I was at a local LUG meeting today and was very distressed that the above view should be expressed, and forcefully. I found it distressing because that is quite some allegation - that we and Mate users and Cinnamon users etc., (all splinter groups) are actually damaging Linux, doing it harm.
The fact that we are free to digress and disagree is why I like open source so much. Take away that freedom and we might as well all use Windows. It seemed to me a quite extraordinary allegation. And as I say, I found it personally upsetting.
Since Linux without its freedom would not be Linux, nothing would seem to me more terminally harmful to Linux than to destroy that freedom.
I am a congenital maverick. I claim the right to remain a maverick and to swim against the tide as much as I like!
Lisi
In my opinion, the tablet-oriented direction that GUIs have gone to is what is messing up things. I don't see the reason for change just for changes sake. They're free to do so, go for it, but to then assert that anyone that doesn't jump on their fad-wagon is holding things back, is just silly.
A friend of mine was afraid to upgrade from Gnome 2 on Ubuntu 10.04, because of Unity. She did not like Xfce, because it wasn't quite a complete desktop experience. I showed her MATE, and got her upgraded to 12.04, she couldn't be happier, because it is just like what she was using. I haven't used Windows 8, but if it alters the traditional desktop too much, I could definitely see more users hoping for an alternative, so they could use their computer like they used to do.. so maybe going to OS X or to a Linux distribution with a traditional desktop. I had the same experience when KDE 3.5 was taken away in favor of KDE 4. I love having a ton of configuration options, but if there were no Trinity, I'd probably be running MATE too.
So, to me, projects like Trinity and MATE are what are keeping end-user Linux alive. They are both mature desktops that people have gotten used to. I am really glad they exist! And I hope neither changes much, except to support running programs written for other environments and to support new technologies as they come along (like bluetooth). Why fix what isn't broken?
Jeff
On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 2:58 PM, Lisi lisi.reisz@gmail.com wrote:
I was at a local LUG meeting today and was very distressed that the above view should be expressed, and forcefully. I found it distressing because that is quite some allegation - that we and Mate users and Cinnamon users etc., (all splinter groups) are actually damaging Linux, doing it harm.
The fact that we are free to digress and disagree is why I like open source so much. Take away that freedom and we might as well all use Windows. It seemed to me a quite extraordinary allegation. And as I say, I found it personally upsetting.
Since Linux without its freedom would not be Linux, nothing would seem to me more terminally harmful to Linux than to destroy that freedom.
I am a congenital maverick. I claim the right to remain a maverick and to swim against the tide as much as I like!
Lisi
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On 07/22/2012 09:58 AM, Lisi wrote:
I was at a local LUG meeting today and was very distressed that the above view should be expressed, and forcefully. I found it distressing because that is quite some allegation - that we and Mate users and Cinnamon users etc., (all splinter groups) are actually damaging Linux, doing it harm.
That's because LUG == Linux User's Group, not Freedom User's Group. Its an incredibly stupid thing to say, not only because it isn't true, but because none of the software involved in the argument *is* Linux. People thus persuaded are losers, and lusers. They have already accepted an economic model that their perceived competitors pretend, but in which they themselves do not believe.
There is only one requirement for software proliferation and dominance, and companies like Microsoft know it. Promiscuity[1]. Software diversity is the sign that you are succeeding, not failing. If you aren't actively encouraging the mass distribution of blue pills, and making sure people are taking them, they will start taking red pills. Its as simple as that. Microsoft doesn't have to make sure their pills are getting distributed as much as they have to make sure that every glass of water comes with a blue pill by default. They have even started making sure they can attack anyone who wants red pills nonetheless[2].
Operating systems like GNU and Android, that use the Linux kernel have taken over every single market into which they have been introduced, except the desktop. Vendor lock in is and has been the only bar preventing mass adoption.
The fact that we are free to digress and disagree is why I like open source so much. Take away that freedom and we might as well all use Windows.
I agree with you completely. What you are saying that you value your freedom most. If that's true, stop endorsing "open source". "Open source" is a greasy weaselly term invented by individuals trying very hard to endear themselves to businessmen and financiers that do not want to leave our freedom alone and unmolested.[3] LUGs are filled to the brim with trendy hipsters jumping around and regurgitating "open source" vomit and attacking anyone who advocates the value of freedom with ideas like diversity in desktop environment is hurting the adoption of GNU+Linux. It's nonsense. It just isn't true.
Since Linux without its freedom would not be Linux, nothing would seem to me more terminally harmful to Linux than to destroy that freedom.
