The GPL is more concerned with the freedom of everyone on the whole than it is with maximizing individual freedoms. It ensures that new code that's developed based on the existing code will be freely available for everyone, which probably benefits more people on average.
You know, sort of how the U.S. Constitution (theoretically) tries to maximize everyone's freedoms on the whole, because you can't maximize one person's freedoms without taking away those of others.
I believe a translation of your argument to that scenario could be something like: "Oh, I'm not allowed to go around killing whomever I want? I must not be free." No, I guess you aren't, but there's more freedom on the whole by restricting your "right" to kill everyone than there is to take away everyone else's right to life.
Doesn't it already? "A sysctl call has been present in Linux since version 1.3.57." However, Linux also lets you use the/proc/sys filesystem to do the same thing, so that I can write 'echo 0 >/proc/sys/foo' rather than writing a program. Is that a big problem for you?
How about virtual channels on a sound card?
ALSA has a method for doing that (the dmix plugin). However, it's not enabled by default, because for cards that actually have multiple channels, it's better to use the real ones.
Maybe, you are thinking about the Linux community?
No, I don't think he was. Seems like you both are mildly ignorant of the other camp (or were you purposely asking about thing that are actually in Linux? In that case, I apologize for being thick).
Richard Stallman coined the term Free Software. In its context, "free" refers specifically to freedom, not necessarily to price.
The word, in general, can mean several things, from without cost to without fat. However, in the context of Free Software, the official name, as coined by the Free Software Foundataion, it refers to freedom.
If you don't like that definition, then don't call your stuff Free Software. However, don't try arguing that it has some other meaning for the stuff that is called that, because that's incorrect.
And when the COO of Sun says that the most important thing about Free Software is that people can get it at no cost, well, Stallman has a right to be a little miffed, because (from his perspective, and many others' I'm sure) the real importance of Free Software is that it's free as in freedom.
No. I'm a youth myself, jackass. But, unlike millions of other people my age out there, I was able to learn the apparently mind-bending task of actually spelling things properly, and using relatively correct grammar most of the time.
Most of the shit that gets thrown out on AOL isn't influencing language as a whole. Not many people actually say dumb shit like "LOL". Most people can actually speak in normal, if colloquial, language. If anything, business speak and political correctness are influencing the way people speak way more than kids are.
People writing real shit that's actually going to last into future generations are actually using correct spelling and grammar. I don't see any papers coming out of universities written in AOL speak with shitty grammar. I don't see any new literature doing so. Your blog isn't going to be passed on to future generations like Shakespeare, precisely because you're writing shit.
And contrary to your naive beliefs, some people my age do actually care about proper grammar and spelling. Wonder of wonders, some people are actually interested in studying language, and you can't do that without learning all the rules and so on by which it operates.
So go on all you want masturbating about how the "youth are changing things," but you're fucking stupid if you think that we're going to end up with something where grammar and spelling doesn't matter at all, because that would be fucking gibberish that no one would understand.
One day these dumb AOL kiddies are going to grow up and realize that the way they're talking makes them look like morons, and they're going to get jobs and require that people actually learn to use the language they're mangling today.
Hell, I used to talk a little like that, but then I turned 12 and fucking grew out of it. Good language isn't going away as far as intelligent conversation is concerned. Sorry to have to tell you.
That's rubbish. Most of the people on the internet who spew out constant spelling mistakes and poor grammar aren't doing so because they're geniuses. They're doing it because they're too lazy to be bothered to learn their own language well.
I can overlook a few mistakes, and if an argument is particularly compelling, I can overlook many. But you know, when I see a post here in which every other word has typos, and there are missing words all over the place and so on, I'm going to quite rightly stop reading it. It's not worth my time to try and decode it, and I don't care if you're using text-to-speech or "multitasking" or whatever.
If you want to communicate with people, then you should make an effort to try and do it decently. First impressions do count when you're one voice in thousands. The fact that this is all written, and you can't see who you're speaking two puts more emphasis on the construction of your argument, not less.
If you speak like a 5th grader, I'm going to assume you are a 5th grader, because in a lot of cases that's right. And don't tell me that's "racist" (what a bullshit, buzzword argument that is), or that I'm denying the opinion of geniuses (that's a cop out).
