As a Windows & Firefox user I find that the biggest problem is incompatible sites.
Because there are some incompatible sites, I am unsure when I come across a problem on any site. I have to fire up MSIE and try the site with it, in order to know what the problem is. Half the time it turns out to work with MSIE.
The solution is to reduce the number of incompatible sites. Obviously, the increasing market share of firefox helps.
It would also be great if someone wrote software that crawled the internet, finding IE specific (ie. non standard) code and sending the web admin a polite E-mail pointing out the problem and a solution. I'm not talking about Active-X controls, I'm talking about non-standard HTML.
I wonder how feasible it would be for other word processors, such as AbiWord, to use this format natively. Or, at least appear to use the format natively.
That is, after all, what happens in other areas: MS owns the market leading, proprietary, format/protocol, and then the others rally around an open alternative.
BTW, I don't think that the XML encoding is important. What matters is that the format is legally open, that it is published with good documentation, and that there is nothing hidden in it to tie people to OOo.
Except for that big about the hurdles getting it to work on Windows. You will forgive me for suggesting that how well it works on Windows, where 95% of users are, is really important.
Also, since you are talking about GNUstep as one of the creators of this, I assume this is open source?
And finally, is is language agnostic? I personally would want to use C++.
As a C++ developer I have found OOo to be pretty useless as an open-source project.
It uses all its own frameworks and conventions, so it is innaccesible.
If it used the STL, Qt, GTKmm, wxWindows, then I would know where to start with the code.
It would be really great if one of the cross-platform frameworks (GTKmm, wxWindows, FOX, the Mozilla runtime) could get the extra boost of having OOo run on it. That might consolidate effort around one of them. And it would be nice to be able to write an application (eg. an xml editor) on the same 'platform' as OOo.
> This sort of simplistic dichotomy on the war is exceptionally disgusting, akin to Holocaust denial.
Hummm. Aren't you going a bit far with that one?
After all, if you just try, you can see his point: he is giving the US perspective.
Bush, and most supports of the war, did not go because of the Amnesty International reports that you mention. If you think that then please do a little reading of recent history or foreign policy. For example read about the obstacles that people like Gore had to overcome to get action in Yugoslavia.
The fact that Iraqi's were being tortured was relevant to the Iraqi's themselves, to a few bleeding heart liberals in the US and around the world, to Christopher Hitchens, and maybe a bit to Tony Blair. But it was irrelevant to the US supporters of the war until after their other motivations fell apart.
If you have $100 billion to spend on good deeds, you could easily save 1000's of times more people without invading a country.
Flashblock was my favorite extension, but apparently there are a number of bugs, particularly when used with 0.9, so I stopped using it when I upgraded my FireFox.
Also, I'd be hesitant to convict MM based on just one user's experience. Flakey stuff happens and often we don't know why. I don't think you should be so quick to come to a conclusion.
Evolution should not be part of Gnome - it should be added by the people who build the distro's.
If you start adding applications to Gnome, where do you stop? Are they going to add OpenOffice or AbiWord/Gnumeric to the next version of Gnome? After all, a word processor is pretty basic.
The Gnome people should focus on making it easy for distro builders and end-users to add (well integrated) apps. Don't build the apps into the desktop.
I can't tell from the website whether it has a fan. If it has a fan it is probably too noisy. Can someone with any LaCie 2.5" external drive tell me whether their's is quiet?
That's great that it gets its power from the USB port. Having to carry around an AC/DC adapter would significantly reduce the portability.
Ok. You guys have mentioned some of the problems with Linux + Gnome/KDE.
But you haven't mentioned one of the biggest problems: support for enough applications and hardware.
How will your OS deal with this? Obviously it is impossible to start from scratch and create your own, so what application platforms will you support? Java, Mono, Wine, Gnome/Mozilla?
But this is a reason to not make Evolution an integral part of Gnome.
There is nothing wrong with Novell doing this, but please don't compare it to situations where developers are asked to assign their code to a foundation. The wxWidgets, Mozilla, Gnome, Apache, Python, etc. foundations have mandates to help their users and contributors. Novell is a corporation, and it is ultimately only responsible to its shareholders.
Novell with Evolution and Sun with OpenOffice - these are like TrollTech with Qt. Better than closed source, but not as good as software which is guided by the interests of its users and developers.
Windows has effective monopolies with Windows Client and MS Office.
Apple does not (yet) have a monopoly with FairPlay. I don't know the numbers exactly, but it is my understanding that more than half of the MP3 players out there don't support FairPlay (ie. everything other than the iPod). And many of them support Microsoft's DRM technology don't they?
