We should all use free (though poorly functional) things, rather than things that work.
Were you implying that free software is poorly functional? Geez, every day I use free software that feel is veryfunctional, don'tyouthink?
I'm also a bit confused as how 'free software' = 'freedom'. So... you lose your individual freedom if you buy software?
Free Software means that the users are free to share, study, and improve the software with very little restrictions. You might want to read this; it's best to get it straight from the horse's mouth.
And, people buy Free Software all the time. Why is Red Hat still in business? Free Software has nothing to do with costs; if it costs just as much as proprietary software, I'd still buy the Free Software package if it were superior.
Tell me about it. One of the big problems in the FOSS world is that OpenOffice, a very important open source program, is using more and more Java. In OpenOffice 2.0, many of the core wizards and their database components are written in Java. Whereas Java was pretty minor in past editions of OpenOffice, Java is a major dependency in OpenOffice 2.0
Some people have said something on the lines of, "What's the problem? Quit whining and crying, and wake up and smell the Java. Download the JDK, and fall in love with the new-and-improved OpenOffice." The reason why FOSS users aren't too fond of OpenOffice's use of Java is because the Java features are currently Sun-only; the free Java compilers and VMs haven't implemented all of the Java libraries and features at this time. Many of those Java libraries are also underdocumented; even though the core language is well documented, the Java libraries aren't.
Secondly, the Sun JDK is very hard to install. The license is very restrictive. Even if had no problem with the license, if you're running Linux on anything that isn't a x86, or if you're running BSD, then installing the Sun JDK ranges from very difficult to almost impossible. OpenOffice's use of Java could alienate users of "unsupported" platforms that are capable of running OpenOffice, but can't because its dependency, Java, can't run on it.
OpenOffice looks ripe for a fork. Aside from its Java issues, OpenOffice is very big and bloated. Why does it need its own widgets and font-handling system? How come the applications cannot be distributed modularly? Why must it inherit some of MS Office's quirks?
If OpenOffice forks, it should be similar to Firefox; get rid of all of the integrated bloat and start working on perfecting the individual applications. Get rid of Java just like the Mozilla people did when they got the Netscape sources. Separate the interface from the underlying portions.
I agree with your comments about Perl and Python, but I strongly disagree with your comments about Java and openness. Java isn't open source at all; it is shared source. What this means is that even though the source to the Java SDK is available for free (as in beer) to Sun, you can't really do anything with the source outside of the SDK, and once you look at the source, you're tainted from working for some of the other Java implementations, such as Kaffe and gcj.
I don't find C and C++ to be closed much at all. Remember that C, C++, and by extension, Unix all had the Bell Labs tradition, where they were (for the first so many years) "open" to anyone that can afford the licenses. Now, after the divesture and AT&T got more control of Unix, things started becoming very closed. But years later, we get BSD, Linux, and GNU utilities (gcc being, IMO, the most important; I don't think FOSS would have prospered as much if developers didn't have a FOSS compiler). Because of C/C++ and Unix's tradition of openness, and because of the developments of BSD, Linux, and GNU, C/C++ seems very open to me.
Don't get me wrong, I like Java. Java is a lot of things. Open isn't one of them.
There is a huge difference between free as in "comes with my Dell" and free as in speech (open source), though. The grandparent post was referring to open-source Windows, not "free" Windows.
Well, it would probably never happen, but I'd like to see the specifications for MS Office's file formats opened. If the file formats were open to everybody, people from various platforms and even applications can finally read and write Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Access files seamlessly. Besides, Microsoft's formats could finally be a standard.
If this ever happens, I don't think that everybody will switch from whatever MS Office version that they're using to OpenOffice or some other alternative immediately; however, MS Office would be to the Office File Formats as Adobe Acrobat is to PDF; Acrobat may be the "official" way to make PDFs and it has many nice features, but one can make tools that makes PDFs.
And yet the OpenBSD community still have a reputation for being elitist assholes. Incredible.
So what? BSD isn't about being user-friendly. Joe Average is better off sticking to Windows or using a Mac. BSD isn't designed for those who want to point-and-click their way through everything. BSD is about providing a "free, functional, and secure" Unix, and BSD does a really great job at doing that.
BSD isn't trying to be the next MS Windows or something like that. BSD is a very good Unix-based operating system that has all of the Unix tools that I need for developing applications. There are many features of BSD that I like, too, such as ports and the fact that I can update the entire system only with a few easy to remember commands. Besides, BSD is easy to use. FreeBSD has just about the best documentation there is. Anyone who is literate and has 30 minutes can probably install BSD easily by reading the accompanying documentation.
Why does every operating system need to be "user-friendly" in order for it to be appreciated? The goal of BSD isn't to have 95% of the market. The goal of BSD is to stick to the Unix philosophy and improve it.
