of co-operation between developers. It seems that the resources of both projects are going off in two different directions, leaving us with applications that will not function reliably in both desktop environments. Hey, that's Open Source, right?
I can't help but think that if there were 'bosses' of GNOME + KDE who could make a deal (and force their programmers to accept it), we could get some co-ordination between the two projects. But if that were the case all the time, we wouldn't have Linux, there'd just be Windows.
There are some really poor posts happening today... Well, I'm going to add another one.
IMHO, this article shouldn't be on Slashdot! It should be here. If I want to look up software updates (Even epic ones like Apache), I go to Freshmeat. And thanks to the cool slashboxes, I don't even need to -go- to the site. Does anyone agree with me?
I'll refrain from making any comments about Andover.net.
And don't tell me NT is "Enterprise ready"
on
The Future of KDE
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· Score: 1
If you're going to spend money, you might as well spend it on something that's enterprise ready. If you're not going to spend money, then use Linux/BSD. Don't waste it on NT.
Re:How can you comment on the stability of a produ
on
The Future of KDE
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· Score: 1
I'm sure the original poster will be reading this, but perhaps he meant that he doesn't use either on a regular basis. I've used both in the recent past (but I don't use either now), and I agree with his observations.
And I'm not just saying that as flamebait (though it may be), I believe that KDE has an advantage over GNOME in many respects, and may be the largest of the various wedges that Linux is putting into the desktop market.
First of all, KDE is fast. I recently installed Red Hat on my P75 at home, and fired up X with FWVM. The speed was decent, but, frankly, it was on a par with Win95 (the previous OS). It was fully usable (though ugly), so I tried starting up GNOME/Enlightenment. Completely useless. The memory requirements and processor usage, even sitting still, were such that I couldn't even play Mp3s at 64 kbps. KDE, on the other hand, is only slightly slower than FWVM!!
KDE's also much more stable (for me, at least) than GNOME/E. GNOME's little deskbar-applets die frequently, preferences go astray, and many other annoyances crop up. KDE, so far, seems a helluva lot more stable. Am I right on this?
Add to this KOffice, and KDE's looking pretty good! While the Linux community is not known for sticking to one standard (RPM vs. deb, vi vs. Emacs... Not that multiple programs are a -bad- thing...), I think that if it were GNOME vs. KDE... Well, you can guess my preference. If we could only convince the bright minds working on GNOME to pile their efforts onto the other bandwagon!
The article claims that PPC may become the dominant platform for RISC architecture running Linux, as opposed to Alpha and stuff like that. Without a doubt, cheap ol' Intel based hardware will continue to form the largest section of the Linux market. Get your facts straight before you go shooting off your mouth, boyo!
The price of Red Hat's success is that they sell their product! To use Red Hat Linux, you gotta buy their distro, use a friend's, or download it yourself. If anything, Red Hat will -increase- their price now that they're so famous. And good for them.
As far as I know, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will collide two 5 TeV streams into each other. That's a lot of energy. Even older particle accelerators like the one in the facility I work at, TRIUMF, can do 75% of the speed of light. BTW, TRIUMF is now home to the most intense radioactive beams facility in the world! Book your experiments now for a low, low price of only three million dollars. Space is limited.
Putting Linux on my P75 at home made me realize just how slow E can be. It's beautiful eye candy, but completely unusable on such a slow machine. KDE, on the other hand, remains usable, if a little sluggish.
There was no real point to this comment, was there? Oh yes, how can GTK and E be streamlined? Vector-based widget drawing?
Today it was also discovered that, contrary to popular belief, Microsoft Corp. does not own the trademarks to "General Protection Fault", "Fatal Exception Error" or "Please restart your computer".
I'm sorry, but that's a very well written comment, whether it was by design or accident. Up to the Aryan Nations bit, it looks just like what everyone else here is posting.
Violence in video games is not destructive to kids in high school. Violence in video games given to small children is, in my firm opinion, but that's not the issue here. I play games, I thought that Half-life was the best game I had ever played in my life... knocking Duke3d off that list. I've grown tired of games now, and happily go ride my mtn. bike down the North Shore mountains here in Vancouver.
Linux has been enjoying some very large corporate migration announcements in the last few days - Corel and SGI, to be prescise. Methinks this does not bode well for the DOJ vs. MS trial, at least as far as the DOJ imposing fines/restrictions upon the BFR (beast from redmond).
