The/. fortune at the bottom of this page for me reads "We're all looking for a woman who can sit in a mini-skirt and talk philosophy, executing both with confidence and style."
While we're discussing myths.. how about we debunk another one: Open Source is superior to everything by virtue alone. Listening to RMS, slashdotters, and ESR's writings would have you believe OSS will revolutionize the world and proprietary software is/all/ bad.
Hmmm, you don't start out so hot. Have you even read the different things that ESR and RMS have to say? ESR says the Open Source helps a lot of software get better, but all he wants is software that doesn't suck, so he'll take closed source for some stuff. RMS says he'll take free (not Open Source, and there's a perceptual and actual difference) software, even if it's worse, because of the freedoms granted. Maybe you need to go back and read some more.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I direct you to several stunning *proprietary* software achievements which the OSS community has yet to duplicate.
Autocad. For that matter, any serious CAD program.
A desktop my mom can use.
web plugins (until recently, we had no flash!)
Games. Quake and Loki's offerings may be cool, but they're a small subset of what the Windows world has. I'm still waiting for a Red Alert clone.
The desktop, we're working on. CAD, no, we're not on that level yet, but there are several projects working on it. Plugins? We don't have Flash because not many people cared. Games? Have you played Red Alert? The programming's not even vaguely interesting to a real coder. Recreating that game is an art project, plain and simple.
Just to name a few. On the hardware side - have you been watching the source checkins/checkouts for hardware drivers? Then you'll notice they follow a peculiar pattern - Initial Release (aka, it works, but it's slow). Revision 2 (it's buggy, but faster), and finally Revision 3 (finally get it right). The reason is that most people in the OSS community a) don't have access to debuggers to catch this stuff earlier and b) Often don't wait and properly engineer their drivers prior to implimentation. That is to say they're impatient. The result is hundreds of releases of software each day. Some people think this is because we "release early, release often" - I think it's because the programmers didn't know or didn't care enough to make it work correctly the first time and then need to go back and rewrite the code again. Now, if you listen quietly for a moment you can hear people already hammering at their keyboards crying foul. But I'm not done yet.
Huh? I don't even know how to begin responding to this. Of course it's the release early, release often attitude. Do you not bother to notice the version numbers somewhere below 0.01? This is how the development process works. I'm sorry if you've had a bad experience somewhere, or a driver didn't work right, but that's not because the programmers were idiots. You're just not getting the privilege of seeing the early revisions of closed source stuff.
Signal 11, I can't help but think you're displaying a real ignorance with this post. No real member of the community considers themself better than others just because of who they are. I'm not sure where you're getting some of these assumptions, but you're dead wrong.
(PS: unchecked fact, but how many Linux kernel + GNU util developers are there, vs. core BSD'ers? I'd not be surprised to find they're roughly on par...)
Dual licensing isn't a problem at all if you're the sole copyright holder. Ask all contributors to assign you copyright before including their code contributions, and you're free to release it under any licenses you want.
The GNU project retains copyright to all of their projects, so that (I assume) the switch to a newer version of the GPL, if and when this is necessary, is not a problem at all.
Disregarding for the moment my own opinion on the GUI config vs. CLI debate, I see a lot of people getting confused in this thread about the idea of easy to use compared to easy to learn.
Example: vim makes text editing easy for me. It makes programming easy. Was it easy to learn? No, not really. Is it worth it, though? I think so.
Example: Debian makes maintaining my box incredibly easy. Easy to learn? Hah! But the payoff, once again, is there.
I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point. Please keep this idea in mind as you think about how to improve the GNU/Linux system. There's nothing wrong with making things easier to learn, as long as you don't trade away ease of use.
You make a number of good points, but I guess I disagree with you in principle. You're right, we probably won't have a significant effect on Amazon's bottom line. Large as we joke about the/. effect being, Amazon's client base dwarfs us. I don't think we should ignore the potential PR effect this could have, but I'm not counting on that, either.
I am proud, however, to say that I do things not because I think I will be in the majority, or because I think I will always win, but because I think they are right. I have personally been boycotting Amazon from the moment I heard about this. I'm just one man, and I'm sure Amazon doesn't even miss me, but none of that will make me change my mind. I believe what they are doing is wrong, and I am doing my part to make sure they know that.
Ben Franklin said "They that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." The words may not fit exactly, but I think the sentiment is right.
Please be reasonable. Yes, much of the Y2K flap is fear mongering, but some of it is legitimate concern. No, I don't think it will be the end of the world. But the US, especially, is very dependend on computer systems, more than we sometimes realize. Y2K is just one way in which we are becoming increasingly aware of this.