Because, believe it or not, a 486 has some good usages. Back in the early 1990s, people were using them with DOS and Windows 3.1 and doing word processing, writing spreadsheets, and other productivity jobs. A 486 with MS-DOS, WordPerfect 5.1, and Lotus 1-2-3 can be very productive. Accessing the Internet is also possible with a 486; no, you're not going to run the latest browser with your Flash animations and Java applets and beautiful CSS stylesheets and the like, but they're adequate for viewing text-based sites, checking e-mail, doing some instant messenging, and some other low-resource tasks.
Today, people use 486s for many different usages. A 486 can make a very cheap and effective firewall, or for a Linux/BSD test machine. It can even run X and a lightweight window manager fairly well. No, KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice, Java, Firefox, and some other programs aren't going to run at great speeds (you'll need at least a Pentium II for that), but they should do nicely for some very basic tasks. Finally, having a cheap 486 would be pretty nice to explore and to hack.
I wouldn't run a 486 as a production machine today, but I can see some of the advantages of owning and writing software for it. If you like programming, pulling your 486 out of your closet and installing Linux and some development tools can be a very fun experience. Besides, the more developers who still hack around with their old 486s, the better that it is for everyone who still uses old machines (I'm typing this on a 266MHz Pentium II). Imagine if all of the open source developers assumed that everyone has the latest Pentium 4 or Athlon processor? It wouldn't be a pretty sight for a lot of people who can't afford the latest and greatest.
I know you're trying to be funny, but Microsoft's research is very interesting. I don't know if its on the level of the old Bell Labs, but many of the stuff is very interesting. See for yourself to see what I mean. That is where most of the innovation seem to stem from. Too bad I haven't seen much of their research being used in their latest Windows and Office offerings, though.
The thing to remember about Microsoft, though, is that the marketing department, not the actual engineers, seems to run the company. Microsoft is so into destroying the competition that sometimes the implementation of their products get a bit sloppy, because of rushed deadlines, demands from the marketing department, and other issues. Look at history of Windows, for example. Windows didn't become fully stable until about Windows 2000, and they're still working on Windows's security (even though a competent user can deal with this with a firewall and Firefox).
Even so, the quality of MS software has improved over the years. Windows is a stable operating system, Office is a great tool if you ignore Clippy, and Visual Studio is a very nice IDE. It might not be the most "innovative" software, but it works just fine for most tasks. I feel that the company is finally realizing that it should focus on making good quality software rather than just shipping an unpolished product. Now, this doesn't mean that I'm dumping *nix for Windows anytime soon, but anytime I must work on a Windows box, at least I feel a bit more comfortable.
The words wizard, guru, and samurai already have specialized meanings in the Jargon File; even though their meanings are very close to the meaning of "hacker," they have a more precise definition; according to the Jargon file, "A good hacker could become a wizard for something given the time to study it," and a guru "implies not only wizard skill but also a history of being a knowledge resource for others." A samurai is "a hacker who hires out for legal cracking jobs, snooping for factions in corporate political fights, lawyers pursuing privacy-rights and First Amendment cases, and other parties with legitimate reasons to need an electronic locksmith."
The terms wizard, guru, and samurai already have specialized meanings in the Jargon File. The definitions all relate back to "hacker," but hacker is a bit more general, while these other terms are a bit more precise.
... need to organize a come up with a new name. The media has taken this term, which originally had a positive meaning, bastardized it when viruses became more widespread (since the journalists weren't bright enough to come up with their own term or use the right term; "Well, we heard them say hacker in their computer mumbo jumbo talk that we can't understand, so we'll just use that."), and the misusage of the word has gotten so bad that even Slashdotters and other "computer geeks" use "hacker" when the word "cracker" should be used.
The computing community needs to come up with a new term that means, "a person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular." (quote from Jargon File). Perhaps the word "tinkerer" fits this description finely. Or, we can borrow a word from another language. Perhaps we can create a brand new word, I don't know.
The point is, the media has stolen the word "hacker" and made the word defined to mean something completely different than it used to mean, Joe Average is using the media's definition, and older computer "hackers" can't use the term without being looked suspiciously. The word has been destroyed by the media. We need a new term, and the sooner, the better.
I personally think the whole OS debate is retarded.
Sorry, you use whatever tool your boss tells you to use, and if you have a choice, you use the one that works for you (be it because you're familiar with it, or because it simply works). People will have their opinions, and regardless of how effective or more efficient one OS is on paper in comparison to another, it depends on the user.
If I had some mod points, I'd give them to you. Anyways, many of us would love it if we all used our *nix desktops, coded in FOSS languages using FOSS tools, collaborated with other people using open standards, etc. I work best using FreeBSD and a few other tools. However, this isn't how the world works. Yes we want to use the tools that we know and love for practical (and sometimes ideological reasons), but sometimes we have to just say c'est la vie and boot our Windows desktops and fire up MS Office and some other tools. We may not like it, but we're not in charge of everything in the software world. Not everybody cares about ideology and freedom; they care about getting the job done in the most efficient way possible. If those FOSS tools improve, they might switch over to them.