Go look at some posts on Slashdot, some time. Do a big random sampling, and then come back and tell me that the ones that are written better aren't generally the same ones that have more cogent arguments. The fact of the matter is, when someone puts something on the internet, and the writing is crap, then most of the time, so is the content. I don't have time to search through all that crap to find the diamond in the rough, so if you want me to take you seriously, then polish things up a little.
The human brain automatically generalizes about things. Trying to deny that is silly, and, quite frankly, I think it's ridiculous to compare placing value on good writing to racism at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if people who've been through the real thing would be insulted if you tried to make that argument in front of them.
Ever try reading original manuscripts of Shakespeare? Holy shit! Their esses are effs! What the fuck were they thinking!
What's your point? Shakespeare wrote with correct spelling and grammar for his time.
"Language evolves" is no excuse for mangling the spelling and grammar of the language you're actually speaking at the time. "Should of" won't evolve into correct grammar, because it doesn't make any sense. "Definately" is unlikely to become the proper spelling of the word. It's not even a phonetic spelling (who pronounces "definitely" with a long a sound in place of the second i).
Saying that language evolves doesn't negate the fact that incorrect spelling and poor grammar makes one look less intelligent to people who actually know how to do things correctly.
That must be why I've been having so much trouble trying to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Your brain is composed of billions of individual processing units. Each of those processing units may be sort of like a stream processor (like in Cell), in that they take inputs, perform a computation, and then fire out an output (although I don't know if anyone's even determined that conclusively). However, your brain is composed of billions of those linked together in very complex ways.
Suggesting that your brain only works on one item at a time is rather naive. It is most certainly doing many things at a time.
Maybe people who get put in places of responsibility to make buying decisions have the capability to look at what they're actually selling, rather than going, "Eww! Their name has 'troll' in it!"
But it doesn't do it as fast as under OSX. That's my point. The reason it doesn't is its drivers, and the fault isn't X.org's.
nVidia's drivers with render acceleration do all right in some cases. It is something of a problem with X.org: the traditional X Acceleration Architecture (XAA) that it uses doesn't have the right hooks for properly accelerating all 2D operations. That's one of the things that KAA (the new acceleration architecture the article is about) fixes.
I don't know about Linux, but using the *SAME* driver core under FreeBSD gives the user a lackluster experience that is prone to frequent kernel hangs.
I've never used them on FreeBSD. They work quite well in Linux. I don't know how you can expect to draw conclusions about their performance in Linux based only on FreeBSD.
So in other words, in order to be able to do what what Windows and OSX already do in software, we have to have a "final solution" in hardware?
No, you can already do translucent windows and so on in software with the composite extension. That's what xcompmgr does. This new acceleration architecture (among other things) makes that fast enough to do basic stuff like on Windows.
OS X 3D accelerates its desktop to get smooth scaled windows flying around all the time. That's what XGL and pushing the hardware acceleration below the X server will enable more of.
If THEY wrote Open Source drivers for X.org at the same quality they wrote proprietary drivers for OSX and Windows, we woulnd't need a "final solution".
nVidia's proprietary drivers for Linux are of similar quality to the Windows ones. That doesn't make it possible 3D accelerate all the drawing in X without a change like XGL.
He was talking about having to reboot into Windows just to play games. It's a hassle.
Some of us, you know, actually enjoy using Linux, and it works well for us. We aren't running Linux because we're cheap or whatever. It's because it's better for our purposes. Having to go into Windows to play games is annoying (especially if it means you have to configure every server you run twice so you don't have downtime while you're in Windows), and a waste of time if you can do it in Linux, too.
But, please, continue to rant about how Windows is stable, if that makes you feel better.
"Hundredths" is a noun that means a unit of 1/100.
"Hundreds" means a unit of 100, and can be used even when preceded by a fractional number, like "I have 0.9 hundreds of wildebeests," which would mean I have 90 of them. "Hundreds" by itself usually means "multiple hundreds," but if you're a sneaky marketing guy, I suppose you could use it to mean less than 100.
I imagine most of the "think of the children" laws are aimed for people younger than yourself. If you're old enough to have passed a high school civics course, you've probably graduated from the "we must protect them" stage to the "those damn young people with their noisy music and their wife trading parties," at least as far as the fogeys making the laws are concerned. Welcome.
