(K)ubuntu is out pacing Windows so bad its only a matter of time before it overtakes Windows in all fronts.
to be fair, even Haiku is outpacing Windows' rate of improvements simply because Windows' is negative (both 2K -> XP and XP -> Vista are, in my opinion, downgrades not upgrades).
other than that, though, you're completely right, when I read these comments about how "Linux will never reach the masses as long as it can't run all Windows apps!", I'm reminded when people said "Firefox will never reach the masses as long as it doesn't render all web pages like IE!" before, well, it reached the masses. Linux's adoption perhaps hasn't exploded yet, but it certainly hasn't stalled either.
so, the Nikon D40 doesn't count because it's too "limited" but Photoshop Elements does? what's your definition of "limited functionality", exactly?
not to mention that having to pay around half of the price of a professional-level dSLR for a piece of software is still highly retarded in my not-at-all-humble opinion, but still, your argument took an "apples to oranges" comparison and turned it into an "apples to pink, flying elephants" one.
Not really. Photoshop lists for about $699 USD. A base DSLR is at least a hundred or two hundred more than that brand new
umm, no, there are cheaper cameras. Much cheaper and brand new, from very reputable stores.
That really depends on the photo work you're trying to do. Working with JPEGs? Aperture and Lightroom really aren't for you and you're better off with GIMP, Photoshop, or Elements. If you're working with RAW, then you want Aperture or Lightroom.
well, both LightZone and Raw Therapee support most of their functionality on JPEGs even though both are oriented towards RAW. and I'd put both programs as much superior tools for a photographer than TheGIMP, Photoshop, or ugghh, Elements. Plus, they run on Linux, unlike Aperture and LightRoom.
you could've replaced "Hitler" with "the US government during the recent decades" to avoid Godwin but still prove your point.
in fact, it's such a popular strategy it's a wonder anyone still falls for it, but I guess as they say, "there's a sucker born every minute", both in governments and in businesses.
or is associated with the person getting the $100,000/minute rate, and is paying with money from someone else (such as, say, the artist they claim to represent). Happens in governments, wouldn't surprise me to see it happening here, too.
Geeks will call a particle physicist an idiot if he can't find his way around his desktop.
no, geeks will call a particle physicist an idiot if he can't find his way around his desktop and he complains about how it's "completely unusable" instead of doing the sane thing, and asking someone who *does* know for advice or at the very least, Reading The Fine Manual.
and yes, I'm perfectly comfortable of expanding that to any other field, when I bought my digital camera I didn't just go with the "biggest and shiniest", I researched, made a list of the cameras within my budget that had the features I wanted, read reviews, compared them, and then bought it. And when my first results with it dissapointed me, I didn't go to the 'net and cry and moan about how "it's not easy to use!", I RTFM'd and searched for photography tutorials on the 'net, and guess what? I'm pretty damn happy with it now. As the particle physicist would probably be, once he learned his way around his desktop.
except that some "mainstream users" *are* using it. Wanna know why do they tolerate a crappy GUI on top of a system that feels just thrown together? because that's actually a very good description of 99% of desktops out there, most of them running that piece of GUI crap we lovingly call "Microsoft Windows". Believe it or not, not everybody uses "ooohhh, shiney!" Macs running only Apple(tm)-approved software, as popular as people like that may be here on Slashdot.
but feel free to continue getting modded up for requesting a "single body dictating what all parts of the OS should look like" on an OS that became popular precisely because of it's Freedom.
We live in different times and have a completely different culture, so to compare today's creative content to that of ancient Greece or Rome is misleading. Copyright law was created for a reason. Without it, we wouldn't have nearly the amount of creative works we have today, because those who created most of what we do have today would have taken 9-5 day jobs instead.
and many of them would've made their creative works after 5 then, and who knows, perhaps the difference in quantity (and quality?) of works from those who wouldn't create without a monetary incentive would be offset by the much lower barriers of entry to make works that build upon previous creations made by other people (the whole "standing on the shoulders of giants" stuff).
