Linux doesn't have to please everybody, and nor does the article say this - is says Linux should be friendlier. So does KDE, GNOME, Trolltech, Eazel, theKompany, Ximian, etc.
Many technical users like myself also enjoy ease of use despite the fact they have the knowledge to understand more convoluted ways of doing things. For one, this allows me to install Linux on my computer and allow my girlfriend to use it. It also means my mother can write letters without worrying about her machine stopping working for no reason before she's had a chance to save. Many Linux users like this and want the rest of the world to experience it too.
For technical users, you'll have better documentation, better hardware support, and stronger integratuion with clients (who needs Samba or Appletalk when the clients are Linux too). You'll appreciate client OSs where user s can surf the web, type documents, read their email, view Acrobat files, and zip documents without being able to destroy the underlying OS accidentally.
Linux has a great solid foundation and some really brilliant ideas. I want that foundation to be accessible by other people. And judging by the actions of many others, it seems they too are definitely aiming for the desktop.
None of these authors feel they are owed something. They're contributing. They don't want Linux to be better for their own ghain, but for Linux's sake, as there are many advantages to ubiquity.
In case you haven't worked out, not everyone in the world can write code. In fact, not everyone can be a journalist who writes a neatly summarized rally cry for Linux ease of use and inspires people to help is the act of fixing it. Not everyone can provide clear and concise feedback. Not everyone can manage a company that pays the grocery bills of the programmers either.
I'm sorry, but it seems nobody here is actually aware of the current status of APT:
* APT does not compete with RPM.
* Deb competes with RPM
* APT is packaging system independent
* APT was *designed to be* packaging system independent
* APT works with RPM
* Connectiva uses APT
* Mandrake 8 (currently in beta) uses apt
* Connectiva also has a n excellent set of packaging guidelines, which document things like package granularity, etc (current situation - libmng might be in libmng package or qt2 packages).
* AFAIK (from talking to Debian people and using it for a little while) Deb lacks package signing, and transaction support.
Does anyone know what is keeping ACLs out of the kernel? Has Linus ever said where he stands on a standard ACL implementation for Linux?
I asked Alan Cox about this and he said that capabilities were pretty much unrecognized by the wider comunity, and thus there were no need for ACLs. But IMHO, capabilties aren't nearly as clean as ACLs (rwxs + capabilities can be confusing, ACLS put everything neatly in one permission system).
There's a large portion of (well, dickheads, really) who think any idea implemented in NT doesn't belong in Linux. This ignored the fact that the Trusted flavors of various closed source Unixes and VMS have had the same system for years. And that Microsoft, whilst not having the worlds best business practices, can occassionally make good OS deesign decisions
(and even sometimes be the best tool for the job, but that's OT).
I'm not sure what Linus would say, but I'd like to echo those sentiments exactly. There's no reason I, nor any service, ever need to run as root.
* Why does my mail server need a small program with permissions to install a rootkit in/dev?
* Why can't I delegate the task of adding and deleting users to a minion without worrying they will corrupt the filesystem?
* When I want full access to a file, managers to have read and execute access, employees to have read access, and nobody else to have any access at all, why can't I just DO IT?
Rwxs wasn't designed for security. ACLs even fit in better with the Unix philosophy of giving users and processes only the permissions they need to use the system and no more.
Does anyone know what is keeping ACLs out of the kernel? Has Linus ever said where he stands on a standard ACL implementation for Linux?
I asked Alan Cox about this and he said thatcapabilities were pretty much unrecognized by the wider comunity. But IMHO, cpaabilties aren't nearly as clean as ACLs.
There's a large portion of (well, dickheads, really) who think any idea implemented in NT doesn't belong in Linux. This ignored the fac that the Trusted flavos of varios closed source Unixes and VMS have had the same system for years. And that Microsoft, while not having the worlds best business practices, can occassionally make goodOS deesign decisions, and even sometimes be the best tool for the job.
I'm not sure what Linux would say, but I'd like to echo those sentiments exactly. There's no reason I, not and service, ever neeed to run as root. Why does my mail server need a small program with permissions to install a rootkit in/dev? Why can't I delegate the task of adding and deleting users to a minion without worrying they will corrupt the filesystem.
* xdnd is poor, and doesn't often work. Try xdnd from konq FTP to a gnome desktop.
