White men wouldn't really get offended by such jokes because they have nothing to fear, but despite your claim to the contrary I think that others do indeed have something to be afraid of. It's easy to forget how recently racism and sexism were the norm, and those two spectres still loom large, even in the light of today's more enlightened attitudes. I think that extra caution is often warranted, especially when an institution like the police are concerned. The idea of a police force who discriminate based on race, sex, nationality or anything is so appalling that I believe extra safeguards are justified.
There may be little harm in a joke about black people shared privately between two friends in a bar, but racist jokes made by white police officers on a website during working hours is at best seriously unprofessional and at worst downright scary.
I absolutely agree. I think that people often forget that there's more to morality than simply following the letter of the law. In a way it doesn't really matter whether this guy's not broken his own US law or not, it just would have been decent to ask! Even though the improvement of Wikipedia is a worthy goal, it's hard to sympathise with someone when they don't even show a basic level of respect for others.
I can't wait to see what the new windowing system is. I'd really like to see some innovation there, much like OSX created an amazing GUI layer on top what is essentially Mach/BSD. The challenge to Microsoft aside, this will be a wake-up call to Gnome/KDE. The good news is, because this ought to be open source, the OSS community can really get behind this and improve other products.
Well I don't know about GNOME and KDE, they certainly appear to be putting a lot of effort in seeing as how GNOME are forging ahead with their fancy new desktop UI and KDE basically just released their new desktop system which they continue to improve. You have a point though; GUI-type stuff on Linux continues to be a source of disappointment and it would be really great to see if a big player like Google could really come along and shake things up with a radical new approach, all being open source to boot. I've always suspected the underpinnings were at fault (sorry X, I love you but still) so maybe Google's new system could even be useful for GNOME and KDE too! I guess we'll just have to wait and see:)
Actually just a quick update to the above, I just did a bit of reading and it turns out maybe the term "cowboy" doesn't have quite such a negative connotation in the US as it does here in the UK, where it basically means unprofessional to the point of criminality. Your Merriam-Webster still says it can mean reckless though, and I think the connotations still carry over even in your dialect so I stand by what I said.
Well I did quote you in my post. Again, so you can see:
UI and workflow design and project management aren't glamorous or interesting so they don't get done.
You don't say anything about not attracting the right people, instead your words suggest that the work that needs to be done is not actually considered important or worthwhile by the people who should be doing it. I can't see how anyone could get anything else from those words
I would suggest switching off of whatever medications you are currently using if you found what I said to be inflammatory or pejorative.
This one did actually make me laugh out loud, nice one. But seriously, I know some people actually claim that "cowboy coder" isn't necessarily a derogatory term and that it just refers to a different opinion on how to manage things or whatever, but I mean really that's a joke. It's like saying the Linux kernel is "crummy software" then arguing that "crummy software" is just a term meaning that it's developed using a distributed version control system. When you say someone's a cowboy coder it just sounds like you're dissing them, and that's really all there is to it.
UI and workflow design and project management aren't glamorous or interesting so they don't get done.
I don't really think it works like that. It's 2009 and by now I'm sure everyone understands the value of good UI and workflow design, but it's quite difficult to do well and I'd be surprised if either GNOME or KDE don't often find themselves without the time or expertise needed to get usability up to the desired standard. Of course I would argue that there are several apps on the Linux desktop with great usability - I personally like Firefox, Dolphin and Okular, just to give a few examples. But I would agree that usability isn't as consistent across the platform as it were when compared to say Windows.
Cowboy coding only gets you so far.
Oh, okay, so the basic gist of your comment is just that the free desktop coders are a gang of useless cowboys hacking together a bunch of buggy, improperly documented crap for the riches and renown which will obviously be forthcoming from such an endeavour. How about you go and read e.g. some blog posts by KDE or GNOME developers, because you will discover that a lot of the people working on such software are passionate and proud about what they do and put an awful lot of thought and effort into trying to do quality work. Granted there are some bad apples in the bunch as usual, but I think that the majority of problems these projects face are down to lack of resources, above anything else. But hey, why not throw around inflammatory, pejorative terms like that.
And even those who wrote comments in Korean chose English class, method and variable names, which is another definite trend that I've noticed. Perhaps it's just so that the names read well with the English keywords, but in my experience it's pretty rare to find non-English names, even when all of the comments and documentation are in another language.
Ahh, well, this is pretty interesting! I'm British, so obviously I speak British English. I have had a few problems when programming because I automatically tend to use British English and furthermore, American English is similar enough and I see so much of it on the internet etc. that I don't even notice it anymore. The end result is that I end up typing colour instead of color for example, and then wondering why it doesn't work! Because I'm at the point now where I read these things exactly the same, sometimes it can take an embarrassingly long time to spot the mistake.
On a similar note, I remember playing some computer game where I had to say "I will fulfill the destiny" or something to a character to advance the plot. I kept saying "fulfil" (with one L) and I was furious that it didn't work! Again, I nearly threw the computer out the window before I noticed the problem!