I'm not saying copyright is inherently bad for society, personally I support it (just not as strict as it is now), but a copyright-less society probably wouldn't be as bleak as you may think either.
in other words, yet another law looking to criminalize everyone to give the government and/or certain special businesses a "valid" reason to throw anyone whom they dislike in jail. Why am I not surprised? ohh yeah, since the DMCA came before, does the exact same thing, and even used the same method to do so.
well, 'sane defaults', 'only the choices that matter', and 'do one thing and do it well' are inside my personal definition of "a decent GUI", and KDE only has one if any, whereas both XFce and, lately, GNOME are pretty close to ideal on all three.
of course you're right that what's appropiate for me may not, and probably won't be for everyone else, but Linux is Free, let them install a different GUI such as GNUStep or IceWM rather than trying to please everyone with only a single DE.
I have no doubt I could have gotten my video issue worked out (this was in July). But after I did, what could I do with the computer? Type?
either that, edit some photos, create somemusic, even make a nicedrawing or perhaps write a book. The fact that the Linux and *BSD excel at IT and programming jobs doesn't mean that's all they're good for, as you'd know had you actually used them.
or you could just troll on Slashdot like you're doing right now, you can use Opera or Firefox perfecly fine for that under Linux, too.
Re:what about a Ulead Photo Express 3.0 rip-off?
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The GIMP UI Redesign
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· Score: 1
Photo Express is a simple image editing program, meant for simple and quick uses, not for advanced needs as TheGIMP and Photoshop are. Put it this way, Photo Express is to TheGIMP what GEdit is to gViM, they may do roughly the same thing, but the design goals are *very* different.
now, if Hell froze over, pigs started growing large wings and GEGL was finished and released, writing a Photo Express-like app would be pretty simple... fsck, I could probably do it in two or three days with Python =D but until then, I'm afraid that's one niche that isn't being filled by Free Software, though you could try Google Picasa if you want something similar that runs on Linux.
Re:Hey, some of us really like the old interface
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The GIMP UI Redesign
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· Score: 1
besides having people switch to, dunno, Paint Shop Pro or some of the other programs that *don't* have as sucky an interface as Photoshop's?
point is, Photoshop isn't the "only game in town", it's interface has many pitfalls, and cloning them will invariably alienate many current users while only attracting criticisms of the kind that OpenOffice.org gets ("OMG, the Page Break function isn't where I expected it to be! it's unusable!"). So yeah, there are many downsides to them doing it, which is why they've refused to do so for such a long time, and I think will continue to do so since TheGIMP developers are probably looking for stronger reasons than just "Photoshop does it" with this initiative.
Re:Simple suggestion: multiple skins
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The GIMP UI Redesign
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· Score: 2, Insightful
And Photoshop can handle video objects and 3D objects now. By the time GIMP catches up to Photoshop 5 (currently at Photoshop 3-4 level, but worse interface) Photoshop will be at version 13, and probably have a magical "do the work for me" button.
which is why it's a Good Thing(tm) that TheGIMP isn't a clone of Photoshop, and since they don't have any pressure to sell people expensive upgrades they're free to follow UNIX's "do one thing and one thing well" philosophy, which allows them to concentrate on making a good raster image editor while leaving the vector stuff to Inkscape and Xara, 3D objects to Blender, and video to who-the-fsck-knows. Which is how things ought to be done.
The market has spoken. Given that Linux and BSD do nearly everything that Windows does, and costs nothing, but haven't managed to displace it, then just clone the damn Windows UI. It's not a difficult concept.
The market has spoken. Given that Firefox and Opera do nearly everything that Internet Explorer does, and costs nothing, but haven't managed to displace it, then just clone the damn Explorer UI. It's not a difficult concept.
no, "cloning $PROPIETARY_PROGRAM_X's UI" isn't a difficult concept at all. It's just a very stupid and lazy one.
it's you mixing backups of your CDs, also Google and Yahoo's entire revenue since it's Fair Use who allows them to display excerpts from webpages on your searches, and probably thousands of other business models too. Once you start thinking about it, it's surprising to see the damage there'd be to the world's economy if you were required to negotiate with content owners for *everything*, no matter the amount or purpose, this study just quantified that to a nice little number for the RIAA and MPAA to digest.
and what if you choose to release your code under the BSD license and someone modifies/patches it and then releases it under a commercial, closed-source license? guess what NDA you will have to sign in order to even *see* those changes. Fact is, that's to be expected from BSD code, and if you wanted it to be any different, you shouldn't have used it in the first place.