I'm not suggesting that we're necessarily going to see a lot of damage from Y2K issues in water and sewer systems, but I think you'd be surprised how many systems are dependent on computer systems.
I was recently doing research on Information War (IW) for a report. The DoD has recently (last few years) done a lot of research into US IW vulnerability. The results indicate that 1) the US has a lot of targets that depend on computers, and 2) we lack the appropriate infrastructure to effectively communicate when our computer systems aren't functioning.
Don't write this kind of thing off, and don't ignore it. We've been living in a kind of information paradise for the last few years, building elaborate computer systems without appropriate fallbacks and safeguards. We should treat Y2K as wakeup call number one.
Curiosity question... whoever submitted the story basically copied the text directly from the web page. The story (at cnn.com) directly attributes Newsweek, but the words are from a Reuters story (copyright 1999, all rights reserved, no permission for redistribution). Since this is unattributed and more than just a summary, is this fair use?
I'm not trying to flame here,... "some men...you just can't reach." Face the fact if you can that there is room enough for two or more A+ desktops.
You're doing a poor job, then. FYI, I in no way deny the existence of two very high quality desktop environments. This despite the fact that I choose, for my own reasons, to use, support, and develop for Gnome. In much the same way that I, as do many people, choose to use GNU/Linux, while acknowledging that there are many "A+" OS's out there (the *BSD's, for instance).
Now, to the meat of your comments.
I'm not trying to flame here, but what architectural advantage is there when your model won't allow a change in direction? ORB was not working out for everything KDE wanted it to do. So they did the sensible thing and came up with something else that was smaller, faster and easier to use, and kept ORB for those tasks where it was needed.
I'm afraid we've miscommunicated here, and I suspect the fault was mine. What I was trying to say was the the Gnome project seems to have a lead in working out these architectural issues. While KDE turned out a highly polished set of applications, the Gnome project seemed to focus on a broader framework initially. Here it seems to pay off for them.
It seems to me that ORB has become the holy grail of Gnome. A couple of weeks ago the so-called abandonment of ORB was touted by the Gnomies as *proof* of KDE's inferiority.
First, a technical note: I believe you are confusing the terms ORB and CORBA. Second, I certainly hope that you didn't hear anyone from the Gnome project saying that this is proof of KDE's inferiority. Statements such as these only serve to undermine the spirit of cooperation we'd all like to see.
Now that mosfet sttempts to correct a gross misunderstanding, you say it sounds like spin-control.
Yes. To me, this sounds like a way to put a nice face on some technical issues they were unable to resolve. This is merely my opinion, being shared in a forum which invites people to share their opinions.
However, as I understand it, the overhead of a local execution in a good ORB (say ORBit or OmniORB) is equivalent to that of a shared library call. Why not use a good ORB and have the added benefit of network communications?
This is my understanding as well. Also, the memory usage should be quite tame, since this is a share library, not something that should bloat each app. However, I understand the KDE people have been having serious problems with binary bloat while using MICO.
KDE 2.0 looks very nice, and I'm glad the developers are using technologies which are practical, rather than using just the "glamour" stuff. (eg: Using CORBA =when appropriate=, rather than for everything under and over the sun.)
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. On a modern UNIX, you've already payed the price by using it once. If it's going to be in memory as a shared library (and ORB), why not use it multiple times?
This article sounds a little bit like spin to me. Not trying to start a flamewar, but here we see a bit of the architectural advantage the Gnome folks have. Writing a completely new ORB (ORBit) might have been a bit 'o work, but it's paying off for the Gnome project, while KDE still struggles with MICO.
Every application supports a basic set of IPC operations for communicating to other applications, and it is not reasonable to expect *every* application to link to any ORB.
I'm no expert, but I'm not sure I understand this. If you're already going to have the ORB running, and you've got the libraries in memory, how much of a price do you pay having 100 applications using CORBA vs. 1 application using CORBA and 99 using some other mechanism?
I'm obviously not advocating violating people's civil rights on the basis of this program! If it's being used in that way, then it is an abuse.
At the same time, I don't believe the information out of programs like this is useless. It should be weighed against other available evidence and used carefully.
It is by actions and actions alone that we must be judged.
It's my impression that that is what this program does. This isn't like a test given to students. This is a compilation of the students actions and influences over time. So if the student has been observered (like one psycho who lived near me) setting up birdfeeders to attract wildlife, so that he could shoot them with a blowgun, well, he's being judged by his actions, isn't he?
First of all, it's not a test. It's a database of information that the school can enter about a student; the more information you have, the more accurate the program supposes to be.
