Boo - frikkin- hoo. I've never ever used Photoshop. I got used to the Gimp the same way you got used to Photoshop: I learned the interface and got used to it. I can get around great in Gimp, but that's because I didn't know any better. If you hadn't learned something else first, the Gimp wouldn't feel so "different" to you. "Difference" is relative to what you already know.
Behind this firewall, I can't get to coralcache links. That would effectively mean I couldn't read Slashdot at work. As a result, I'd actually have to do my job, which means I would go insane and my head would explode.
Coral cache as a supplement would work, but if all links were coralized, I'd be done for.
As a happy Debian user, I think it's time we fess up. It's us, happily apt-getting our systems into software Nirvana. That explains the Internet traffic. Those filesharers are just part-time affairs, amateurs really.
Why just last night for example I apt-getted ("apt-got?") nearly a dozen software packages from a repository, not to mention all the libraries that were dependencies. On some nights I can do more.
I keep trying to tell myself I can quit, but man, it's not easy. I love having all that software at my fingertips; and now with broadband I can download as much of it as I like. I don't even have to need it. I can quit apt-getting any time I want to, I just don't want to at the moment. I've got it under control, seriously. I've quit apt-getting before. Several times.
Debian users, heed my call: you've got to start slowly and reduce your need to apt-get all that software. First try only apt-getting once a day, then once a week. Only apt-get update every six months, because hey, after all that time you deserve a reward. You just can't quit this stuff cold turkey.
This post is ancillary to the discussion at hand, but I use Postfix for one reason only: to get mail from my favorite email client (mutt) to my ISP's server, which requires authentication and sometimes encryption. And for that purpose alone, it's a pain in the butt. I see how Postfix is a great program for people running servers or routing hundreds of messages of day. I only need it because Mutt's dogmatic adherence to the Unix philosophy (each tool does one trick and one trick only, but interfaces nicely with other tools) means I need to go through a lot of work to get my mail to the ISP.
SUSE made this easy for me, through YAST2, which dealt with all the tricky configuration necessary to get Postfix talking to my server, but I never understood how it worked. When I moved to Kubuntu I was forced to dive into the Postfix config files more deeply than I felt confident doing.
I'd love either a mutt patch that provides SMTP-auth capability (whoops, google is my friend: http://www.geocities.com/win32mutt/patches.html - why isn't it used by default?) or a simple DEB package that provides mini-SMTP-auth capability for people like me that only send out 10-20 emails per day, and always to our smarthost.
They must have figured that, with so many Windows boxes overridden with trojans, spyware, adware, and zombie software that is being used to remotely send zillions of pieces of spam, *no one* can really say the computer is "theirs" anymore.
And wait until we rent our software. Then the concept of owning your computer will truly be a thing of the past.
OOo is no Office killer, not yet. More work needs to be done.
So quoteth the parent. I've got to say, I mostly agree. I beta tested StarOffice8 (essentially the same product as OO.o 2) and found I really liked it. Compared to OO 1.2 it's a much faster, much prettier, and much more usable product. It loads a bit faster, is more compatible with M$ office docs, etc.
But a KILLER? Not really. I'm forced to use M$ at work, so I've gotten to know Word 2003 again. I've learned, once you turn off all the automatic horse-crap, it's a pretty decent word processor. I prefer OO.o for lots of reasons though, including the styles pane, the navigator, and the open format.
But let's be honest: it's slow to load, and will *never* catch up to M$ as long as it's trying to be "just as good." I've learned over the past couple of years that "just as good" doesn't sell. "Just as good AND free" doesn't sell, either. You've got to be better.
Microsoft's next jump might leave OO.o in the dust: collaborative software. Google for Groovepoint, who just got bought out by M$ and you'll know where M$Office is going to be in 2-3 years. I work in an office that *wants* this because the workflow makes sense. While OO.o is trying to catch up with document formats, M$ is getting ready for the next paradigm shift in office doc generation.
I'll stick to OO.o at home, and *screw collaboration* as far as I'm concerned. They can all receive my PDFs. But I'm afraid OO.o will never win this competition. It may be that OO.o's greatest contribution is the OASIS file format standard. Not until OO.o is BETTER than M$Office will we get converts.