* panel applet imcompatibility
* mime type incompatibility
* doubled learning time from two sets of common controls, completely diffferent visual styles
* Component level incompatibility
* A stack more reasons I can't think of right now
The integration between the two is, frankly, a load of shite. yes there's room for two, but now with the current l;evel of incompatibility. Lackk of consistency hurts the Linux desktop far more than competition is currently enhancing it.
Real Server, Windows Media Server (yes), about ten databases unavaliable on SCO, some scripting language plugins for Apache, and indeed, every Loki game, RealPlayer, Flash Player, etc on the desktop. That's off the top of my head. There are more.
Some Linux users use it for the same reasoin they use closed soruce apps on it: because its the best tool for the job.
True, but (if Unix means Unix-like) you don't mean commercial Unix.
You mean closed source or proprietary Unix. Red Hat, Caldera, Mandrake etc are all commercial entities whose Unix-like OS exists for the purposes of making them money.
* IT satisfies dependencies by downloading and installing them (if you want). This removes the endless headache of hunting, downloading, and installing that it currently takes to update a single package (Gimp needs newer GTK, GTK needs newer glibc, etc)
* It can easily install multiple RPMS simultaneously - you can't point kpackage at more than one file
* It hopefully doesn't have stupid error messages like "KPACKAGE MUST BE RUN AS ROOT!!!" though it might. If I download it, run it as a regular user, and it gives me this sort of (pardon the language) shit (instead of just asking me for the password) I, like many other users, will uninstall it.
* The tool basically exists because currently there are no quality GUI tools for APT (or DEB or RPM for third-party stuff, for that matter). If nobodies been bothered fopr the last couple of years, chances are they won't be in the future. Most non-Unix/BSD experiences Linux users would avoid remebering command line switches if they have to.
* You could simply take the tool and craft it to use APT as a backend. I think this might be the way to go.
Things like Red Carpet (and the older HelixUpdate) really help out new users
Red Carpet might 0Slashdotted so I can't see, and there's no Mandrake version - odd because Mandrake has the highest desktop share according to most surverys but Helix Update definitely did not help out new users.
Because it force installed all its packages. And that *really* pisses a new user off when they find their system refuses to be upgraded because Ximian assumed their own packages would always be better. I'm angry the tool did this, I'm angry they didn't tell anyone, I'm angry about the wasted mailing list time to support the users who had their systems raped by Ximian.
There is a standard package downloading tool for.deb and.rpm - APT. The Mandrake 8 beta we've been testing for the last month includes it as the common package downloading tool, and it works *really* well.
Sign up to the mandrake-expert list to get details about where to download the ISO images and help test it.
Oh, and re: Red carpet: with any luck, the functionality will be in libso, so if you want scripting, or you're an old-school Unix bearded guy, a command line version shouldn't be too hard.
The big question is: will APT and Red Carpet resolve the installation of a package in a similar way? Will the package repositopries on Ximian match the distribution vendors (likely,, but still important) and (more importantly) the the third party application developers?
Open source clients and servers, run by volunteers, faith-based organizations, or governments (where aplicable). By their nature, profit and it's motive are forbidden.
Er, no. Profit and its motive (greed) are encouraged under both. While many Open Source projects are produced for altruistic reasons, the recent explosion in Linux is aprtially profit driven. Programmers (and documentors, and managers and even marketers) shave to eat, buy mountain dew, and other things that require money, and are encouraged to do so.
Anyway, as long as this pricing doesn't move to games, I'm not too worried about it.
I never really thought about that before, but now that I do, it sounds like a great idea. I'd like to pay for my own low usage of the game. I don't install every mod, spend all my time LANning, or do anything much than enjoy the game once in single player mode (Generally no time for naythoing else these days).
I'd love to rent Alice this way, for three months until I'm done with it. If I really like it, I could buy an indefinite license...
I don't think I trust commercial software enough for them to force this idea down our throats just yet.
This seems like a rather odd comment to make without justification - TomCampion, why don't you trust closed source software? I'll assume you don't mean commercial software (as this would include many Open Source projects, such as Red Hat Linux), but rather closed source, as many Slashdotters fail to undertsand that Open Source != Non commercial.
This seems liker a broad statement - why don't you trust closed soruce software? Reliability? Privacy concerns? Evil business practices? Many of these aren't unique to the closed software world (eg, Ximian a couple of weeks ago). And while Open Source usualy has a positive effect on reliability, it does not always. As someone who plays with OMS, Xine, and Videolan regularlarly, if you were looking for a reliable DVD player for Linux that works on a PII 400, I'd tell you to wait for LinDVD.