Supply and demand does not change at all because of any version of GPL! This is patently false, the GPL makes sure anyone anywhere can take GPLed software and distribute it, therefore it does have a direct affect on supply.
only if you're artificially limiting the supply, the GPL merely allows your customers to remove said artificial limit, otherwise the supply has always been "damn near infinite".
Yea, as much as I'd love GIMP if it had the capabilities of Photoshop, it doesn't come close for pro photographers. Film Gimp, aka CinePaint is a lot better on that score, and I may try it out. But first I plan on trying out Inkscape. I hope it works, I don't want to layout $800 for PS CS3.
I'd recommend trying LightZone instead, it's a commercial app, specialized for photographers (much like Adobe's Lightroom), with a different workflow than Photoshop/TheGIMP but just as powerful and IMHO easier to use too. Inkscape is a vector drawing software, kinda like Adobe's Illustrator, and if you're interested in that area I'd also suggest checking out Xara Xtreme which is another, Free vector software for Linux and IMHO, even better than Inkscape.
funny that your second quote fits Stallman's phrase much better than yours, since software per se is just a tool, just like a phone, which without the ability to use it is completely useless.
in any case, I do think that GPL3 software is here to stay. Yeah, it's more restrictive than the GPL2, but not in ways that matter to most people, many others (myself included) actually *like* the extra restrictions, and I've seen the same argument made between BSD vs GPL for years, while I still haven't seen any mass migration towards FreeBSD, which is a pity since I do think it's a great OS, all license flamewars aside.
The fact that people are switching to OO.o because Office 2007 is too unusual for them is a strong indication that switching to Linux would have MASSIVE retraining costs.
except that servers aren't administered by secretaries, and I expect your average sysadmin to, well, have a clue about acting like one.
Does your or your spouse's sex matter in online discussions? no, not really. Does the reason why you try to hide it matter in online discussions? no, not really. Does the history behind your username matter in online discussions? no, not really. Does the OS+Browser combo you used to post that message matter in online discussions? no, not really.
But yet we ask, because we're curious. As the saying goes, "Curiosity is the mother of invention", so don't blame us, being geeks we're even more curious than your average guy on the street =D
and that's coming from a guy who refused to put buttons on the phone because they were "blemishes" on the design...
seriously, three different "Off" modes, two of which aren't really "Off" are a much bigger problem for intuitiveness and simplicity than f'in buttons, and it's hard to see why Apple didn't think of that before.
I too like MS Paint for simplicity, but I disagree that it is a "bit crap." How many programs for Windows have existed almost unchanged for as long as Windows has existed. The actual workings and features have changed slightly over the years, but the interface is basically the same, and anybody who can turn on the computer can use it. And that's from a Microsoft product! I would suggest that it may be one of the top ten most useful programs ever made, largely because of the simplicity of it.
All that applies just as well to Notepad. It can be used to write software, webpages, quick letters (just switch the default font to Times or Palatino and send it to the printer), and more, all in a very small, light, and WINE-compatible package =D definitely Microsoft's best piece of software, IMNSHO.
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to be fair, even Haiku is outpacing Windows' rate of improvements simply because Windows' is negative (both 2K -> XP and XP -> Vista are, in my opinion, downgrades not upgrades).
other than that, though, you're completely right, when I read these comments about how "Linux will never reach the masses as long as it can't run all Windows apps!", I'm reminded when people said "Firefox will never reach the masses as long as it doesn't render all web pages like IE!" before, well, it reached the masses. Linux's adoption perhaps hasn't exploded yet, but it certainly hasn't stalled either.
so, the Nikon D40 doesn't count because it's too "limited" but Photoshop Elements does? what's your definition of "limited functionality", exactly?
not to mention that having to pay around half of the price of a professional-level dSLR for a piece of software is still highly retarded in my not-at-all-humble opinion, but still, your argument took an "apples to oranges" comparison and turned it into an "apples to pink, flying elephants" one.
umm, no, there are cheaper cameras. Much cheaper and brand new, from very reputable stores.