I love free software as much as the next Slashdotter, and I like the ideology and ideas of free software and the like, but we need to be pragmatic and "get real," too. If the boss/school/authority requires you to use a certain tool, well then, you must use it, or suffer the consequences. Blabbering about the tool's proprietary state and other issues should be saved for later, like when you're posting on Slashdot:). When you have some free time, though, start improving and contributing to the FOSS projects that you love; maybe when the FOSS tool becomes superior to the boss, he/she might switch to it.
FreeBSD is what, 0.001% of all desktops out there? Who gives a flying rip if it's hard to install it on.
FreeBSD may not be the most common OS on the desktop, but it is used extensively in the server room. As far as I understand, Java is used on some servers as well.
It comes standard on Mac OSX and Windows boxes from Dell and Gateway.
You're right about the Mac OS X part, but as far as I know, Java no longer comes with Windows. Windows users must install the JRE to run Java apps (and the JDK to develop Java apps, too), and even though they must also agree to the restrictive license, the installation is just a binary, so no biggie there.
Get over it you big baby.
Aww, you had to ruin a half-decent argument with that touch of flamebait there. And, for your information, I have gotten over it, because there is nothing for me to get over with anyway. I use AbiWord and Gnumeric for my word processing and spreadsheet needs, and I use Kaffe for my Java needs, all under a really nice operating system (FreeBSD).
It's not free software. Java may be a free download, but the lengths that a BSD user must take to install it, from agreeing to the very restrictive license to compiling the giant, is just too great. Read this post and this post if you want to know my further feelings about Java and BSD.
On the other hand, you can freely download jre and jdk from the sun website and though I'm not sure whether that is open sourced or not, there is always the open sourced blackdown java implementation.
The Java JRE and JDK may be free as in beer, but it isn't free as in speech. Far from it.
The Java JDK and Blackdown is open source, but it is encumbered. What I mean by encumbered is that it is distributed under a very wordy/legalese and restrictive license; read it for yourself to see what I mean. It's almost like an EULA. To make a long story short, it is open sourced, but it's proprietary, too.
Read my post if you want to have a feel for how difficult it is to install Sun's JDK on FreeBSD. There are so many twists and turns here that when I reinstalled FreeBSD, I decided to install Kaffe instead to learn Java with (needed for future classes; language use not under my control).
This may be flamebait, but one of the main reasons why I haven't used OpenOffice on my computer is due to these Java dependencies. OpenOffice not only requires Java, but it specifically requires the Sun JDK. Some users may be asking me, "What's the problem?" The problem with that is that there is no binaries for the JDK for FreeBSD 5.x, and that I must agree to a very restrictive license in order to download the sources. Next, I can't compile the sources into a redistributable package (because Sun says so, meaning that for every FreeBSD machine that I have I must compile Java manually, nor give Java packages to others), and I can't even look at the sources without being tainted for life. Finally, the compilation takes an extremely long time to finish.
Don't get me wrong. I like what I've heard about OpenOffice. But as long as OpenOffice is encumbered with Java code that requires the Sun JDK, I'm not using it. How many of you know the BSD story when the BSD developers got tired of AT&T due to its licensing (for those of you who don't know, BSD was originally based on AT&T Unix) and started rewriting the "encumbered" portions of their operating system? It would be great if some developers would do the same with the Java portions in OpenOffice.
To elaborate further, I feel that Sun's handling of Java is a nuisance. Java may be a nice language, but as long as its only really complete implementation of it remains licensed the way that it is, I won't code any open source projects with the Java language, and Java is never going to be a primary open source development language. Why should the code that I write be tied to a non-free, restrictively licensed runtime environment that only runs on the platforms that Sun says that it should run on? Python, Ruby, and even Microsoft's own C# (in the form of Mono) isn't encumbered by such restrictive licensing. Sun's slogan for Java was "write once, run everywhere." Well, it depends on what Sun consists of "everywhere." Since the operating system that I choose to use is considered "nowhere" by Sun, well, I guess that Sun's JDK is going to be "nowhere" near my machines again, and for all of the projects that require this JDK, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not installing them, either.
What I hate most about these bloated Windows-wannabe environments is that some good software unncessarily depends on them.
Well then, run that software in Fluxbox then. You can install the KDE/GNOME libraries (you don't need to install the entire desktop environment) and applications that depend on those libraries will work on Fluxbox or any other lightweight window manager. Running a GNOME or KDE application is just like running a GTK/QT/Motif application; those program require the libraries, not the entire desktop environment.
Even though I'm fond of Gentoo due to its "nextgen packaging system", Gentoo isn't an operating system for the proverbial Joe Average. Don't get me wrong, Gentoo is a fine operating system, but it is too high maintenance for the less technically inclined. We may like upgrading our operating system weekly, keeping track of the latest software, tweaking our compiliation options, recompiling our kernels, etc.