Bearing all of this in mind, one wonders if a Chinese speaker or Urdu speaker or whatever wouldn't have an easier time programming than a British English speaker. Such people would obviously never suffer the same confusion! Although come to think of it, would Commonwealth nations be more likely to learn British English than US? Okay now THAT would be confusing!..
Outlawing hate speech would probably make "almost everyone" happy as well but that isn't a good justification to start infringing on civil liberties, IMHO.
Not at all. Outlawing hate speech (or any speech, for that matter) is a very controversial idea here, and there are significant efforts by civil rights lobbyists to prevent such things. That doesn't mean the government won't try to do it, like I said, I don't agree with them a lot of the time. But with guns the situation is much simpler.
In any case you reap what you sow -- your citizens are virtually defenseless against criminals wielding "weapons" that you'll never be able to take away unless you ban the consumption of meat. Congratulations.
I don't understand how introducing guns into the equation is magically going to make this situation better. If guns are more widely available then surely the criminals will have them, too? I don't really fancy my chances in a shoot-out! Even most police officers here don't carry a gun.
Don't get me wrong, British society has plenty of problems, not least with its government what with all of the CCTV and the war in the Middle East and the economic issues etc. but the gun policy we have here works for us and I don't really think you should be so disdainful about it. As I said before the US (which I assume you're from, if not then sorry and insert your country as appropriate) is its own place and is entitled to its own policy on the matter. I wouldn't want to pass judgement on the internal affairs of a country of which I have no great understanding.
Oh, get lost. Most people in Britain don't want guns to be legal. There's not even any pro-gun lobby to speak of here. The government here does plenty of stupid things but in this case the government legislation is well-aligned with the will of the people.
I'm not saying that guns should be illegal in the US or anywhere else, it depends what the people of that country want. But here guns are illegal and almost everyone is happy with that.
It doesn't matter how quickly the OS is available if you can't do anything once it turns on.
You're not seriously saying that if you boot Linux you "can't do anything"? What year is this? On Linux you can browse the web in all its flash-filled glory, use basically any IM protocol you want, Skype, edit MS Word documents, play solitaire, email people and lots of other things on top. Not being able to play GTA IV or run Photoshop is significant for some but a long way from not being able to do anything. Jeez.
If you could make it so that the majority of windows applications ran without resistance, I think that almost no boot time could make Linux revolutionary. Until then, I think you're wasting man hours on the wrong problem.
You're asking for two ridiculously large things here - first, the WINE project has been going at it for over 15 years and are still a long way from completion. Even throwing more manpower at it can only do so much. The sheer enormity of the task is simply staggering. Secondly, Linux (using the term as broadly as possible, with apologies to Mr. Stallman!) is not under control of any single body, and it's impossible to focus the whole development community on any single area that needs improvement. Why don't you ask for all of the distros to unite under one flag and for everyone to settle on KDE or Gnome while you're at it! Even if someone did have this kind of control, who's to say that focusing on implementing Windows compatibility at the expense of other projects like this wouldn't be harmful for Linux in the long run?
In summary, I think that 1) You're vastly under-representing the capabilities of Linux and 2) You're basically asking for the impossible.
I remember reading that one of the goals of KDE 4's new Plasma shell is to be able to make it easier to develop interfaces to help people use KDE on mobile devices. I don't think that there's been any major work done in this area yet but KDE does come with a lot of nice apps and it would be cool if someone could use Plasma to find a way to expose them on a smartphone device. There's an applet to control the media player software for example so I think it would be possible to use the capabilities of existing apps without showing the full-blown desktop UI for each individual program.
I'm mentioning KDE because that's what I'm familiar with, maybe this could be done with GNOME too or other DEs but I don't know enough about them to make comment on that.
If Microsoft are more worried about Linux/FOSS/etc than the popularity of the Mac platform then in my opinion it wouldn't be that surprising.
Regardless of how big a slice of the pie Apple might be taking, they ultimately work in more or less the same way as Microsoft. OSX and Windows are both traditional proprietary software which are written and sold on a per-license basis. I doubt that Microsoft appreciate the competition exactly, but at least they are both playing by the same set of rules.
Free Software is different, because obviously anyone can have the source code and fiddle about with it and you don't generally need to purchase licenses or whatever. The nature of Free Software is such that if its use ever becomes truly widespread in the consumer market, it is going to change what people (both end users and computer retailers) expect from software as a whole. Since the current way has obviously been very lucrative for Microsoft, that would explain why they would be so worried about Linux etc.
P.S. I'm trying not to make a value judgement on FOSS vs. proprietary software here, this is all Just What I Reckons TM.
I can't say I have much love for Adobe and Flash, and I simply do not trust Microsoft, but if Linux support is going to be a key point-scoring device in the corporate pissing contests of today then I suppose a few good things might come of it. Let battle commence!
And don't try to say "well, they could stipulate that all submissions have to be dual-licensed"--you and I both know we'd see some stupid little gnuZFS the same day as ZFS was GPL'd, just to get around that. While the GNU people certainly can be rather over-zealous when it comes to the subject of licensing, inclusion of ZFS is surely a matter of kernel development, and the Linux kernel does not (AFAIK) fall under the aegis of the GNU project.
