That sounds more like an excuse than a feature. Why only to a point? Why is the interoperability incomplete, and why is it only available to other programs in the "suite?" It's obviously possible to do interoperability the right way. Why doesn't Linux have good interoperability?
Add a third party mail client to OS X and you lose that precious iChat integration I'm afraid. iLife is a suite too. Office v.X is another. You can't take a spreadsheet out of works and put it inside a word document, can you? In a perfect world you could but even OS X has some flaws here. They're just maybe not as big because there are no two competing environments.
I don't understand. Why would you want to use a different user interface if the one you have already works? I can understand if you have two interfaces that are both bad in certain ways; you might want to switch from one to the other in order to work around the bad aspects of each. But again, that sounds more like an excuse than a feature. "Linux has more workarounds" isn't a selling point, in my opinion.
You seem to believe that there is a some kind of a holy grail of user interfaces and that OS X is just that. This is simply not true. There are many solutions to the problem and each have their strong and weak points. Yes, even Aqua's not perfect in every respect for everyone. Even if it seems perfect for you there are people who do not think it's all that. GNOME and KDE are just a start, there are many scary, interesting and fascinating user interface options on Linux.
Yes, in iTunes we call them "smart playlists." One of the defaults is a list of the most highly rated songs in the library. But you're not limited to the default smart playlists, of course.
Smart playlists are something you'll find in most popular music players today. JuK, madman, etc. But the other features I described are not solved with smart playlists. Also, I honestly don't find the AmaroK interface so terrible. Still, I would appreciate the features even if the UI was just a workable one. I forgot to mention one feature I like, by the way. AmaroK has a nice OSD that displays the title of a song on the screen when it starts playing a new one.
ICQ, too, evidently. Whatever the hell that is.
That's one hell of an attitude coming from an user of a niche OS. A Windows user might comment similarly on OS X.;)
A tutorial? Research? You're not seeing it, are you? With iDVD, you drag movies to the template and click "burn." No tutorials or research required. There's no excuse for making it harder than that.
Well, I believe you can find an app that requires very similar effort on Linux if all you want is to throw a couple of movies on a dvd. For menus and that kind of thing you need to learn a bit. I had to do some research to learn that you can burn DVDs with iDVD. That was what I'm talking about. Finding the suitable app. Even OS X doesn't make it completely effortless. (I've seen iDVD but it wasn't instantly obvious that it is more than just a DVD player)
That's not really the point, is it? The point is that something that's possible but difficult might as well be impossible for all practical purposes. Because long before figuring out how to do it on Linux, a reasonable person will give up and go do it easily on Mac OS X.
There are, and always will be nontrivial tasks involved in using a computer. You can't make everything doable by clicking on a lickable icon. I'm not denying that Apple is really good in making tasks that are nontrivial on other platforms trivial in their applications, in fact I mentioned it earlier and said that GNU/Linux should learn more of that but even if some basic home user tasks are a little more difficult on Linux it doesn't mean that the os is worthless or
In general GNU/Linux and Linux are the same thing. Adding the GNU/ prefix is mostly for emphasis on certain ideals and a project that set out to make it all possible a long time ago.
But the pieces only work with each other, not with other applications. There's no interoperability between, say, the piece of Evolution that stores your address book and your chat program.
Well, the GNOME suite of applications do interoperate to a point, although I do admit that this interoperation may not be on par with iLife. Across different desktops the situation isn't as good currently but it *is* improving. On the other hand, for other operating systems there *are no different desktops and accompanying software suites*
That's fine and all, but it's kind of like being the only person in town with a Home telephone when everybody else has switched to Bell. There's nobody to talk to.
Your mileage may vary but all my friends use Jabber so using another network would be lonely for me. There are millions of Jabber users, more than there are ICQ users today.
Okay, well, you've obviously got some criteria which would seem strange and silly to me. Because the Web site is so incredibly disorganized I can't find the list of features; the only thing I can find quickly is a set of screen shots... which are all incredibly hard to look at. So... you know. To each his own, I guess, but... wow. Horrible.
What do you find so hard to look at? Let me be more specific. I like having the album covers (automatically fetched from amazon), the automatically displayed lists of favourite songs, other songs from the currently playing album, other albums from the same artist and the eyecandy that can't be seen in screenshots. AmaroK has this and more cool stuff. iTunes seems like a pretty standard database music player in comparison. And lacks Ogg Vorbis as I said.
What does "flamebait" mean? Let me clarify so you don't misunderstand me: Looking at Linux, you'd think that it was created in 1979. It's based on very, VERY old ideas. Programs have bad user interfaces and don't work together. Major pieces of the puzzle are simply missing: There's no way to assemble movies into a DVD for example. It's like Linux was created back before we had DVDs, and never caught up. For that matter, it's like it was created back before we had human user interfaces, and never caught up.
Flamebait is an opinion that's needlessly harsh and unaccounted for. I'm quite fond of the GNOME UI work although I can't say that for KDE myself and GNOME does really work to create a good UI experience. They have UI Guidelines and have conducted usability studies. Apple is very good in this respect too, there's no denying that, but GNOME does a very good job too in my opinion. GNOME 2.x actually feels as well thought out as Apple's UIs in my opinion and that's a huge compliment.
