The problem with Gnome and KDE chasing after the tablet market is that they think they'll be a "player" along with iOS and Android. If anything I think they have less chances of succeeding there on the desktop, they're ignoring the 1% desktop market share they have and chasing 1% of the mobile market. They haven't got the resources to run in two directions with two different teams, so they'll go halfway up both roads.
The problem is that you and the people who voted you as Informative didn't even read the interview. Unlike iOS OSX there is no porting required to get workspace elements to work on different form factors. Apple developed two closely related code bases whereas KDE develops a single code base that works everywhere. With Plasma Active the KDE devs create a framework that's so flexible that one only needs to write a simple shell in QML and all existing QML widgets will just work. Plasma Desktop widgets usually work just fine as fullscreen widgets in smartphone form factors. That means developing Plasma with one formfactor in mind, the other formfactors automatically benefit because all improvements are shared across the code base.
What you also don't understand is that KDE is no commercial project. As a community project it doesn't matter if 1% of the population use it or 99%. Community projects do the work for themselves and as long as there are devices available to run the software on, the community members are fine with that. In addition to that you forgot that Qt also works on Android (currently in Alpha state). So even without MeeGo devices Plasma Active will at some point be available on Android devices (MeeGo is just a mostly traditional Linux distro which makes sense to support first because the underlying toolkit Qt does not have to be completely ported first).
It is a mistake that KWin will be developed to support Wayland in addition to Xorg? WTF is wrong with you? All the main developer does it to support plugable back-ends. That's all.
I, like most knowledgeable people, already switched to XFCE years ago. Good to see Linus is finally getting with the program.
So if so many "knowledgeable people" use Xfce, why do new Xfce releases happen only once every two years? There hasn't even been a single bugfix release since 4.8 seven months ago... I'd expect "knowledgeable people" to be able to program.
They lost me when they removed the ability to change themes from the default install.
Surveys show that the overwhelming majority of users only configure their wallpaper. People who want more certainly can be bothered to run GNOME Tweak Tool (whether or not that's part of the default install is up to the distributor to decide).
So it's real FOSS. Cool. No matter how much corporate MS sucks, MS Research is usually great and their use of AL2 instead of some "Shared Source" license makes Gadgeteer fully Free. One could even port it away from.NET and MS could do nothing about it. AL2 even includes a royalty-free patent license.
Microsoft's voucher program for SLES does not demand that RHEL is installed in the first place. And they are offering services to migrate to SLES. So what? It's not like Red Hat does not offer similar migration options.
Red Hat will still be healthy even if a few customers migrate to SLES.
The Mono project was not sued by MS because Mono was run by Novell. Oracle is currently busy suing anything to do with Android. Oracle may sue Andorid later (or not. We don't know).
LibreOffice is a continuation of Go-OO which was already led by Novell/SUSE and LO was initiated when the first MS deal was still ongoing. Everybody joining LO knew that. This deal renewal changes nothing in this respect.
IMHO this renewal is not so bad as when Microsoft fanboy Miguel De Icaza was still with Novell/SUSE. He was the one who pushed the interoperability deal so far to even recreate Silverlight as Moonlight and make it depend on a proprietary codec package from Microsoft. Moonlight in turn is based on Mono and I find the injection of Mono (into GNOME etc.) to be one of the biggest threats to FOSS.
Now that De Icaza and his team were fired, all that's left from the deal is that SLES is certified to run on Hyper-V and that 2 companies do not sue each other.
Mono is OTOH still a legal minefield. While some of Monos patents are royalty free, others are not -- especially considering how Oracle likes to sue anybody that uses anything that has at least a bit of resemblance to Java. With De Icaza gone and now running his new company, at least there is no risk that he orders SUSE's GNOME team to inject Mono everywhere it does not belong.
No, it's not that the tracks are simply loud. They are loud within the format restrictions of a CD which are 16bit, 44.1kHz. You simply can't record a Red Book-compliant audio CD that contains sound that's beyond that restrictions. So when you want to master an audio CD to be loud by default (instead of normal level and let the listener just turn up the volume), you have to make sacrifices to fit within the CD-DA constrains.
I was making an analogy solely about the fact that the price of something does not necessarily relate to the amount of granted damages. And that analogy still stands.
Yep, that's just about exactly what they did. They aren't the first either. Kaffeine and GCJ and many others have done the same - but oracle only sued Google.
Only suing where the big bucks are isn't exactly news either.
Disclaimer: I'm not taking sides here, just posting a general info.
If I release some software under GPL-- completely free (beer and speech) -- and someone takes that source code, strips all copyright info, and creates a closed source version of my software, I can receive financial damage compensation. It doesn't matter that my code is available free of charge.
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The problem with Gnome and KDE chasing after the tablet market is that they think they'll be a "player" along with iOS and Android. If anything I think they have less chances of succeeding there on the desktop, they're ignoring the 1% desktop market share they have and chasing 1% of the mobile market. They haven't got the resources to run in two directions with two different teams, so they'll go halfway up both roads.
The problem is that you and the people who voted you as Informative didn't even read the interview.
Unlike iOS OSX there is no porting required to get workspace elements to work on different form factors. Apple developed two closely related code bases whereas KDE develops a single code base that works everywhere. With Plasma Active the KDE devs create a framework that's so flexible that one only needs to write a simple shell in QML and all existing QML widgets will just work. Plasma Desktop widgets usually work just fine as fullscreen widgets in smartphone form factors. That means developing Plasma with one formfactor in mind, the other formfactors automatically benefit because all improvements are shared across the code base.