Yes, this market does have network effects, so it has excellent potential for a monopoly, but let's not jump the gun.
And aren't Sony and MS planning to enter the market for downloadable tunes later this year?
This might be faster than C Python, but it is still slow compared to other dotNet apps. For many applications and purposes this doesn't matter, but it does imply that the CLR really isn't very good for dynamic languages.
Actually, the CLR could be great for dynamic languages, but it would require adding some new instructions, and MS isn't willing to do this so long as dynamic languages are not important to them.
For Mono, and the Linux community, however, dynamic languages are very important, so Mono should add the necessary support to make these languages work better. This could be done without affecting Mono's ability to run MS dotNet apps.
And anyway, Mono won't really be compatible with all the MS API's unless they license technology from MS, so we need to accept that Mono could be a great development environment for the OSS community, but its not going to run all your MS apps for free. BTW, I'm not referring to the present, I'm referring to the day when MS decides it's time to enforce their patents for ASP and Forms.
Thanks for the helpful response (someone pls mod it informative).
So, if I understand correctly, I could rip my stuff to generic AAC - which is about as proprietary as MP3 - and use it on an iPod, and with other devices that support AAC. But I won't be able to do much with iTunes stuff.
You mentioned that AIFF is supported on all 3 client platforms - good.
But I thought it was an uncompressed format like.WAV? Or is it a compressed lossless format like Ogg Something (can't remember the name)?
I'm still unclear as to the nature of the Apple music format.
I know that it's better than MP3 - so are WMA and OGG. And I'm not really interested in comparisons between these next gen codecs: they are all good enough for me.
I just want to know if it's proprietary. Some people tell me it is an open codec called AAC. So will my CD-ripper software (CD-ex) and other music utilities be able to include the codec so it can rip and encode to this format (without breaking the law)? Can other brands of MP3 players support this format without paying a license fee?
I wouldn't want to develop a music collection in this format, and then find that it isn't supported by the software and hardware that I want to use because it is a closed format. If I get locked into a proprietary format then the owner of that format can charge an excessive amount for the use of that format, based on the lock-in.
I'm not blaming Apple if it is proprietary - obviously MS does the same. But, if so, I'll take a pass.
First, for people who don't know who you are, you should tell them that you are not an unbiased observer. Actually, the fact that you have a financial interest in the success of Mono makes you about as biased an observer as possible.
For me, though, the real question is the status of mono's ASP.NET. Is it part of the MS proprietary stack? If I adopt ASP.NET today might the free and cross-platform option dissapear in the future?
The mono website used to be clear about which API's were really free and which weren't, but now that information doesn't seem to be there anymore. What happened? Is ASP.NET MS proprietary?
The STL is part of the C++ standard. So, when TT decides to create some new template based container classes, hut to create their own rather than using the STL, I consider this to be non-standard.
Microsoft did the same thing years ago, back when the standard wasn't ready. People got really mad at them (which was quite ligit because MS knew this would be bad for developers though good for themselves).
As the standard and its acceptance have improved, MS has improved their compiler and their STL to the point where they are now (v7.1) very good, and very compatible with GCC 3.4 and with Intel. They have not retrofitted the STL to MFC, but they haven't changed MFC much in a long long time. If they came out with a new library at this stage and didn't use the STL I would accuse them of undermining the standard and I would not accept the need to make money as an excuse.
I understand, of course, that companies don't do these things to be evil, they do it to make money. But TT doesn't do a very good job of balancing the bottom line, with PR, and the general interests of the community. Even they admit that they (not to mention the rest of us) would have been better off if they had GPL'ed QT much sooner.
Using the version of Qt in the book is dead-end since using it would mean being stuck with that version on all platforms.
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As a Windows & Firefox user I find that the biggest problem is incompatible sites.
Because there are some incompatible sites, I am unsure when I come across a problem on any site. I have to fire up MSIE and try the site with it, in order to know what the problem is. Half the time it turns out to work with MSIE.
The solution is to reduce the number of incompatible sites. Obviously, the increasing market share of firefox helps.
It would also be great if someone wrote software that crawled the internet, finding IE specific (ie. non standard) code and sending the web admin a polite E-mail pointing out the problem and a solution. I'm not talking about Active-X controls, I'm talking about non-standard HTML.
I wonder how feasible it would be for other word processors, such as AbiWord, to use this format natively. Or, at least appear to use the format natively.
That is, after all, what happens in other areas: MS owns the market leading, proprietary, format/protocol, and then the others rally around an open alternative.