I was thinking about this in the other direction. What if all us Slashdotters with webpages immediately stuck an SVG image or two on our webpages, then casually informed IE users, "oh the reason you can't see it is because you need to upgrade to a more modern browser."
This is a great chance to turn the tables, and if it works it will help press that 90% downwards.
OS X may be better than Redmond.*, but 95% of computer users and corporations would rather have a better OS ~that they can install on their current hardware~.
Not true. That's true for geeks like us. Most people have absolutely no what an operating system IS, and upgrade their lifestyle by buying a new computer. I am currently finishing a masters degree with a bunch of people that complain they need a new computer, because "this one just doesn't work anymore." They're using P4s and Windows 2000, and are going to upgrade to XP, not aware you don't have to get rid of your existing hardware. For that matter, they could speed up their machines by simply reformating all the spyware off and starting with a fresh system, but no. They're going to Dell.com to pick out a "better" machine.
Thank God for those people. I get lots of good quality, 1 year old hardware from them for cheap. Not my fault they didn't take the time to learn about their computers.
Did anyone notice (Bottom right of the page, listed under "Unix" -- no of course you didn't, no one reads articles anymore) that you can now remap modifier keys like control and caps lock! There have been 3rd party applications that permit this, with some caveats.
This is huge for me. I'm going to get Tiger anyway for Spotlight alone - seems like I've been waiting for that feature my entire computing life - but putting the control key where it belongs is icing on the cake.
Who are these Apple engineers that seem to be paying attention to what users want, and how come none of them are working for Novell/Mandrisa/Red Hat? I mean come on, folks, I'd love to keep using Linux on my home box, but I have yet to find the Linux distro that provides such phenomenal usability. One of my complaints about OS X used to be the non-modifiable modifier keys. And now that's been taken care of.
You obviously haven't used Windows recently. I'm stuck to a Win2000 box at work, and let me tell you how crippled it really is. In usability, things like opening a file over FTP from the "open file" dialogue are a huge step up in usability.
This is an axe I've been meaning to grind for awhile now. OSS is like the world's biggest development and research laboratory. Given infinite resources and gallons and gallons of free code sloshing back and forth out there, OSS has yet to come up with something stellar.
That's not to say the OSS world hasn't made progress, and even come up with some interesting and useful things. I love it that I can open remote files over FTP from a KDE "open file" dialogue. I really love Jedit's plug-in architecture, not to mention its plug ins. I love auctex and emacs and save time with bash scripts and catalog my crap with a Mysql database.
So where's the radical new approach to software? I'm off to buy a copy of OS X Tiger because I want spotlight and dashboard for my Mac, knowing full well I can download Beagle and zeroconf for Linux.
I'm afraid all of the "but Windows users won't go for it" mentality is damping the creative juices of developers who are afraid to radically alter the computing paradigm in fear of alienating the Windows sheep that won't switch to any OS that doesn't exactly mimic the Windows software they use mediocrely. So we're forced to shoot for the lowest common denominator.
What would happen if, just for a moment, a group of smart people with full access to OSS code and no particular interest in pandering to the sheep put their minds together and came up with something radical?
I don't know what that radical thing would be -- I'm not one of those smart people -- but I do know computing is remarkably unchanged compared to the state of things 10 years ago. Linux has caught up with Windows as far as I can tell. So where is the innovation? What could we do if we weren't so busy trying to keep up with the boring monolith in Redmond?
Piece o' cake. Inform your lovely wife that it is now *her* responsibility to keep the machine in order, download the daily virus definitions, defrag the machine, uninstall the spyware, etc.
Her immediate response will be, "I don't have time for that stuff. I just want to use the computer to get my work done. I hate computers; you know that."
Then you say, "That's what I want too. So it's agreed - we'll get the mac." Then just for kicks you point out Mac hardware will probably last a lot longer than the cheaper Dell stuff she was looking at.
If that doesn't work, try getting on your knees and begging like a puppy. It worked for me:)
I think a lot of folks are missing a fundamental point. I happen to love apt-get to update system software, but I am ROOT. And I'll bet every other person reading these comments is root too.
Autopackage is a much needed way to allow users - yes, common mortal users - to add software to their $HOME directory without modifying the system. This is a fantastic step forward and apt-get is no worse off for it.