Linus Torvalds always struck me as a pragmatist, and Linux kernel development is backed by a number of groups with a genuine commercial interest in improving Linux with the inclusion of good technologies like ZFS. In the light of these facts, I would be very surprised (not to mention disappointed) if a dual license prevented the inclusion of ZFS in Linux.
If there was a clear favourite in terms of Linux desktop environments then maybe you would have a point, but this big split between KDE and GNOME seriously undermines the credibility of this solution. Having some group of bigwigs who have provided themselves with a mandate to make one DE a standard by decree would be an incredibly destructive move. Relations between KDE and GNOME would be damaged, which would in turn cause harm to interoperability efforts. Users (especially users of free as in freedom software!) would become defiant in the face of this attempt to push them towards the One True DE, which would also cause problems.
I agree that standards and interoperability between DEs are important, but I think that trying to corral people into the DE of someone-or-other's choice is self-defeating, trying as it does to work directly against human nature. I favour the encouragement of collaboration between the DEs seen in projects like freedesktop.org. Nobody can make this desktop divide go away, so instead of undertaking mad social engineering projects I think that we should embrace diversity in a pragmatic way, trying to smooth over the bumps where possible but also reap the benefits (and there are some!) where we can.
Yeah, but now the problem is that KB is now ambiguous - it could either be 1000 bytes, or it could be 1024. Before anyone mentions HDD manufacturers, it isn't ambiguous there, either. 1 KB is 1000 bytes, yeah that's because they're fleecing you, it sucks but oh well.
I just hate the mindset that comes up with all of this stuff, it reeks of the sort of person who alphabetises everything and writes into newspapers to complain that they misused the apostrophe one time on one page. I mean for god's sake, take exbibyte. The word was actually used in the article. Look at it, you can bear to. Say it, if you can figure out how to. The worst thing is that it seems to be becoming more popular. Sigh.
I really shouldn't get so worked up by this.
SuSE was my first distro too, and I'm certainly glad I forked out for the box set, because it came with a couple of really awesome manuals that were a huge help to me as a complete Linux newbie. The YAST configuration tool also allowed me to set up a home server to replace the Windows 98 machine my dad had set up for that task (yeah, I know). There were also a couple of other nice touches for Windows refugees, e.g. some DOS commands were aliased to their UNIX equivalents, which allowed me to make limited use of the command line without any extra knowledge. If you can still buy the box sets with the manual in, I would definitely recommend that to someone thinking of switching to Linux.
I also made the same move to Slackware, for the same reason as yourself, and like yourself I got frustrated with its rather sparse nature. This spurred me on to Arch Linux though, which is sort of like Slackware for the 21st century, complete with a package manager which automatically resolves dependencies, downloads new packages and all the rest. If you ever yearn for the clean simplicity of Slackware, but want something with all the power of a modern distro, I would highly recommend it.
You make it sound like the GPL is a deadly weapon that seeks out closed-source software and destroys it! The GPL describes a list of freedoms and restrictions governing the use of a piece of software. If a developer agrees with those items on the list, then they can apply them to their own software. If they do this, then as a bonus they will be able to make full use of code from other GPL users, because they agree on the rules governing its use.
Now, this doesn't preclude a copyright holder from making other decisions about how to use their software. Any party is entitled to approach the copyright holder and attempt to negotiate on different terms. Take Trolltech's Qt, for example. This software is available under the GPL, but it can also be used under a proprietary license for a fee. You will notice that the GPL does not prevent this from happening in any way. Now, Richard Stallman might be against this, I don't know. But Richard Stallman isn't the GPL.
I have genuine difficulty in following your line of reasoning here. The GPL is not viral. Nobody has to use the GPL.
Read my post again. I said that we should only cooperate with Microsoft if there are clear guarantees protecting the Free Software community as a whole from legal threats, be they from patents or anything else. This echoes the sentiment of Jim Zemlin in TFA. There is political pressure on Microsoft to open up their technology. This pressure will not continue if nobody will work with MS tech, even if it is completely safe to do so. In the long run, this will strengthen Microsoft to the detriment of all competitors, be they in the Free Software world or otherwise.
We need to be very careful around Microsoft, this is true. But mindless paranoia marginalizes us, to Microsoft's benefit.
The idea that Jim Zemlin's trying to put across is that the software world needs to move and is moving towards a collaborative, idea-sharing environment, rather than the current situation with major players closely guarding their IP. This makes sense, because this is exactly the kind of environment in which Free Software will flourish. This point of view cannot be reconciled with the idea that Microsoft won't be invited to the party and that they have to be destroyed, not reasoned with. Furthermore, Microsoft is increasingly trying to cultivate a more open-friendly image, and in the face of this the Free Software community can't afford to just stonewall them, because if that happens then Microsoft will just be able to point their finger and say "Well we want to cooperate, but those guys just have something against us".