BTW, I don't think that the XML encoding is important. What matters is that the format is legally open, that it is published with good documentation, and that there is nothing hidden in it to tie people to OOo.
Does the Windows port now support text folding?
Last time I tried this feature it wasn't working on Windows.
Also, what is the status of Gnumeric on Windows?
Thanks to everybody who contributed to these products. I think they are excellent.
Does this actually use GTK and Qt? Or is it just simulating them?
If it actually uses them then that would be great! Otherwise I'll take a pass.
Except for that big about the hurdles getting it to work on Windows. You will forgive me for suggesting that how well it works on Windows, where 95% of users are, is really important.
Also, since you are talking about GNUstep as one of the creators of this, I assume this is open source?
And finally, is is language agnostic? I personally would want to use C++.
Yes, I did not RTFA. Sorry.
Thanks for the info.
You use native widgets on all platforms? I didn't know that - I thought it was GTK+ on all platforms.
How do you do this? Do you maintain seperate GUI code for each platform? Do you use some sort of framework like wxWindows which does this for you?
What you are describing sounds like a lot of work - I hope you are using an existing framework, but you didn't mention one.
As a C++ developer I have found OOo to be pretty useless as an open-source project.
It uses all its own frameworks and conventions, so it is innaccesible.
If it used the STL, Qt, GTKmm, wxWindows, then I would know where to start with the code.
It would be really great if one of the cross-platform frameworks (GTKmm, wxWindows, FOX, the Mozilla runtime) could get the extra boost of having OOo run on it. That might consolidate effort around one of them. And it would be nice to be able to write an application (eg. an xml editor) on the same 'platform' as OOo.
How about AbiWord? What libraries does it use?
Can it record to MP3 or Vorbis?
Actually, I'd like to be able to supply my own encoder and parameters (ie. LAME MP3).
> This sort of simplistic dichotomy on the war is exceptionally disgusting, akin to Holocaust denial.
Hummm. Aren't you going a bit far with that one?
After all, if you just try, you can see his point: he is giving the US perspective.
Bush, and most supports of the war, did not go because of the Amnesty International reports that you mention. If you think that then please do a little reading of recent history or foreign policy. For example read about the obstacles that people like Gore had to overcome to get action in Yugoslavia.
The fact that Iraqi's were being tortured was relevant to the Iraqi's themselves, to a few bleeding heart liberals in the US and around the world, to Christopher Hitchens, and maybe a bit to Tony Blair. But it was irrelevant to the US supporters of the war until after their other motivations fell apart.
If you have $100 billion to spend on good deeds, you could easily save 1000's of times more people without invading a country.
Flashblock was my favorite extension, but apparently there are a number of bugs, particularly when used with 0.9, so I stopped using it when I upgraded my FireFox.
Also, I'd be hesitant to convict MM based on just one user's experience. Flakey stuff happens and often we don't know why. I don't think you should be so quick to come to a conclusion.
Evolution should not be part of Gnome - it should be added by the people who build the distro's.
If you start adding applications to Gnome, where do you stop? Are they going to add OpenOffice or AbiWord/Gnumeric to the next version of Gnome? After all, a word processor is pretty basic.
The Gnome people should focus on making it easy for distro builders and end-users to add (well integrated) apps. Don't build the apps into the desktop.
So, your saying that in a capitalist society everything other than (unemotional, short-term) self-interest in not allowed?
That sounds like Ayn Rand's philosophy.
I can't tell from the website whether it has a fan. If it has a fan it is probably too noisy. Can someone with any LaCie 2.5" external drive tell me whether their's is quiet?
That's great that it gets its power from the USB port. Having to carry around an AC/DC adapter would significantly reduce the portability.
Appears to be very comprehensive and well documented.
Thanks to the author.
I've noticed in the past that Canada is remarkable for its absense from this whole debate. Note that Canada isn't even mentioned in this document.
I hope the Mono project will support this?
I believe that this is a real standard, whereas VB.NET (which Mono supports) is not a standard at all.
wxChecksums at SourceForge
http://sourceforge.net/projects/wxch
It is available for Windows and for Linux (Gnome)
I just used it to verify the MD5 of my XP SP2. It is quite nice.
Ok. You guys have mentioned some of the problems with Linux + Gnome/KDE.
But you haven't mentioned one of the biggest problems: support for enough applications and hardware.
How will your OS deal with this? Obviously it is impossible to start from scratch and create your own, so what application platforms will you support? Java, Mono, Wine, Gnome/Mozilla?
Tom.
The website says that the OS is "for the home and small office user".
Why would those users use this OS instead of Windows or Linux?