Better still, I can apt-get system software, but try new stuff out in my $HOME directory without worrying I'll goof anything up system wide. Yeah, I know that's rare with.DEB packages, but why not be sure about it?
20 Mb attachments? Good Lord. I intend to permanently blacklist anyone who sends me a 20M attachment. No one knows how to use FTP anymore, and I have enough trouble with friends that insist on sending me full 3600x2400 pixel digital photos at 1.5 Mb.
I'm still on dialup (and will be until I finish school and have a salary again) and all those attachments get erased at the server. Life is too short to spend downloading stuff that big and no one seems to be interested in learning how to use tools like email and MIME attachments effectively.
It's called free trade and it's been known to work since before the first guy put on a hat and said "I'm an economist."
If your government "sends your tax dollars out of the country" to purchase a less expensive product, it will have more cash left over to give you a tax break, subsidize your cheap gasoline, or track down the scumbags that caused 9/11.
On the other hand, it will also have more money to invade countries that had nothing to do with 9/11 and call it "liberation." Now that's something you should be disturbed about.
This article is pretty off-base on several accounts, primarily because the author doesn't seem to understand you can't simply compare Microsoft to the Open Source community. They work in fundamentally different ways.
It's more appropriate to consider the open source movement to be one enormous research and development laboratory that is constantly tinkering, improving, and designing. From it new products emerge, and experiments that sound interesting but don't work. Because there are no restrictions anyone with an idea can participate, and ideas are forced to compete on their own merit. That process strengthens Linux-based operating systems as a whole because distros can choose to include/implement the ideas that emerge from the fray as winners.
Do you compare a product (Windows XP) to a process (Linux open source development)? No. You compare it to another product (Red Hat Enterprise, for example). As CTO of some company, you're not going to install Gentoo, ArcLinux, Slackware, or Mepis. You're going to install a professionally supported, stable distribution backed by a company you trust: Novell/SUSE, Red Hat, or maybe (hopefully) Xandros. Behind the scenes it is the responsibility of those distros to select from the open source lab which features/products they want to meld into their distros.
As for Adobe and friends not porting their software to Linux, the fact that there are competing distros out there does not explain their reluctance; lack of market share does. When Adobe thought it important and worthwhile to port their software, they did: Acrobat Reader 5. When they determine enough customers would buy their product for the Linux platform to make it worthwhile to code that software, they will do so, and they will navigate the architectural-dependency problems the best way they can, because it will be financially worthwhile to do so. Money talks.
Next, is open source software forcing Sun out of business? No, but it has forced Sun to reduce its unweildy profit margins and sell products at prices the market will bear. For that matter, it's done the same to Microsoft. Without Linux and alternatives it's unlikely we'd have seen Microsoft's new Windows XP Light edition now being sold in Asia, where Linux has made serious inroads. It's also forced Sun to open up some of their code, because the market has demanded it. Linux won't put Sun out of business; reluctance to follow the market will. There's still a niche for Sun - enterprise hardware and support that no Linux distro is able to deliver. Sun integrates systems in a way Red Hat or Novell can't.
Finally, as for "real programmers don't care" about interfaces and paradigms, I think they do. The LSB movement will tighten up disparities between distros soon enough, but projects will still have to compete on their own merits. Linux isn't dividing and conquering anything. It's continually reinventing itself based on new information, new equipment, new paradigms, and new technology. That's a process that benefits everybody and introduces enough competition into the marketplace to force everyone else to innovate too. Microsoft IE now with tabs and popup blockers? Win XP light? MS Word with sidebar formatting panel? Network transparency and remote desktop access? The evidence speaks for itself.
I'm discouraged by the tremendous amount of comments here by people who have obviously not read the article but rather rushed to post "I hope it imports WP files" and the like. Holy schmoly.
I think it's a great step forward. I signed up to be a beta tester for Star Office 8 and while I have only downloaded it this afternoon and won't get to install and play until tonight, I'm looking forward to the new features:
Word Perfect import, a cleaned up user interface, better PDF export, better input filters for crapomatic Microsoft documents, and a database front end that can interface with MySQL? Who's yo daddy? Those are features that mean a lot to me.