However, I do think that it's much better for Linux to win than for Microsoft to lose. If the companies fleeing to Linux for help can actually work with the Open Source community, contributing their efforts and their publicity, then we might have a winner on our hands.
Of course, as it has been pointed out before, as soon as Linux hits it big, most developers will leave for the "next big thing". Oh well. That's my opinion only.
SGI wouldn't switch to Linux if they had a large IRIX marketshare to make a profit -from-... Switching to Linux is a very wise move on their part, maybe the move that'll save their bacon, but it -is- a desperate one.
This move is both a smart move and desperate move to stay alive. I'm personally not counting SGI out, not by a long shot.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that this is the right thing for SGI to do, and I would like to think that we will indeed see SGI once more a leader in graphics innovation. One point which I think you should've brought up: SGI's alignment with nVidia. The advances in PC graphics technology are nothing to sneeze at, as Silicon Graphics Inc. found out. nVidia, unarguably the manufacturer of the highest-powered (popular) chipsets in the PC market, could have continued to be a rival to SGI, and might have stumped their return to profitability. Hopefully they'll offer us PC users some more eyecandy in the future.
As Lucas noted in a reply to my original post, SGI has been (and may still be, arguably) the de facto leader in the graphics world. Without them, we wouldn't have OpenGL or a whole whackload of stuff that I'm sure exists, but I'm not aware of. It's nice to have dedicated leaders in market niches (like SGI was), if only for the standards they introduce (GL). Monolithic players (M$) tend to use standards more as a way to compete with their rivals' standards for marketshare (AOL-IM).
Besides, it -is- the last gasp of a giant... The new SGI is going to be smaller, leaner, and meaner, right? As long as IRIX fans don't storm their HQ.
Don't worry, I'm not a fan of intelligence-insulting laugh tracks either. Believe me. I'm sorry that I insulted you by likening BWP-philes with Star Trek nitpickers. (In Episode 45, Kirk goes in the door which -clearly- leads to an access corridor! Haw!)
Go see the Sixth Sense anyhow, on cheap tuesdays. It's got some quality in it (too).
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously though, things like that wouldn't be terribly bad. Being able to set preferences about how your kitchen appliances operate, etc. would be a great step forward in usability. Intelligent networking would be even better for tech-oriented types. Only problem is the price tag.....
Hang on, that's not user friendly enough. We need some sort of talking paperclip...
This article brings up many points which need thinking about. I'm having trouble sorting them out in my mind, so I'll just put them in a list and hope that someone more eloquent than I can express them.
In conclusion, I was scared by this article. I can picture a future where the community is so angry at one distro that people begin saying, "I don't want my program to be included in their package." Once that starts, what's next???
(FreeBSD users are laughing their asses off at this article's truth right now, before resuming their superior glow.) ;)
It can be debated whether this announcement is 'worthy', but I don't care. It's not Freshmeat material, it belongs here if anywhere.
This chip would seem to take the pressure off the OS, and henceforth the programmers. *whew*
Hemos, you're doing a good job in cranking out the stories... But trust me, there's time for a spellcheck!
Hey, Slashdot wouldn't be so popular if Rob n' co. didn't listen to "What the people want". In this case, it seems the majority of people want to hear about killer app releases, so we will hear about killer app releases. I'm sure that Rob would not claim that everything about slashdot was -his idea-.
I can't help but think that if there were 'bosses' of GNOME + KDE who could make a deal (and force their programmers to accept it), we could get some co-ordination between the two projects. But if that were the case all the time, we wouldn't have Linux, there'd just be Windows.
IMHO, this article shouldn't be on Slashdot! It should be here. If I want to look up software updates (Even epic ones like Apache), I go to Freshmeat. And thanks to the cool slashboxes, I don't even need to -go- to the site. Does anyone agree with me?
I'll refrain from making any comments about Andover.net.
notext
If you're going to spend money, you might as well spend it on something that's enterprise ready. If you're not going to spend money, then use Linux/BSD. Don't waste it on NT.
I'm sure the original poster will be reading this, but perhaps he meant that he doesn't use either on a regular basis. I've used both in the recent past (but I don't use either now), and I agree with his observations.