It's simply not true that there aren't tools for creating DVDs by the way. Try picking up a recent issue of LJ for a tutorial or do a bit of research online. I doubt you can name many tasks that would be impossible on a free software operating system today and what's more, many of these things cost a bundle on a non-free platform.
You're being unnecessarily harsh on Linux and give little to back such bashing. What exactly does in your opinion make it bad or are you unhappy with my rebuttals? GNU/Linux is always in active development and always will be just like every piece of supported software. There are still some rough edges, quite possibly less than Apple has left in OS X but OS X certainly isn't perfect either, I hear that for example Mail.app and the OS X installer in 10.3 (for which there wasn't supposed to be a need at all when OS X came out) are less than perfect and I don't like the way
Yes, I've used it and I agree that it's a polished OS and Apple's iLife suite did impress me. They encourage creativity like no other. In the end I find myself more impressed with GNU/Linux. I'd like it to learn more from the Mac way of empowering the users, though. Philosophically, free software is doing exactly that, empowering computer users everywhere and I wish it would show from the apps as much as it does on Mac OS.
As for the applications you mention, they're all great but for one reason or another I do end up preferring some available on the GNU/Linux desktop.
Evolution has both an address book and mail. It also has a calendar and these days you see the Evolution calendar events even in the panel's calendar, which I think is great and a good example of the GNOME desktop integration. Evolution is truly a great mail client although it really has even more stuff than I need.
For chat I like Psi which is a great Jabber client available for whatever platform I choose. I may try iChat when it supports Jabber (next OS X I hear) and Psi doesn't offer that kind of integration but it still is the best IM client I've used and currently iChat isn't an option.
AmaroK kicks iTunes' ass in my not so humble opinion. It has many features not found in iTunes which I'm not so impressed with. Also, Ogg Vorbis really is an issue for me as I've got a substantial collection of self-ripped vorbis files. Each and every Linux player support them and so does for example WinAmp.
As for the rest, iPhoto is pretty nice and I can't name anything superior but I'm not that heartbroken from not having it. I can't talk much about iMovie but it seems a pretty good entry-level video editing app, certainly better than Windows movie maker. The stuff that's available for Linux tends to be more pro-oriented in that are I guess (same goes for Garageband). What's so good about iDVD? xine/mplayer/ogle/... do more and work well as DVD players.
Linux distributions vary a lot, if you select a good one, you won't be overwhelmed with choice initially but will be able to get to the options if you want to test the large amount available. Ubuntu, Fedora and SuSe are my recent favourites here. I don't think so much of the OS X desktop and feel your 1979 comment is a flamebait. Some things work better in GNU/Linux, others are still lagging behind it, but nothing's perfect.
For me, most of the Mac's appeal to me comes from the hardware. PowerPC is a nice processor architecture and I'm happy to take advantage of the fact that running Linux is possible on more than just x86.
But that's just a small geeky part of it. These are obviously matters of taste but my opinion is that you simply cannot get anything as stylish from the various PC manufacturers. Mac hardware is beatiful, works well and oozes quality (yes, I know Apple has had it's problems and if it feels like quality it's not necessarily long-lasting).
In my mind, the Mac mini's selling points are small size, silent operation, Apple design and possibly the PowerPC processor architecture.
I'm not going to get one though, I'm happy with a laptop and the 'books offer good battery life in addition to all the mini's good features. They're more expensive of course.
Is it such an absurd concept for you that some people might actually prefer GNU/Linux to OS X for whatever reason? You can't really get *every* Linux application installed so easily under OS X. At minimum, software installation is easier and the apps tend to integrate better on a Linux desktop.
Seriously, could someone explain to me why similar remarks about Windows aren't modded up on stories about x86 hardware? What about all the other proprietary UNIX-like operating systems in addition to OS X. Why doesn't every Linux story have a modded up comment about HP-UX, Solaris, Irix and others asking "why use Linux?". What's so special about OS X? Sure, it's a nice OS but in no way is it equal or better than Linux in every possible aspect and for everyone.
Linux has many things going for it that OS X does not. And even if it didn't, some people would use it just for the freedom. I personally have an iBook running Ubuntu and my sister is dual booting Fedora & OS X. I also have a friend using debian exclusively on his iBook for many years.
I'm using the Matchbox window manager with Firefox to keep it fullscreen. I feel doing the fullscreen stuff with the WM is where it belongs.
Now locking down is also very possible with just X configuration - just one mouse button equals no unnecessary context menus and unnecessary keyboard shortcuts (very few) can be removed with xmodmapping them to something that doesn't do anything. After that you can just remove the unnecessary GUI elements from Ffox. The only thing that can be changed currently on my thinclients (for browsing a library registry and online databases) is the order of the bookmarks toolbar. That one I guess I'd need an extension for. I'll look at it when the Mozilla development book finally arrives.