I'm a writer and I'm picky about my tools. And I take a Mac to school with me but run SUSE 9.1 and Xandros XD3 at home. Openoffice is the only software that really allows me to bridge the gap between those two platforms. On the Mac I run NeoOffice/J - a tremendous piece of software that's far more robust than people make it out to be. It doesn't load quickly, but once it does it gives me all the goodness of Openoffice.org with all the power of Mac OS X, and the interface is nice and clean, including native Mac print dialogues, and the like. I don't know what kind of alchemy went into marrying OO.o to Java to Mac OS X but I'm grateful someone went ahead and did it.
Look closely at OpenOffice 2.0r1 and what you see is an attempt to steal marketshare away from existing MS Office users. That means cleaner widgets, better import/export capacity, and a look and feel that isn't too foreign. It's not breaking any barriers in the document-writing paradigm here (check out Mellel for Mac OS X for that), but it is making it easier for existing Office users to jump ship. And jump they will.
There are several things I like about OO.o, including the stylist and navigator, the export to PDF functionality, and the way the interface meets my needs. At work I use MS Word 2003, and I swear to God I hate it, not because of who produces it but because it's the most awkward, confusing, automatic-in-unnecessary-ways piece of crap I've come across. And all that additional complexity has done little to make the secretaries I work with write good documents. I'm talking about borked-up formatting, inconsistent styles, and so on. OO.o deals specifically with those issues in a way I really appreciate.
The new database component is a huge addition. To all you pinheads pontificating about how important an Access-like program is for the future of OO.o, shame on you for not having RTFA. This could very well be a killer app when all is said and done (the Star Office 8 beta forums make it look like it's still a bit buggy). That is: a front end that "looks like" Access, tied into a MySQL back end. That's fantastic! I currently use Rekall for my database front end, but I can't get a version for Debian, which is a major pain in the butt.
In sum, ease up on all the "they better have included feature X." This is a major but manageable step forward, and while it doesn't solve all our problems, I think it's a big step forward to improving upon the success of previous editions of OO.o, and a big step forward to convincing potential MS Office refugees to give something new a shot. As for myself, I've decided compatability with MS Office users is no longer a concern to me. I'd rather just work alone with my grumpy ol' self.:)
KDE has had this for ages. You can implement keyboard shortcuts that launch programs, shortcuts for all the windowing operations you can think of, and shortcuts for all the functionality within programs.
I agree with you that keyboard shortcuts are important. I'm a keyboard person, not a mouse person, and for the moment it's one of the reasons I stick with KDE. From the desktop, I can do the following to send an email message, just using keyboard shortcuts:
Cntl-M to launch KDE. Cntl-N to open a new message Cntl-enter to send it (Cntl-Alt-enter) to queue it for sending later.
Those are all keystrokes I chose myself. Is that what you were looking for?
It's perfectly clear that VIIV represents a row of teeth, of which the two outer ones are sharp fangs and the middle one is missing. That makes perfect sense for a company like Intel: vicious on the outside but kind of a hillbilly in the middle. Floating point errors, anyone?
Before any slashdotter starts feeling to smug about our own tech prowess or too cynical about the electronic voting machines, take a moment to notice the Polls section of Slashdot is down for the count. When I read about today's poll I tried to go vote but got a string of "Service not available" error messages.
Have we slashdotted slashdot?
Electronic voting is so over-rated. I voted using a paper ticket here in Washington DC, and even that was kind of a mess. Once you've filled out the card you run it through a scanner, which counts your vote. But the scanner was jammed, so the cards were deposited into a locked bin instead, for manual counting later. I'm not suggesting any malfeasance here, just pointing out things *always* go wrong - blame it on Murphy if you must point fingers - and having a paper trail is a good thing.
As for SlashPolls, get back on line, dammit, so I can vote! Or should I just write it down on a piece of paper and mail it to CowboyNeal myself?
It hardly matters what MS does to USB. Apple has gone to firewire and it's far, far better. USB is a dead-end road; let them go play alone down there. Firewire is where it is *at*, folks. USB is so old school.
Slashdot Mirror
Boo - frikkin- hoo. I've never ever used Photoshop. I got used to the Gimp the same way you got used to Photoshop: I learned the interface and got used to it. I can get around great in Gimp, but that's because I didn't know any better. If you hadn't learned something else first, the Gimp wouldn't feel so "different" to you. "Difference" is relative to what you already know.