Secondly, it's not a judge of how violent you are at any particular moment, rather, of your tendency to violence. So if you have two different people, odds are one is more likely to become violent over a breakup than the other. This is not a fundamental change in personality.
This is really sick. I recognize that it's a difficult task to draw a line between irony and just plain garbage (classics like "A Modest Proposal" come to mind), but this... rape and murder aren't that funny.
I especially find disturbing the casual idea of raping someone's family because you object to their ideas. Yes, let's commit one of the most violent acts known to man to people innocent of the crime!
Typical slashdot fare of late, it seems. Take a tool with the potential to be abused, shout about your rights, claim we're being pigeonholed, point out that we're all individuals, and watch the masses rant and rave.
I'm tired of it. Yes, this is a tool that has the potential to cause great harm. But really, all it does is make observations based on trends. This is not inherently a bad thing!
Come on, people, get a grip. Yes, we are all individuals. Yes, there are exceptions to every rule. But statistical analysis is a valuable tool. In capable hands, a tool like this can be of immense help in dealing with a problematic child. It all depends on how it is used.
I don't think anyone is suggesting we just turn all decision making responsibility over to the program, and sit back and let it raise our children. Yes, there is cause for concern over abuse. But don't fly to the other extreme and jump up and cry foul at every corner!
My roommate and I were just talking about the source we'd/really/ like to see released... Commander Keen and Duke Nukem (the original). These games were the best. Brings back fond memories of the days of BBS's, when life was simple...:-)
Back on topic, this is really cool news. Granted this isn't cutting edge technology by a long shot, but it should still be fun!
Great. Now, not only will I have to deal with the popular misconception of what a hacker is, but I'll have to deal with an entire generation trained to believe that I'm a bad person. I fear that, despite some small victories, we're losing the hacker/cracker nomenclature battle on the large scale.
This isn't to say I don't have other objections to his campaign, of course, and I doubt I'd feel an more positive about an anti-cracking campaign...
Slashdot Mirror
...had some memory leak problems... (which are now fixed, but nevertheless, injured the reputation of GNOME)...
Still has, actually. There are serious flaws in imlib's image caching, but you can't turn that off without making the pixmap theme even slower...
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Ian Peters
That's the big problem with embracing a religion, rather than embracing "the best".
Uhh, choosing always to embrace the best is a religion.
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Ian Peters
The /. fortune at the bottom of this page for me reads "We're all looking for a woman who can sit in a mini-skirt and talk philosophy, executing both with confidence and style."
--
Ian Peters
Hmmm, you don't start out so hot. Have you even read the different things that ESR and RMS have to say? ESR says the Open Source helps a lot of software get better, but all he wants is software that doesn't suck, so he'll take closed source for some stuff. RMS says he'll take free (not Open Source, and there's a perceptual and actual difference) software, even if it's worse, because of the freedoms granted. Maybe you need to go back and read some more.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I direct you to several stunning *proprietary* software achievements which the OSS community has yet to duplicate.
The desktop, we're working on. CAD, no, we're not on that level yet, but there are several projects working on it. Plugins? We don't have Flash because not many people cared. Games? Have you played Red Alert? The programming's not even vaguely interesting to a real coder. Recreating that game is an art project, plain and simple.
Just to name a few. On the hardware side - have you been watching the source checkins/checkouts for hardware drivers? Then you'll notice they follow a peculiar pattern - Initial Release (aka, it works, but it's slow). Revision 2 (it's buggy, but faster), and finally Revision 3 (finally get it right). The reason is that most people in the OSS community a) don't have access to debuggers to catch this stuff earlier and b) Often don't wait and properly engineer their drivers prior to implimentation. That is to say they're impatient. The result is hundreds of releases of software each day. Some people think this is because we "release early, release often" - I think it's because the programmers didn't know or didn't care enough to make it work correctly the first time and then need to go back and rewrite the code again. Now, if you listen quietly for a moment you can hear people already hammering at their keyboards crying foul. But I'm not done yet.
Huh? I don't even know how to begin responding to this. Of course it's the release early, release often attitude. Do you not bother to notice the version numbers somewhere below 0.01? This is how the development process works. I'm sorry if you've had a bad experience somewhere, or a driver didn't work right, but that's not because the programmers were idiots. You're just not getting the privilege of seeing the early revisions of closed source stuff.
Signal 11, I can't help but think you're displaying a real ignorance with this post. No real member of the community considers themself better than others just because of who they are. I'm not sure where you're getting some of these assumptions, but you're dead wrong.