Besides, even if you were allowed to vote, you probably wouldn't have enough people to get real representation (I know my age-group doesn't, and I'm not too much older than you, most likely), so it'd end up about the same, only they'd probably have to pretend they're speaking for you, rather than on your behalf due to your naivete. Unless you're talking referendum type voting, or something.
Re:in case you don't know what the heck he means..
on
The Neuron Drive
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· Score: 1
in case you don't know what the heck he means....and don't want to click the link..
Thanks for the explanation. I was finally convinced I'd developed a learning disability after reading that summary.
A theory is a logical explanation of observable facts that serves to explain the world around us. Scientists pick the theories that best explain the facts we've observed so far, and when facts that contradict those theories arise, they will refine them or perhaps come up with all new theories that will once again adequately explain our observations.
What is your process?
We are not apes. We are humans.
From what we've observed so far, the brain is made up of a lot of very small units that take inputs, perform various computations, and fire outputs based on those computations. When you link billions of them together in very complex ways (and allow them to develop new links over time) you get human thought and learning.
What makes you think that an ape's brain is made up of significantly different material?
Today, our computers aren't powerful enough to simulate billions of these units with massively complex interactions. However, it isn't inconceivable that computers in the future could simulate such massive, complex systems, with all the relevant growth conditions. Therefore it isn't inconceivable that we could, in the future, build a computer that learns (provided we learn what exactly goes on within the neurons, and how they fit together).
No. The point is that "looking like" a normal application isn't enough. You'll still be beat out by any applications that actually are native, because they can use all the "platform-specific crap" that is actually useful to people.
The ability to use AppleScript isn't crap. Kparts and kioslaves aren't crap. They're useful features of their respective desktops, and they benefit applications greatly. And they're the reasons that cross-platform programs will often be second class citizens, unless you do an amazing amount of work porting them to each environment.
If you don't like Swing, use a third-party toolkit (like SWT), it will work just as well. If you just don't like how Swing looks, use a third-party look and feel (they are available; for instance there is one that closely mimics standard Windows look and feel).
The problem is, that doesn't cut it pretty much anywhere. Yeah, it'll look kind of like a native app, but it will be lacking significant functionality that would be available to a native app.
In OS X, it wouldn't have a menu bar at the top, and wouldn't support AppleScript and the like.
In KDE it wouldn't integrate nearly as well into the desktop. For instance, it wouldn't be able to embed other kparts, if that was necessary. It wouldn't make use of ioslaves for transparent access of various non-disk media. Etc.
Similar things could be said of Gnome and Windows, I'm sure.
Yeah, you could use JNI and add all those things, or use Java bindings for all the respective toolkits. But then you're doing just as much work porting in Java as you are in any other language. Only your core logic is the same, and that won't change if you choose C, C++, (or good languages like) haskell or python. Java doesn't buy you much if you plan on making an app that actually integrates well into several different environments.
The only place I see that flying is on Windows, because people there are used to using apps with 30 different toolkits that don't integrate together at all. Everywhere else, your application is second class.
Great, so the only way to make the Linux UI even remotely consistent is to uninstall half your applications.
KDE is a complete desktop environment. If you have both KDE and Gnome installed, then half of your programs do the same thing as the other half. It's quite possible to use KDE applications for everything, unless you're trying to run something that's not a typical desktop application.
There are only a couple exceptions I can think of as far as 'things people would use every day' are concerned (and they're for artists, not a typical desktop user).
Most of the inconsistency comes from more hardcore users, who feel they have to pick and choose from the various desktop environments, or from external programs. Konqueror and kopete work fine, but some people prefer firefox and gaim, and use them. Their systems will look a little inconsistent. However, it's through their own choices. KDE can serve as a fine desktop, without any need gnome/gtk/etc. applications.
It's like having two steering wheels in your car
Uh...
or two languages in one book.
No, it's like printing copies of a book in two different languages, so that both people who speak English and those who speak Spanish can read the story.
More than that, it's like packaging each chapter separately, so that if you want, you can assemble a book that has half English and half Spanish. But that's in no way forced upon you.
I think it's time for Linus to crack some heads together.