That really depends on the photo work you're trying to do. Working with JPEGs? Aperture and Lightroom really aren't for you and you're better off with GIMP, Photoshop, or Elements. If you're working with RAW, then you want Aperture or Lightroom.well, both LightZone and Raw Therapee support most of their functionality on JPEGs even though both are oriented towards RAW. and I'd put both programs as much superior tools for a photographer than TheGIMP, Photoshop, or ugghh, Elements. Plus, they run on Linux, unlike Aperture and LightRoom.
not flaming(sic), just trolling.
you could've replaced "Hitler" with "the US government during the recent decades" to avoid Godwin but still prove your point.
in fact, it's such a popular strategy it's a wonder anyone still falls for it, but I guess as they say, "there's a sucker born every minute", both in governments and in businesses.
or is associated with the person getting the $100,000/minute rate, and is paying with money from someone else (such as, say, the artist they claim to represent). Happens in governments, wouldn't surprise me to see it happening here, too.
no, geeks will call a particle physicist an idiot if he can't find his way around his desktop and he complains about how it's "completely unusable" instead of doing the sane thing, and asking someone who *does* know for advice or at the very least, Reading The Fine Manual.
and yes, I'm perfectly comfortable of expanding that to any other field, when I bought my digital camera I didn't just go with the "biggest and shiniest", I researched, made a list of the cameras within my budget that had the features I wanted, read reviews, compared them, and then bought it. And when my first results with it dissapointed me, I didn't go to the 'net and cry and moan about how "it's not easy to use!", I RTFM'd and searched for photography tutorials on the 'net, and guess what? I'm pretty damn happy with it now. As the particle physicist would probably be, once he learned his way around his desktop.
except that some "mainstream users" *are* using it. Wanna know why do they tolerate a crappy GUI on top of a system that feels just thrown together? because that's actually a very good description of 99% of desktops out there, most of them running that piece of GUI crap we lovingly call "Microsoft Windows". Believe it or not, not everybody uses "ooohhh, shiney!" Macs running only Apple(tm)-approved software, as popular as people like that may be here on Slashdot.
but feel free to continue getting modded up for requesting a "single body dictating what all parts of the OS should look like" on an OS that became popular precisely because of it's Freedom.
and many of them would've made their creative works after 5 then, and who knows, perhaps the difference in quantity (and quality?) of works from those who wouldn't create without a monetary incentive would be offset by the much lower barriers of entry to make works that build upon previous creations made by other people (the whole "standing on the shoulders of giants" stuff).
I'm not saying copyright is inherently bad for society, personally I support it (just not as strict as it is now), but a copyright-less society probably wouldn't be as bleak as you may think either.
in other words, yet another law looking to criminalize everyone to give the government and/or certain special businesses a "valid" reason to throw anyone whom they dislike in jail. Why am I not surprised? ohh yeah, since the DMCA came before, does the exact same thing, and even used the same method to do so.
well, 'sane defaults', 'only the choices that matter', and 'do one thing and do it well' are inside my personal definition of "a decent GUI", and KDE only has one if any, whereas both XFce and, lately, GNOME are pretty close to ideal on all three.
of course you're right that what's appropiate for me may not, and probably won't be for everyone else, but Linux is Free, let them install a different GUI such as GNUStep or IceWM rather than trying to please everyone with only a single DE.
better yet, "Awesome Office for Linux" or "AOL" for short, that's a name sure to get many converts ;)
either that, edit some photos, create some music, even make a nice drawing or perhaps write a book. The fact that the Linux and *BSD excel at IT and programming jobs doesn't mean that's all they're good for, as you'd know had you actually used them.
or you could just troll on Slashdot like you're doing right now, you can use Opera or Firefox perfecly fine for that under Linux, too.
Photo Express is a simple image editing program, meant for simple and quick uses, not for advanced needs as TheGIMP and Photoshop are. Put it this way, Photo Express is to TheGIMP what GEdit is to gViM, they may do roughly the same thing, but the design goals are *very* different.
now, if Hell froze over, pigs started growing large wings and GEGL was finished and released, writing a Photo Express-like app would be pretty simple... fsck, I could probably do it in two or three days with Python =D but until then, I'm afraid that's one niche that isn't being filled by Free Software, though you could try Google Picasa if you want something similar that runs on Linux.
besides having people switch to, dunno, Paint Shop Pro or some of the other programs that *don't* have as sucky an interface as Photoshop's?
