I don't want them using Linux. Actually, the best thing for Linux is to stay "fringe" or in the "power user" domain.
I disagree. Believe it or not, there are some (rather) intelligent people who can't (and don't necessarily need to) handle their computers well.
Would you want your favorite fiction writer's latest work destroyed by a bluescreen just before he could click on "save"? Probably not - so we should give them the option to have a very stable OS that suits all their needs, including usabiity for beginners.
With other words, Linux, runlevel 5, KDE and/or GNOME... They don't even need to know the root password so they can't mess the system, up beyond repair - with an additional "su to root, delete all dotfiles and copy the ones from/etc/skel back" script, they can even recover from damage they've done - all without the possibility to damage their system.
Because of its stability and security, Linux is IMO a perfect OS for beginners. Much better than "I-never-used-that-C:\WINDOWS-program-so-I'll-just -delete-it-and-keep-running-Word" OS 98.
There are a couple of reasons why this won't happen. Let's assume for a moment that Microsoft managed to assimilate Red Hat management (which won't happen, they're neither assholes nor idiots), and they'd decide any further Red Hat development would be closed-source where possible. What would happen?
A lot of customers would change distributions because they want to support open-source.
Because of (1), stock prices would drop, making shareholders more angry.
Many of the developers (myself included) would leave because they don't want to work against the community. It would be difficult to find new qualified developers who would work on proprietary crap.
Because of (3), the product would get worse, causing customers who don't care about the open-source idea to leave, consequence see (2).
Red Hat's reputation in the community would be ruined, we wouldn't get the same amount of help from the developers of various packages we're getting now, so the product would get worse.
Because of (5), customers who don't care about open-source would pick a different distribution, go to (2).
The former Red Hat developers would be hired by other distributors, making the other distributions better products.
Because of (7), customers would pick a different distribution, go to (2).
So, even if we didn't care (but we do), there would be no reason to go closed-source. Instead, it would mean the pretty much immediate destruction of the company trying to do it.
Microsoft accidentally revealed some details on their upcoming top-secret product, Microsoft Linux NT.
The partition types used by the Linux and Windows operating systems are incompatible
Microsoft has added a very valuable patch to the kernel - it has removed support for some inferior, obsolete and insecure technologies (msdos, umsdos, fat, vfat and ntfs filesystems) that have bloated the Linux kernel for quite a while. Thank you, Microsoft. It's about time someone dared to do this. Keep up the good work.
The Linux operating system is generally installed on partition type 83 (Linux native) or 82 (Linux swap)
Microsoft Linux NT introduces another innovative(TM) technology - the possibility to install the whole system on a swap partition. I've talked with some other Linux developers to see if there's a reason to do this. We came to the conclusion that they're doing this for FUD purposes ("Linux becomes unstable if you use it on machines with less than 64 GB RAM. It will start overwriting arbitrary data on your harddisk.").
"Superblock" in Linux terminology means that the Linux partition should be the active partition
Microsoft Linux NT uses a new filesystem that doesn't need superblocks. Since they removed support for fat and ntfs, they must have come up with something really new (cpmfs?) - however, apparently we can't boot from partitions in their new filesystem.
Insert either a bootable floppy disk or a bootable CD-ROM for the Linux operating system on your computer. [...] To remove LILO, type fdisk/mbr at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
Seems Microsoft ported Microsoft fdisk to Linux! I hope it's GPL... Where can I download it? And why would I want to? Microsoft keeps throwing up interesting questions...
Also, Linux recognizes more than 40 different partition types
"more than 40" is a neat way to put "about 100 last time I checked" - I wonder if they'll advertise Windows 2000 with "Windows 2000 recognizes more than 10 kB of RAM!"...
Not quite true. Where did you get that idea? Last Time I checked, Red Hat employed 37 Engineers to work on the OS, plus several others to work in support, system administration, training and consulting.
This won't happen. Many people at Red Hat (especially developers) hate Microsoft, and wouldn't work with them. If Microsoft managed to buy all Red Hat stock (which is purely theoretical, since only a small part of Red Hat was IPO'd) and take control of Red Hat, we'd see a number of (all?) developers leaving and founding their own company, building a new distribution based on the latest Red Hat Linux.
Java is not free. We can't even include it in the distribution because it may not be freely redistributed. Alternative implementations of Java 2 are more interesting unless sun decide to change their licenses.
Favoring anything else than KDE/Konqueror makes sense to Red Hat, since it is disadvantage of their main Linux competitors
Not quite. KDE is a viable desktop environment, and Red Hat can definitely use that. Just because other Linux distributors are using it doesn't mean it's a bad thing for Red Hat.