The line that Jim Zemlin is taking is a good one, in this case. He's making a positive statement about cooperation, which is necessary to show that those in the Free Software community aren't bitter, jealous people, but he is also stipulating that any cooperation that takes place must be in the true spirit of friendship, and nothing less. Microsoft are trying to make a big show of turning over a new leaf and becoming cooperative, but these patent threats haven't magically been retracted and as long as Microsoft continue to take an aggressive stance towards Linux then that is going to have a negative effect on cooperation. The line "we'd like to do that in the open-source way that's not tied to any specific marketing agreement, that's not tied to any specific contract, that is an open process that can be participated in by anyone in the community" sums it up for me: no patent nonsense, no legal BS; we just want to work together to improve software technology. That's real cooperation!
This being Slashdot, the summary's pretty light on details like for example what will happen to KDE and Qt's relationship with Free Software at large. Well, there is an open letter to the community, so you can read it here. The letter's pretty encouraging insofar as it reaffirms the Qt team's commitment to the current symbiosis, and it says that Nokia is going to become a "Patron of KDE"(TM). Additionally, the Free Qt Foundation offers protection in case a buyout turns things nasty.
Having said all of the above, I can't help but remain a bit concerned about this turn of events. I was under the impression that Nokia have a rather tarnished reputation in the eyes of the Free Software world, since they seem to be pro-patents for software and there was that opposition from them concerning Ogg Vorbis as a web standard or something. Things like this make me worry. On the other hand, it seems like there is still a large gap between the cultures of proprietary software and free software, and maybe Nokia will gain a more balanced standpoint by getting involved with GPL projects like Qt. Ah well, I suppose we'll have to see how things turn out, but I don't really think a project the size of KDE can be killed so easily as this.
Some other people have remarked that it's interesting that Nokia should acquire Qt, seeing as how they use GTK in a few of their products. It seems fine to me though - I reckon heterogeny is a pretty big part of what Free Software is all about.
Re:This Could Be The Worst Thing For KDE
on
KDE 4.0 Is Out
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· Score: 1
No, they're not. The/. crowd knows about it because enough of us read kde-devel and all the flaming between devs on whether or not to release has come up in every KDE4-related story here.
Alright, I'll give you that one. I suppose I have been paying rather close attention to the whole thing, and it's easy to forget what the general level of awareness is.
However, I don't buy this rather ridiculous picture of "Joe Average" you're painting. So this guy, completely new to Linux, downloads Kubuntu, manages to get it working and then straight away cracks open his/etc/apt/sources.list file and starts adding new repositories? I hardly think someone who's completely new to Linux is going to start going through the process of installing experimental DE packages all over the place. I admit that putting an announcement like that on a supposedly newbie-friendly distro's front page was a bad idea, but I think the sequence of events you just described is pure fantasy. It's more likely that a new user would be confused and would try to seek out further information, and given the concord of reviewers and the community in general it seems unlikely that he would receive any advice other than to stick with KDE3.
As I said before, I think there would be a problem if the KDE 4.0 desktop was the first thing that greeted a new user, but it isn't, and furthermore it seems very unlikely that it will be.
Re:This Could Be The Worst Thing For KDE
on
KDE 4.0 Is Out
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I used to think that, but then I changed my mind when I realised that there's a big difference between releasing something like KDE4 and something like Windows Vista or the latest version of OSX or whatever.
When Vista (just an example, I'm not bashing MS) was released, then Microsoft was having it put on store shelves, pre-installed on new computers and were generally selling it and distributing it for everybody to use. When you receive a piece of software in this way, you generally expect it to be in a complete and serviceable state, which is fair enough.
Something like KDE is different. Yes, the KDE community is very pleased with this milestone event and they are all having a party etc., but at the same time they are clearly advertising that the KDE 4.0 desktop is probably not ready for general use on most people's desktops. When your say that KDE 4.0 is released, it doesn't really mean the same sort of thing as the release of Vista, because all that's really happened is someone's created some source archives and put them on a website to download. I don't think any mainstream distribution is going to put KDE 4.0 into its repositories for general use, and as such the only people who are running KDE4 at this point are either developers or people who have gone to the effort of seeking out unsupported, community-provided packages out of their own curiosity. Most of the reactions I've seen from enthusiasts of this type have indeed confirmed that they do not believe KDE 4.0 to be ready for day-to-day use, but they're not disillusioned or upset or dissatisfied because they know that they deliberately sought out an unfinished product -- they just wanted to have a preview, really.
There is another point concerning this whole "maybe it should still be a beta" situation, which involves the distinction between KDE4 as a platform and KDE4 as a desktop environment. According to what I've read, a large part of the decision to release KDE 4.0 in the state it's in was to do with the fact that in order to end up with a complete desktop environment, there needs to be a community of developers working with the new platform. The concern was that people wouldn't want to start developing for a "beta" platform, only to have the rug pulled out from under their feet when the APIs were changed. This 4.0 release marks a stable target platform which people can start building on with confidence. It's important to realise that this isn't some sort of trick -- the libraries and frameworks underpinning KDE4 are apparently pretty complete and stable and it's mainly the applications which need the work.
