i agree, but i think the bigger problem is office and its closed file formats.
kde (which i use*) is pretty close to windows in terms of layout and the way things work (task bar along the bottom of the screen, start/kde button at bottom left of taskbar, "close window" [X] at top right of windows etc.).
the real hurdle, i think, is that everybody in every business gets word docs and excel spreadsheets every day, which they need to be able to manipulate. in this regard, i'd say kde and gnome are closer to their goal than openoffice/staroffice & abiword et al are, and that's the larger issue vis-a-vis widespread adoption.
i could be wrong, though; my world is 98% server room and 2% desktop-user-land. but that's very much my impression.
--
*sometimes; other times i use blackbox, and most often it's no gui at all; depends on the purpose of the system.
my point: there are many kernels as well as many GUIs (remember, by post was inanswer specifivally to the guy who implied that all the free *nix GUIs are made only for linux).
your point (i'm paraphrasing; please correct me if i'm wrong): there are many *nix GUIs, none of which are accessible enough for the common user.
my conclusion: our points are not mutually exclusive; we're both right.
"If you look at the kernel, there is a great deal of uniformity between distributions basically because there is a single, widely accepted head-penguin who is doing an excellent job (Linus). I'm sure that there are very few people who would argue that it would be great if we had dozens of incompatible kern[e]ls. The desktop space however doesn't have a head-penguin and it really shows."
your point, while thought-provoking, proceeds from a false premise: that the various window managers and desktop environments are made only for linux. you imply that there's only one kernel, and many GUIs.
in fact, most of the free unix GUIs generally work in any of several base environments: linux, of course, but also free/open/netBSD, solaris, etc., each of which has a "head penguin" of its own.
with this in mind, it becomes apparent that the more accurate model is that of many kernels and many GUIs, a sort of "choose one from column A and one from column B" paradigm. the user gets to mix-and-match to suit his own tastes and needs, and that, to my mind, is REAL freedom.
"
Besides, this is marketing. It's not expected to be 100% true."
this is a huge problem with american corporate culture, and american culture in general: it's OK to be dishonest; it's OK to lie. it's expected. stop and think for a moment how twisted it is to expect to be lied to and to accept it; condone it, even. this is the same sort of mindset which allows for such evil as the "aggressive bookkeeping" of enron et al.
americans' acceptance of this sort of pragmatic, "anything's all right as long as you don't get caught" mentality is why america is more and more culturally and morally bankrupt every day, and losing its stature in world politics.
Too bad Red Hat will probably rip the guts out of it, if they even package it at all.
Bero is right. RH 8.0 sucks on the desktop (note: i've no problems with its runlevel 3 type stuff).
Please, please, please, Red Hat, just package the software, don't emasculate it, dumb it down, "Red Hat-ize" it; just package it, and let US make the choices.
I'll be keeping an eye on how things go with 8.1; until then, I'm sticking with 7.3. If this trend continues, it's goodbye Red Hat, for good.
Sadly, I seem to be in the minority. I REALLY don't see how anyone can like (or even use!) the thing though. 8-(
Nobody, not the maker, not the seller, not my neighbor's dog, can tell me what to do with it. It's MINE.
For example, if I buy a car, I'm free to paint it any color I like. If I buy a pair of sneakers, I can lace them any way I like - maybe I won't use any laces at all. If I buy a guitar, I can put in different pickups. It's MINE now.
Or, look at it this way: after you buy something, can you tell the seller what to do with the money you just gave them? Of course not; your rights to it end when it changes hands. It's THEIR money now. Well, in exactly the same way, Microsoft's right to an xbox end when I pay for it (not that I would EVER buy ANYTHING from Microsoft); it's MY xbox now. They can't tell me what I can or can't do with it, any more than I can tell them what to do with the money i gave them.