Also, Red Hat has no interest whatsoever in getting rid of other Linux distributors if they're playing by the rules - their contributions to the OS are as useful to us as our contributions are to them.
Part of the difference is that by including a well-working version of Mozilla, Red Hat in no way forces anyone to use Mozilla instead of, for example, Konqueror or Opera, the way Microsoft did. Just shipping Internet Explorer as an optional extra app with Windows 98 wouldn't have been that bad.
Subject says it all - at the same time, some Red Hat developers are working actively on KDE (including Konqueror). Working on Mozilla is no more anti-KDE than working on bash [==another way to do the same thing] is.
hire more developers, you aren't getting developers who are interested in solving the problems of your project
True in parts - however, let's not forget which developers Red Hat is hiring. You won't find any developer at Red Hat who hasn't been working on opensource projects privately before.
Real i18n support will be available in a while. Qt 2.0 already has it, and therefore we'll have it in KDE 2.0 (along with konqueror as a Netscape replacement), and it's currently being developed for gtk+ (and therefore gnome). It'll probably be a while until we get real i18n on the console though...
Good question... How about enforced source?;) Open source permits you to get the source for anything you want. The new, revolutionary enforced source license (FGPL) forces you to get the source, and allows you to use a product only if you pass its source on to at least 2 other people.
(Did anyone actually try turning something into a virus by the license??)
I've checked Corel Linux, and I must say I'm rather disappointed with it. Yes, it does have some nice new packages, but by not releasing the source before releasing their final version, they were hard on the border to GPL violations (talking primarily about their KDE modifications), and that's what makes them appear so different. If Red Hat hadn't released all its contributions to GNOME before releasing Red Hat Linux 6.0, it would have had pretty much the same showoff effect. Concerning Corel Linux itself, the installer is really nice for beginners, but lacks customization possibilities for more advanced users. A number of packages are relatively old compared to other distros (egcs 1.1.1, gnome-core 0.30,...,...), including some packages that have known security problems (proftpd 1.2.0pre1 as only ftpd, bind 8.1.2). Guess it's ok for a first try - but in the long run, they'll need to change quite a number of things if they want to compete with other distributors. I hope they don't make the mistake of making Corel Draw, Quattro Pro and Paradox available for their distribution only.
Re:If you want to try it yourself...
on
KDE 2.0 in Action
·
· Score: 1
It's back up, and now has updated (==1.80.19991118) packages for qt, kdesupport, kdelibs and kdebase. Other updates coming up soon.
KDE 2.0 hasn't depended on MICO for quite a while. Most CORBA stuff has been replaced with either DCOP (for IPC, much faster) or kanossa (embedding one application within another, again much faster). Right now, this is at the cost of some compatibility - but CorbaDCOP bridges are being worked on.
They aren't for everyone - I admit preferring just the console myself.;)
But let's not forget about newbies who are used to Windoze - it's much easier for them to switch over if there's a beginner-friendly desktop to start with.
And KDE has some nice features that are useful even for people who know their way around Linux already. Most things are faster to do from a shell - others are faster in a GUI...
For those who want to try it themselves rather than just looking at screenshots, I've put up RPMs of a recent snapshot on http://people.redhat.com/bero/experimen tal/. There will be a new snapshot today.
The packages install to/opt/kde2, so they won't overwrite a KDE 1.x installation.
They're made for Red Hat Linux 6.1, but should run without problems on similar distributions.
I guess I must have missed something then... Did I sleep for 100 years, or why didn't I see Microsoft making all their source available, or even permitting free (as in $0) downloads of their products...
Why would we want to destroy Cygnus? The way I see it, Red Hat and Cygnus are a great match - Red Hat builds the OS, Cygnus builds development tools and embedded systems. With both working together, it's far easier to coordinate, so both sides will profit.
If they had suddenly told the world that Linux was faster, they would have called themselves liars. They had to come to this result (which is the direct result of non-realistic test results, and probably giving Microsoft enough time for foul tricks (knowing about the test, they probably created a special service pack optimizing for this situation)). I'm quite sure a Red Hat 6.1 box with an updated kernel (2.3.28 is MUCH better with SMP and also has some very nice TCP/IP improvements over 2.2.x) would do quite a lot better. (Anyone still using 5.2 in real life, by the way?)
It definitely isn't. Last time I checked, it didn't even compile. Guess they stripped off a few things too much. For now, both ext3 and ReiserFS are better choices.