(And you're wrong about Kerberos not being "free software": RMS himself says the BSD license is "free" by his definition.)
Absolutely. I was referring to Microsoft usage of Kerberos here, granted, a bit unclear.
If a user surrenders his freedom voluntarily, in order to achieve some other benefit that he considers more important, that's his decision to make. Not yours. Not mine. Not RMS's. His alone.
GPL ensures that they never have to make the choice since all versions. Surely you believe in the author having a similar right not to allow others exploit his work in proprietary products.
Carrying that kind of a sig and clearly believing in an author's right to use copyright in it's full force seems confused to say the least. No one forces you to use GPLed software or enhance it.
If M$ could lock Kerberos away from the rest of us, don't you think they would have? Instead, they're just sticking their own users with gratuoitous incompatibilities, while the rest of us can use the real thing.
This is even more true in the case of the Windows IP stack. All M$ did by "stealing" the BSD networking stack is keep the rest of us from having to work around their bugs. This is a win for everyone.
You're not understanding the problem. The argument here is certainly not that the original BSD-licensed code somehow disappears from public when a company decides to use it in their product.
The users of the MS TCP/IP stack, Kerberos or a non-free Unix are not using free software. They are lacking the basic freedoms that are required for a program package to be considered free software.
For example, they can't fix the incompatibility issues in MS Kerberos or bugs found in any of the software.
The original implementation these non-free software packages are based on doesn't go anywhere of course although the companies may be able to improve their proprietary versions so significantly that they fade into obscurity (but I don't know a single example of that). Still, the users of these software packages do not have the freedoms associated with free software.
I was suprised to see no-one is recommending Ogg Theora yet.
It's unencumbered by patents, totally free, offers quality comparable to xvid and supported out of the box by the latest Realplayer, mplayer, xine, vlc and many others I'm sure. The ogg container format which you would typically use it with makes it even possible to add multiple subtitles inside the video container.
Yes, the encoder is still in alpha but the bytestream format is already finalized and you'll always be able to play the videos you encode now. I've encoded some demos with ffmpeg2theora and it seems to work well, I like the quality I'm seeing and nothing strange has happened.
Without copyright, then anyone could take the code, including large corporations, and modify it for their own interest, and sell it without releasing the source code. Basically, it'd defeat the point of the difference between "free", and "Free".
Similarly, anyone could take the binaries this company would be selling and redistribute at will. They'd have the privilege of developing their version without anyone helping, of course but no exclusive distribution rights which might make selling proprietary software somewhat difficult.
This assuming that NDAs would still be possible. In a world without copyright they might be viewed unnecessary.
This might actually work out in the business side of things where cost matters more, but probably won't at home. Windows comes as an OEM deal for home users so no-one really thinks they've paid for it (and a significant amount just copy it illegally). If it has all the same apps plus all Windows-exclusive ones, I don't think anyone (except geeks) are going to feel any need to switch. It's all about the application library.
We only need to look at OS X and all the praise it's getting from some of the former Linux-aficionados as an example of what could (nearly) come of Windows too. They frequently cite the availability of all their former apps and plenty more on the platform as a reason for switching. With the Adobe range, iLife, MS Office etc. most of them feel OS X is vastly superior.
Take the UNIX-factor out of the equation and you're left with what average users care about on their computer. The desktop apps. This is what Windows can offer given enough ports of free software.
RMS has a million dollar grant from the MacArthur Foundation, and permanent facilities at his disposal at MIT, one of the best-equipped universities in the world. He is unmarried and has no children.
He recieved the MacArthur grant in 1990 and the amount was $240,000. He's recieved a number of other awards, though - the Takeda award was a fairly large one, look it up on Slashdot.
The MacArthur grant was the first one he recieved, and he has been doing this since the early 80's. Whether or not his financial situation has significantly improved since then (and I'm not sure it has since he has always been working without pay for the FSF), he certainly hasn't been living like a millionaire while practicing what he preaches.
For a period, he lived at the MIT facilities. They might be well-equipped but I wouldn't like to live at my office. Also, some people might see the lack of a marriage or children as a personal sacrifice, I know I do.
You might want to read Sam Williams' book Free As In Freedom linked elsewhere in this article and available under the GNU FDL. Regarding the MacArthur grant it has this to say:
Ironically, the award also made it possible for Stallman to vote. Months before the award, a fire in Stallman's apartment house had consumed his few earthly possessions. By the time of the award, Stallman was listing himself as a "squatter"(73) at 545 Technology Square. "[The registrar of voters] didn't want to accept that as my address," Stallman would later recall. "A newspaper article about the MacArthur grant said that and then they let me register."(74)
He may have the luxury today, but he definitely didn't have it back at the beginning when he had to actually make that decision to leave his job. The book paints a very different picture to what you're suggesting and anyone familiar with his traveling and living habits can tell you that he still tries to consume very little.
Not just advantageous, but necessary. Honestly, who uses FAT anymore these days? It's horrible slow, 100% insecure, inefficient as hell with drives much larger than a few hundred meg, and unreliable.