However, Joe Average doesn't feel like downloading and compiling the latest sources for his operating system, or upgrading his ports system weekly. What Joe Average wants is to be able to download and install software with easy to use graphical tools without any trouble. Joe Average doesn't care about RPMs and tarballs and all of this other package nonsense. Joe Average just wants to sit down and check some mail, watch some DVDs, chat up a storm with his friends, surf the web, and get some work taken care of; without much trouble. If Joe Average wants to download any Linux software tool, he should be able to do it without too much difficulty.
If you don't like this autopackaging system or any other of the usability enhancements that Linux distributions are getting, well, you don't have to use them. But all that I'm saying is that even though Gentoo is a very fine operating system, it isn't suitable for everybody.
That's fine, but why are we trying to piss off the entire BSD community by bringing portage to BSD now? Have you talked to any BSD guys lately? They hate Gentoo guys now:(
Portage would never be ported (no pun intended) to *BSD, because we already have Ports. The only difference between Portage and Ports is the former uses emerge application and the latter uses cd/usr/ports/category/application && make install clean. To install precompiled packages, its emerge --usepkg --getbinpkg application or pkg_add -r application, respectively. I can go on about the similarities and differences.
Plus, I don't know about the rest of the BSD community, but I am fond of Gentoo. In fact, if I had to switch to Linux tomorrow, I'd move immediately to Gentoo because of its philosophy and way of doing things. Plus, about 6-7 months ago, I was very close to considering installing Gentoo, but somebody gave me some FreeBSD disks, and I got hooked on FreeBSD. Gentoo has just about the nicest documentation that I've seen for a Linux distribution, and I like the ease of upgradability for applications and for the OS. To me, Gentoo has the BSD philosophy with a Linux kernel and GNU tools.
The only problem that I see with your idea is that the computer still needs an operating system in order to manage memory, handle applications, do what an operating system does.
However, I do agree with your point about the layers. There should be some more integration between the computer, the operating system, and the desktop environment. No, I don't mean that the OS and the desktop environment has to be in one giant monolithic interface; they should be modular. However, I do agree that the layers should be hidden to the user.
In fact, your idea already exists. Look at a Mac, for example. Even though a geek like myself could separate between Open Firmware, the Mach kernel, the BSD userland, Cocoa/Carbon apps, Quartz, Aqua, and whatever other layers lie underneath, the user doesn't see all of this booting up. The user doesn't care about all of that (and frankly, shouldn't have to). All the user sees whenever he/she boots his/her computer is an Apple logo on the screen, which fades away and turns into the desktop to launch applications. Plus, your idea about "brain-Google" and "brain-Gmail" is, to an extent, coming to Mac OS X Tiger. If Apple continues going down the road that it has been going, just about all of your ideas will make it to the desktop sooner than 2015.
The least proprietary technology always wins out.... that's how windows (ironically) made it
Could you explain that one to me, please. Now, if you do a s/Windows/DOS there, it would make sense, because DOS was distributable to just about any PC-clone manufacturer, at a time where most personal computers were tied to a specific operating system. I always thought that Windows made it because Windows was a logical extension of MS-DOS, and people started to "upgrade" to Windows 3.0 and 3.1 when Windows became palatable enough for users to use (remember that Windows didn't start getting decent until 1990, when Windows 3.0 was released), and when Windows-native software started becoming more popular than DOS software (such as Excel vs. Lotus 1-2-3, or Word 6.0 vs. WordPerfect 5.1 [even though there are some other reasons why WordPerfect didn't make the transition to Windows well, that'll go off topic and lead to a rant]). Perhaps I missed something or overlooked something.
In 2015, Linux and BSD + KDE/GNOME would probably be commonplace on most desktops, and alternate operating systems such as Plan 9 and The Hurd will finally see the spotlight, in usages such as servers, research, or learning the innings of those systems. Mac OS X will probably be OS XI or OS XII, and it will probably be an operating system for those who want something better than KDE/GNOME, as well as those who love the seamless integration between Mac hardware and the Mac OS. Windows will still exist, for the same reasons why IBM mainframes with COBOL are still running in some places.
Finally, somebody will probably come out with a new OS that has exokernels and whatever operating system technologies in invented between now and 2015, who knows....
I agree with some of your points. I feel that Linux software is getting heavier and heavier throughout the years.
But, I must also say that KDE and GNOME has gotten faster over the years. For example, a few months ago I installed KDE 3.1 on my FreeBSD desktop (475MHz K6-2 with 64MB RAM). It was extremely slow, so slow that it was unbearable. Flashback to just a few days ago when I installed KDE 3.3 on the exact same computer. It ran pretty decent, and the performance was just as good, if not, better than a Windows 98 desktop. Even though I use Window Maker as my window manager, if I had a faster machine, I'd run KDE.
The thing with speed and "bloat" is that as Linux desktops get more advanced, they're going to get bigger. Windows XP with all of the bells and whistles requires at least 256MB RAM, and that was released about 3.5 years ago. The latest KDE or GNOME would require about the same amount too, but KDE and GNOME has more features and capabilities than XP does.