If the law says different, then the law is immoral.
i used to be a land surveyor. i met mr. bon jovi while doing some work near his (old) home (in rumson, nj); he was an arrogant jerk to me and my coworkers. typical rich guy "i'm-better-than-you-out-of-my-way-peon" attitude.
bruce springsteen (who also has a home in rumson), on the other hand, was a very nice guy when i did some work on his property.
i'm not a fan of either, musically, but mr. springsteen demonstrated that it is possible to be rich and famous without being an asshole. mr. bon jovi did not.
This is tangential to the story, but worth mentioning:
The original anonymous poster mentions CNN, ostensibly as an example of free western journalism; this is a dangerous premise. As a dual citizen of the USA and a Western European country, I have the opportunity to see things from both sides of the fence, as it were, and I'm here to tell you that most of the mainstream U.S. "news" channels, and particularly CNN, are regarded outside the USA as little more than the U.S.'s propaganda machine; at best a joke, and at worst a shameful abdication of journalistic integrity.
Here's just one example (there are dozens!): Some of the Slashdot audience may not be old enough to remember the role of the news in the Vietnam era: during that conflict, news channels carried real, uncensored battlefield footage, which was by its nature often graphic and gruesome. People in the USA were able to see what was going on and what it was like; dead people and napalm and all. Consequently, there arose a tremendous opposition to the war, with lots of protests and high-profile objectors; the U.S. government's involvement was highly criticized. These factors certainly influenced the course of the war itself and U.S. policy afterward.
But the government learned their lesson.
During recent U.S. conflicts such as the "Gulf War" and the action in Afghanistan, the American "news" has been subject to governmental "guidelines," which allows them to show the public only press briefings and select footage from missile-mounted cameras depicting "surgical strikes" which only kill bad guys, never women and children and civilians. No bodies, not even body counts. Why? The government knows it needs to control public opinion; if we don't know what's going on, we won't object - so the media are subjected to "guidelines" invoked in the name of national security.
Again: this is only one example; there are many others. The point is that accepting what you see and hear and read in the American mainstream news media at face value is dangerous, like burying your head in the sand. These days, they tell us only what they want us to hear.
thanks for taking the time to write your comment; it's well thought out and well written. it's heartening to know that there are clear minds and voices on "our side."
"Unbreakable" anything = marketing faux pas
on
'Unbreakable Linux'
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
calling anything "unbreakable" is just asking for trouble, and a Really Bad Idea. it's inevitable that some flaw, some exploit, will surface; and the makers, and by extension the linux & open source communities, will have egg on their (our) faces in the eyes of CTOs, bean-counters, and the general public. considering the high visibility of this project, i really hope that somebody thinks better of this before the foot goes into the mouth.
to the idiot who modded this "off topic:" this post is not off topic. it's a passage from the film "blade runner," and it deals specifically with the issue of the longevity of "created" humans. just because you didn't understand it doesn't mean it's off topic.
TYRELL: The facts of life. I'll be blunt. To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system, at least by men, makers or not, is fatal. A coding sequence can't be revised once it's established.
BATTY: Why?
TYRELL: Because by the second day of incubation any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies -- like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then the ship sinks.
BATTY: What about E.M.S. recombination?
TYRELL: We've already tried it -- ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent and a potent mutagen -- it created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.
BATTY: Then a repressor protein that blocks the operating cells.
TYRELL: Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries a mutation and you're got a virus again... but all this is academic -- you are made as well as we could make you.
Slashdot Mirror
i agree, but i think the bigger problem is office and its closed file formats.
kde (which i use*) is pretty close to windows in terms of layout and the way things work (task bar along the bottom of the screen, start/kde button at bottom left of taskbar, "close window" [X] at top right of windows etc.).
the real hurdle, i think, is that everybody in every business gets word docs and excel spreadsheets every day, which they need to be able to manipulate. in this regard, i'd say kde and gnome are closer to their goal than openoffice/staroffice & abiword et al are, and that's the larger issue vis-a-vis widespread adoption.
i could be wrong, though; my world is 98% server room and 2% desktop-user-land. but that's very much my impression.