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I don't want them using Linux. Actually, the best thing for Linux is to stay "fringe" or in the "power user" domain.
/etc/skel back" script, they can even recover from damage they've done - all without the possibility to damage their system.
t -delete-it-and-keep-running-Word" OS 98.
I disagree. Believe it or not, there are some (rather) intelligent people who can't (and don't necessarily need to) handle their computers well.
Would you want your favorite fiction writer's latest work destroyed by a bluescreen just before he could click on "save"? Probably not - so we should give them the option to have a very stable OS that suits all their needs, including usabiity for beginners.
With other words, Linux, runlevel 5, KDE and/or GNOME...
They don't even need to know the root password so they can't mess the system, up beyond repair - with an additional "su to root, delete all dotfiles and copy the ones from
Because of its stability and security, Linux is IMO a perfect OS for beginners. Much better than "I-never-used-that-C:\WINDOWS-program-so-I'll-jus
Let's assume for a moment that Microsoft managed to assimilate Red Hat management (which won't happen, they're neither assholes nor idiots), and they'd decide any further Red Hat development would be closed-source where possible.
What would happen?
So, even if we didn't care (but we do), there would be no reason to go closed-source. Instead, it would mean the pretty much immediate destruction of the company trying to do it.
Microsoft accidentally revealed some details on their upcoming top-secret product, Microsoft Linux NT.
/mbr at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
The partition types used by the Linux and Windows operating systems are incompatible
Microsoft has added a very valuable patch to the kernel - it has removed support for some inferior, obsolete and insecure technologies (msdos, umsdos, fat, vfat and ntfs filesystems) that have bloated the Linux kernel for quite a while.
Thank you, Microsoft. It's about time someone dared to do this. Keep up the good work.
The Linux operating system is generally installed on partition type 83 (Linux native) or 82 (Linux swap)
Microsoft Linux NT introduces another innovative(TM) technology - the possibility to install the whole system on a swap partition. I've talked with some other Linux developers to see if there's a reason to do this. We came to the conclusion that they're doing this for FUD purposes ("Linux becomes unstable if you use it on machines with less than 64 GB RAM. It will start overwriting arbitrary data on your harddisk.").
"Superblock" in Linux terminology means that the Linux partition should be the active partition
Microsoft Linux NT uses a new filesystem that doesn't need superblocks. Since they removed support for fat and ntfs, they must have come up with something really new (cpmfs?) - however, apparently we can't boot from partitions in their new filesystem.
Insert either a bootable floppy disk or a bootable CD-ROM for the Linux operating system on your computer. [...] To remove LILO, type fdisk
Seems Microsoft ported Microsoft fdisk to Linux! I hope it's GPL... Where can I download it? And why would I want to? Microsoft keeps throwing up interesting questions...
Also, Linux recognizes more than 40 different partition types
"more than 40" is a neat way to put "about 100 last time I checked" - I wonder if they'll advertise Windows 2000 with "Windows 2000 recognizes more than 10 kB of RAM!"...
Red Hat still employs only 7 engineers
Not quite true. Where did you get that idea?
Last Time I checked, Red Hat employed 37 Engineers to work on the OS, plus several others to work in support, system administration, training and consulting.
This won't happen.
Many people at Red Hat (especially developers) hate Microsoft, and wouldn't work with them.
If Microsoft managed to buy all Red Hat stock (which is purely theoretical, since only a small part of Red Hat was IPO'd) and take control of Red Hat, we'd see a number of (all?) developers leaving and founding their own company, building a new distribution based on the latest Red Hat Linux.
Java is not free. We can't even include it in the distribution because it may not be freely redistributed.
Alternative implementations of Java 2 are more interesting unless sun decide to change their licenses.
Favoring anything else than KDE/Konqueror makes sense to Red Hat, since it is disadvantage of their main Linux competitors
Not quite. KDE is a viable desktop environment, and Red Hat can definitely use that. Just because other Linux distributors are using it doesn't mean it's a bad thing for Red Hat.
Also, Red Hat has no interest whatsoever in getting rid of other Linux distributors if they're playing by the rules - their contributions to the OS are as useful to us as our contributions are to them.
Part of the difference is that by including a well-working version of Mozilla, Red Hat in no way forces anyone to use Mozilla instead of, for example, Konqueror or Opera, the way Microsoft did.
Just shipping Internet Explorer as an optional extra app with Windows 98 wouldn't have been that bad.
Subject says it all - at the same time, some Red Hat developers are working actively on KDE (including Konqueror).