Does it feature hardware (ie. driver) or application compatibility with Windows or Linux?
This is not a violation of the GPL.
But this is a reason to not make Evolution an integral part of Gnome.
There is nothing wrong with Novell doing this, but please don't compare it to situations where developers are asked to assign their code to a foundation. The wxWidgets, Mozilla, Gnome, Apache, Python, etc. foundations have mandates to help their users and contributors. Novell is a corporation, and it is ultimately only responsible to its shareholders.
Novell with Evolution and Sun with OpenOffice - these are like TrollTech with Qt. Better than closed source, but not as good as software which is guided by the interests of its users and developers.
Windows has effective monopolies with Windows Client and MS Office.
Apple does not (yet) have a monopoly with FairPlay. I don't know the numbers exactly, but it is my understanding that more than half of the MP3 players out there don't support FairPlay (ie. everything other than the iPod). And many of them support Microsoft's DRM technology don't they?
Yes, this market does have network effects, so it has excellent potential for a monopoly, but let's not jump the gun.
And aren't Sony and MS planning to enter the market for downloadable tunes later this year?
This might be faster than C Python, but it is still slow compared to other dotNet apps. For many applications and purposes this doesn't matter, but it does imply that the CLR really isn't very good for dynamic languages.
Actually, the CLR could be great for dynamic languages, but it would require adding some new instructions, and MS isn't willing to do this so long as dynamic languages are not important to them.
For Mono, and the Linux community, however, dynamic languages are very important, so Mono should add the necessary support to make these languages work better. This could be done without affecting Mono's ability to run MS dotNet apps.
And anyway, Mono won't really be compatible with all the MS API's unless they license technology from MS, so we need to accept that Mono could be a great development environment for the OSS community, but its not going to run all your MS apps for free. BTW, I'm not referring to the present, I'm referring to the day when MS decides it's time to enforce their patents for ASP and Forms.
Thanks for the helpful response (someone pls mod it informative).
.WAV? Or is it a compressed lossless format like Ogg Something (can't remember the name)?
So, if I understand correctly, I could rip my stuff to generic AAC - which is about as proprietary as MP3 - and use it on an iPod, and with other devices that support AAC. But I won't be able to do much with iTunes stuff.
You mentioned that AIFF is supported on all 3 client platforms - good.
But I thought it was an uncompressed format like
I'm still unclear as to the nature of the Apple music format.
I know that it's better than MP3 - so are WMA and OGG. And I'm not really interested in comparisons between these next gen codecs: they are all good enough for me.
I just want to know if it's proprietary. Some people tell me it is an open codec called AAC. So will my CD-ripper software (CD-ex) and other music utilities be able to include the codec so it can rip and encode to this format (without breaking the law)? Can other brands of MP3 players support this format without paying a license fee?
I wouldn't want to develop a music collection in this format, and then find that it isn't supported by the software and hardware that I want to use because it is a closed format. If I get locked into a proprietary format then the owner of that format can charge an excessive amount for the use of that format, based on the lock-in.
I'm not blaming Apple if it is proprietary - obviously MS does the same. But, if so, I'll take a pass.
First, for people who don't know who you are, you should tell them that you are not an unbiased observer. Actually, the fact that you have a financial interest in the success of Mono makes you about as biased an observer as possible.
For me, though, the real question is the status of mono's ASP.NET. Is it part of the MS proprietary stack? If I adopt ASP.NET today might the free and cross-platform option dissapear in the future?
The mono website used to be clear about which API's were really free and which weren't, but now that information doesn't seem to be there anymore. What happened? Is ASP.NET MS proprietary?
The STL is part of the C++ standard. So, when TT decides to create some new template based container classes, hut to create their own rather than using the STL, I consider this to be non-standard.
Microsoft did the same thing years ago, back when the standard wasn't ready. People got really mad at them (which was quite ligit because MS knew this would be bad for developers though good for themselves).
As the standard and its acceptance have improved, MS has improved their compiler and their STL to the point where they are now (v7.1) very good, and very compatible with GCC 3.4 and with Intel. They have not retrofitted the STL to MFC, but they haven't changed MFC much in a long long time. If they came out with a new library at this stage and didn't use the STL I would accuse them of undermining the standard and I would not accept the need to make money as an excuse.
I understand, of course, that companies don't do these things to be evil, they do it to make money. But TT doesn't do a very good job of balancing the bottom line, with PR, and the general interests of the community. Even they admit that they (not to mention the rest of us) would have been better off if they had GPL'ed QT much sooner.
Using the version of Qt in the book is dead-end since using it would mean being stuck with that version on all platforms.