Linus has nothing to do with the desktop environments. In fact, KDE (and Gnome, too, I'm sure) runs on many different platforms, most of which don't use the Linux kernel at all.
By the way, had you read my whole post, you might have caught the fact that both these projects are produce by volunteers who build with whatever they want. You can't force them to do things only one way.
Why don't you start a project that picks one of the desktop environments, and proclaims that it is the One Official Linux Desktop. Then, when you get enough support, you can officially say that it's consistent, and the other stuff out there are just fringe projects, not part of the Linux Desktop.
That's the most fucking stupid thing I've ever heard.
Perhaps you should consider reading your own post.
The problem with KDE is, even if its usability is fine, it's all thrown out the window as soon as you open non-KDE apps
Then don't use any non-KDE apps. I get through my day just fine without GTK/Gnome being installed on my system at all. I might just be able to do the reverse, if I were a fan of Gnome.
For example if you set up a theme in KDE, and you open a program which uses gtk, your theme doesn't work.
It does if you have the gtk-qt theme installed.
Surely the apps should use the same toolkit for a consistent interface?
Perhaps these independent volunteers are using whatever toolkit they personally prefer, and aren't all part of some sort of big conspiracy to produce inconsistent interfaces on Linux.
Or perhaps you can put forward a good plan for making everyone who likes Gnome abandon their values and take up all the code, ideas and direction of KDE wholesale.
The best thing Linux could do to improve the user experience is to stop having ten million toolkits and environments and have a STANDARD CONSISTENT INTERFACE!
The best thing you could do is to develop an elementary understanding of how open source software (the desktop environments in particular) is produced. Then you might realize why your suggestions about common toolkits and unifying the desktop environments don't really make any sense.
Slashdot Mirror
The GPL is more concerned with the freedom of everyone on the whole than it is with maximizing individual freedoms. It ensures that new code that's developed based on the existing code will be freely available for everyone, which probably benefits more people on average.
You know, sort of how the U.S. Constitution (theoretically) tries to maximize everyone's freedoms on the whole, because you can't maximize one person's freedoms without taking away those of others.
I believe a translation of your argument to that scenario could be something like: "Oh, I'm not allowed to go around killing whomever I want? I must not be free." No, I guess you aren't, but there's more freedom on the whole by restricting your "right" to kill everyone than there is to take away everyone else's right to life.
When will Linux use sysctl() instead of /proc?
/proc/sys filesystem to do the same thing, so that I can write 'echo 0 > /proc/sys/foo' rather than writing a program. Is that a big problem for you?
Doesn't it already? "A sysctl call has been present in Linux since version 1.3.57." However, Linux also lets you use the
How about virtual channels on a sound card?
ALSA has a method for doing that (the dmix plugin). However, it's not enabled by default, because for cards that actually have multiple channels, it's better to use the real ones.
Maybe, you are thinking about the Linux community?
No, I don't think he was. Seems like you both are mildly ignorant of the other camp (or were you purposely asking about thing that are actually in Linux? In that case, I apologize for being thick).
Richard Stallman coined the term Free Software. In its context, "free" refers specifically to freedom, not necessarily to price.
The word, in general, can mean several things, from without cost to without fat. However, in the context of Free Software, the official name, as coined by the Free Software Foundataion, it refers to freedom.
If you don't like that definition, then don't call your stuff Free Software. However, don't try arguing that it has some other meaning for the stuff that is called that, because that's incorrect.
And when the COO of Sun says that the most important thing about Free Software is that people can get it at no cost, well, Stallman has a right to be a little miffed, because (from his perspective, and many others' I'm sure) the real importance of Free Software is that it's free as in freedom.
No. I'm a youth myself, jackass. But, unlike millions of other people my age out there, I was able to learn the apparently mind-bending task of actually spelling things properly, and using relatively correct grammar most of the time.
Most of the shit that gets thrown out on AOL isn't influencing language as a whole. Not many people actually say dumb shit like "LOL". Most people can actually speak in normal, if colloquial, language. If anything, business speak and political correctness are influencing the way people speak way more than kids are.
People writing real shit that's actually going to last into future generations are actually using correct spelling and grammar. I don't see any papers coming out of universities written in AOL speak with shitty grammar. I don't see any new literature doing so. Your blog isn't going to be passed on to future generations like Shakespeare, precisely because you're writing shit.