And I'm not just saying that as flamebait (though it may be), I believe that KDE has an advantage over GNOME in many respects, and may be the largest of the various wedges that Linux is putting into the desktop market.
First of all, KDE is fast. I recently installed Red Hat on my P75 at home, and fired up X with FWVM. The speed was decent, but, frankly, it was on a par with Win95 (the previous OS). It was fully usable (though ugly), so I tried starting up GNOME/Enlightenment. Completely useless. The memory requirements and processor usage, even sitting still, were such that I couldn't even play Mp3s at 64 kbps. KDE, on the other hand, is only slightly slower than FWVM!!
KDE's also much more stable (for me, at least) than GNOME/E. GNOME's little deskbar-applets die frequently, preferences go astray, and many other annoyances crop up. KDE, so far, seems a helluva lot more stable. Am I right on this?
Add to this KOffice, and KDE's looking pretty good! While the Linux community is not known for sticking to one standard (RPM vs. deb, vi vs. Emacs ... Not that multiple programs are a -bad- thing...), I think that if it were GNOME vs. KDE... Well, you can guess my preference. If we could only convince the bright minds working on GNOME to pile their efforts onto the other bandwagon!
I figger there should only be one change -
L is for Linus, who begat Linux
The article claims that PPC may become the dominant platform for RISC architecture running Linux, as opposed to Alpha and stuff like that. Without a doubt, cheap ol' Intel based hardware will continue to form the largest section of the Linux market. Get your facts straight before you go shooting off your mouth, boyo!
The price of Red Hat's success is that they sell their product! To use Red Hat Linux, you gotta buy their distro, use a friend's, or download it yourself. If anything, Red Hat will -increase- their price now that they're so famous. And good for them.
As far as I know, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will collide two 5 TeV streams into each other. That's a lot of energy. Even older particle accelerators like the one in the facility I work at, TRIUMF, can do 75% of the speed of light. BTW, TRIUMF is now home to the most intense radioactive beams facility in the world! Book your experiments now for a low, low price of only three million dollars. Space is limited.
There was no real point to this comment, was there? Oh yes, how can GTK and E be streamlined? Vector-based widget drawing?
Today it was also discovered that, contrary to popular belief, Microsoft Corp. does not own the trademarks to "General Protection Fault", "Fatal Exception Error" or "Please restart your computer".
Violence in video games is not destructive to kids in high school. Violence in video games given to small children is, in my firm opinion, but that's not the issue here. I play games, I thought that Half-life was the best game I had ever played in my life... knocking Duke3d off that list. I've grown tired of games now, and happily go ride my mtn. bike down the North Shore mountains here in Vancouver.
However, I do think that it's much better for Linux to win than for Microsoft to lose. If the companies fleeing to Linux for help can actually work with the Open Source community, contributing their efforts and their publicity, then we might have a winner on our hands.
Of course, as it has been pointed out before, as soon as Linux hits it big, most developers will leave for the "next big thing". Oh well. That's my opinion only.
Upside: You think Linux may challenge on the desktop in three or four years.
Torvalds: In three or four years, I hope Linux will be there as an alternative for [nontechnical computer users].
Hmmm... Lots of paraphrasing was done in this article!!! /:)
This move is both a smart move and desperate move to stay alive. I'm personally not counting SGI out, not by a long shot.
As Lucas noted in a reply to my original post, SGI has been (and may still be, arguably) the de facto leader in the graphics world. Without them, we wouldn't have OpenGL or a whole whackload of stuff that I'm sure exists, but I'm not aware of. It's nice to have dedicated leaders in market niches (like SGI was), if only for the standards they introduce (GL). Monolithic players (M$) tend to use standards more as a way to compete with their rivals' standards for marketshare (AOL-IM).
Besides, it -is- the last gasp of a giant... The new SGI is going to be smaller, leaner, and meaner, right? As long as IRIX fans don't storm their HQ.
Don't worry, I'm not a fan of intelligence-insulting laugh tracks either. Believe me. I'm sorry that I insulted you by likening BWP-philes with Star Trek nitpickers. (In Episode 45, Kirk goes in the door which -clearly- leads to an access corridor! Haw!)
Go see the Sixth Sense anyhow, on cheap tuesdays. It's got some quality in it (too).