Re:Configurable?
on
KDE 4.0 Is Out
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· Score: 4, Informative
Yeah, KDE4 is definitely being developed according to the "release early, release often" philosophy here. For months now the word has been that KDE 4.0 will not completely realise all of the hopes for KDE4 as a long-term project, rather it is targeted towards enthusiasts and developers. I think it's a fairly good idea, because the ball needs to get rolling in order to build activity and interest around the new platform. Aaron Seigo, a high-profile KDE developer made this blog post which clears up a lot of the confusion around this 4.0 release.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, KDE4 is still making rapid progress, and in the mean time KDE3 is still a great desktop. When KDE4 is ready for mass consumption (hopefully 4.1 will be better in this regard, scheduled for 6 months or so), the Linux distributors will pick it up and start delivering it as a supported option. Until then, this first release still shows a great deal of progress, and I think the developers can definitely justify a bit of self-satisfaction!
Slashdot Mirror
White men wouldn't really get offended by such jokes because they have nothing to fear, but despite your claim to the contrary I think that others do indeed have something to be afraid of. It's easy to forget how recently racism and sexism were the norm, and those two spectres still loom large, even in the light of today's more enlightened attitudes. I think that extra caution is often warranted, especially when an institution like the police are concerned. The idea of a police force who discriminate based on race, sex, nationality or anything is so appalling that I believe extra safeguards are justified.
There may be little harm in a joke about black people shared privately between two friends in a bar, but racist jokes made by white police officers on a website during working hours is at best seriously unprofessional and at worst downright scary.
I absolutely agree. I think that people often forget that there's more to morality than simply following the letter of the law. In a way it doesn't really matter whether this guy's not broken his own US law or not, it just would have been decent to ask! Even though the improvement of Wikipedia is a worthy goal, it's hard to sympathise with someone when they don't even show a basic level of respect for others.
I can't wait to see what the new windowing system is. I'd really like to see some innovation there, much like OSX created an amazing GUI layer on top what is essentially Mach/BSD. The challenge to Microsoft aside, this will be a wake-up call to Gnome/KDE. The good news is, because this ought to be open source, the OSS community can really get behind this and improve other products.
Well I don't know about GNOME and KDE, they certainly appear to be putting a lot of effort in seeing as how GNOME are forging ahead with their fancy new desktop UI and KDE basically just released their new desktop system which they continue to improve. You have a point though; GUI-type stuff on Linux continues to be a source of disappointment and it would be really great to see if a big player like Google could really come along and shake things up with a radical new approach, all being open source to boot. I've always suspected the underpinnings were at fault (sorry X, I love you but still) so maybe Google's new system could even be useful for GNOME and KDE too! I guess we'll just have to wait and see :)
Actually just a quick update to the above, I just did a bit of reading and it turns out maybe the term "cowboy" doesn't have quite such a negative connotation in the US as it does here in the UK, where it basically means unprofessional to the point of criminality. Your Merriam-Webster still says it can mean reckless though, and I think the connotations still carry over even in your dialect so I stand by what I said.
UI and workflow design and project management aren't glamorous or interesting so they don't get done.
You don't say anything about not attracting the right people, instead your words suggest that the work that needs to be done is not actually considered important or worthwhile by the people who should be doing it. I can't see how anyone could get anything else from those words
I would suggest switching off of whatever medications you are currently using if you found what I said to be inflammatory or pejorative.
This one did actually make me laugh out loud, nice one. But seriously, I know some people actually claim that "cowboy coder" isn't necessarily a derogatory term and that it just refers to a different opinion on how to manage things or whatever, but I mean really that's a joke. It's like saying the Linux kernel is "crummy software" then arguing that "crummy software" is just a term meaning that it's developed using a distributed version control system. When you say someone's a cowboy coder it just sounds like you're dissing them, and that's really all there is to it.
UI and workflow design and project management aren't glamorous or interesting so they don't get done.
I don't really think it works like that. It's 2009 and by now I'm sure everyone understands the value of good UI and workflow design, but it's quite difficult to do well and I'd be surprised if either GNOME or KDE don't often find themselves without the time or expertise needed to get usability up to the desired standard. Of course I would argue that there are several apps on the Linux desktop with great usability - I personally like Firefox, Dolphin and Okular, just to give a few examples. But I would agree that usability isn't as consistent across the platform as it were when compared to say Windows.
Cowboy coding only gets you so far.
Oh, okay, so the basic gist of your comment is just that the free desktop coders are a gang of useless cowboys hacking together a bunch of buggy, improperly documented crap for the riches and renown which will obviously be forthcoming from such an endeavour. How about you go and read e.g. some blog posts by KDE or GNOME developers, because you will discover that a lot of the people working on such software are passionate and proud about what they do and put an awful lot of thought and effort into trying to do quality work. Granted there are some bad apples in the bunch as usual, but I think that the majority of problems these projects face are down to lack of resources, above anything else. But hey, why not throw around inflammatory, pejorative terms like that.
You can do this with System Settings -> Input Actions.
And even those who wrote comments in Korean chose English class, method and variable names, which is another definite trend that I've noticed. Perhaps it's just so that the names read well with the English keywords, but in my experience it's pretty rare to find non-English names, even when all of the comments and documentation are in another language.