(PS: unchecked fact, but how many Linux kernel + GNU util developers are there, vs. core BSD'ers? I'd not be surprised to find they're roughly on par...)
--
Ian Peters
Dual licensing isn't a problem at all if you're the sole copyright holder. Ask all contributors to assign you copyright before including their code contributions, and you're free to release it under any licenses you want.
The GNU project retains copyright to all of their projects, so that (I assume) the switch to a newer version of the GPL, if and when this is necessary, is not a problem at all.
--
Ian Peters
Disregarding for the moment my own opinion on the GUI config vs. CLI debate, I see a lot of people getting confused in this thread about the idea of easy to use compared to easy to learn.
Example: vim makes text editing easy for me. It makes programming easy. Was it easy to learn? No, not really. Is it worth it, though? I think so.
Example: Debian makes maintaining my box incredibly easy. Easy to learn? Hah! But the payoff, once again, is there.
I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point. Please keep this idea in mind as you think about how to improve the GNU/Linux system. There's nothing wrong with making things easier to learn, as long as you don't trade away ease of use.
--
Ian Peters
You make a number of good points, but I guess I disagree with you in principle. You're right, we probably won't have a significant effect on Amazon's bottom line. Large as we joke about the /. effect being, Amazon's client base dwarfs us. I don't think we should ignore the potential PR effect this could have, but I'm not counting on that, either.
I am proud, however, to say that I do things not because I think I will be in the majority, or because I think I will always win, but because I think they are right. I have personally been boycotting Amazon from the moment I heard about this. I'm just one man, and I'm sure Amazon doesn't even miss me, but none of that will make me change my mind. I believe what they are doing is wrong, and I am doing my part to make sure they know that.
Ben Franklin said "They that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." The words may not fit exactly, but I think the sentiment is right.
--
Ian Peters
itp at gnu dot org
Please be reasonable. Yes, much of the Y2K flap is fear mongering, but some of it is legitimate concern. No, I don't think it will be the end of the world. But the US, especially, is very dependend on computer systems, more than we sometimes realize. Y2K is just one way in which we are becoming increasingly aware of this.
I'm not suggesting that we're necessarily going to see a lot of damage from Y2K issues in water and sewer systems, but I think you'd be surprised how many systems are dependent on computer systems.
I was recently doing research on Information War (IW) for a report. The DoD has recently (last few years) done a lot of research into US IW vulnerability. The results indicate that 1) the US has a lot of targets that depend on computers, and 2) we lack the appropriate infrastructure to effectively communicate when our computer systems aren't functioning.
Don't write this kind of thing off, and don't ignore it. We've been living in a kind of information paradise for the last few years, building elaborate computer systems without appropriate fallbacks and safeguards. We should treat Y2K as wakeup call number one.
Curiosity question... whoever submitted the story basically copied the text directly from the web page. The story (at cnn.com) directly attributes Newsweek, but the words are from a Reuters story (copyright 1999, all rights reserved, no permission for redistribution). Since this is unattributed and more than just a summary, is this fair use?
--
Ian Peters
HTTP here.
FTP here.
--
Ian Peters
First off,
... "some men...you just can't reach." Face the fact if you can that there is room enough for two or more A+ desktops.
I'm not trying to flame here,
You're doing a poor job, then. FYI, I in no way deny the existence of two very high quality desktop environments. This despite the fact that I choose, for my own reasons, to use, support, and develop for Gnome. In much the same way that I, as do many people, choose to use GNU/Linux, while acknowledging that there are many "A+" OS's out there (the *BSD's, for instance).
Now, to the meat of your comments.
I'm not trying to flame here, but what architectural advantage is there when your model won't allow a change in direction? ORB was not working out for everything KDE wanted it to do. So they did the sensible thing and came up with something else that was smaller, faster and easier to use, and kept ORB for those tasks where it was needed.
I'm afraid we've miscommunicated here, and I suspect the fault was mine. What I was trying to say was the the Gnome project seems to have a lead in working out these architectural issues. While KDE turned out a highly polished set of applications, the Gnome project seemed to focus on a broader framework initially. Here it seems to pay off for them.
It seems to me that ORB has become the holy grail of Gnome. A couple of weeks ago the so-called abandonment of ORB was touted by the Gnomies as *proof* of KDE's inferiority.
First, a technical note: I believe you are confusing the terms ORB and CORBA. Second, I certainly hope that you didn't hear anyone from the Gnome project saying that this is proof of KDE's inferiority. Statements such as these only serve to undermine the spirit of cooperation we'd all like to see.