Funny, all of those things could also be said about Windows itself. Well, with the difference that Windows is not only inefficient as hell with a little larger drives, it's inefficient whatever the size of your disk.;)
One thing too often forgotten when talking about the gray area of the GPL in my opinion is that these problems only come up when you attempt to find a "loophole", use the software in a way that is really against the spirit and meaning of the GPL. Even if you could get away with such an action legally, surely you wouldn't be morally right.
Hopping thru all sorts of loops to avoid sharing does not seem like decent thing to do and as long as you're sharing there's not a thing unclear about the GPL.
No.
If we want to maintain the quality and stability that the Linux kernel has, we need to resist binary drivers. Many of the stability issues remaining with Windows today I believe are in fact driver issues.
Giving in to the hardware companies' (pointless) fear of losing so-called "intellectual property" by opening up their drivers would pass part of the control of the kernel from Linus & co. to countless programmers who may or may not have special interest in improving Linux specifically. The quality assurance that currently takes place for the free software drivers that get into the kernel is valuable.
Giving up on free/open source software at every turn where it is convenient would lead us to having an OS that is an assortment of non-free parts a bit like the current proprietary UNIXes. It might even lead to someone eventually getting into a position where they could charge for an essential part of the system thus rendering it non-free even in the beer sense.
But the issue of driver compatibility. For all of the people that seem to get upset about this, I really don't see anyone understand why Linux works this way. Here's why the Linux kernel does not have binary driver compatibility, and why it never will:
We want to fix the bugs that we find. If we find a bug in a kernel interface, we fix it, fix up all drivers that use that api call, and everyone is happy.
We learn over time how to write better interfaces. Take a look at the USB driver interface in Windows (as an example). They have rewritten the USB interface in Windows at least 3 times, and changed the driver interface a bit every time. But every time they still have to support that first interface, as there are drivers out there somewhere that use it. So they can never drop old driver apis, no matter how buggy or broken they are. So that code remains living inside that kernel forever. In Linux we have had at least 3 major changes in the USB driver interface (and it looks like we are due for another one...) Each time this happened, we fixed up all of the drivers in the kernel tree, and the api, and got rid of the old one. Now we don't have to support an old, broken api, and the kernel is smaller and cleaner. This saves time and memory for everyone in the long run.
compiler versions and kernel options. If you select something as simple as CONFIG_SMP, that means that core kernel structures will be different sizes, and locks will either be enabled, or compiled away into nothing. So, if you wanted to ship a binary driver, you would have to build your driver for that option enabled, and disabled. Now combine that with the zillion different kernel options that are around that change the way structures are sized and built, and you have a huge number of binary drivers that you need to ship. Combine that with the different versions of gcc which align things differently (and turn on some kernel options themselves, based on different features available in the compiler) and there's no way you can successfully ship a binary kernel driver that will work for all users. It's just an impossible dream of people who do not understand the technology.
Drivers outside the kernel tree and binary drivers take away from Linux, they give nothing back. This was one of the main statements from Andrew Morton's 2004 OLS keynote, and I agree. Out of the box, Linux supports more hardware devices than any other operating system. That is very important, and is something that we could not have done without the drivers being in our tree.
If a kernel api is not being used by anyone in the tree, we delete it. We have no way of knowing if there is some user of this api in a driver living outside on some sf.net site somewhere. I have been yelled at for removing apis like this, when there was no physical way I could have possibly known that someone was using th
Yes, we all know Mac users pay for all their software, that's why there doesn't exist any Warez bittorrent or any mac-warez on p2p networks and there are absolutely no p2pclients for the mac.
Those GNU/Linux users are just filthy thieves, unlike the honest Mac and especially Windows users as we all know. If it wasn't for GNU/Linux, p2p would not be a problem in today's world.
How about comparing the amount of Warez on an average Windows user's machine to that found on the average GNU/Linux user. I doubt you'd find that the Windows users would have the moral high ground and I don't really see any evidence suggesting that the Mac users would be any better.
Some Linux users actually make the switch because they don't want to use warez, others do it for philosophical reasons. In any case, you're always going to be in a very weak position when it comes to infringing copyright because the vast majority of the software you can use on GNU/Linux is Free.
I very much doubt anyone feeling he doesn't need to pay for software will feel inclined to switch to a free operating system where there will be fewer titles to choose from when he can just as easily copy the latest-and-greatest version of Windows (or OS X as that may be).
Could you elaborate on how K3B loses to Nero? You're also the first person I've ever heard praise PowerDVD.
As a long-time GNU/Linux user I recently attempted using Windows XP as my main desktop for half a year. I tried to be open-minded and use the best-of-breed Windows apps for my day to day tasks but eventually found myself floating towards my favourites on the other side - XChat for IRC, Pan for news, Thunderbird for mail, Firefox for www...
I really didn't find the Windows apps to be anything so spectacular. Almost none of them were free (as in beer) and they didn't offer any functionality over the ones I was used to on GNU/Linux.