Open source might help these things but doesn't guarantee them. As a professional Linux writer, I'm forced to use Microsoft Word because
* Staroffice can't do a word count on a section. I need this to be able to do pages for my editors
* WordPerfect Office 2000 is incrediably slow in its UI, and not aprticularly stable, because of its Wine basis
* Applixware lacks word counts completely, and handles MS imports poorly
* Abiword still isn't finished.
* Text editors aren't usually visually oriented, and having headings, for example, in a large font makes
So I use MS Word for the same reason I use Linux, GNOME and KDE, Postfix, Apache, PHP, ProFTPd, etc - its the best tool for the job. Sometimes beiong Open Source makes them the best tools, but not always. I think blanket generalizations about closed source being hard to trust are unfair, but I'm interested in reading your own rationale behind this rather odd statement.
While the GNOME and KDE teams have produced excellent work, their focus on destroying each othjer concerns me. Ximian does dodgy things with Google adwords, KDE calls GNOME `legacy' in their theme importer.
Face it. Neither QT/KDE or GTK/GNOME are going away. Can we start having some interoperation between the desktop environments? The complete lack on inconsistency in the Linux desktop (real users choose ap[ps based on quality, not toolkit religion) hurts Linux far more then competition helps it.
Let people choose between GNOME and KDE. But let my apps have consistent user interfaces, common dialogues, theming engines, drag and drop (xdnd is a joke - used Konqueror FTP on GNOME recently)?, panel applets, and hopefully object model (KDE can do Bonobo components with Xparts - but I'd prefer a more uifies solution).
It ain't Highlander. There's CAN be more than one,a nd there will be. So if you want to increase the usuability of the Linux desktop, deal with and start talking to the opposite camp.
All these Open source products dominate their markets over all their proprietary competitors (and often, all of their competitors combined). Open Source innovated by building the Internet - except back then it wasn't known as Open Source, it was just software typically licensed under the BSD license.
The internet is still reliant on Unix and Open Source forall its core architecture. Exactly what has Microsoft innovated? How well did NetBIOS and WINS succeed in the market place? Did they make Microsoft lots of money, or were they abandoned in favor of Internetworking standards?
The guy that posted is anti-Ximian, and thus I wouldn't be surprised if he was completely WRONG
Thanks for the caps.:) Yes, I do dislike Ximian based on some of their actions. I dislike many things.
I determined the information myself, but confirnmed it with Maceij and George from Eazel when they were in Australia for Linux.conf.au. They're not Ximian employees, but they certainly know GNOME well enough and are familiar with the Ximian installer.
Re:No you don't. APT does it, is tested, and works
on
KDE Installer Project
·
· Score: 1
The next version of mandrake will be version number 8.0 not 7.3
The Crashtester list hosted by Mandrake has Mandrake employees calling the next version 7.3. Either way, it probably doesn't matter. And yes, APT would be worth a major revision, IMHO.
Agreed. The packaging system independent APT does this well, but is nowhere near as friendly as it could be. And GUI installers are hilariously bad - what exactly is `a gnorpm'? Why when I click on a package do I get `KPACKAGE MUST BE RUN AS ROOT!!!!' rather than a password dialogue? Why can't I select 60 packages, open them similtaneously, and let the installer work out the dependencies?
* Make the code Open Source
* Make it cross platform, cross applciation (ie, and interface for apt), and cross licensing (this means closed source apps, too)
* Call it `Software Installer'. The command would be `installer'
* Allow cataloging (Eazel services, Red Hat network, and other subscriptions) into it. Allow people to make these services free (gratis) or otherwise.
* Make it secure. Put package signing into systems that don't have it yet.
* Have a set of packaging guidelines that go with it, defining things like granularity, package structure, menu icon guidelines, etc.
* If Oracle wants to, allow me to type in my credit card and download Oracle.
Slashdot Mirror
Linux doesn't have to please everybody, and nor does the article say this - is says Linux should be friendlier. So does KDE, GNOME, Trolltech, Eazel, theKompany, Ximian, etc.
Many technical users like myself also enjoy ease of use despite the fact they have the knowledge to understand more convoluted ways of doing things. For one, this allows me to install Linux on my computer and allow my girlfriend to use it. It also means my mother can write letters without worrying about her machine stopping working for no reason before she's had a chance to save. Many Linux users like this and want the rest of the world to experience it too.