Now that mosfet sttempts to correct a gross misunderstanding, you say it sounds like spin-control.
Yes. To me, this sounds like a way to put a nice face on some technical issues they were unable to resolve. This is merely my opinion, being shared in a forum which invites people to share their opinions.
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Ian Peters
Bonobo is based upon CORBA as well.
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Ian Peters
However, as I understand it, the overhead of a local execution in a good ORB (say ORBit or OmniORB) is equivalent to that of a shared library call. Why not use a good ORB and have the added benefit of network communications?
This is my understanding as well. Also, the memory usage should be quite tame, since this is a share library, not something that should bloat each app. However, I understand the KDE people have been having serious problems with binary bloat while using MICO.
--
Ian Peters
KDE 2.0 looks very nice, and I'm glad the developers are using technologies which are practical, rather than using just the "glamour" stuff. (eg: Using CORBA =when appropriate=, rather than for everything under and over the sun.)
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. On a modern UNIX, you've already payed the price by using it once. If it's going to be in memory as a shared library (and ORB), why not use it multiple times?
--
Ian Peters
This article sounds a little bit like spin to me. Not trying to start a flamewar, but here we see a bit of the architectural advantage the Gnome folks have. Writing a completely new ORB (ORBit) might have been a bit 'o work, but it's paying off for the Gnome project, while KDE still struggles with MICO.
Every application supports a basic set of IPC operations for communicating to other applications, and it is not reasonable to expect *every* application to link to any ORB.
I'm no expert, but I'm not sure I understand this. If you're already going to have the ORB running, and you've got the libraries in memory, how much of a price do you pay having 100 applications using CORBA vs. 1 application using CORBA and 99 using some other mechanism?
--
Ian Peters
I'm obviously not advocating violating people's civil rights on the basis of this program! If it's being used in that way, then it is an abuse.
At the same time, I don't believe the information out of programs like this is useless. It should be weighed against other available evidence and used carefully.
--
Ian Peters
It is by actions and actions alone that we must be judged.
It's my impression that that is what this program does. This isn't like a test given to students. This is a compilation of the students actions and influences over time. So if the student has been observered (like one psycho who lived near me) setting up birdfeeders to attract wildlife, so that he could shoot them with a blowgun, well, he's being judged by his actions, isn't he?
--
Ian Peters
First of all, it's not a test. It's a database of information that the school can enter about a student; the more information you have, the more accurate the program supposes to be.
Secondly, it's not a judge of how violent you are at any particular moment, rather, of your tendency to violence. So if you have two different people, odds are one is more likely to become violent over a breakup than the other. This is not a fundamental change in personality.
--
Ian Peters
This is really sick. I recognize that it's a difficult task to draw a line between irony and just plain garbage (classics like "A Modest Proposal" come to mind), but this ... rape and murder aren't that funny.
I especially find disturbing the casual idea of raping someone's family because you object to their ideas. Yes, let's commit one of the most violent acts known to man to people innocent of the crime!
--
Ian Peters
Typical slashdot fare of late, it seems. Take a tool with the potential to be abused, shout about your rights, claim we're being pigeonholed, point out that we're all individuals, and watch the masses rant and rave.
I'm tired of it. Yes, this is a tool that has the potential to cause great harm. But really, all it does is make observations based on trends. This is not inherently a bad thing!
Come on, people, get a grip. Yes, we are all individuals. Yes, there are exceptions to every rule. But statistical analysis is a valuable tool. In capable hands, a tool like this can be of immense help in dealing with a problematic child. It all depends on how it is used.
I don't think anyone is suggesting we just turn all decision making responsibility over to the program, and sit back and let it raise our children. Yes, there is cause for concern over abuse. But don't fly to the other extreme and jump up and cry foul at every corner!
--
Ian Peters
I've downloaded all the files you need and put them up at
ftp://foof.org/pub
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Ian Peters
My roommate and I were just talking about the source we'd /really/ like to see released... Commander Keen and Duke Nukem (the original). These games were the best. Brings back fond memories of the days of BBS's, when life was simple... :-)
Back on topic, this is really cool news. Granted this isn't cutting edge technology by a long shot, but it should still be fun!
--
Ian Peters
Great. Now, not only will I have to deal with the popular misconception of what a hacker is, but I'll have to deal with an entire generation trained to believe that I'm a bad person. I fear that, despite some small victories, we're losing the hacker/cracker nomenclature battle on the large scale.
This isn't to say I don't have other objections to his campaign, of course, and I doubt I'd feel an more positive about an anti-cracking campaign...
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Ian Peters
I'm very glad to hear this.
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Ian Peters