I went thru a number of e-mail clients (skipping the Outlook family, although I've previously gotten to know them), Media players (iTunes, Winamp 5, Foobar, etc.), CD burners and all sorts of typical desktop software, even asked what my friends recommended. Always wound up missing something that I was used to on the other side. Rhythmbox, Evolution, Firefox, K3B, Psi, grip, DVD::Rip, mplayer and so on really are top-notch apps with a very comprehensive feature set.
I also missed the customizalibity of my desktop, seemed like XP is very "one size fits all", virtual desktops (the powertoy is dog slow), a powerful command-line, efficient memory management and general speed. One thing I had suspected and verified is that XP has indeed become stable enough, however. Linux has a lot of things going for it but stability (on the desktop) is an argument of the past.
Few consumers accept(s/ed) this and buys a modkit to solve the problem. Same way it will be for the IBM hardware.
There's just one little problem. Modding depends on the safety system in question being on a separate chip on the motherboard. For now this is the case, but according to Ross Anderson's TCPA FAQ this will be changed. Intel's answer is LaGrande. AMD hasn't gone public with theirs yet, but they've announced they'll be providing a similar solution. It's a lot harder to mod a microprocessor.
Americans making arrogant remarks about the French not fighting for their country really make my blood boil. There were 210,000 french soldiers and 350,000 french civilians killed in the second world war.
They were in the unfortunate position to be direct border neigbors to the Germans, I doubt Britain would've lasted either if they had been a similar situation.
The USA had a significant part in ending the war, no doubt. But that was only after the Japanese dragged you into it in 1943. Before that USA was content with letting the rest of the world fall under Nazi rule as long as they wouldn't try conquering their country (isolationism).
Meanwhile, the French and British (and the rest of europe) was under war for all of 1939-45. I find it somewhat disappointing that almost every movie is mostly about the american involvement and can only imagine how much more the european soldier has had to gone thru with enduring war over twice as long.
The French weren't cowards, Hitler just had a very strong army. On the other hand, the Americans were a bit slow to take part at all.
Had to be said. By the way, I'm not French. I'm Finnish.
The Ipodfrance galleries also feature this...
(Coral link)
It looks somewhat more convincing although it's very bad quality and could really be something completely different, but at least it does looks somewhat like Apple hardware and has never been seen before...
e was actually what got me using GNU/Linux first. I started using Litestep, an explorer replacement for Windows at the time. Going through a few themes, hunting for new ones I noticed a few of the best were ports from enlightenment (BlueHeart, Shinymetal...) and e looked like it had all the features that Litestep was missing because of the limitations Windows placed.
I didn't end up using e for a very long time however. The lack of releases, themes and it actually lacking some features I had come to like in Litestep were my main reasons for switching to GNOME.
I'd like to see e17 be something that takes the themeability and effects of a window manager to a new level again, but what I've been wishing for all these years is a Litestep clone. Guess I should try to delve into the world of windowmanager programming some time.
The GPL doesn't attempt to give "freedom" to the original author, if you try to look at it the way you are doing, just basic copyright starts to look REALLY good because it even lets the author have control over others in distribution.
Then you have the BSD license that permits anyone to take control if they're so inclined.
The GPL is about giving the users (and that includes people who'd wish to develop the software also) of the software the three basic rights that are outlined as the requirements for a program that can be called free software on the FSF website.
But here's the part that always seems to get the comments about the GPL not being free: It also attempts to keep those rights for the users. Having control over other people is not freedom in my opinion.
Most of us live in countries that claim their citizens are free, yet we're not able to murder, steal, infringe someone's copyright etc. freely. Quite frankly, if that's the only real freedom I want nothing to do with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Add a third party mail client to OS X and you lose that precious iChat integration I'm afraid. iLife is a suite too. Office v.X is another. You can't take a spreadsheet out of works and put it inside a word document, can you? In a perfect world you could but even OS X has some flaws here. They're just maybe not as big because there are no two competing environments.
You seem to believe that there is a some kind of a holy grail of user interfaces and that OS X is just that. This is simply not true. There are many solutions to the problem and each have their strong and weak points. Yes, even Aqua's not perfect in every respect for everyone. Even if it seems perfect for you there are people who do not think it's all that. GNOME and KDE are just a start, there are many scary, interesting and fascinating user interface options on Linux.
Smart playlists are something you'll find in most popular music players today. JuK, madman, etc. But the other features I described are not solved with smart playlists. Also, I honestly don't find the AmaroK interface so terrible. Still, I would appreciate the features even if the UI was just a workable one. I forgot to mention one feature I like, by the way. AmaroK has a nice OSD that displays the title of a song on the screen when it starts playing a new one.