Behind this firewall, I can't get to coralcache links. That would effectively mean I couldn't read Slashdot at work. As a result, I'd actually have to do my job, which means I would go insane and my head would explode.
Coral cache as a supplement would work, but if all links were coralized, I'd be done for.
As a happy Debian user, I think it's time we fess up. It's us, happily apt-getting our systems into software Nirvana. That explains the Internet traffic. Those filesharers are just part-time affairs, amateurs really.
Why just last night for example I apt-getted ("apt-got?") nearly a dozen software packages from a repository, not to mention all the libraries that were dependencies. On some nights I can do more.
I keep trying to tell myself I can quit, but man, it's not easy. I love having all that software at my fingertips; and now with broadband I can download as much of it as I like. I don't even have to need it. I can quit apt-getting any time I want to, I just don't want to at the moment. I've got it under control, seriously. I've quit apt-getting before. Several times.
Debian users, heed my call: you've got to start slowly and reduce your need to apt-get all that software. First try only apt-getting once a day, then once a week. Only apt-get update every six months, because hey, after all that time you deserve a reward. You just can't quit this stuff cold turkey.
Actually,
Tax: Fee administered by gov't.
Levy: place you drive your Chevy to, even though it's dry (singin', "this will be the day that I die.")
C'mon folks, get with the program.
This post is ancillary to the discussion at hand, but I use Postfix for one reason only: to get mail from my favorite email client (mutt) to my ISP's server, which requires authentication and sometimes encryption. And for that purpose alone, it's a pain in the butt. I see how Postfix is a great program for people running servers or routing hundreds of messages of day. I only need it because Mutt's dogmatic adherence to the Unix philosophy (each tool does one trick and one trick only, but interfaces nicely with other tools) means I need to go through a lot of work to get my mail to the ISP. SUSE made this easy for me, through YAST2, which dealt with all the tricky configuration necessary to get Postfix talking to my server, but I never understood how it worked. When I moved to Kubuntu I was forced to dive into the Postfix config files more deeply than I felt confident doing. I'd love either a mutt patch that provides SMTP-auth capability (whoops, google is my friend: http://www.geocities.com/win32mutt/patches.html - why isn't it used by default?) or a simple DEB package that provides mini-SMTP-auth capability for people like me that only send out 10-20 emails per day, and always to our smarthost.
They must have figured that, with so many Windows boxes overridden with trojans, spyware, adware, and zombie software that is being used to remotely send zillions of pieces of spam, *no one* can really say the computer is "theirs" anymore.
And wait until we rent our software. Then the concept of owning your computer will truly be a thing of the past.
OOo is no Office killer, not yet. More work needs to be done.
So quoteth the parent. I've got to say, I mostly agree. I beta tested StarOffice8 (essentially the same product as OO.o 2) and found I really liked it. Compared to OO 1.2 it's a much faster, much prettier, and much more usable product. It loads a bit faster, is more compatible with M$ office docs, etc.
But a KILLER? Not really. I'm forced to use M$ at work, so I've gotten to know Word 2003 again. I've learned, once you turn off all the automatic horse-crap, it's a pretty decent word processor. I prefer OO.o for lots of reasons though, including the styles pane, the navigator, and the open format.
But let's be honest: it's slow to load, and will *never* catch up to M$ as long as it's trying to be "just as good." I've learned over the past couple of years that "just as good" doesn't sell. "Just as good AND free" doesn't sell, either. You've got to be better.
Microsoft's next jump might leave OO.o in the dust: collaborative software. Google for Groovepoint, who just got bought out by M$ and you'll know where M$Office is going to be in 2-3 years. I work in an office that *wants* this because the workflow makes sense. While OO.o is trying to catch up with document formats, M$ is getting ready for the next paradigm shift in office doc generation.
I'll stick to OO.o at home, and *screw collaboration* as far as I'm concerned. They can all receive my PDFs. But I'm afraid OO.o will never win this competition. It may be that OO.o's greatest contribution is the OASIS file format standard. Not until OO.o is BETTER than M$Office will we get converts.
I was thinking about this in the other direction. What if all us Slashdotters with webpages immediately stuck an SVG image or two on our webpages, then casually informed IE users, "oh the reason you can't see it is because you need to upgrade to a more modern browser."
This is a great chance to turn the tables, and if it works it will help press that 90% downwards.