Finally, if you're really annoyed by the "bloat," there's nothing stopping us from gathering a group of people and writing an desktop environment built specifically for computers that are slower than 500MHz and have less than 128MB RAM. Look at the design of the pre-OS X Mac interfaces as an example of great, usable interfaces with minimal resources (but don't copy them, Apple probably patent-encumbered each and every design). All I'm saying is that KDE and GNOME are becoming world-class interfaces with everything you can imagine, but that everything costs. If you feel that you can produce a better desktop environment that is usable and isn't resource hungry, then by all means organize a group of developers and write it.
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Were you implying that free software is poorly functional? Geez, every day I use free software that feel is very functional, don't you think?
Free Software means that the users are free to share, study, and improve the software with very little restrictions. You might want to read this; it's best to get it straight from the horse's mouth.
And, people buy Free Software all the time. Why is Red Hat still in business? Free Software has nothing to do with costs; if it costs just as much as proprietary software, I'd still buy the Free Software package if it were superior.
Tell me about it. One of the big problems in the FOSS world is that OpenOffice, a very important open source program, is using more and more Java. In OpenOffice 2.0, many of the core wizards and their database components are written in Java. Whereas Java was pretty minor in past editions of OpenOffice, Java is a major dependency in OpenOffice 2.0
Some people have said something on the lines of, "What's the problem? Quit whining and crying, and wake up and smell the Java. Download the JDK, and fall in love with the new-and-improved OpenOffice." The reason why FOSS users aren't too fond of OpenOffice's use of Java is because the Java features are currently Sun-only; the free Java compilers and VMs haven't implemented all of the Java libraries and features at this time. Many of those Java libraries are also underdocumented; even though the core language is well documented, the Java libraries aren't.
Secondly, the Sun JDK is very hard to install. The license is very restrictive. Even if had no problem with the license, if you're running Linux on anything that isn't a x86, or if you're running BSD, then installing the Sun JDK ranges from very difficult to almost impossible. OpenOffice's use of Java could alienate users of "unsupported" platforms that are capable of running OpenOffice, but can't because its dependency, Java, can't run on it.
OpenOffice looks ripe for a fork. Aside from its Java issues, OpenOffice is very big and bloated. Why does it need its own widgets and font-handling system? How come the applications cannot be distributed modularly? Why must it inherit some of MS Office's quirks?
If OpenOffice forks, it should be similar to Firefox; get rid of all of the integrated bloat and start working on perfecting the individual applications. Get rid of Java just like the Mozilla people did when they got the Netscape sources. Separate the interface from the underlying portions.
I agree with your comments about Perl and Python, but I strongly disagree with your comments about Java and openness. Java isn't open source at all; it is shared source. What this means is that even though the source to the Java SDK is available for free (as in beer) to Sun, you can't really do anything with the source outside of the SDK, and once you look at the source, you're tainted from working for some of the other Java implementations, such as Kaffe and gcj.
I don't find C and C++ to be closed much at all. Remember that C, C++, and by extension, Unix all had the Bell Labs tradition, where they were (for the first so many years) "open" to anyone that can afford the licenses. Now, after the divesture and AT&T got more control of Unix, things started becoming very closed. But years later, we get BSD, Linux, and GNU utilities (gcc being, IMO, the most important; I don't think FOSS would have prospered as much if developers didn't have a FOSS compiler). Because of C/C++ and Unix's tradition of openness, and because of the developments of BSD, Linux, and GNU, C/C++ seems very open to me.
Don't get me wrong, I like Java. Java is a lot of things. Open isn't one of them.
There is a huge difference between free as in "comes with my Dell" and free as in speech (open source), though. The grandparent post was referring to open-source Windows, not "free" Windows.
Well, it would probably never happen, but I'd like to see the specifications for MS Office's file formats opened. If the file formats were open to everybody, people from various platforms and even applications can finally read and write Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Access files seamlessly. Besides, Microsoft's formats could finally be a standard.
If this ever happens, I don't think that everybody will switch from whatever MS Office version that they're using to OpenOffice or some other alternative immediately; however, MS Office would be to the Office File Formats as Adobe Acrobat is to PDF; Acrobat may be the "official" way to make PDFs and it has many nice features, but one can make tools that makes PDFs.
So what? BSD isn't about being user-friendly. Joe Average is better off sticking to Windows or using a Mac. BSD isn't designed for those who want to point-and-click their way through everything. BSD is about providing a "free, functional, and secure" Unix, and BSD does a really great job at doing that.
BSD isn't trying to be the next MS Windows or something like that. BSD is a very good Unix-based operating system that has all of the Unix tools that I need for developing applications. There are many features of BSD that I like, too, such as ports and the fact that I can update the entire system only with a few easy to remember commands. Besides, BSD is easy to use. FreeBSD has just about the best documentation there is. Anyone who is literate and has 30 minutes can probably install BSD easily by reading the accompanying documentation.
Why does every operating system need to be "user-friendly" in order for it to be appreciated? The goal of BSD isn't to have 95% of the market. The goal of BSD is to stick to the Unix philosophy and improve it.