That's one hell of an attitude coming from an user of a niche OS. A Windows user might comment similarly on OS X. ;)
Well, I believe you can find an app that requires very similar effort on Linux if all you want is to throw a couple of movies on a dvd. For menus and that kind of thing you need to learn a bit. I had to do some research to learn that you can burn DVDs with iDVD. That was what I'm talking about. Finding the suitable app. Even OS X doesn't make it completely effortless. (I've seen iDVD but it wasn't instantly obvious that it is more than just a DVD player)
There are, and always will be nontrivial tasks involved in using a computer. You can't make everything doable by clicking on a lickable icon. I'm not denying that Apple is really good in making tasks that are nontrivial on other platforms trivial in their applications, in fact I mentioned it earlier and said that GNU/Linux should learn more of that but even if some basic home user tasks are a little more difficult on Linux it doesn't mean that the os is worthless or
Well, the GNOME suite of applications do interoperate to a point, although I do admit that this interoperation may not be on par with iLife. Across different desktops the situation isn't as good currently but it *is* improving. On the other hand, for other operating systems there *are no different desktops and accompanying software suites*
Your mileage may vary but all my friends use Jabber so using another network would be lonely for me. There are millions of Jabber users, more than there are ICQ users today.
What do you find so hard to look at? Let me be more specific. I like having the album covers (automatically fetched from amazon), the automatically displayed lists of favourite songs, other songs from the currently playing album, other albums from the same artist and the eyecandy that can't be seen in screenshots. AmaroK has this and more cool stuff. iTunes seems like a pretty standard database music player in comparison. And lacks Ogg Vorbis as I said.
Flamebait is an opinion that's needlessly harsh and unaccounted for. I'm quite fond of the GNOME UI work although I can't say that for KDE myself and GNOME does really work to create a good UI experience. They have UI Guidelines and have conducted usability studies. Apple is very good in this respect too, there's no denying that, but GNOME does a very good job too in my opinion. GNOME 2.x actually feels as well thought out as Apple's UIs in my opinion and that's a huge compliment.
It's simply not true that there aren't tools for creating DVDs by the way. Try picking up a recent issue of LJ for a tutorial or do a bit of research online. I doubt you can name many tasks that would be impossible on a free software operating system today and what's more, many of these things cost a bundle on a non-free platform.
You're being unnecessarily harsh on Linux and give little to back such bashing. What exactly does in your opinion make it bad or are you unhappy with my rebuttals? GNU/Linux is always in active development and always will be just like every piece of supported software. There are still some rough edges, quite possibly less than Apple has left in OS X but OS X certainly isn't perfect either, I hear that for example Mail.app and the OS X installer in 10.3 (for which there wasn't supposed to be a need at all when OS X came out) are less than perfect and I don't like the way
As for the applications you mention, they're all great but for one reason or another I do end up preferring some available on the GNU/Linux desktop.
Evolution has both an address book and mail. It also has a calendar and these days you see the Evolution calendar events even in the panel's calendar, which I think is great and a good example of the GNOME desktop integration. Evolution is truly a great mail client although it really has even more stuff than I need.
For chat I like Psi which is a great Jabber client available for whatever platform I choose. I may try iChat when it supports Jabber (next OS X I hear) and Psi doesn't offer that kind of integration but it still is the best IM client I've used and currently iChat isn't an option.
AmaroK kicks iTunes' ass in my not so humble opinion. It has many features not found in iTunes which I'm not so impressed with. Also, Ogg Vorbis really is an issue for me as I've got a substantial collection of self-ripped vorbis files. Each and every Linux player support them and so does for example WinAmp.
As for the rest, iPhoto is pretty nice and I can't name anything superior but I'm not that heartbroken from not having it. I can't talk much about iMovie but it seems a pretty good entry-level video editing app, certainly better than Windows movie maker. The stuff that's available for Linux tends to be more pro-oriented in that are I guess (same goes for Garageband). What's so good about iDVD? xine/mplayer/ogle/... do more and work well as DVD players.
Linux distributions vary a lot, if you select a good one, you won't be overwhelmed with choice initially but will be able to get to the options if you want to test the large amount available. Ubuntu, Fedora and SuSe are my recent favourites here. I don't think so much of the OS X desktop and feel your 1979 comment is a flamebait. Some things work better in GNU/Linux, others are still lagging behind it, but nothing's perfect.
But that's just a small geeky part of it. These are obviously matters of taste but my opinion is that you simply cannot get anything as stylish from the various PC manufacturers. Mac hardware is beatiful, works well and oozes quality (yes, I know Apple has had it's problems and if it feels like quality it's not necessarily long-lasting).
In my mind, the Mac mini's selling points are small size, silent operation, Apple design and possibly the PowerPC processor architecture.
I'm not going to get one though, I'm happy with a laptop and the 'books offer good battery life in addition to all the mini's good features. They're more expensive of course.
Seriously, could someone explain to me why similar remarks about Windows aren't modded up on stories about x86 hardware? What about all the other proprietary UNIX-like operating systems in addition to OS X. Why doesn't every Linux story have a modded up comment about HP-UX, Solaris, Irix and others asking "why use Linux?". What's so special about OS X? Sure, it's a nice OS but in no way is it equal or better than Linux in every possible aspect and for everyone.
Linux has many things going for it that OS X does not. And even if it didn't, some people would use it just for the freedom. I personally have an iBook running Ubuntu and my sister is dual booting Fedora & OS X. I also have a friend using debian exclusively on his iBook for many years.
