"I'm guessing they will in the next year follow IBM's lead an open up a bit."
I hope so. It'd be nice to have Apple giving something back to the open source community after taking so much.
Pretty much the only thing they've given back so far is enhancements to KHTML through WebCore. It'd be nice if they gave F/OSS devels use of their patents, or better yet, a version of iTunes for X11.
Netscape has also traditionally applied the ActiveX Plug-In to its builds. It's probably that, combined with the possibility of viewing pages with Trident that has caused it to become a concern.
"if microsoft wants to be 'not hated', they had better start sharing information and decoupling olexpress, media player and iexplorer from windows."
I do agree with you---but that will simply not be happening. Windows Media Player maybe (but not without extreme persuasion) but IE will absolutely not be separated from Windows in any foreseeable future. One of the problems is that so many people who have tried to sue MS for the anti-competitive acts of integrating IE have pretty much all just accepted settlements from Microsoft.
"i bet that we will start seeing more huggy type marketing as longhorn nears its release."
Yup, that, combined with plenty of anti-Linux FUD.
But how do we know that this growth isn't just because we happen to be in a fairly prosperous time for the tech-market in general right now? These rates could take a turn for the worse in the next couple years. So this could all just be circumstantial.
What I'd like to see is a comparison of growth rates of major software companies. Even if Microsoft still comes out on top, at least the comparison would be relative to _something_.
It probably isn't my business to ask, but if you no longer use Windows/Microsoft products, why would you continue to communicate in the MS Office formats? Wouldn't that just be unnecessary hassle?
I would imagine RealPlayer 10 for Linux is just a re-branded Helix player with the Real codecs included. So I guess if you wanted Helix Player to use them you could.. but that would be almost entirely redundant.
This is yet another band-aid supplied by none other than Microsoft. The company has become a bit of a holy saviour lately with all of these "solutions" to the problems with Windows.
I think most of us remember how Netscape died (rough analogy, I know) -- they just kept piling feature upon feature without digging deep to fix the problem in its roots.
If Microsoft keeps piling up all of this junk on top of Windows to fix other junk, they will soon see that these types of actions will soon become redundant, and they'll have to seriously start thinking harder about security.
While the mods may be tempted to mod this up as "Funny," he's got a point. It's pretty well accepted nowadays that the only way to truly avoid spyware and viruses is to stop using Internet Explorer and Outlook.
Sure, KDE comes with lots of styles, window themes, etc. and you can pick and choose. But you can do that in GNOME too. KDE used to come with a few themes though, and they were completely unchanged from 1.x up to 3.1.x until they retired it for a while. Now that it's back, I have yet to see a single _theme_ installed on KDE by default.
One of the features of the HIG is to keep things simple and to prevent bloat wherever possible. If this is a feature you truly want, you could file a bug.
However, you can rest assured that the GNOME development team thought long and hard before they decided *not* to include this feature. It takes a lot of guts to say, "no, this isn't really necessary."
The KDE team has had much more trouble doing that IMHO. Just take a look at Konqueror's settings dialog. Heck, just look at _Konqueror_.
GNOME has theme support already, and it comes with several *themes* in its base packages, whereas KDE does not. I am using the Glider theme as we speak.
That was one of the most interesting things I've read in a while.
Are people's jobs being sacrificed for greater technology? I suppose the airline sorters should have seen it coming, but it's still worth thinking about, and it's a question that's asked all too often: could a computer replace your job to save the company some money?
But it's still interesting to hear it in different ways, and I think this article epitomizes that. Nice!
Right, but version numbers are really just marketing schemes in commercial products anyway. In the commercial world 1.0 means "good enough to sell," whereas in the Free/OSS world, it means that it's feature complete, stable, etc.
I do think that IE has had enough rewrites to have changed version numbers a few times... but they really should be calling it 5.x at this point though.
But then again, they're not even shipping standalone versions of IE though, since it's supposedly an "integrated" part of Windows (even though it really isn't). Oh well, Microsoft will continue to fool people, because people don't know any better.
Yes, exactly. People should begin to understand that Firefox's lack of ActiveX is actually a good thing.
In the article they say that it's a good thing because of security, but the Firefox programmers should find a way around it. Well there is an ActiveX extension out there, if you feel like voluntarily letting people hijack your computer...
This is a sad day in the world of technology. The reason I originally bought TechTV was because of its name. I hadn't heard too much about it, but when I found out that there was a channel called TechTV, I knew I had to have it.
But G4? What is that, a PPC box? Its shows suck too -- the only two show I'm left watching on the whole God forsaken channel now are the Screen Savers, and Call for Help, both of which were imported from TechTV.
Exactly. That's the way it is with people... Everyone ignores research that something they're doing may be dangerous, until it gravely begins to affect them.
People have got to start stepping back and start thinking that their health may be a bit more important than being slightly more efficient in business or whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
...of the end of proper spelling?
I've got my money on "Patent WMDs" becoming the next tech buzzword. "Spreading FUD through the detonation of Patent WMDs..."
"I'm guessing they will in the next year follow IBM's lead an open up a bit."
I hope so. It'd be nice to have Apple giving something back to the open source community after taking so much.
Pretty much the only thing they've given back so far is enhancements to KHTML through WebCore. It'd be nice if they gave F/OSS devels use of their patents, or better yet, a version of iTunes for X11.