Because, believe it or not, a 486 has some good usages. Back in the early 1990s, people were using them with DOS and Windows 3.1 and doing word processing, writing spreadsheets, and other productivity jobs. A 486 with MS-DOS, WordPerfect 5.1, and Lotus 1-2-3 can be very productive. Accessing the Internet is also possible with a 486; no, you're not going to run the latest browser with your Flash animations and Java applets and beautiful CSS stylesheets and the like, but they're adequate for viewing text-based sites, checking e-mail, doing some instant messenging, and some other low-resource tasks.
Today, people use 486s for many different usages. A 486 can make a very cheap and effective firewall, or for a Linux/BSD test machine. It can even run X and a lightweight window manager fairly well. No, KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice, Java, Firefox, and some other programs aren't going to run at great speeds (you'll need at least a Pentium II for that), but they should do nicely for some very basic tasks. Finally, having a cheap 486 would be pretty nice to explore and to hack.
I wouldn't run a 486 as a production machine today, but I can see some of the advantages of owning and writing software for it. If you like programming, pulling your 486 out of your closet and installing Linux and some development tools can be a very fun experience. Besides, the more developers who still hack around with their old 486s, the better that it is for everyone who still uses old machines (I'm typing this on a 266MHz Pentium II). Imagine if all of the open source developers assumed that everyone has the latest Pentium 4 or Athlon processor? It wouldn't be a pretty sight for a lot of people who can't afford the latest and greatest.
I know you're trying to be funny, but Microsoft's research is very interesting. I don't know if its on the level of the old Bell Labs, but many of the stuff is very interesting. See for yourself to see what I mean. That is where most of the innovation seem to stem from. Too bad I haven't seen much of their research being used in their latest Windows and Office offerings, though.
The thing to remember about Microsoft, though, is that the marketing department, not the actual engineers, seems to run the company. Microsoft is so into destroying the competition that sometimes the implementation of their products get a bit sloppy, because of rushed deadlines, demands from the marketing department, and other issues. Look at history of Windows, for example. Windows didn't become fully stable until about Windows 2000, and they're still working on Windows's security (even though a competent user can deal with this with a firewall and Firefox).
Even so, the quality of MS software has improved over the years. Windows is a stable operating system, Office is a great tool if you ignore Clippy, and Visual Studio is a very nice IDE. It might not be the most "innovative" software, but it works just fine for most tasks. I feel that the company is finally realizing that it should focus on making good quality software rather than just shipping an unpolished product. Now, this doesn't mean that I'm dumping *nix for Windows anytime soon, but anytime I must work on a Windows box, at least I feel a bit more comfortable.
Not unless I hack together a robot. A girl robot.
This is going to be the best senior prom ever!
The words wizard, guru, and samurai already have specialized meanings in the Jargon File; even though their meanings are very close to the meaning of "hacker," they have a more precise definition; according to the Jargon file, "A good hacker could become a wizard for something given the time to study it," and a guru "implies not only wizard skill but also a history of being a knowledge resource for others." A samurai is "a hacker who hires out for legal cracking jobs, snooping for factions in corporate political fights, lawyers pursuing privacy-rights and First Amendment cases, and other parties with legitimate reasons to need an electronic locksmith."
The terms wizard, guru, and samurai already have specialized meanings in the Jargon File. The definitions all relate back to "hacker," but hacker is a bit more general, while these other terms are a bit more precise.
... need to organize a come up with a new name. The media has taken this term, which originally had a positive meaning, bastardized it when viruses became more widespread (since the journalists weren't bright enough to come up with their own term or use the right term; "Well, we heard them say hacker in their computer mumbo jumbo talk that we can't understand, so we'll just use that."), and the misusage of the word has gotten so bad that even Slashdotters and other "computer geeks" use "hacker" when the word "cracker" should be used.
The computing community needs to come up with a new term that means, "a person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular." (quote from Jargon File). Perhaps the word "tinkerer" fits this description finely. Or, we can borrow a word from another language. Perhaps we can create a brand new word, I don't know.
The point is, the media has stolen the word "hacker" and made the word defined to mean something completely different than it used to mean, Joe Average is using the media's definition, and older computer "hackers" can't use the term without being looked suspiciously. The word has been destroyed by the media. We need a new term, and the sooner, the better.
If I had some mod points, I'd give them to you. Anyways, many of us would love it if we all used our *nix desktops, coded in FOSS languages using FOSS tools, collaborated with other people using open standards, etc. I work best using FreeBSD and a few other tools. However, this isn't how the world works. Yes we want to use the tools that we know and love for practical (and sometimes ideological reasons), but sometimes we have to just say c'est la vie and boot our Windows desktops and fire up MS Office and some other tools. We may not like it, but we're not in charge of everything in the software world. Not everybody cares about ideology and freedom; they care about getting the job done in the most efficient way possible. If those FOSS tools improve, they might switch over to them.