And contrary to your naive beliefs, some people my age do actually care about proper grammar and spelling. Wonder of wonders, some people are actually interested in studying language, and you can't do that without learning all the rules and so on by which it operates.
So go on all you want masturbating about how the "youth are changing things," but you're fucking stupid if you think that we're going to end up with something where grammar and spelling doesn't matter at all, because that would be fucking gibberish that no one would understand.
One day these dumb AOL kiddies are going to grow up and realize that the way they're talking makes them look like morons, and they're going to get jobs and require that people actually learn to use the language they're mangling today.
Hell, I used to talk a little like that, but then I turned 12 and fucking grew out of it. Good language isn't going away as far as intelligent conversation is concerned. Sorry to have to tell you.
That's rubbish. Most of the people on the internet who spew out constant spelling mistakes and poor grammar aren't doing so because they're geniuses. They're doing it because they're too lazy to be bothered to learn their own language well.
I can overlook a few mistakes, and if an argument is particularly compelling, I can overlook many. But you know, when I see a post here in which every other word has typos, and there are missing words all over the place and so on, I'm going to quite rightly stop reading it. It's not worth my time to try and decode it, and I don't care if you're using text-to-speech or "multitasking" or whatever.
If you want to communicate with people, then you should make an effort to try and do it decently. First impressions do count when you're one voice in thousands. The fact that this is all written, and you can't see who you're speaking two puts more emphasis on the construction of your argument, not less.
If you speak like a 5th grader, I'm going to assume you are a 5th grader, because in a lot of cases that's right. And don't tell me that's "racist" (what a bullshit, buzzword argument that is), or that I'm denying the opinion of geniuses (that's a cop out).
Go look at some posts on Slashdot, some time. Do a big random sampling, and then come back and tell me that the ones that are written better aren't generally the same ones that have more cogent arguments. The fact of the matter is, when someone puts something on the internet, and the writing is crap, then most of the time, so is the content. I don't have time to search through all that crap to find the diamond in the rough, so if you want me to take you seriously, then polish things up a little.
The human brain automatically generalizes about things. Trying to deny that is silly, and, quite frankly, I think it's ridiculous to compare placing value on good writing to racism at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if people who've been through the real thing would be insulted if you tried to make that argument in front of them.
Ever try reading original manuscripts of Shakespeare? Holy shit! Their esses are effs! What the fuck were they thinking!
What's your point? Shakespeare wrote with correct spelling and grammar for his time.
"Language evolves" is no excuse for mangling the spelling and grammar of the language you're actually speaking at the time. "Should of" won't evolve into correct grammar, because it doesn't make any sense. "Definately" is unlikely to become the proper spelling of the word. It's not even a phonetic spelling (who pronounces "definitely" with a long a sound in place of the second i).
Saying that language evolves doesn't negate the fact that incorrect spelling and poor grammar makes one look less intelligent to people who actually know how to do things correctly.
That must be why I've been having so much trouble trying to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Your brain is composed of billions of individual processing units. Each of those processing units may be sort of like a stream processor (like in Cell), in that they take inputs, perform a computation, and then fire out an output (although I don't know if anyone's even determined that conclusively). However, your brain is composed of billions of those linked together in very complex ways.
Suggesting that your brain only works on one item at a time is rather naive. It is most certainly doing many things at a time.
Yes, but you haven't.
They seem to have done fine so far.
Maybe people who get put in places of responsibility to make buying decisions have the capability to look at what they're actually selling, rather than going, "Eww! Their name has 'troll' in it!"
But it doesn't do it as fast as under OSX. That's my point. The reason it doesn't is its drivers, and the fault isn't X.org's.
nVidia's drivers with render acceleration do all right in some cases. It is something of a problem with X.org: the traditional X Acceleration Architecture (XAA) that it uses doesn't have the right hooks for properly accelerating all 2D operations. That's one of the things that KAA (the new acceleration architecture the article is about) fixes.
I don't know about Linux, but using the *SAME* driver core under FreeBSD gives the user a lackluster experience that is prone to frequent kernel hangs.
I've never used them on FreeBSD. They work quite well in Linux. I don't know how you can expect to draw conclusions about their performance in Linux based only on FreeBSD.