For technical users, you'll have better documentation, better hardware support, and stronger integratuion with clients (who needs Samba or Appletalk when the clients are Linux too). You'll appreciate client OSs where user s can surf the web, type documents, read their email, view Acrobat files, and zip documents without being able to destroy the underlying OS accidentally.
Linux has a great solid foundation and some really brilliant ideas. I want that foundation to be accessible by other people. And judging by the actions of many others, it seems they too are definitely aiming for the desktop.
None of these authors feel they are owed something. They're contributing. They don't want Linux to be better for their own ghain, but for Linux's sake, as there are many advantages to ubiquity.
In case you haven't worked out, not everyone in the world can write code. In fact, not everyone can be a journalist who writes a neatly summarized rally cry for Linux ease of use and inspires people to help is the act of fixing it. Not everyone can provide clear and concise feedback. Not everyone can manage a company that pays the grocery bills of the programmers either.
I parsed it as `Microsoft biggest web - bugger'.
`Bugger', asides from referring to someone who sodomizes others, is also colloqially used in Australia as a curse.
I'm sorry, but it seems nobody here is actually aware of the current status of APT:
* APT does not compete with RPM.
* Deb competes with RPM
* APT is packaging system independent
* APT was *designed to be* packaging system independent
* APT works with RPM
* Connectiva uses APT
* Mandrake 8 (currently in beta) uses apt
* Connectiva also has a n excellent set of packaging guidelines, which document things like package granularity, etc (current situation - libmng might be in libmng package or qt2 packages).
* AFAIK (from talking to Debian people and using it for a little while) Deb lacks package signing, and transaction support.
Use the SMB PAM module with Apache to authenticate form the NT server
Use Halycon Software of Chilisoft to deploy your ASP app on Linux.
Does anyone know what is keeping ACLs out of the kernel? Has Linus ever said where he stands on a standard ACL implementation for Linux?
/dev?
I asked Alan Cox about this and he said that capabilities were pretty much unrecognized by the wider comunity, and thus there were no need for ACLs. But IMHO, capabilties aren't nearly as clean as ACLs (rwxs + capabilities can be confusing, ACLS put everything neatly in one permission system).
There's a large portion of (well, dickheads, really) who think any idea implemented in NT doesn't belong in Linux. This ignored the fact that the Trusted flavors of various closed source Unixes and VMS have had the same system for years. And that Microsoft, whilst not having the worlds best business practices, can occassionally make good OS deesign decisions
(and even sometimes be the best tool for the job, but that's OT).
I'm not sure what Linus would say, but I'd like to echo those sentiments exactly. There's no reason I, nor any service, ever need to run as root.
* Why does my mail server need a small program with permissions to install a rootkit in
* Why can't I delegate the task of adding and deleting users to a minion without worrying they will corrupt the filesystem?
* When I want full access to a file, managers to have read and execute access, employees to have read access, and nobody else to have any access at all, why can't I just DO IT?
Rwxs wasn't designed for security. ACLs even fit in better with the Unix philosophy of giving users and processes only the permissions they need to use the system and no more.
Sudo is a hack.
Does anyone know what is keeping ACLs out of the kernel? Has Linus ever said where he stands on a standard ACL implementation for Linux?
/dev? Why can't I delegate the task of adding and deleting users to a minion without worrying they will corrupt the filesystem.
I asked Alan Cox about this and he said thatcapabilities were pretty much unrecognized by the wider comunity. But IMHO, cpaabilties aren't nearly as clean as ACLs.
There's a large portion of (well, dickheads, really) who think any idea implemented in NT doesn't belong in Linux. This ignored the fac that the Trusted flavos of varios closed source Unixes and VMS have had the same system for years. And that Microsoft, while not having the worlds best business practices, can occassionally make goodOS deesign decisions, and even sometimes be the best tool for the job.
I'm not sure what Linux would say, but I'd like to echo those sentiments exactly. There's no reason I, not and service, ever neeed to run as root. Why does my mail server need a small program with permissions to install a rootkit in
Sudo is a hack.
Thanka for making the point - I didn't have the time time to illustrate the full sequence.
.Deb specific. You could install Conectiva or the Mandrake 8 beta, both of which are APT based RPM distributions.
But APT isn't Debian or
as I can run gnome stuff in KDE and vice versa.
But you can't.
* xdnd is poor, and doesn't often work. Try xdnd from konq FTP to a gnome desktop.