Ahh, well, this is pretty interesting! I'm British, so obviously I speak British English. I have had a few problems when programming because I automatically tend to use British English and furthermore, American English is similar enough and I see so much of it on the internet etc. that I don't even notice it anymore. The end result is that I end up typing colour instead of color for example, and then wondering why it doesn't work! Because I'm at the point now where I read these things exactly the same, sometimes it can take an embarrassingly long time to spot the mistake.
On a similar note, I remember playing some computer game where I had to say "I will fulfill the destiny" or something to a character to advance the plot. I kept saying "fulfil" (with one L) and I was furious that it didn't work! Again, I nearly threw the computer out the window before I noticed the problem!
Bearing all of this in mind, one wonders if a Chinese speaker or Urdu speaker or whatever wouldn't have an easier time programming than a British English speaker. Such people would obviously never suffer the same confusion! Although come to think of it, would Commonwealth nations be more likely to learn British English than US? Okay now THAT would be confusing!..
Outlawing hate speech would probably make "almost everyone" happy as well but that isn't a good justification to start infringing on civil liberties, IMHO.
Not at all. Outlawing hate speech (or any speech, for that matter) is a very controversial idea here, and there are significant efforts by civil rights lobbyists to prevent such things. That doesn't mean the government won't try to do it, like I said, I don't agree with them a lot of the time. But with guns the situation is much simpler.
In any case you reap what you sow -- your citizens are virtually defenseless against criminals wielding "weapons" that you'll never be able to take away unless you ban the consumption of meat. Congratulations.
I don't understand how introducing guns into the equation is magically going to make this situation better. If guns are more widely available then surely the criminals will have them, too? I don't really fancy my chances in a shoot-out! Even most police officers here don't carry a gun.
Don't get me wrong, British society has plenty of problems, not least with its government what with all of the CCTV and the war in the Middle East and the economic issues etc. but the gun policy we have here works for us and I don't really think you should be so disdainful about it. As I said before the US (which I assume you're from, if not then sorry and insert your country as appropriate) is its own place and is entitled to its own policy on the matter. I wouldn't want to pass judgement on the internal affairs of a country of which I have no great understanding.
Oh, get lost. Most people in Britain don't want guns to be legal. There's not even any pro-gun lobby to speak of here. The government here does plenty of stupid things but in this case the government legislation is well-aligned with the will of the people.
I'm not saying that guns should be illegal in the US or anywhere else, it depends what the people of that country want. But here guns are illegal and almost everyone is happy with that.
It doesn't matter how quickly the OS is available if you can't do anything once it turns on.
You're not seriously saying that if you boot Linux you "can't do anything"? What year is this? On Linux you can browse the web in all its flash-filled glory, use basically any IM protocol you want, Skype, edit MS Word documents, play solitaire, email people and lots of other things on top. Not being able to play GTA IV or run Photoshop is significant for some but a long way from not being able to do anything. Jeez.
If you could make it so that the majority of windows applications ran without resistance, I think that almost no boot time could make Linux revolutionary. Until then, I think you're wasting man hours on the wrong problem.
You're asking for two ridiculously large things here - first, the WINE project has been going at it for over 15 years and are still a long way from completion. Even throwing more manpower at it can only do so much. The sheer enormity of the task is simply staggering. Secondly, Linux (using the term as broadly as possible, with apologies to Mr. Stallman!) is not under control of any single body, and it's impossible to focus the whole development community on any single area that needs improvement. Why don't you ask for all of the distros to unite under one flag and for everyone to settle on KDE or Gnome while you're at it! Even if someone did have this kind of control, who's to say that focusing on implementing Windows compatibility at the expense of other projects like this wouldn't be harmful for Linux in the long run?
In summary, I think that 1) You're vastly under-representing the capabilities of Linux and 2) You're basically asking for the impossible.
I remember reading that one of the goals of KDE 4's new Plasma shell is to be able to make it easier to develop interfaces to help people use KDE on mobile devices. I don't think that there's been any major work done in this area yet but KDE does come with a lot of nice apps and it would be cool if someone could use Plasma to find a way to expose them on a smartphone device. There's an applet to control the media player software for example so I think it would be possible to use the capabilities of existing apps without showing the full-blown desktop UI for each individual program.
I'm mentioning KDE because that's what I'm familiar with, maybe this could be done with GNOME too or other DEs but I don't know enough about them to make comment on that.
If Microsoft are more worried about Linux/FOSS/etc than the popularity of the Mac platform then in my opinion it wouldn't be that surprising.
Regardless of how big a slice of the pie Apple might be taking, they ultimately work in more or less the same way as Microsoft. OSX and Windows are both traditional proprietary software which are written and sold on a per-license basis. I doubt that Microsoft appreciate the competition exactly, but at least they are both playing by the same set of rules.
Free Software is different, because obviously anyone can have the source code and fiddle about with it and you don't generally need to purchase licenses or whatever. The nature of Free Software is such that if its use ever becomes truly widespread in the consumer market, it is going to change what people (both end users and computer retailers) expect from software as a whole. Since the current way has obviously been very lucrative for Microsoft, that would explain why they would be so worried about Linux etc.
P.S. I'm trying not to make a value judgement on FOSS vs. proprietary software here, this is all Just What I Reckons TM.