--
*sometimes; other times i use blackbox, and most often it's no gui at all; depends on the purpose of the system.
dear goddess:
thanks for replying to my post.
here's my take:
my point: there are many kernels as well as many GUIs (remember, by post was inanswer specifivally to the guy who implied that all the free *nix GUIs are made only for linux).
your point (i'm paraphrasing; please correct me if i'm wrong): there are many *nix GUIs, none of which are accessible enough for the common user.
my conclusion: our points are not mutually exclusive; we're both right.
"If you look at the kernel, there is a great deal of uniformity between distributions basically because there is a single, widely accepted head-penguin who is doing an excellent job (Linus). I'm sure that there are very few people who would argue that it would be great if we had dozens of incompatible kern[e]ls. The desktop space however doesn't have a head-penguin and it really shows."
your point, while thought-provoking, proceeds from a false premise: that the various window managers and desktop environments are made only for linux. you imply that there's only one kernel, and many GUIs.
in fact, most of the free unix GUIs generally work in any of several base environments: linux, of course, but also free/open/netBSD, solaris, etc., each of which has a "head penguin" of its own.
with this in mind, it becomes apparent that the more accurate model is that of many kernels and many GUIs, a sort of "choose one from column A and one from column B" paradigm. the user gets to mix-and-match to suit his own tastes and needs, and that, to my mind, is REAL freedom.
Uhhh... what happened to security? "Trustworthy Computing?"
(sound of crickets chirping)
this is a huge problem with american corporate culture, and american culture in general: it's OK to be dishonest; it's OK to lie. it's expected. stop and think for a moment how twisted it is to expect to be lied to and to accept it; condone it, even. this is the same sort of mindset which allows for such evil as the "aggressive bookkeeping" of enron et al.
americans' acceptance of this sort of pragmatic, "anything's all right as long as you don't get caught" mentality is why america is more and more culturally and morally bankrupt every day, and losing its stature in world politics.
Too bad Red Hat will probably rip the guts out of it, if they even package it at all.
Bero is right. RH 8.0 sucks on the desktop (note: i've no problems with its runlevel 3 type stuff).
Please, please, please, Red Hat, just package the software, don't emasculate it, dumb it down, "Red Hat-ize" it; just package it, and let US make the choices.
I'll be keeping an eye on how things go with 8.1; until then, I'm sticking with 7.3. If this trend continues, it's goodbye Red Hat, for good.
Sadly, I seem to be in the minority. I REALLY don't see how anyone can like (or even use!) the thing though. 8-(
if I buy something, I own it.
Nobody, not the maker, not the seller, not my neighbor's dog, can tell me what to do with it. It's MINE.
For example, if I buy a car, I'm free to paint it any color I like. If I buy a pair of sneakers, I can lace them any way I like - maybe I won't use any laces at all. If I buy a guitar, I can put in different pickups. It's MINE now.
Or, look at it this way: after you buy something, can you tell the seller what to do with the money you just gave them? Of course not; your rights to it end when it changes hands. It's THEIR money now. Well, in exactly the same way, Microsoft's right to an xbox end when I pay for it (not that I would EVER buy ANYTHING from Microsoft); it's MY xbox now. They can't tell me what I can or can't do with it, any more than I can tell them what to do with the money i gave them.
If the law says different, then the law is immoral.
"From what I hear Jon Bon Jovi is a nice guy."
i used to be a land surveyor. i met mr. bon jovi while doing some work near his (old) home (in rumson, nj); he was an arrogant jerk to me and my coworkers. typical rich guy "i'm-better-than-you-out-of-my-way-peon" attitude.
bruce springsteen (who also has a home in rumson), on the other hand, was a very nice guy when i did some work on his property.
i'm not a fan of either, musically, but mr. springsteen demonstrated that it is possible to be rich and famous without being an asshole. mr. bon jovi did not.