So in other words, in order to be able to do what what Windows and OSX already do in software, we have to have a "final solution" in hardware?
No, you can already do translucent windows and so on in software with the composite extension. That's what xcompmgr does. This new acceleration architecture (among other things) makes that fast enough to do basic stuff like on Windows.
OS X 3D accelerates its desktop to get smooth scaled windows flying around all the time. That's what XGL and pushing the hardware acceleration below the X server will enable more of.
If THEY wrote Open Source drivers for X.org at the same quality they wrote proprietary drivers for OSX and Windows, we woulnd't need a "final solution".
nVidia's proprietary drivers for Linux are of similar quality to the Windows ones. That doesn't make it possible 3D accelerate all the drawing in X without a change like XGL.
"Why should I have to reboot my desktop -- which has an uptime of several months -- just to play a game?"
I don't see anywhere in his posts where he talks at all about Windows' ability to have long uptimes.
He was talking about having to reboot into Windows just to play games. It's a hassle.
Some of us, you know, actually enjoy using Linux, and it works well for us. We aren't running Linux because we're cheap or whatever. It's because it's better for our purposes. Having to go into Windows to play games is annoying (especially if it means you have to configure every server you run twice so you don't have downtime while you're in Windows), and a waste of time if you can do it in Linux, too.
But, please, continue to rant about how Windows is stable, if that makes you feel better.
No.
0.9 hundredths = 0.9 * 0.01 = 0.009 = 9 thousandths
0.9 hundreds = 0.9 * 100 = 90
"Hundredths" is a noun that means a unit of 1/100.
"Hundreds" means a unit of 100, and can be used even when preceded by a fractional number, like "I have 0.9 hundreds of wildebeests," which would mean I have 90 of them. "Hundreds" by itself usually means "multiple hundreds," but if you're a sneaky marketing guy, I suppose you could use it to mean less than 100.
I imagine most of the "think of the children" laws are aimed for people younger than yourself. If you're old enough to have passed a high school civics course, you've probably graduated from the "we must protect them" stage to the "those damn young people with their noisy music and their wife trading parties," at least as far as the fogeys making the laws are concerned. Welcome.
Besides, even if you were allowed to vote, you probably wouldn't have enough people to get real representation (I know my age-group doesn't, and I'm not too much older than you, most likely), so it'd end up about the same, only they'd probably have to pretend they're speaking for you, rather than on your behalf due to your naivete. Unless you're talking referendum type voting, or something.
in case you don't know what the heck he means.. ..and don't want to click the link..
Thanks for the explanation. I was finally convinced I'd developed a learning disability after reading that summary.
And I think Reversi (Othello) has been "solved", but that doesn't mean people have stopped playing it.
Hell, some people still play tic-tac-toe.
Science is only a bunch of theories.
A theory is a logical explanation of observable facts that serves to explain the world around us. Scientists pick the theories that best explain the facts we've observed so far, and when facts that contradict those theories arise, they will refine them or perhaps come up with all new theories that will once again adequately explain our observations.
What is your process?
We are not apes. We are humans.
From what we've observed so far, the brain is made up of a lot of very small units that take inputs, perform various computations, and fire outputs based on those computations. When you link billions of them together in very complex ways (and allow them to develop new links over time) you get human thought and learning.
What makes you think that an ape's brain is made up of significantly different material?
Today, our computers aren't powerful enough to simulate billions of these units with massively complex interactions. However, it isn't inconceivable that computers in the future could simulate such massive, complex systems, with all the relevant growth conditions. Therefore it isn't inconceivable that we could, in the future, build a computer that learns (provided we learn what exactly goes on within the neurons, and how they fit together).
What are your arguments against this?
No. The point is that "looking like" a normal application isn't enough. You'll still be beat out by any applications that actually are native, because they can use all the "platform-specific crap" that is actually useful to people.
The ability to use AppleScript isn't crap. Kparts and kioslaves aren't crap. They're useful features of their respective desktops, and they benefit applications greatly. And they're the reasons that cross-platform programs will often be second class citizens, unless you do an amazing amount of work porting them to each environment.
Knowledge is in development. It's a KDE-based offline encyclopedia application for wikipedia.