I can't say I have much love for Adobe and Flash, and I simply do not trust Microsoft, but if Linux support is going to be a key point-scoring device in the corporate pissing contests of today then I suppose a few good things might come of it. Let battle commence!
Linus Torvalds always struck me as a pragmatist, and Linux kernel development is backed by a number of groups with a genuine commercial interest in improving Linux with the inclusion of good technologies like ZFS. In the light of these facts, I would be very surprised (not to mention disappointed) if a dual license prevented the inclusion of ZFS in Linux.
If there was a clear favourite in terms of Linux desktop environments then maybe you would have a point, but this big split between KDE and GNOME seriously undermines the credibility of this solution. Having some group of bigwigs who have provided themselves with a mandate to make one DE a standard by decree would be an incredibly destructive move. Relations between KDE and GNOME would be damaged, which would in turn cause harm to interoperability efforts. Users (especially users of free as in freedom software!) would become defiant in the face of this attempt to push them towards the One True DE, which would also cause problems.
I agree that standards and interoperability between DEs are important, but I think that trying to corral people into the DE of someone-or-other's choice is self-defeating, trying as it does to work directly against human nature. I favour the encouragement of collaboration between the DEs seen in projects like freedesktop.org. Nobody can make this desktop divide go away, so instead of undertaking mad social engineering projects I think that we should embrace diversity in a pragmatic way, trying to smooth over the bumps where possible but also reap the benefits (and there are some!) where we can.
Yeah, but now the problem is that KB is now ambiguous - it could either be 1000 bytes, or it could be 1024. Before anyone mentions HDD manufacturers, it isn't ambiguous there, either. 1 KB is 1000 bytes, yeah that's because they're fleecing you, it sucks but oh well.
I just hate the mindset that comes up with all of this stuff, it reeks of the sort of person who alphabetises everything and writes into newspapers to complain that they misused the apostrophe one time on one page. I mean for god's sake, take exbibyte. The word was actually used in the article. Look at it, you can bear to. Say it, if you can figure out how to. The worst thing is that it seems to be becoming more popular. Sigh. I really shouldn't get so worked up by this.
SuSE was my first distro too, and I'm certainly glad I forked out for the box set, because it came with a couple of really awesome manuals that were a huge help to me as a complete Linux newbie. The YAST configuration tool also allowed me to set up a home server to replace the Windows 98 machine my dad had set up for that task (yeah, I know). There were also a couple of other nice touches for Windows refugees, e.g. some DOS commands were aliased to their UNIX equivalents, which allowed me to make limited use of the command line without any extra knowledge. If you can still buy the box sets with the manual in, I would definitely recommend that to someone thinking of switching to Linux.
I also made the same move to Slackware, for the same reason as yourself, and like yourself I got frustrated with its rather sparse nature. This spurred me on to Arch Linux though, which is sort of like Slackware for the 21st century, complete with a package manager which automatically resolves dependencies, downloads new packages and all the rest. If you ever yearn for the clean simplicity of Slackware, but want something with all the power of a modern distro, I would highly recommend it.
You make it sound like the GPL is a deadly weapon that seeks out closed-source software and destroys it! The GPL describes a list of freedoms and restrictions governing the use of a piece of software. If a developer agrees with those items on the list, then they can apply them to their own software. If they do this, then as a bonus they will be able to make full use of code from other GPL users, because they agree on the rules governing its use.
Now, this doesn't preclude a copyright holder from making other decisions about how to use their software. Any party is entitled to approach the copyright holder and attempt to negotiate on different terms. Take Trolltech's Qt, for example. This software is available under the GPL, but it can also be used under a proprietary license for a fee. You will notice that the GPL does not prevent this from happening in any way. Now, Richard Stallman might be against this, I don't know. But Richard Stallman isn't the GPL.
I have genuine difficulty in following your line of reasoning here. The GPL is not viral. Nobody has to use the GPL.
Read my post again. I said that we should only cooperate with Microsoft if there are clear guarantees protecting the Free Software community as a whole from legal threats, be they from patents or anything else. This echoes the sentiment of Jim Zemlin in TFA. There is political pressure on Microsoft to open up their technology. This pressure will not continue if nobody will work with MS tech, even if it is completely safe to do so. In the long run, this will strengthen Microsoft to the detriment of all competitors, be they in the Free Software world or otherwise.
We need to be very careful around Microsoft, this is true. But mindless paranoia marginalizes us, to Microsoft's benefit.
The idea that Jim Zemlin's trying to put across is that the software world needs to move and is moving towards a collaborative, idea-sharing environment, rather than the current situation with major players closely guarding their IP. This makes sense, because this is exactly the kind of environment in which Free Software will flourish. This point of view cannot be reconciled with the idea that Microsoft won't be invited to the party and that they have to be destroyed, not reasoned with. Furthermore, Microsoft is increasingly trying to cultivate a more open-friendly image, and in the face of this the Free Software community can't afford to just stonewall them, because if that happens then Microsoft will just be able to point their finger and say "Well we want to cooperate, but those guys just have something against us".