Now locking down is also very possible with just X configuration - just one mouse button equals no unnecessary context menus and unnecessary keyboard shortcuts (very few) can be removed with xmodmapping them to something that doesn't do anything. After that you can just remove the unnecessary GUI elements from Ffox. The only thing that can be changed currently on my thinclients (for browsing a library registry and online databases) is the order of the bookmarks toolbar. That one I guess I'd need an extension for. I'll look at it when the Mozilla development book finally arrives.
Absolutely. I was referring to Microsoft usage of Kerberos here, granted, a bit unclear.
GPL ensures that they never have to make the choice since all versions. Surely you believe in the author having a similar right not to allow others exploit his work in proprietary products.
Carrying that kind of a sig and clearly believing in an author's right to use copyright in it's full force seems confused to say the least. No one forces you to use GPLed software or enhance it.
You're not understanding the problem. The argument here is certainly not that the original BSD-licensed code somehow disappears from public when a company decides to use it in their product.
The users of the MS TCP/IP stack, Kerberos or a non-free Unix are not using free software. They are lacking the basic freedoms that are required for a program package to be considered free software.
For example, they can't fix the incompatibility issues in MS Kerberos or bugs found in any of the software.
The original implementation these non-free software packages are based on doesn't go anywhere of course although the companies may be able to improve their proprietary versions so significantly that they fade into obscurity (but I don't know a single example of that). Still, the users of these software packages do not have the freedoms associated with free software.
It's unencumbered by patents, totally free, offers quality comparable to xvid and supported out of the box by the latest Realplayer, mplayer, xine, vlc and many others I'm sure. The ogg container format which you would typically use it with makes it even possible to add multiple subtitles inside the video container.
Yes, the encoder is still in alpha but the bytestream format is already finalized and you'll always be able to play the videos you encode now. I've encoded some demos with ffmpeg2theora and it seems to work well, I like the quality I'm seeing and nothing strange has happened.
Similarly, anyone could take the binaries this company would be selling and redistribute at will. They'd have the privilege of developing their version without anyone helping, of course but no exclusive distribution rights which might make selling proprietary software somewhat difficult.
This assuming that NDAs would still be possible. In a world without copyright they might be viewed unnecessary.
We only need to look at OS X and all the praise it's getting from some of the former Linux-aficionados as an example of what could (nearly) come of Windows too. They frequently cite the availability of all their former apps and plenty more on the platform as a reason for switching. With the Adobe range, iLife, MS Office etc. most of them feel OS X is vastly superior.
Take the UNIX-factor out of the equation and you're left with what average users care about on their computer. The desktop apps. This is what Windows can offer given enough ports of free software.
He recieved the MacArthur grant in 1990 and the amount was $240,000. He's recieved a number of other awards, though - the Takeda award was a fairly large one, look it up on Slashdot.
The MacArthur grant was the first one he recieved, and he has been doing this since the early 80's. Whether or not his financial situation has significantly improved since then (and I'm not sure it has since he has always been working without pay for the FSF), he certainly hasn't been living like a millionaire while practicing what he preaches.
For a period, he lived at the MIT facilities. They might be well-equipped but I wouldn't like to live at my office. Also, some people might see the lack of a marriage or children as a personal sacrifice, I know I do.
You might want to read Sam Williams' book Free As In Freedom linked elsewhere in this article and available under the GNU FDL. Regarding the MacArthur grant it has this to say:
He may have the luxury today, but he definitely didn't have it back at the beginning when he had to actually make that decision to leave his job. The book paints a very different picture to what you're suggesting and anyone familiar with his traveling and living habits can tell you that he still tries to consume very little.
exactly, so no "standard API" and certainly no binary modules which I presume was what the parent perceived to be in need of such a standard.
It isn't a good idea and here's why.
Funny, all of those things could also be said about Windows itself. Well, with the difference that Windows is not only inefficient as hell with a little larger drives, it's inefficient whatever the size of your disk. ;)
One thing too often forgotten when talking about the gray area of the GPL in my opinion is that these problems only come up when you attempt to find a "loophole", use the software in a way that is really against the spirit and meaning of the GPL. Even if you could get away with such an action legally, surely you wouldn't be morally right.
Hopping thru all sorts of loops to avoid sharing does not seem like decent thing to do and as long as you're sharing there's not a thing unclear about the GPL.
If we want to maintain the quality and stability that the Linux kernel has, we need to resist binary drivers. Many of the stability issues remaining with Windows today I believe are in fact driver issues.
Giving in to the hardware companies' (pointless) fear of losing so-called "intellectual property" by opening up their drivers would pass part of the control of the kernel from Linus & co. to countless programmers who may or may not have special interest in improving Linux specifically. The quality assurance that currently takes place for the free software drivers that get into the kernel is valuable.
Giving up on free/open source software at every turn where it is convenient would lead us to having an OS that is an assortment of non-free parts a bit like the current proprietary UNIXes. It might even lead to someone eventually getting into a position where they could charge for an essential part of the system thus rendering it non-free even in the beer sense.