point is, Photoshop isn't the "only game in town", it's interface has many pitfalls, and cloning them will invariably alienate many current users while only attracting criticisms of the kind that OpenOffice.org gets ("OMG, the Page Break function isn't where I expected it to be! it's unusable!"). So yeah, there are many downsides to them doing it, which is why they've refused to do so for such a long time, and I think will continue to do so since TheGIMP developers are probably looking for stronger reasons than just "Photoshop does it" with this initiative.
which is why it's a Good Thing(tm) that TheGIMP isn't a clone of Photoshop, and since they don't have any pressure to sell people expensive upgrades they're free to follow UNIX's "do one thing and one thing well" philosophy, which allows them to concentrate on making a good raster image editor while leaving the vector stuff to Inkscape and Xara, 3D objects to Blender, and video to who-the-fsck-knows. Which is how things ought to be done.
The market has spoken. Given that Linux and BSD do nearly everything that Windows does, and costs nothing, but haven't managed to displace it, then just clone the damn Windows UI. It's not a difficult concept.
The market has spoken. Given that Firefox and Opera do nearly everything that Internet Explorer does, and costs nothing, but haven't managed to displace it, then just clone the damn Explorer UI. It's not a difficult concept.
no, "cloning $PROPIETARY_PROGRAM_X's UI" isn't a difficult concept at all. It's just a very stupid and lazy one.
it's you mixing backups of your CDs, also Google and Yahoo's entire revenue since it's Fair Use who allows them to display excerpts from webpages on your searches, and probably thousands of other business models too. Once you start thinking about it, it's surprising to see the damage there'd be to the world's economy if you were required to negotiate with content owners for *everything*, no matter the amount or purpose, this study just quantified that to a nice little number for the RIAA and MPAA to digest.
and what if you choose to release your code under the BSD license and someone modifies/patches it and then releases it under a commercial, closed-source license? guess what NDA you will have to sign in order to even *see* those changes. Fact is, that's to be expected from BSD code, and if you wanted it to be any different, you shouldn't have used it in the first place.
only if you're artificially limiting the supply, the GPL merely allows your customers to remove said artificial limit, otherwise the supply has always been "damn near infinite".
Yea, as much as I'd love GIMP if it had the capabilities of Photoshop, it doesn't come close for pro photographers. Film Gimp, aka CinePaint is a lot better on that score, and I may try it out. But first I plan on trying out Inkscape. I hope it works, I don't want to layout $800 for PS CS3.I'd recommend trying LightZone instead, it's a commercial app, specialized for photographers (much like Adobe's Lightroom), with a different workflow than Photoshop/TheGIMP but just as powerful and IMHO easier to use too. Inkscape is a vector drawing software, kinda like Adobe's Illustrator, and if you're interested in that area I'd also suggest checking out Xara Xtreme which is another, Free vector software for Linux and IMHO, even better than Inkscape.
funny that your second quote fits Stallman's phrase much better than yours, since software per se is just a tool, just like a phone, which without the ability to use it is completely useless.
in any case, I do think that GPL3 software is here to stay. Yeah, it's more restrictive than the GPL2, but not in ways that matter to most people, many others (myself included) actually *like* the extra restrictions, and I've seen the same argument made between BSD vs GPL for years, while I still haven't seen any mass migration towards FreeBSD, which is a pity since I do think it's a great OS, all license flamewars aside.
except that servers aren't administered by secretaries, and I expect your average sysadmin to, well, have a clue about acting like one.
so yeah, it's still apples to oranges here.
Does your or your spouse's sex matter in online discussions? no, not really. Does the reason why you try to hide it matter in online discussions? no, not really. Does the history behind your username matter in online discussions? no, not really. Does the OS+Browser combo you used to post that message matter in online discussions? no, not really.
But yet we ask, because we're curious. As the saying goes, "Curiosity is the mother of invention", so don't blame us, being geeks we're even more curious than your average guy on the street =D
and that's coming from a guy who refused to put buttons on the phone because they were "blemishes" on the design...
seriously, three different "Off" modes, two of which aren't really "Off" are a much bigger problem for intuitiveness and simplicity than f'in buttons, and it's hard to see why Apple didn't think of that before.
All that applies just as well to Notepad. It can be used to write software, webpages, quick letters (just switch the default font to Times or Palatino and send it to the printer), and more, all in a very small, light, and WINE-compatible package =D definitely Microsoft's best piece of software, IMNSHO.