The line that Jim Zemlin is taking is a good one, in this case. He's making a positive statement about cooperation, which is necessary to show that those in the Free Software community aren't bitter, jealous people, but he is also stipulating that any cooperation that takes place must be in the true spirit of friendship, and nothing less. Microsoft are trying to make a big show of turning over a new leaf and becoming cooperative, but these patent threats haven't magically been retracted and as long as Microsoft continue to take an aggressive stance towards Linux then that is going to have a negative effect on cooperation. The line "we'd like to do that in the open-source way that's not tied to any specific marketing agreement, that's not tied to any specific contract, that is an open process that can be participated in by anyone in the community" sums it up for me: no patent nonsense, no legal BS; we just want to work together to improve software technology. That's real cooperation!
This being Slashdot, the summary's pretty light on details like for example what will happen to KDE and Qt's relationship with Free Software at large. Well, there is an open letter to the community, so you can read it here. The letter's pretty encouraging insofar as it reaffirms the Qt team's commitment to the current symbiosis, and it says that Nokia is going to become a "Patron of KDE"(TM). Additionally, the Free Qt Foundation offers protection in case a buyout turns things nasty.
Having said all of the above, I can't help but remain a bit concerned about this turn of events. I was under the impression that Nokia have a rather tarnished reputation in the eyes of the Free Software world, since they seem to be pro-patents for software and there was that opposition from them concerning Ogg Vorbis as a web standard or something. Things like this make me worry. On the other hand, it seems like there is still a large gap between the cultures of proprietary software and free software, and maybe Nokia will gain a more balanced standpoint by getting involved with GPL projects like Qt. Ah well, I suppose we'll have to see how things turn out, but I don't really think a project the size of KDE can be killed so easily as this.
Some other people have remarked that it's interesting that Nokia should acquire Qt, seeing as how they use GTK in a few of their products. It seems fine to me though - I reckon heterogeny is a pretty big part of what Free Software is all about.
Alright, I'll give you that one. I suppose I have been paying rather close attention to the whole thing, and it's easy to forget what the general level of awareness is.
However, I don't buy this rather ridiculous picture of "Joe Average" you're painting. So this guy, completely new to Linux, downloads Kubuntu, manages to get it working and then straight away cracks open his
As I said before, I think there would be a problem if the KDE 4.0 desktop was the first thing that greeted a new user, but it isn't, and furthermore it seems very unlikely that it will be.
I used to think that, but then I changed my mind when I realised that there's a big difference between releasing something like KDE4 and something like Windows Vista or the latest version of OSX or whatever.
When Vista (just an example, I'm not bashing MS) was released, then Microsoft was having it put on store shelves, pre-installed on new computers and were generally selling it and distributing it for everybody to use. When you receive a piece of software in this way, you generally expect it to be in a complete and serviceable state, which is fair enough.
Something like KDE is different. Yes, the KDE community is very pleased with this milestone event and they are all having a party etc., but at the same time they are clearly advertising that the KDE 4.0 desktop is probably not ready for general use on most people's desktops. When your say that KDE 4.0 is released, it doesn't really mean the same sort of thing as the release of Vista, because all that's really happened is someone's created some source archives and put them on a website to download. I don't think any mainstream distribution is going to put KDE 4.0 into its repositories for general use, and as such the only people who are running KDE4 at this point are either developers or people who have gone to the effort of seeking out unsupported, community-provided packages out of their own curiosity. Most of the reactions I've seen from enthusiasts of this type have indeed confirmed that they do not believe KDE 4.0 to be ready for day-to-day use, but they're not disillusioned or upset or dissatisfied because they know that they deliberately sought out an unfinished product -- they just wanted to have a preview, really.
There is another point concerning this whole "maybe it should still be a beta" situation, which involves the distinction between KDE4 as a platform and KDE4 as a desktop environment. According to what I've read, a large part of the decision to release KDE 4.0 in the state it's in was to do with the fact that in order to end up with a complete desktop environment, there needs to be a community of developers working with the new platform. The concern was that people wouldn't want to start developing for a "beta" platform, only to have the rug pulled out from under their feet when the APIs were changed. This 4.0 release marks a stable target platform which people can start building on with confidence. It's important to realise that this isn't some sort of trick -- the libraries and frameworks underpinning KDE4 are apparently pretty complete and stable and it's mainly the applications which need the work.
Yeah, KDE4 is definitely being developed according to the "release early, release often" philosophy here. For months now the word has been that KDE 4.0 will not completely realise all of the hopes for KDE4 as a long-term project, rather it is targeted towards enthusiasts and developers. I think it's a fairly good idea, because the ball needs to get rolling in order to build activity and interest around the new platform. Aaron Seigo, a high-profile KDE developer made this blog post which clears up a lot of the confusion around this 4.0 release.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, KDE4 is still making rapid progress, and in the mean time KDE3 is still a great desktop. When KDE4 is ready for mass consumption (hopefully 4.1 will be better in this regard, scheduled for 6 months or so), the Linux distributors will pick it up and start delivering it as a supported option. Until then, this first release still shows a great deal of progress, and I think the developers can definitely justify a bit of self-satisfaction!