Admitted, we don't have anything like MSDN yet - but that's changing... Stuff like developer.kde.org/ and developer.redhat.com isn't quite what it's supposed to be yet, but it's definitely getting there.
As for IDEs, maybe the proprietary ones suck - but did you check out KDevelop lately? While I personally still prefer the vi/make combination over any IDE, it should be easy enough for anyone to get started.
I, too, would prefer native applications over emulated ones - but emulated ones are definitely better than nothing. Wine (the emulator) is definitely a good thing - at this time, a lot of stuff is still written for Windows only, and it's good to have some way to use them without having to rewrite them (phone directories, anyone?). Winelib gives programmers the possibility to move their existing code to real OSes quickly without having to learn a new API RIGHT AWAY, and something like [Windoze calls for interface] + [Unix specific parts for extra features and/or better integration] is definitely better than an emulated application...
So Red Hat is Microsoft? Great. Please tell me the URL where I can download Microsoft source code, or their binaries for free (I'd actually download the source to have a good laugh...)
Now that would be a nice try...:> If Microsoft sues over patent infringement on a site allowing to replace all installed windows components with free counterparts, they'll admit that the transition to Linux or *BSD constitutes an upgrade.:)
Linux still has had it first, their patent is a close match to tools like up2date (Red Hat) or MandrakeUpdate (Mandrake). They're not the same though (AFAIK neither of them uses "registry keys" [or did they change the labels of db database keys recently;) ] or "dates" [we rely on version numbers only], and the linux tools are older than Microsoft's.
Another thing matching their description closely is the good old CVS, which predates their patent by at least a couple of years.
The whole point of open source is that others (including so-called competition) may re-use your inventions.
The only acceptable use of a patent is registering it just to make sure nobody else registers and abuses it, but that's what prior art is there for, so why waste money on patent offices?
SimMurder - kill someone for no particular reason just to see if you're intelligent enough to escape the cops. A must have - and great to gain practice before doing it in reality!
SimMicrosoft - play Bill and all. Create products that suck and crush all the better competition by stealing their products, making them worse, and marketing it as innovation, expand your monopolies to other sectors by illegal means until you own the world!
For spinoffs, how about some of these:
RealityTV: The Game - film people dying instead of coming to their assistance! Block off ambulances to get more scenes of people suffering, and thereby higher ratings!
Oh, and, of course, there's always SimToilet, including a stench synthesizer card for your computer.
Definitely looks interesting (to stay at least marginally on-topic, it definitely looks better than the system Motif uses;) ) - but it relies on templates heavily, and templates aren't supported well by many compilers (including the g++ versions that were current when Qt introduced its signal/slot system).
You get an (arguably, but I'd agree) better API and maybe a better speed at the cost of portability, so both sides have a reason behind what they're doing.
If/When compilers get more standards-compliant, Qt will probably start using something similar (remember they dropped Qt DnD in favor of XDnD already?)
I agree with the basics of this, but we'd soon end up with a kernel that doesn't display any useful information...
Ok, booting the kernel... Linux 3.0.0 Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Kernel development sponsored by Red Hat Kernel development sponsored by MandrakeSoft Kernel development sponsored by VA Linux Systems Kernel development sponsored by Linuxcare Kernel development sponsored by SuSE Kernel development sponsored by Caldera Kernel patches contributed by Debian Individual contributors: Alan Cox [add 1000 more lines] Bringing up network Module 3c509.o loaded. Parts developed by Donald Becker. Parts developed by Alan Cox This kernel module contains code from Red Hat. This kernel module contains code from SuSE. Trivial typo corrected by Bero [Add 1000 more lines]
Everything can be taken too far... Yes, everyone should get credited - but at bootup? Not that sure...
OpenSource apps aren't really big in this domain [end user apps] (yet)
Right, but we're definitely getting there. Take a look at things like KOffice, AbiWord or the project the initial article was condemning, Mozilla. All of them are already usable, and will definitely be great products with some more time.
Check the layout managers in Qt 2.* - they do just what you're talking about. Yes, you can write Qt and Gtk programs that have real problems with resizing (if you don't use Q*Layout) - but you don't need to.
the only reason you don't see [Lesstif] more is because RH don't like LessTif since it pretty much killed one of their early profit-making schemes, which was selling a commercial Linux Motif implementation
Please don't make such claims without verifying them. What you're saying is not quite true. We are actually shipping Lesstif in the Red Hat Linux Powertools (which is included in the Deluxe and Professional versions of Red Hat Linux and can be downloaded from your favorite mirror of redhat.com).