Or, maybe I'm just dreaming.
OS X may be better than Redmond.*, but 95% of computer users and corporations would rather have a better OS ~that they can install on their current hardware~.
Not true. That's true for geeks like us. Most people have absolutely no what an operating system IS, and upgrade their lifestyle by buying a new computer. I am currently finishing a masters degree with a bunch of people that complain they need a new computer, because "this one just doesn't work anymore." They're using P4s and Windows 2000, and are going to upgrade to XP, not aware you don't have to get rid of your existing hardware. For that matter, they could speed up their machines by simply reformating all the spyware off and starting with a fresh system, but no. They're going to Dell.com to pick out a "better" machine.
Thank God for those people. I get lots of good quality, 1 year old hardware from them for cheap. Not my fault they didn't take the time to learn about their computers.
Did anyone notice (Bottom right of the page, listed under "Unix" -- no of course you didn't, no one reads articles anymore) that you can now remap modifier keys like control and caps lock! There have been 3rd party applications that permit this, with some caveats.
This is huge for me. I'm going to get Tiger anyway for Spotlight alone - seems like I've been waiting for that feature my entire computing life - but putting the control key where it belongs is icing on the cake.
Who are these Apple engineers that seem to be paying attention to what users want, and how come none of them are working for Novell/Mandrisa/Red Hat? I mean come on, folks, I'd love to keep using Linux on my home box, but I have yet to find the Linux distro that provides such phenomenal usability. One of my complaints about OS X used to be the non-modifiable modifier keys. And now that's been taken care of.
Go Apple!
You obviously haven't used Windows recently. I'm stuck to a Win2000 box at work, and let me tell you how crippled it really is. In usability, things like opening a file over FTP from the "open file" dialogue are a huge step up in usability.
This is an axe I've been meaning to grind for awhile now. OSS is like the world's biggest development and research laboratory. Given infinite resources and gallons and gallons of free code sloshing back and forth out there, OSS has yet to come up with something stellar.
That's not to say the OSS world hasn't made progress, and even come up with some interesting and useful things. I love it that I can open remote files over FTP from a KDE "open file" dialogue. I really love Jedit's plug-in architecture, not to mention its plug ins. I love auctex and emacs and save time with bash scripts and catalog my crap with a Mysql database.
So where's the radical new approach to software? I'm off to buy a copy of OS X Tiger because I want spotlight and dashboard for my Mac, knowing full well I can download Beagle and zeroconf for Linux.
I'm afraid all of the "but Windows users won't go for it" mentality is damping the creative juices of developers who are afraid to radically alter the computing paradigm in fear of alienating the Windows sheep that won't switch to any OS that doesn't exactly mimic the Windows software they use mediocrely. So we're forced to shoot for the lowest common denominator.
What would happen if, just for a moment, a group of smart people with full access to OSS code and no particular interest in pandering to the sheep put their minds together and came up with something radical?
I don't know what that radical thing would be -- I'm not one of those smart people -- but I do know computing is remarkably unchanged compared to the state of things 10 years ago. Linux has caught up with Windows as far as I can tell. So where is the innovation? What could we do if we weren't so busy trying to keep up with the boring monolith in Redmond?
Piece o' cake. Inform your lovely wife that it is now *her* responsibility to keep the machine in order, download the daily virus definitions, defrag the machine, uninstall the spyware, etc.
:)
Her immediate response will be, "I don't have time for that stuff. I just want to use the computer to get my work done. I hate computers; you know that."
Then you say, "That's what I want too. So it's agreed - we'll get the mac." Then just for kicks you point out Mac hardware will probably last a lot longer than the cheaper Dell stuff she was looking at.
If that doesn't work, try getting on your knees and begging like a puppy. It worked for me
I think a lot of folks are missing a fundamental point. I happen to love apt-get to update system software, but I am ROOT. And I'll bet every other person reading these comments is root too.
.DEB packages, but why not be sure about it?
Autopackage is a much needed way to allow users - yes, common mortal users - to add software to their $HOME directory without modifying the system. This is a fantastic step forward and apt-get is no worse off for it.
Better still, I can apt-get system software, but try new stuff out in my $HOME directory without worrying I'll goof anything up system wide. Yeah, I know that's rare with
This is one of the best posts I've seen all month. What a great website, and a great introduction to it.