* panel applet imcompatibility
* mime type incompatibility
* doubled learning time from two sets of common controls, completely diffferent visual styles
* Component level incompatibility
* A stack more reasons I can't think of right now
The integration between the two is, frankly, a load of shite. yes there's room for two, but now with the current l;evel of incompatibility. Lackk of consistency hurts the Linux desktop far more than competition is currently enhancing it.
Real Server, Windows Media Server (yes), about ten databases unavaliable on SCO, some scripting language plugins for Apache, and indeed, every Loki game, RealPlayer, Flash Player, etc on the desktop. That's off the top of my head. There are more.
Some Linux users use it for the same reasoin they use closed soruce apps on it: because its the best tool for the job.
True, but (if Unix means Unix-like) you don't mean commercial Unix.
You mean closed source or proprietary Unix. Red Hat, Caldera, Mandrake etc are all commercial entities whose Unix-like OS exists for the purposes of making them money.
Slashdot does need an edit feature - I meant to say thousandth where I said tenth.
In the rest of the world, a billion is 1,000,000,000,000.
1,000,000 is a milliard. Duh yourself.
* IT satisfies dependencies by downloading and installing them (if you want). This removes the endless headache of hunting, downloading, and installing that it currently takes to update a single package (Gimp needs newer GTK, GTK needs newer glibc, etc)
* It can easily install multiple RPMS simultaneously - you can't point kpackage at more than one file
* It hopefully doesn't have stupid error messages like "KPACKAGE MUST BE RUN AS ROOT!!!" though it might. If I download it, run it as a regular user, and it gives me this sort of (pardon the language) shit (instead of just asking me for the password) I, like many other users, will uninstall it.
* Mandrake 8 beta does it too
* The tool basically exists because currently there are no quality GUI tools for APT (or DEB or RPM for third-party stuff, for that matter). If nobodies been bothered fopr the last couple of years, chances are they won't be in the future. Most non-Unix/BSD experiences Linux users would avoid remebering command line switches if they have to.
* You could simply take the tool and craft it to use APT as a backend. I think this might be the way to go.
Things like Red Carpet (and the older HelixUpdate) really help out new users
Red Carpet might 0Slashdotted so I can't see, and there's no Mandrake version - odd because Mandrake has the highest desktop share according to most surverys but Helix Update definitely did not help out new users.
Because it force installed all its packages. And that *really* pisses a new user off when they find their system refuses to be upgraded because Ximian assumed their own packages would always be better. I'm angry the tool did this, I'm angry they didn't tell anyone, I'm angry about the wasted mailing list time to support the users who had their systems raped by Ximian.
There is a standard package downloading tool for .deb and .rpm - APT. The Mandrake 8 beta we've been testing for the last month includes it as the common package downloading tool, and it works *really* well.
Sign up to the mandrake-expert list to get details about where to download the ISO images and help test it.
Oh, and re: Red carpet: with any luck, the functionality will be in libso, so if you want scripting, or you're an old-school Unix bearded guy, a command line version shouldn't be too hard.
The big question is: will APT and Red Carpet resolve the installation of a package in a similar way? Will the package repositopries on Ximian match the distribution vendors (likely,, but still important) and (more importantly) the the third party application developers?
Open source clients and servers, run by volunteers, faith-based organizations, or governments (where aplicable). By their nature, profit and it's motive are forbidden.
Er, no. Profit and its motive (greed) are encouraged under both. While many Open Source projects are produced for altruistic reasons, the recent explosion in Linux is aprtially profit driven. Programmers (and documentors, and managers and even marketers) shave to eat, buy mountain dew, and other things that require money, and are encouraged to do so.
Why on earth would you think otherwise?
AOL has 27 million members paying $20/month.
So? AOL is tiny. Napster currently already has over sixty million members. A year ago it was 18 million.
A tenth of a billion if you live anywhere else in the world, and define your numbers according to world standards...
Grumble grumble grumble
Anyway, as long as this pricing doesn't move to games, I'm not too worried about it.
I never really thought about that before, but now that I do, it sounds like a great idea. I'd like to pay for my own low usage of the game. I don't install every mod, spend all my time LANning, or do anything much than enjoy the game once in single player mode (Generally no time for naythoing else these days).
I'd love to rent Alice this way, for three months until I'm done with it. If I really like it, I could buy an indefinite license...
I don't think I trust commercial software enough for them to force this idea down our throats just yet.