We aren't putting it on the main CD simply because there are not many applications that use it anymore (name 3 interesting open-source projects using Motif/LessTif for anything), and because there are (almost?) no reasons to start a new project that makes use of it when toolkits like Qt and Gtk+ are available. Another big problem with Lesstif is the closed nature of Motif - despite the fact that the LessTif developers are obviously good people, they have to stick with the outdated Motif stuff and can't change stuff where it makes sense, the way Qt and Gtk people can. Lesstif is one of the many packages we'd probably include if we had infinite space on the CDs - but given the fact that CDs don't come with infinite space, we have to limit the choice of packages to those that make most sense to us.
We don't dislike Lesstif - if it had been started or anywhere usable a couple of years ago, Red Hat would never have shipped a commercial Motif version. Open source tools are ALWAYS preferable over non-free ones.
I also hate the Qt signal/slot kludge
Why, and how do you think it should be implemented?
Still the same - it displays a black page. The biggest problem is your reliance on the LAYER tags, which is not part of the official HTML 4.0 Transitional standard.
It's not quite true - konqueror is really quite usable by now. KOffice could do a lot of interesting things when the first screenshots were put up - it just turned out the technology used was not reliable, so it was rewritten.
Also, this type of "marketing" (I wouldn't call it that) is, to an extent, required - we need users because in opensourceland, users == developers, and you can't get something like KOffice with only one person.
(By the way, I think it's odd you'd mention XFree86 as someone who doesn't do it - did you forget all the time before 4.0 ("we'll have 3D support then",...), and do you call 4.0 stable?)
the fundamental rule of KDE (and Gnome) development is "We hate Microsoft, but we copy their every move anyway."
Not quite. I can't speak for all of us, but my version of that rule (and I have the impression that most other KDE/Gnome developers share it) is more like
"Microsoft is bad, but that doesn't mean everything they do is bad".
If Microsoft comes up with something good (which has, by the way, almost never been the case - virtually all of the good stuff they have has been copied from someone else), the fact that Microsoft has it is not a reason not to re-implement it.
Having the option to make the UI look a lot like theirs is also a good thing because most future Linux/*BSD/... users are Windows users right now, and they don't want to relearn everything.
For those of us who don't like this UI look, it can easily be switched to something nicer. Both KDE and Gnome are reasonably configurable about looks by now.
I'm not a lawyer, but if I understand the conclusions of law correctly, it's not really the same, though somewhat similar. The difference is that, in the Microsoft case, they were putting in a browser to expand an almost-monopoly in OSes to an almost-monopoly in browsers. The difference is mostly that
KDE is not a monopoly or anywhere near
Konqueror is not introducing any proprietary non-standard HTML extensions that could lead to websites that can be viewed only in konqueror
You can still use KDE applications if you don't install konqueror (you can't run Windows applications without installing Explorer, unless you count wine and the likes)
SSL support is there (if you have installed OpenSSL when compiling Konqueror). XHTML (I presume this is what you mean with XML?) is not yet fully supported, but most pages written in XHTML display well in Konqueror (to a renderer, there's not much of a difference between HTML 4.0 and XHTML 1.0).
Konqueror actually supports encryption already, if OpenSSL is installed. The export restrictions are no longer there, the RSA patent will expire soon (and has never been valid outside of the US), and since Konqueror doesn't use RSA directly (that's OpenSSL's part), it's not a problem. As for the component architecture, KDE is using a shared library approach (the embedded widgets are actually in the same process), which is functionally similar to what bonobo does, but very different technically. Both approaches have their good and bad sides - bonobo is more general, the KDE approach is more lightweight (and therefore faster) and probably more stable.
Konqueror has not been released - konqueror.org has been. Besides, you can run it from any desktop environment you want - as long as you have the KDE libraries installed, you don't need to be running KDE's window mangager or any other KDE tools to use Konqueror.
Slashdot Mirror
Additionally - try to compete with them...
There's currently a (first?) attempt at making
an entirely GPLed movie at
http://www.freefilm.cx/.
Admitted, we don't have anything like MSDN yet - but that's changing... Stuff like developer.kde.org/ and developer.redhat.com isn't quite what it's supposed to be yet, but it's definitely getting there.
As for IDEs, maybe the proprietary ones suck - but did you check out KDevelop lately? While I personally still prefer the vi/make combination over any IDE, it should be easy enough for anyone to get started.
I, too, would prefer native applications over emulated ones - but emulated ones are definitely better than nothing.
Wine (the emulator) is definitely a good thing - at this time, a lot of stuff is still written for Windows only, and it's good to have some way to use them without having to rewrite them (phone directories, anyone?).