Too bad none of my non-geek friends will think it's as funny as I do. Of course, that's the case anyway.
20 Mb attachments? Good Lord. I intend to permanently blacklist anyone who sends me a 20M attachment. No one knows how to use FTP anymore, and I have enough trouble with friends that insist on sending me full 3600x2400 pixel digital photos at 1.5 Mb.
I'm still on dialup (and will be until I finish school and have a salary again) and all those attachments get erased at the server. Life is too short to spend downloading stuff that big and no one seems to be interested in learning how to use tools like email and MIME attachments effectively.
Or maybe it's just my friends.
It's called free trade and it's been known to work since before the first guy put on a hat and said "I'm an economist."
If your government "sends your tax dollars out of the country" to purchase a less expensive product, it will have more cash left over to give you a tax break, subsidize your cheap gasoline, or track down the scumbags that caused 9/11.
On the other hand, it will also have more money to invade countries that had nothing to do with 9/11 and call it "liberation." Now that's something you should be disturbed about.
This article is pretty off-base on several accounts, primarily because the author doesn't seem to understand you can't simply compare Microsoft to the Open Source community. They work in fundamentally different ways.
It's more appropriate to consider the open source movement to be one enormous research and development laboratory that is constantly tinkering, improving, and designing. From it new products emerge, and experiments that sound interesting but don't work. Because there are no restrictions anyone with an idea can participate, and ideas are forced to compete on their own merit. That process strengthens Linux-based operating systems as a whole because distros can choose to include/implement the ideas that emerge from the fray as winners.
Do you compare a product (Windows XP) to a process (Linux open source development)? No. You compare it to another product (Red Hat Enterprise, for example). As CTO of some company, you're not going to install Gentoo, ArcLinux, Slackware, or Mepis. You're going to install a professionally supported, stable distribution backed by a company you trust: Novell/SUSE, Red Hat, or maybe (hopefully) Xandros. Behind the scenes it is the responsibility of those distros to select from the open source lab which features/products they want to meld into their distros.
As for Adobe and friends not porting their software to Linux, the fact that there are competing distros out there does not explain their reluctance; lack of market share does. When Adobe thought it important and worthwhile to port their software, they did: Acrobat Reader 5. When they determine enough customers would buy their product for the Linux platform to make it worthwhile to code that software, they will do so, and they will navigate the architectural-dependency problems the best way they can, because it will be financially worthwhile to do so. Money talks.
Next, is open source software forcing Sun out of business? No, but it has forced Sun to reduce its unweildy profit margins and sell products at prices the market will bear. For that matter, it's done the same to Microsoft. Without Linux and alternatives it's unlikely we'd have seen Microsoft's new Windows XP Light edition now being sold in Asia, where Linux has made serious inroads. It's also forced Sun to open up some of their code, because the market has demanded it. Linux won't put Sun out of business; reluctance to follow the market will. There's still a niche for Sun - enterprise hardware and support that no Linux distro is able to deliver. Sun integrates systems in a way Red Hat or Novell can't.
Finally, as for "real programmers don't care" about interfaces and paradigms, I think they do. The LSB movement will tighten up disparities between distros soon enough, but projects will still have to compete on their own merits. Linux isn't dividing and conquering anything. It's continually reinventing itself based on new information, new equipment, new paradigms, and new technology. That's a process that benefits everybody and introduces enough competition into the marketplace to force everyone else to innovate too. Microsoft IE now with tabs and popup blockers? Win XP light? MS Word with sidebar formatting panel? Network transparency and remote desktop access? The evidence speaks for itself.
The author is way off base.
I'm discouraged by the tremendous amount of comments here by people who have obviously not read the article but rather rushed to post "I hope it imports WP files" and the like. Holy schmoly.
:)
I think it's a great step forward. I signed up to be a beta tester for Star Office 8 and while I have only downloaded it this afternoon and won't get to install and play until tonight, I'm looking forward to the new features:
Word Perfect import, a cleaned up user interface, better PDF export, better input filters for crapomatic Microsoft documents, and a database front end that can interface with MySQL? Who's yo daddy? Those are features that mean a lot to me.