What you also don't understand is that KDE is no commercial project. As a community project it doesn't matter if 1% of the population use it or 99%. Community projects do the work for themselves and as long as there are devices available to run the software on, the community members are fine with that.
In addition to that you forgot that Qt also works on Android (currently in Alpha state). So even without MeeGo devices Plasma Active will at some point be available on Android devices (MeeGo is just a mostly traditional Linux distro which makes sense to support first because the underlying toolkit Qt does not have to be completely ported first).
There's plenty of companies, pushing out dists
So how can a software developer target all of them?
Just throw the source code at OBS http://openbuildservice.org/ and get packages for practically anything.
I suspect this is sponsored by any company with enough patents to torpedo Wayland as soon as it becomes dominant over X11.
Wayland is mostly developed by Intel. So good luck messing with them... ;-)
This is a mistake!
It is a mistake that KWin will be developed to support Wayland in addition to Xorg? WTF is wrong with you? All the main developer does it to support plugable back-ends. That's all.
I, like most knowledgeable people, already switched to XFCE years ago. Good to see Linus is finally getting with the program.
So if so many "knowledgeable people" use Xfce, why do new Xfce releases happen only once every two years?
There hasn't even been a single bugfix release since 4.8 seven months ago...
I'd expect "knowledgeable people" to be able to program.
A GTK3 port of GNOME 2.x is included in GNOME 3. No one is forced to use GNOME Shell.
They lost me when they removed the ability to change themes from the default install.
Surveys show that the overwhelming majority of users only configure their wallpaper.
People who want more certainly can be bothered to run GNOME Tweak Tool (whether or not that's part of the default install is up to the distributor to decide).
Then why didn't he just stay with GNOME 2?
Is there a distro that offers Gnome 2 and a recent kernel at the same time? The best I've found is gentoo with 2.6.38
I think Torvalds compiles his own kernel -- would be embarrassing if the Linux kernel founder and maintainer didn't...
The button in the top-right corner looks like a resize button.
So it's real FOSS. Cool. No matter how much corporate MS sucks, MS Research is usually great and their use of AL2 instead of some "Shared Source" license makes Gadgeteer fully Free. One could even port it away from .NET and MS could do nothing about it. AL2 even includes a royalty-free patent license.
Which distribution is currently shipping cross-compile environments? Which distribution has a solution that extends beyond Intel's architecture?
SUSE. It's called Open Build Service and exists since 5 or so years.
Learn to get a joke when one was made...
Microsoft's voucher program for SLES does not demand that RHEL is installed in the first place. And they are offering services to migrate to SLES. So what? It's not like Red Hat does not offer similar migration options.
Red Hat will still be healthy even if a few customers migrate to SLES.
The Mono project was not sued by MS because Mono was run by Novell.
Oracle is currently busy suing anything to do with Android. Oracle may sue Andorid later (or not. We don't know).
Mono was accepted as external dependency of GNOME long ago.
LibreOffice is a continuation of Go-OO which was already led by Novell/SUSE and LO was initiated when the first MS deal was still ongoing. Everybody joining LO knew that. This deal renewal changes nothing in this respect.
As for OOXML: The guy helping OOXML was a former Novell employee who didn't even work anymore for Novell when he joined the OOXML committee on behalf if the GNOME Foundation: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/07/10/28/175215/GNOME-Foundation-Helping-OOXML
IMHO this renewal is not so bad as when Microsoft fanboy Miguel De Icaza was still with Novell/SUSE. He was the one who pushed the interoperability deal so far to even recreate Silverlight as Moonlight and make it depend on a proprietary codec package from Microsoft. Moonlight in turn is based on Mono and I find the injection of Mono (into GNOME etc.) to be one of the biggest threats to FOSS.
Now that De Icaza and his team were fired, all that's left from the deal is that SLES is certified to run on Hyper-V and that 2 companies do not sue each other.
Mono is OTOH still a legal minefield. While some of Monos patents are royalty free, others are not -- especially considering how Oracle likes to sue anybody that uses anything that has at least a bit of resemblance to Java.
With De Icaza gone and now running his new company, at least there is no risk that he orders SUSE's GNOME team to inject Mono everywhere it does not belong.
No, it's not that the tracks are simply loud. They are loud within the format restrictions of a CD which are 16bit, 44.1kHz.
You simply can't record a Red Book-compliant audio CD that contains sound that's beyond that restrictions. So when you want to master an audio CD to be loud by default (instead of normal level and let the listener just turn up the volume), you have to make sacrifices to fit within the CD-DA constrains.
CDs are also lossy.
There is a reason why people download the last Metallica album as rip from Guitar Hero instead of buying the CD or downloading a CD rip: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regarding_production
I used copyright as an analogy. If you can't understand simple matters like analogies, just don't answer to my posts. Thanks.
I was making an analogy solely about the fact that the price of something does not necessarily relate to the amount of granted damages. And that analogy still stands.
Yep, that's just about exactly what they did. They aren't the first either. Kaffeine and GCJ and many others have done the same - but oracle only sued Google.
Only suing where the big bucks are isn't exactly news either.
this is complete FUD. no copyright infringement occurred, no code was copied. this is about patents. please learn about the difference.
I know the difference between copyrights and patents. What I wrote was an analogy and that analogy is still valid.
Disclaimer: I'm not taking sides here, just posting a general info.
If I release some software under GPL-- completely free (beer and speech) -- and someone takes that source code, strips all copyright info, and creates a closed source version of my software, I can receive financial damage compensation. It doesn't matter that my code is available free of charge.
Now SUSE took Novell's part in LibreOffice