Winelib gives programmers the possibility to move their existing code to real OSes quickly without having to learn a new API RIGHT AWAY, and something like
[Windoze calls for interface] + [Unix specific parts for extra features and/or better integration]
is definitely better than an emulated application...
So Red Hat is Microsoft? Great. Please tell me the URL where I can download Microsoft source code, or their binaries for free (I'd actually download the source to have a good laugh...)
Now that would be a nice try... :> :)
If Microsoft sues over patent infringement on a site allowing to replace all installed windows components with free counterparts, they'll admit that the transition to Linux or *BSD constitutes an upgrade.
Linux still has had it first, their patent is a close match to tools like up2date (Red Hat) or MandrakeUpdate (Mandrake). ;) ] or "dates" [we rely on version numbers only], and the linux tools are older than Microsoft's.
They're not the same though (AFAIK neither of them uses "registry keys" [or did they change the labels of db database keys recently
Another thing matching their description closely is the good old CVS, which predates their patent by at least a couple of years.
In 2 words: patents suck.
The whole point of open source is that others (including so-called competition) may re-use your inventions.
The only acceptable use of a patent is registering it just to make sure nobody else registers and abuses it, but that's what prior art is there for, so why waste money on patent offices?
Hm, now that I got a love letter from my boss, can I sue him for sexual harrassment and make big cash? ;)
[Disclaimer: I didn't actually. Being at a Unix-only place definitely has good sides.]
Nice list of games - but they've forgotten some of the more interesting ones:
...
A really new concept would be
SimSim - the ultimate simulator simulator! Simulate simulated worlds, simulated flight simulations,
As for politically (in)correct ones, how about
SimMurder - kill someone for no particular reason just to see if you're intelligent enough to escape the cops. A must have - and great to gain practice before doing it in reality!
SimMicrosoft - play Bill and all. Create products that suck and crush all the better competition by stealing their products, making them worse, and marketing it as innovation, expand your monopolies to other sectors by illegal means until you own the world!
For spinoffs, how about some of these:
RealityTV: The Game - film people dying instead of coming to their assistance! Block off ambulances to get more scenes of people suffering, and thereby higher ratings!
Oh, and, of course, there's always SimToilet, including a stench synthesizer card for your computer.
Definitely looks interesting (to stay at least marginally on-topic, it definitely looks better than the system Motif uses ;) ) - but it relies on templates heavily, and templates aren't supported well by many compilers (including the g++ versions that were current when Qt introduced its signal/slot system).
You get an (arguably, but I'd agree) better API and maybe a better speed at the cost of portability, so both sides have a reason behind what they're doing.
If/When compilers get more standards-compliant, Qt will probably start using something similar (remember they dropped Qt DnD in favor of XDnD already?)
I agree with the basics of this, but we'd soon end up with a kernel that doesn't display any useful information...
Ok, booting the kernel...
Linux 3.0.0
Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Kernel development sponsored by Red Hat
Kernel development sponsored by MandrakeSoft
Kernel development sponsored by VA Linux Systems
Kernel development sponsored by Linuxcare
Kernel development sponsored by SuSE
Kernel development sponsored by Caldera
Kernel patches contributed by Debian
Individual contributors:
Alan Cox
[add 1000 more lines]
Bringing up network
Module 3c509.o loaded.
Parts developed by Donald Becker.
Parts developed by Alan Cox
This kernel module contains code from Red Hat.
This kernel module contains code from SuSE.
Trivial typo corrected by Bero
[Add 1000 more lines]
Everything can be taken too far...
Yes, everyone should get credited - but at bootup? Not that sure...
OpenSource apps aren't really big in this domain [end user apps] (yet)
Right, but we're definitely getting there.
Take a look at things like KOffice, AbiWord or the project the initial article was condemning, Mozilla.
All of them are already usable, and will definitely be great products with some more time.
Officially: Neither - I speak just for myself.
Inofficially: I hear what everyone is saying, so I can say that this is true for both the developers and Red Hat in general.
Check the layout managers in Qt 2.* - they do just what you're talking about.
Yes, you can write Qt and Gtk programs that have real problems with resizing (if you don't use Q*Layout) - but you don't need to.
the only reason you don't see [Lesstif] more is because RH don't like LessTif since it pretty much killed one of their early profit-making schemes, which was selling a commercial Linux Motif implementation
Please don't make such claims without verifying them. What you're saying is not quite true.
We are actually shipping Lesstif in the Red Hat Linux Powertools (which is included in the Deluxe and Professional versions of Red Hat Linux and can be downloaded from your favorite mirror of redhat.com).