"the Pentium 5"
does anyone else see the humor in this?
8-)
This is tangential to the story, but worth mentioning:
The original anonymous poster mentions CNN, ostensibly as an example of free western journalism; this is a dangerous premise. As a dual citizen of the USA and a Western European country, I have the opportunity to see things from both sides of the fence, as it were, and I'm here to tell you that most of the mainstream U.S. "news" channels, and particularly CNN, are regarded outside the USA as little more than the U.S.'s propaganda machine; at best a joke, and at worst a shameful abdication of journalistic integrity.
Here's just one example (there are dozens!): Some of the Slashdot audience may not be old enough to remember the role of the news in the Vietnam era: during that conflict, news channels carried real, uncensored battlefield footage, which was by its nature often graphic and gruesome. People in the USA were able to see what was going on and what it was like; dead people and napalm and all. Consequently, there arose a tremendous opposition to the war, with lots of protests and high-profile objectors; the U.S. government's involvement was highly criticized. These factors certainly influenced the course of the war itself and U.S. policy afterward.
But the government learned their lesson.
During recent U.S. conflicts such as the "Gulf War" and the action in Afghanistan, the American "news" has been subject to governmental "guidelines," which allows them to show the public only press briefings and select footage from missile-mounted cameras depicting "surgical strikes" which only kill bad guys, never women and children and civilians. No bodies, not even body counts. Why? The government knows it needs to control public opinion; if we don't know what's going on, we won't object - so the media are subjected to "guidelines" invoked in the name of national security.
Again: this is only one example; there are many others. The point is that accepting what you see and hear and read in the American mainstream news media at face value is dangerous, like burying your head in the sand. These days, they tell us only what they want us to hear.
"slashdot affect"
excellent! brilliant! thank you; you gave me a great laugh. 8-)
If time travel is ever invented, it already has been.
think about it.
thanks for taking the time to write your comment; it's well thought out and well written. it's heartening to know that there are clear minds and voices on "our side."
mod parent down; obvious troll
don't just make an assertion, back it up. unsupported claims are pointless.
you may have a point to make, but you didn't make it here; you didn't teach us anything.
well stated; glad to think that reason still exists somewhere. thanks for taking the time to write this.
"10Gb speeds should be enough for anybody..."
uuh, why does this sound familiar? seems to recall something about 640k... ;-)
...a cel phone jamming field.
calling anything "unbreakable" is just asking for trouble, and a Really Bad Idea. it's inevitable that some flaw, some exploit, will surface; and the makers, and by extension the linux & open source communities, will have egg on their (our) faces in the eyes of CTOs, bean-counters, and the general public. considering the high visibility of this project, i really hope that somebody thinks better of this before the foot goes into the mouth.
to the idiot who modded this "off topic:" this post is not off topic. it's a passage from the film "blade runner," and it deals specifically with the issue of the longevity of "created" humans. just because you didn't understand it doesn't mean it's off topic.
TYRELL: The facts of life. I'll be blunt. To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system, at least by men, makers or not, is fatal. A coding sequence can't be revised once it's established.
BATTY: Why?
TYRELL: Because by the second day of incubation any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies -- like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then the ship sinks.
BATTY: What about E.M.S. recombination?
TYRELL: We've already tried it -- ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent and a potent mutagen -- it created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.
BATTY: Then a repressor protein that blocks the operating cells.
TYRELL: Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries a mutation and you're got a virus again... but all this is academic -- you are made as well as we could make you.
BATTY: But not to last.
companies which irritate me with their advertising lose my business, and i have a long memory.
the story quotes an "aol techie" as saying:
"We get to bitch to Alan Cox about kernel problems now."
- but i thought mr. cox had relegated kernel maintenance to marcello tosatti?
Your lawyer is a fucking retard  (Score: -1, Redundant)
;-)