I'm a writer and I'm picky about my tools. And I take a Mac to school with me but run SUSE 9.1 and Xandros XD3 at home. Openoffice is the only software that really allows me to bridge the gap between those two platforms. On the Mac I run NeoOffice/J - a tremendous piece of software that's far more robust than people make it out to be. It doesn't load quickly, but once it does it gives me all the goodness of Openoffice.org with all the power of Mac OS X, and the interface is nice and clean, including native Mac print dialogues, and the like. I don't know what kind of alchemy went into marrying OO.o to Java to Mac OS X but I'm grateful someone went ahead and did it.
Look closely at OpenOffice 2.0r1 and what you see is an attempt to steal marketshare away from existing MS Office users. That means cleaner widgets, better import/export capacity, and a look and feel that isn't too foreign. It's not breaking any barriers in the document-writing paradigm here (check out Mellel for Mac OS X for that), but it is making it easier for existing Office users to jump ship. And jump they will.
There are several things I like about OO.o, including the stylist and navigator, the export to PDF functionality, and the way the interface meets my needs. At work I use MS Word 2003, and I swear to God I hate it, not because of who produces it but because it's the most awkward, confusing, automatic-in-unnecessary-ways piece of crap I've come across. And all that additional complexity has done little to make the secretaries I work with write good documents. I'm talking about borked-up formatting, inconsistent styles, and so on. OO.o deals specifically with those issues in a way I really appreciate.
The new database component is a huge addition. To all you pinheads pontificating about how important an Access-like program is for the future of OO.o, shame on you for not having RTFA. This could very well be a killer app when all is said and done (the Star Office 8 beta forums make it look like it's still a bit buggy). That is: a front end that "looks like" Access, tied into a MySQL back end. That's fantastic! I currently use Rekall for my database front end, but I can't get a version for Debian, which is a major pain in the butt.
In sum, ease up on all the "they better have included feature X." This is a major but manageable step forward, and while it doesn't solve all our problems, I think it's a big step forward to improving upon the success of previous editions of OO.o, and a big step forward to convincing potential MS Office refugees to give something new a shot. As for myself, I've decided compatability with MS Office users is no longer a concern to me. I'd rather just work alone with my grumpy ol' self.
KDE has had this for ages. You can implement keyboard shortcuts that launch programs, shortcuts for all the windowing operations you can think of, and shortcuts for all the functionality within programs.
I agree with you that keyboard shortcuts are important. I'm a keyboard person, not a mouse person, and for the moment it's one of the reasons I stick with KDE. From the desktop, I can do the following to send an email message, just using keyboard shortcuts:
Cntl-M to launch KDE.
Cntl-N to open a new message
Cntl-enter to send it (Cntl-Alt-enter) to queue it for sending later.
Those are all keystrokes I chose myself. Is that what you were looking for?
It's perfectly clear that VIIV represents a row of teeth, of which the two outer ones are sharp fangs and the middle one is missing. That makes perfect sense for a company like Intel: vicious on the outside but kind of a hillbilly in the middle. Floating point errors, anyone?
Dear Bill,
Thank you! You're the best. Keep 'em coming. We can't say thank you enough. Wow - that 'charging for security' thing was a great one.
sincerely,
Linus and Steve
Before any slashdotter starts feeling to smug about our own tech prowess or too cynical about the electronic voting machines, take a moment to notice the Polls section of Slashdot is down for the count. When I read about today's poll I tried to go vote but got a string of "Service not available" error messages.
Have we slashdotted slashdot?
Electronic voting is so over-rated. I voted using a paper ticket here in Washington DC, and even that was kind of a mess. Once you've filled out the card you run it through a scanner, which counts your vote. But the scanner was jammed, so the cards were deposited into a locked bin instead, for manual counting later. I'm not suggesting any malfeasance here, just pointing out things *always* go wrong - blame it on Murphy if you must point fingers - and having a paper trail is a good thing.
As for SlashPolls, get back on line, dammit, so I can vote! Or should I just write it down on a piece of paper and mail it to CowboyNeal myself?
It hardly matters what MS does to USB. Apple has gone to firewire and it's far, far better. USB is a dead-end road; let them go play alone down there. Firewire is where it is *at*, folks. USB is so old school.
but it is at least slightly encouraging to hear that he owns a TiVo."
That's not encouraging. That's hypocricy.