This seems like a rather odd comment to make without justification - TomCampion, why don't you trust closed source software? I'll assume you don't mean commercial software (as this would include many Open Source projects, such as Red Hat Linux), but rather closed source, as many Slashdotters fail to undertsand that Open Source != Non commercial.
This seems liker a broad statement - why don't you trust closed soruce software? Reliability? Privacy concerns? Evil business practices? Many of these aren't unique to the closed software world (eg, Ximian a couple of weeks ago). And while Open Source usualy has a positive effect on reliability, it does not always. As someone who plays with OMS, Xine, and Videolan regularlarly, if you were looking for a reliable DVD player for Linux that works on a PII 400, I'd tell you to wait for LinDVD.
Open source might help these things but doesn't guarantee them. As a professional Linux writer, I'm forced to use Microsoft Word because
* Staroffice can't do a word count on a section. I need this to be able to do pages for my editors
* WordPerfect Office 2000 is incrediably slow in its UI, and not aprticularly stable, because of its Wine basis
* Applixware lacks word counts completely, and handles MS imports poorly
* Abiword still isn't finished.
* Text editors aren't usually visually oriented, and having headings, for example, in a large font makes
So I use MS Word for the same reason I use Linux, GNOME and KDE, Postfix, Apache, PHP, ProFTPd, etc - its the best tool for the job. Sometimes beiong Open Source makes them the best tools, but not always. I think blanket generalizations about closed source being hard to trust are unfair, but I'm interested in reading your own rationale behind this rather odd statement.
While the GNOME and KDE teams have produced excellent work, their focus on destroying each othjer concerns me. Ximian does dodgy things with Google adwords, KDE calls GNOME `legacy' in their theme importer.
Face it. Neither QT/KDE or GTK/GNOME are going away. Can we start having some interoperation between the desktop environments? The complete lack on inconsistency in the Linux desktop (real users choose ap[ps based on quality, not toolkit religion) hurts Linux far more then competition helps it.
Let people choose between GNOME and KDE. But let my apps have consistent user interfaces, common dialogues, theming engines, drag and drop (xdnd is a joke - used Konqueror FTP on GNOME recently)?, panel applets, and hopefully object model (KDE can do Bonobo components with Xparts - but I'd prefer a more uifies solution).
It ain't Highlander. There's CAN be more than one,a nd there will be. So if you want to increase the usuability of the Linux desktop, deal with and start talking to the opposite camp.
The competition is Windows.
* Sendmail
* WU FTPd
* Bind
* Squid
* Apache
All these Open source products dominate their markets over all their proprietary competitors (and often, all of their competitors combined). Open Source innovated by building the Internet - except back then it wasn't known as Open Source, it was just software typically licensed under the BSD license.
The internet is still reliant on Unix and Open Source forall its core architecture. Exactly what has Microsoft innovated? How well did NetBIOS and WINS succeed in the market place? Did they make Microsoft lots of money, or were they abandoned in favor of Internetworking standards?
The guy that posted is anti-Ximian, and thus I wouldn't be surprised if he was completely WRONG
:) Yes, I do dislike Ximian based on some of their actions. I dislike many things.
Thanks for the caps.
I determined the information myself, but confirnmed it with Maceij and George from Eazel when they were in Australia for Linux.conf.au. They're not Ximian employees, but they certainly know GNOME well enough and are familiar with the Ximian installer.
The next version of mandrake will be version number 8.0 not 7.3
The Crashtester list hosted by Mandrake has Mandrake employees calling the next version 7.3. Either way, it probably doesn't matter. And yes, APT would be worth a major revision, IMHO.
Agreed. The packaging system independent APT does this well, but is nowhere near as friendly as it could be. And GUI installers are hilariously bad - what exactly is `a gnorpm'? Why when I click on a package do I get `KPACKAGE MUST BE RUN AS ROOT!!!!' rather than a password dialogue? Why can't I select 60 packages, open them similtaneously, and let the installer work out the dependencies?
* Make the code Open Source
* Make it cross platform, cross applciation (ie, and interface for apt), and cross licensing (this means closed source apps, too)
* Call it `Software Installer'. The command would be `installer'
* Allow cataloging (Eazel services, Red Hat network, and other subscriptions) into it. Allow people to make these services free (gratis) or otherwise.
* Make it secure. Put package signing into systems that don't have it yet.
* Have a set of packaging guidelines that go with it, defining things like granularity, package structure, menu icon guidelines, etc.
* If Oracle wants to, allow me to type in my credit card and download Oracle.