I love free software as much as the next Slashdotter, and I like the ideology and ideas of free software and the like, but we need to be pragmatic and "get real," too. If the boss/school/authority requires you to use a certain tool, well then, you must use it, or suffer the consequences. Blabbering about the tool's proprietary state and other issues should be saved for later, like when you're posting on Slashdot :). When you have some free time, though, start improving and contributing to the FOSS projects that you love; maybe when the FOSS tool becomes superior to the boss, he/she might switch to it.
FreeBSD may not be the most common OS on the desktop, but it is used extensively in the server room. As far as I understand, Java is used on some servers as well.
You're right about the Mac OS X part, but as far as I know, Java no longer comes with Windows. Windows users must install the JRE to run Java apps (and the JDK to develop Java apps, too), and even though they must also agree to the restrictive license, the installation is just a binary, so no biggie there.
Aww, you had to ruin a half-decent argument with that touch of flamebait there. And, for your information, I have gotten over it, because there is nothing for me to get over with anyway. I use AbiWord and Gnumeric for my word processing and spreadsheet needs, and I use Kaffe for my Java needs, all under a really nice operating system (FreeBSD).
Got a problem with that, Anonymous Coward?
It's not that we hate Java. In fact, I like the language; I play with it using Kaffe
It's the licensing of the official JDK that we hate.
It's not free software. Java may be a free download, but the lengths that a BSD user must take to install it, from agreeing to the very restrictive license to compiling the giant, is just too great. Read this post and this post if you want to know my further feelings about Java and BSD.
The Java JRE and JDK may be free as in beer, but it isn't free as in speech. Far from it.
The Java JDK and Blackdown is open source, but it is encumbered. What I mean by encumbered is that it is distributed under a very wordy/legalese and restrictive license; read it for yourself to see what I mean. It's almost like an EULA. To make a long story short, it is open sourced, but it's proprietary, too.
Read my post if you want to have a feel for how difficult it is to install Sun's JDK on FreeBSD. There are so many twists and turns here that when I reinstalled FreeBSD, I decided to install Kaffe instead to learn Java with (needed for future classes; language use not under my control).
This may be flamebait, but one of the main reasons why I haven't used OpenOffice on my computer is due to these Java dependencies. OpenOffice not only requires Java, but it specifically requires the Sun JDK. Some users may be asking me, "What's the problem?" The problem with that is that there is no binaries for the JDK for FreeBSD 5.x, and that I must agree to a very restrictive license in order to download the sources. Next, I can't compile the sources into a redistributable package (because Sun says so, meaning that for every FreeBSD machine that I have I must compile Java manually, nor give Java packages to others), and I can't even look at the sources without being tainted for life. Finally, the compilation takes an extremely long time to finish.
Don't get me wrong. I like what I've heard about OpenOffice. But as long as OpenOffice is encumbered with Java code that requires the Sun JDK, I'm not using it. How many of you know the BSD story when the BSD developers got tired of AT&T due to its licensing (for those of you who don't know, BSD was originally based on AT&T Unix) and started rewriting the "encumbered" portions of their operating system? It would be great if some developers would do the same with the Java portions in OpenOffice.
To elaborate further, I feel that Sun's handling of Java is a nuisance. Java may be a nice language, but as long as its only really complete implementation of it remains licensed the way that it is, I won't code any open source projects with the Java language, and Java is never going to be a primary open source development language. Why should the code that I write be tied to a non-free, restrictively licensed runtime environment that only runs on the platforms that Sun says that it should run on? Python, Ruby, and even Microsoft's own C# (in the form of Mono) isn't encumbered by such restrictive licensing. Sun's slogan for Java was "write once, run everywhere." Well, it depends on what Sun consists of "everywhere." Since the operating system that I choose to use is considered "nowhere" by Sun, well, I guess that Sun's JDK is going to be "nowhere" near my machines again, and for all of the projects that require this JDK, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not installing them, either.
Well then, run that software in Fluxbox then. You can install the KDE/GNOME libraries (you don't need to install the entire desktop environment) and applications that depend on those libraries will work on Fluxbox or any other lightweight window manager. Running a GNOME or KDE application is just like running a GTK/QT/Motif application; those program require the libraries, not the entire desktop environment.
Even though I'm fond of Gentoo due to its "nextgen packaging system", Gentoo isn't an operating system for the proverbial Joe Average. Don't get me wrong, Gentoo is a fine operating system, but it is too high maintenance for the less technically inclined. We may like upgrading our operating system weekly, keeping track of the latest software, tweaking our compiliation options, recompiling our kernels, etc.
However, Joe Average doesn't feel like downloading and compiling the latest sources for his operating system, or upgrading his ports system weekly. What Joe Average wants is to be able to download and install software with easy to use graphical tools without any trouble. Joe Average doesn't care about RPMs and tarballs and all of this other package nonsense. Joe Average just wants to sit down and check some mail, watch some DVDs, chat up a storm with his friends, surf the web, and get some work taken care of; without much trouble. If Joe Average wants to download any Linux software tool, he should be able to do it without too much difficulty.