Working on Mozilla is no more anti-KDE than working on bash [==another way to do the same thing] is.
hire more developers, you aren't getting developers who are interested in solving the problems of your project
True in parts - however, let's not forget which developers Red Hat is hiring.
You won't find any developer at Red Hat who hasn't been working on opensource projects privately before.
Actually Red Hat is already sponsoring both KDE and GNOME.
Real i18n support will be available in a while.
Qt 2.0 already has it, and therefore we'll have
it in KDE 2.0 (along with konqueror as a Netscape replacement), and it's currently being developed for gtk+ (and therefore gnome).
It'll probably be a while until we get real i18n on the console though...
where could you go after open source?
;)
Good question... How about enforced source?
Open source permits you to get the source for anything you want. The new, revolutionary enforced source license (FGPL) forces you to get the source, and allows you to use a product only if you pass its source on to at least 2 other people.
(Did anyone actually try turning something into a virus by the license??)
I've checked Corel Linux, and I must say I'm rather disappointed with it. ..., ...), including some packages that have known security problems (proftpd 1.2.0pre1 as only ftpd, bind 8.1.2).
Yes, it does have some nice new packages, but by not releasing the source before releasing their final version, they were hard on the border to GPL violations (talking primarily about their KDE modifications), and that's what makes them appear so different. If Red Hat hadn't released all its contributions to GNOME before releasing Red Hat Linux 6.0, it would have had pretty much the same showoff effect.
Concerning Corel Linux itself, the installer is really nice for beginners, but lacks customization possibilities for more advanced users.
A number of packages are relatively old compared to other distros (egcs 1.1.1, gnome-core 0.30,
Guess it's ok for a first try - but in the long run, they'll need to change quite a number of things if they want to compete with other distributors.
I hope they don't make the mistake of making Corel Draw, Quattro Pro and Paradox available for their distribution only.
It's back up, and now has updated (==1.80.19991118) packages for
qt, kdesupport, kdelibs and kdebase. Other updates coming up soon.
KDE 2.0 hasn't depended on MICO for quite a while.
Most CORBA stuff has been replaced with either DCOP (for IPC, much faster) or kanossa (embedding one application within another, again much faster).
Right now, this is at the cost of some compatibility - but CorbaDCOP bridges are being worked on.
Why would I want a Windows-clone (KDE or Gnome)?
;)
They aren't for everyone - I admit preferring just the console myself.
But let's not forget about newbies who are used to Windoze - it's much easier for them to switch over if there's a beginner-friendly desktop to start with.
And KDE has some nice features that are useful even for people who know their way around Linux already. Most things are faster to do from a shell - others are faster in a GUI...
For those who want to try it themselves rather than just looking at screenshots, I've put up RPMs of a recent snapshot on http://people.redhat.com/bero/experimen tal/.
/opt/kde2, so they won't overwrite a KDE 1.x installation.
There will be a new snapshot today.
The packages install to
They're made for Red Hat Linux 6.1, but should run without problems on similar distributions.
France can't export cryptographic packages either.
Red Hat and Mandrake are taking the same way in this (check ftp.{redhat|mandrakesoft}.de)
Also, let's be sure to mention it's not because of the merger, but because of workload.
Bob is not leaving Red Hat or anything.
I guess I must have missed something then...
Did I sleep for 100 years, or why didn't I see Microsoft making all their source available, or even permitting free (as in $0) downloads of their products...
RedHat == Microsoft won't happen.
Let's put it this way:
if test x$RedHat == x$Microsoft; then
mv RedHat/developers NewCompany
mv RedHat/consultants NewCompany
rm -rf RedHat
fi
Why would we want to destroy Cygnus?
The way I see it, Red Hat and Cygnus are a great match - Red Hat builds the OS, Cygnus builds development tools and embedded systems.
With both working together, it's far easier to coordinate, so both sides will profit.
If they had suddenly told the world that Linux was faster, they would have called themselves liars. They had to come to this result (which is the direct result of non-realistic test results, and probably giving Microsoft enough time for foul tricks (knowing about the test, they probably created a special service pack optimizing for this situation)).
I'm quite sure a Red Hat 6.1 box with an updated kernel (2.3.28 is MUCH better with SMP and also has some very nice TCP/IP improvements over 2.2.x) would do quite a lot better. (Anyone still using 5.2 in real life, by the way?)
It definitely isn't. Last time I checked, it didn't even compile.
Guess they stripped off a few things too much.
For now, both ext3 and ReiserFS are better choices.