We aren't putting it on the main CD simply because there are not many applications that use it anymore (name 3 interesting open-source projects using Motif/LessTif for anything), and because there are (almost?) no reasons to start a new project that makes use of it when toolkits like Qt and Gtk+ are available. Another big problem with Lesstif is the closed nature of Motif - despite the fact that the LessTif developers are obviously good people, they have to stick with the outdated Motif stuff and can't change stuff where it makes sense, the way Qt and Gtk people can. Lesstif is one of the many packages we'd probably include if we had infinite space on the CDs - but given the fact that CDs don't come with infinite space, we have to limit the choice of packages to those that make most sense to us.
We don't dislike Lesstif - if it had been started or anywhere usable a couple of years ago, Red Hat would never have shipped a commercial Motif version. Open source tools are ALWAYS preferable over non-free ones.
I also hate the Qt signal/slot kludge
Why, and how do you think it should be implemented?
Still the same - it displays a black page.
The biggest problem is your reliance on the LAYER tags, which is not part of the official HTML 4.0 Transitional standard.
ftp.kde.org works for me...
If you still can't get there, you might want to try
http://people.redhat.com/bero/experimen tal/
or
http://www.nebsllc.com/kde/ftpkde2/curr ent/
for current KDE snapshots.
Just tried them both in today's CVS snapshot - it can deal with dynamicdrive.com perfectly,
netmeister.org doesn't work (black page), but a quick check at validator. w3.org shows why...
Please try making the pages more standards-compliant.
It's not quite true - konqueror is really quite usable by now.
...), and do you call 4.0 stable?)
KOffice could do a lot of interesting things when the first screenshots were put up - it just turned out the technology used was not reliable, so it was rewritten.
Also, this type of "marketing" (I wouldn't call it that) is, to an extent, required - we need users because in opensourceland, users == developers, and you can't get something like KOffice with only one person.
(By the way, I think it's odd you'd mention XFree86 as someone who doesn't do it - did you forget all the time before 4.0 ("we'll have 3D support then",
the fundamental rule of KDE (and Gnome) development is "We hate Microsoft, but we copy their every move anyway."
Not quite.
I can't speak for all of us, but my version of that rule (and I have the impression that most other KDE/Gnome developers share it) is more like
"Microsoft is bad, but that doesn't mean everything they do is bad".
If Microsoft comes up with something good (which has, by the way, almost never been the case - virtually all of the good stuff they have has been copied from someone else), the fact that Microsoft has it is not a reason not to re-implement it.
Having the option to make the UI look a lot like theirs is also a good thing because most future Linux/*BSD/... users are Windows users right now, and they don't want to relearn everything.
For those of us who don't like this UI look, it can easily be switched to something nicer.
Both KDE and Gnome are reasonably configurable about looks by now.
it's not really the same, though somewhat similar.
The difference is that, in the Microsoft case, they were putting in a browser to expand an almost-monopoly in OSes to an almost-monopoly in browsers.
The difference is mostly that
SSL support is there (if you have installed OpenSSL when compiling Konqueror).
XHTML (I presume this is what you mean with XML?) is not yet fully supported, but most pages written in XHTML display well in Konqueror (to a renderer, there's not much of a difference between HTML 4.0 and XHTML 1.0).
how much of it is working so I can download it now and use it instead of netscape?
Almost all of the functionality is there right now, it just needs to be fixed up.
You can get a current copy out of the KDE CVS tree, or get an RPM at
http://people.redhat.com/bero/experimen tal/.
Konqueror is part of the kdebase package. It needs kdesupport and kdelibs to run.
Konqueror actually supports encryption already, if OpenSSL is installed.
The export restrictions are no longer there, the RSA patent will expire soon (and has never been valid outside of the US), and since Konqueror doesn't use RSA directly (that's OpenSSL's part), it's not a problem.
As for the component architecture, KDE is using a shared library approach (the embedded widgets are actually in the same process), which is functionally similar to what bonobo does, but very different technically.
Both approaches have their good and bad sides - bonobo is more general, the KDE approach is more lightweight (and therefore faster) and probably more stable.
Konqueror has not been released - konqueror.org has been.
Besides, you can run it from any desktop environment you want - as long as you have the KDE libraries installed, you don't need to be running KDE's window mangager or any other KDE tools to use Konqueror.
RPMs of a recent CVS snapshot for Red Hat Linux can be found at
http://people.redhat.com/bero/experimen tal/. Konqueror is part of the kdebase package.