I've already bookmarked the band's web site, which has more photos and lyrics than Wikipedia could collect.
You, sir, are in the minority.
If you don't like Swing, use a third-party toolkit (like SWT), it will work just as well. If you just don't like how Swing looks, use a third-party look and feel (they are available; for instance there is one that closely mimics standard Windows look and feel).
The problem is, that doesn't cut it pretty much anywhere. Yeah, it'll look kind of like a native app, but it will be lacking significant functionality that would be available to a native app.
In OS X, it wouldn't have a menu bar at the top, and wouldn't support AppleScript and the like.
In KDE it wouldn't integrate nearly as well into the desktop. For instance, it wouldn't be able to embed other kparts, if that was necessary. It wouldn't make use of ioslaves for transparent access of various non-disk media. Etc.
Similar things could be said of Gnome and Windows, I'm sure.
Yeah, you could use JNI and add all those things, or use Java bindings for all the respective toolkits. But then you're doing just as much work porting in Java as you are in any other language. Only your core logic is the same, and that won't change if you choose C, C++, (or good languages like) haskell or python. Java doesn't buy you much if you plan on making an app that actually integrates well into several different environments.
The only place I see that flying is on Windows, because people there are used to using apps with 30 different toolkits that don't integrate together at all. Everywhere else, your application is second class.
So, the name "GIMP" is a travesty, but "Nero" alluding to one of the worst emperors of Rome, and a disaster is a good name?
What the hell are you going on about?
Great, so the only way to make the Linux UI even remotely consistent is to uninstall half your applications.
KDE is a complete desktop environment. If you have both KDE and Gnome installed, then half of your programs do the same thing as the other half. It's quite possible to use KDE applications for everything, unless you're trying to run something that's not a typical desktop application.
There are only a couple exceptions I can think of as far as 'things people would use every day' are concerned (and they're for artists, not a typical desktop user).
Most of the inconsistency comes from more hardcore users, who feel they have to pick and choose from the various desktop environments, or from external programs. Konqueror and kopete work fine, but some people prefer firefox and gaim, and use them. Their systems will look a little inconsistent. However, it's through their own choices. KDE can serve as a fine desktop, without any need gnome/gtk/etc. applications.
It's like having two steering wheels in your car
Uh...
or two languages in one book.
No, it's like printing copies of a book in two different languages, so that both people who speak English and those who speak Spanish can read the story.
More than that, it's like packaging each chapter separately, so that if you want, you can assemble a book that has half English and half Spanish. But that's in no way forced upon you.
I think it's time for Linus to crack some heads together.
Linus has nothing to do with the desktop environments. In fact, KDE (and Gnome, too, I'm sure) runs on many different platforms, most of which don't use the Linux kernel at all.
By the way, had you read my whole post, you might have caught the fact that both these projects are produce by volunteers who build with whatever they want. You can't force them to do things only one way.
Why don't you start a project that picks one of the desktop environments, and proclaims that it is the One Official Linux Desktop. Then, when you get enough support, you can officially say that it's consistent, and the other stuff out there are just fringe projects, not part of the Linux Desktop.
That's the most fucking stupid thing I've ever heard.
Perhaps you should consider reading your own post.
The problem with KDE is, even if its usability is fine, it's all thrown out the window as soon as you open non-KDE apps
Then don't use any non-KDE apps. I get through my day just fine without GTK/Gnome being installed on my system at all. I might just be able to do the reverse, if I were a fan of Gnome.
For example if you set up a theme in KDE, and you open a program which uses gtk, your theme doesn't work.
It does if you have the gtk-qt theme installed.
Surely the apps should use the same toolkit for a consistent interface?
Perhaps these independent volunteers are using whatever toolkit they personally prefer, and aren't all part of some sort of big conspiracy to produce inconsistent interfaces on Linux.
Or perhaps you can put forward a good plan for making everyone who likes Gnome abandon their values and take up all the code, ideas and direction of KDE wholesale.
The best thing Linux could do to improve the user experience is to stop having ten million toolkits and environments and have a STANDARD CONSISTENT INTERFACE!
The best thing you could do is to develop an elementary understanding of how open source software (the desktop environments in particular) is produced. Then you might realize why your suggestions about common toolkits and unifying the desktop environments don't really make any sense.