For a kernel developer's take on this, read this, it's from Greg Kroah-Hartmann's blog:
Yes, we all know Mac users pay for all their software, that's why there doesn't exist any Warez bittorrent or any mac-warez on p2p networks and there are absolutely no p2p clients for the mac.
Those GNU/Linux users are just filthy thieves, unlike the honest Mac and especially Windows users as we all know. If it wasn't for GNU/Linux, p2p would not be a problem in today's world.
How about comparing the amount of Warez on an average Windows user's machine to that found on the average GNU/Linux user. I doubt you'd find that the Windows users would have the moral high ground and I don't really see any evidence suggesting that the Mac users would be any better.
Some Linux users actually make the switch because they don't want to use warez, others do it for philosophical reasons. In any case, you're always going to be in a very weak position when it comes to infringing copyright because the vast majority of the software you can use on GNU/Linux is Free.
I very much doubt anyone feeling he doesn't need to pay for software will feel inclined to switch to a free operating system where there will be fewer titles to choose from when he can just as easily copy the latest-and-greatest version of Windows (or OS X as that may be).
Could you elaborate on how K3B loses to Nero? You're also the first person I've ever heard praise PowerDVD.
As a long-time GNU/Linux user I recently attempted using Windows XP as my main desktop for half a year. I tried to be open-minded and use the best-of-breed Windows apps for my day to day tasks but eventually found myself floating towards my favourites on the other side - XChat for IRC, Pan for news, Thunderbird for mail, Firefox for www...
I really didn't find the Windows apps to be anything so spectacular. Almost none of them were free (as in beer) and they didn't offer any functionality over the ones I was used to on GNU/Linux.
I went thru a number of e-mail clients (skipping the Outlook family, although I've previously gotten to know them), Media players (iTunes, Winamp 5, Foobar, etc.), CD burners and all sorts of typical desktop software, even asked what my friends recommended. Always wound up missing something that I was used to on the other side. Rhythmbox, Evolution, Firefox, K3B, Psi, grip, DVD::Rip, mplayer and so on really are top-notch apps with a very comprehensive feature set.
I also missed the customizalibity of my desktop, seemed like XP is very "one size fits all", virtual desktops (the powertoy is dog slow), a powerful command-line, efficient memory management and general speed. One thing I had suspected and verified is that XP has indeed become stable enough, however. Linux has a lot of things going for it but stability (on the desktop) is an argument of the past.
There's just one little problem. Modding depends on the safety system in question being on a separate chip on the motherboard. For now this is the case, but according to Ross Anderson's TCPA FAQ this will be changed. Intel's answer is LaGrande. AMD hasn't gone public with theirs yet, but they've announced they'll be providing a similar solution. It's a lot harder to mod a microprocessor.
A Coral mirror of the site that first published these. Couldn't get the article link to load on coral anymore, but this is where they got it.
Americans making arrogant remarks about the French not fighting for their country really make my blood boil. There were 210,000 french soldiers and 350,000 french civilians killed in the second world war.
They were in the unfortunate position to be direct border neigbors to the Germans, I doubt Britain would've lasted either if they had been a similar situation.
The USA had a significant part in ending the war, no doubt. But that was only after the Japanese dragged you into it in 1943. Before that USA was content with letting the rest of the world fall under Nazi rule as long as they wouldn't try conquering their country (isolationism).
Meanwhile, the French and British (and the rest of europe) was under war for all of 1939-45. I find it somewhat disappointing that almost every movie is mostly about the american involvement and can only imagine how much more the european soldier has had to gone thru with enduring war over twice as long.
The French weren't cowards, Hitler just had a very strong army. On the other hand, the Americans were a bit slow to take part at all.
Had to be said. By the way, I'm not French. I'm Finnish.
(Coral link)
It looks somewhat more convincing although it's very bad quality and could really be something completely different, but at least it does looks somewhat like Apple hardware and has never been seen before...
e was actually what got me using GNU/Linux first. I started using Litestep, an explorer replacement for Windows at the time. Going through a few themes, hunting for new ones I noticed a few of the best were ports from enlightenment (BlueHeart, Shinymetal...) and e looked like it had all the features that Litestep was missing because of the limitations Windows placed.
I didn't end up using e for a very long time however. The lack of releases, themes and it actually lacking some features I had come to like in Litestep were my main reasons for switching to GNOME.
I'd like to see e17 be something that takes the themeability and effects of a window manager to a new level again, but what I've been wishing for all these years is a Litestep clone. Guess I should try to delve into the world of windowmanager programming some time.
Then you have the BSD license that permits anyone to take control if they're so inclined.
The GPL is about giving the users (and that includes people who'd wish to develop the software also) of the software the three basic rights that are outlined as the requirements for a program that can be called free software on the FSF website.
But here's the part that always seems to get the comments about the GPL not being free: It also attempts to keep those rights for the users. Having control over other people is not freedom in my opinion.
Most of us live in countries that claim their citizens are free, yet we're not able to murder, steal, infringe someone's copyright etc. freely. Quite frankly, if that's the only real freedom I want nothing to do with it.