If you don't like this autopackaging system or any other of the usability enhancements that Linux distributions are getting, well, you don't have to use them. But all that I'm saying is that even though Gentoo is a very fine operating system, it isn't suitable for everybody.
Portage would never be ported (no pun intended) to *BSD, because we already have Ports. The only difference between Portage and Ports is the former uses emerge application and the latter uses cd /usr/ports/category/application && make install clean. To install precompiled packages, its emerge --usepkg --getbinpkg application or pkg_add -r application, respectively. I can go on about the similarities and differences.
Plus, I don't know about the rest of the BSD community, but I am fond of Gentoo. In fact, if I had to switch to Linux tomorrow, I'd move immediately to Gentoo because of its philosophy and way of doing things. Plus, about 6-7 months ago, I was very close to considering installing Gentoo, but somebody gave me some FreeBSD disks, and I got hooked on FreeBSD. Gentoo has just about the nicest documentation that I've seen for a Linux distribution, and I like the ease of upgradability for applications and for the OS. To me, Gentoo has the BSD philosophy with a Linux kernel and GNU tools.
Shhhhh! Don't give them any ideas.
The only problem that I see with your idea is that the computer still needs an operating system in order to manage memory, handle applications, do what an operating system does.
However, I do agree with your point about the layers. There should be some more integration between the computer, the operating system, and the desktop environment. No, I don't mean that the OS and the desktop environment has to be in one giant monolithic interface; they should be modular. However, I do agree that the layers should be hidden to the user.
In fact, your idea already exists. Look at a Mac, for example. Even though a geek like myself could separate between Open Firmware, the Mach kernel, the BSD userland, Cocoa/Carbon apps, Quartz, Aqua, and whatever other layers lie underneath, the user doesn't see all of this booting up. The user doesn't care about all of that (and frankly, shouldn't have to). All the user sees whenever he/she boots his/her computer is an Apple logo on the screen, which fades away and turns into the desktop to launch applications. Plus, your idea about "brain-Google" and "brain-Gmail" is, to an extent, coming to Mac OS X Tiger. If Apple continues going down the road that it has been going, just about all of your ideas will make it to the desktop sooner than 2015.
Could you explain that one to me, please. Now, if you do a s/Windows/DOS there, it would make sense, because DOS was distributable to just about any PC-clone manufacturer, at a time where most personal computers were tied to a specific operating system. I always thought that Windows made it because Windows was a logical extension of MS-DOS, and people started to "upgrade" to Windows 3.0 and 3.1 when Windows became palatable enough for users to use (remember that Windows didn't start getting decent until 1990, when Windows 3.0 was released), and when Windows-native software started becoming more popular than DOS software (such as Excel vs. Lotus 1-2-3, or Word 6.0 vs. WordPerfect 5.1 [even though there are some other reasons why WordPerfect didn't make the transition to Windows well, that'll go off topic and lead to a rant]). Perhaps I missed something or overlooked something.
In 2015, Linux and BSD + KDE/GNOME would probably be commonplace on most desktops, and alternate operating systems such as Plan 9 and The Hurd will finally see the spotlight, in usages such as servers, research, or learning the innings of those systems. Mac OS X will probably be OS XI or OS XII, and it will probably be an operating system for those who want something better than KDE/GNOME, as well as those who love the seamless integration between Mac hardware and the Mac OS. Windows will still exist, for the same reasons why IBM mainframes with COBOL are still running in some places.
Finally, somebody will probably come out with a new OS that has exokernels and whatever operating system technologies in invented between now and 2015, who knows....
I agree with some of your points. I feel that Linux software is getting heavier and heavier throughout the years.
But, I must also say that KDE and GNOME has gotten faster over the years. For example, a few months ago I installed KDE 3.1 on my FreeBSD desktop (475MHz K6-2 with 64MB RAM). It was extremely slow, so slow that it was unbearable. Flashback to just a few days ago when I installed KDE 3.3 on the exact same computer. It ran pretty decent, and the performance was just as good, if not, better than a Windows 98 desktop. Even though I use Window Maker as my window manager, if I had a faster machine, I'd run KDE.
The thing with speed and "bloat" is that as Linux desktops get more advanced, they're going to get bigger. Windows XP with all of the bells and whistles requires at least 256MB RAM, and that was released about 3.5 years ago. The latest KDE or GNOME would require about the same amount too, but KDE and GNOME has more features and capabilities than XP does.
Finally, if you're really annoyed by the "bloat," there's nothing stopping us from gathering a group of people and writing an desktop environment built specifically for computers that are slower than 500MHz and have less than 128MB RAM. Look at the design of the pre-OS X Mac interfaces as an example of great, usable interfaces with minimal resources (but don't copy them, Apple probably patent-encumbered each and every design). All I'm saying is that KDE and GNOME are becoming world-class interfaces with everything you can imagine, but that everything costs. If you feel that you can produce a better desktop environment that is usable and isn't resource hungry, then by all means organize a group of developers and write it.