Netscape has also traditionally applied the ActiveX Plug-In to its builds. It's probably that, combined with the possibility of viewing pages with Trident that has caused it to become a concern.
"if microsoft wants to be 'not hated', they had better start sharing information and decoupling olexpress, media player and iexplorer from windows."
I do agree with you---but that will simply not be happening. Windows Media Player maybe (but not without extreme persuasion) but IE will absolutely not be separated from Windows in any foreseeable future. One of the problems is that so many people who have tried to sue MS for the anti-competitive acts of integrating IE have pretty much all just accepted settlements from Microsoft.
"i bet that we will start seeing more huggy type marketing as longhorn nears its release."
Yup, that, combined with plenty of anti-Linux FUD.
But how do we know that this growth isn't just because we happen to be in a fairly prosperous time for the tech-market in general right now? These rates could take a turn for the worse in the next couple years. So this could all just be circumstantial.
What I'd like to see is a comparison of growth rates of major software companies. Even if Microsoft still comes out on top, at least the comparison would be relative to _something_.
It probably isn't my business to ask, but if you no longer use Windows/Microsoft products, why would you continue to communicate in the MS Office formats? Wouldn't that just be unnecessary hassle?
I would imagine RealPlayer 10 for Linux is just a re-branded Helix player with the Real codecs included. So I guess if you wanted Helix Player to use them you could.. but that would be almost entirely redundant.
... 'cause I don't believe in touchdowns.
This is yet another band-aid supplied by none other than Microsoft. The company has become a bit of a holy saviour lately with all of these "solutions" to the problems with Windows.
I think most of us remember how Netscape died (rough analogy, I know) -- they just kept piling feature upon feature without digging deep to fix the problem in its roots.
If Microsoft keeps piling up all of this junk on top of Windows to fix other junk, they will soon see that these types of actions will soon become redundant, and they'll have to seriously start thinking harder about security.
While the mods may be tempted to mod this up as "Funny," he's got a point. It's pretty well accepted nowadays that the only way to truly avoid spyware and viruses is to stop using Internet Explorer and Outlook.
"...future devices won't be crippled with silly formats no one uses."
I think that should be your answer.
Outlook is dead.
Damnit, another company to steal my consumer surplus.
I like consumer surplus and I want my share. So stop hogging, Microsoft and Electronic Arts and all you other monopolists out there! Jeez!
That's why I put emphasis on *themes*...
Sure, KDE comes with lots of styles, window themes, etc. and you can pick and choose. But you can do that in GNOME too. KDE used to come with a few themes though, and they were completely unchanged from 1.x up to 3.1.x until they retired it for a while. Now that it's back, I have yet to see a single _theme_ installed on KDE by default.
One of the features of the HIG is to keep things simple and to prevent bloat wherever possible. If this is a feature you truly want, you could file a bug.
However, you can rest assured that the GNOME development team thought long and hard before they decided *not* to include this feature. It takes a lot of guts to say, "no, this isn't really necessary."
The KDE team has had much more trouble doing that IMHO. Just take a look at Konqueror's settings dialog. Heck, just look at _Konqueror_.
GNOME has theme support already, and it comes with several *themes* in its base packages, whereas KDE does not. I am using the Glider theme as we speak.
You will be able to switch between the two rendering engines. It's a clever idea, but would the average Netscape user really need that?
That was one of the most interesting things I've read in a while.
Are people's jobs being sacrificed for greater technology? I suppose the airline sorters should have seen it coming, but it's still worth thinking about, and it's a question that's asked all too often: could a computer replace your job to save the company some money?
But it's still interesting to hear it in different ways, and I think this article epitomizes that. Nice!
Uh oh.. why is it that I have a bad feeling that this could become the next Slashdot trolling phenomenon?
I think you can pretty much be sure that it does NOT use the Oasis format. Since when has Apple cared about open standards?
One question lingering in my mind is... ... can the homemade mp3 player boot a Linux distro?
Right, but version numbers are really just marketing schemes in commercial products anyway. In the commercial world 1.0 means "good enough to sell," whereas in the Free/OSS world, it means that it's feature complete, stable, etc.
I do think that IE has had enough rewrites to have changed version numbers a few times... but they really should be calling it 5.x at this point though.
But then again, they're not even shipping standalone versions of IE though, since it's supposedly an "integrated" part of Windows (even though it really isn't). Oh well, Microsoft will continue to fool people, because people don't know any better.
Yes, exactly. People should begin to understand that Firefox's lack of ActiveX is actually a good thing.
In the article they say that it's a good thing because of security, but the Firefox programmers should find a way around it. Well there is an ActiveX extension out there, if you feel like voluntarily letting people hijack your computer...
This is a sad day in the world of technology. The reason I originally bought TechTV was because of its name. I hadn't heard too much about it, but when I found out that there was a channel called TechTV, I knew I had to have it.
But G4? What is that, a PPC box? Its shows suck too -- the only two show I'm left watching on the whole God forsaken channel now are the Screen Savers, and Call for Help, both of which were imported from TechTV.
Thanks a lot, G4. You've killed quality.
Exactly. That's the way it is with people... Everyone ignores research that something they're doing may be dangerous, until it gravely begins to affect them.
People have got to start stepping back and start thinking that their health may be a bit more important than being slightly more efficient in business or whatever.