Freedom is not something that can be applied to software, because its just code. Code is not self-actualizing. People have freedom and need to have software that includes source code and terms that permit unrestricted use, study, modification, and redistribution to prevent our freedom from being infringed. If you or I cannot use GNU+Linux with our freedom intact, that is terminally harmful to us.
[1] http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/07/we-love-microsoft-software-piracy-in.html [2] http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/reality-check-microsoft-charging-vendors... [3] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
Bryan Baldwin wrote:
Operating systems like GNU and Android, that use the Linux kernel have taken over every single market into which they have been introduced, except the desktop. Vendor lock in is and has been the only bar preventing mass adoption.
I think that Apple, which owns the iPhone, might have something to say about Android having "taken over" the smart phone market.
The fact that we are free to digress and disagree is why I like open source so much. Take away that freedom and we might as well all use Windows.
I agree with you completely. What you are saying that you value your freedom most. If that's true, stop endorsing "open source". "Open source" is a greasy weaselly term invented by individuals trying very hard to endear themselves to businessmen and financiers that do not want to leave our freedom alone and unmolested.[3] LUGs are filled to the brim with trendy hipsters jumping around and regurgitating "open source" vomit and attacking anyone who advocates the value of freedom with ideas like diversity in desktop environment is hurting the adoption of GNU+Linux. It's nonsense. It just isn't true.
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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On 07/22/2012 12:07 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
I think that Apple, which owns the iPhone, might have something to say about Android having "taken over" the smart phone market.
Of course they would. But would it be true? Maybe, maybe not[1].
If you are only comparing how top of the line smartphones are doing against the iPhone, like the Samsung Galaxy S3, then maybe you'll have a point. But heaps of people can't afford one of those any more then they could afford an iPhone. There are a shittonne of budget devices that Android is on that aren't competing with iPhone because Apple isn't producing any budget phones.
[1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405571,00.asp
I agree with you completely. What you are saying that you value your
freedom most. If that's true, stop endorsing "open source". "Open source" is a greasy weaselly term invented by individuals trying very hard to endear themselves to businessmen and financiers that do not want to leave our freedom alone and unmolested.[3] LUGs are filled to the brim with trendy hipsters jumping around and regurgitating "open source" vomit and attacking anyone who advocates the value of freedom with ideas like diversity in desktop environment is hurting the adoption of GNU+Linux. It's nonsense. It just isn't true.
I disagree completely. If it weren't for open source software, Trinity wouldn't even exist, Linux neither. If you find no value in OSS you should switch to Windows immediately.
Jeff
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On 07/22/2012 12:17 PM, <=K wrote:
I disagree completely. If it weren't for open source software, Trinity wouldn't even exist, Linux neither. If you find no value in OSS you should switch to Windows immediately.
That's not just incorrect, it's not even wrong. "Open source" is a lame buzzword to make businessmen and shallow IT people feel trendy and cool. Its a poor plagiarism of the original free software philosophy, watered down and diluted so you won't notice when your freedom is actually getting purloined behind your back. If you take "open source" away from free software you do not end up with Microsoft Windows, you end up with freedom.
Trinity and the Linux kernel owe their existence to choosing freedom respecting copyleft terms in their distribution, not the term "open source."
Nah they just owe it to having source code available. The BSDs are an example.. none of your philosophical freedom talk there, but they exist. GPL is just better because the dervative works also have source available. No elitist attitude necessary.
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On 07/22/2012 12:40 PM, <=K wrote:
Nah they just owe it to having source code available. The BSDs are an example.. none of your philosophical freedom talk there, but they exist. GPL is just better because the dervative works also have source available. No elitist attitude necessary.
That's still wrong. You aren't thinking clearly. The availability of source code is utterly and completely useless unless you have the unrestricted freedom to use, study, modify, and redistribute.
Apart from one old and deprecated version, all BSD licenses are free software licenses. They predate the term "open source." You aren't providing an argument against my argument. You are just repeating my argument back to me. Those projects owe their existence to their freedom, not the term "open source."
I was at a local LUG meeting today and was very distressed that the above view should be expressed, and forcefully. I found it distressing because that is quite some allegation - that we and Mate users and Cinnamon users etc., (all splinter groups) are actually damaging Linux, doing it harm.
The fact that we are free to digress and disagree is why I like open source so much. Take away that freedom and we might as well all use Windows. It seemed to me a quite extraordinary allegation. And as I say, I found it personally upsetting.
Since Linux without its freedom would not be Linux, nothing would seem to me more terminally harmful to Linux than to destroy that freedom.
I am a congenital maverick. I claim the right to remain a maverick and to swim against the tide as much as I like!
Lisi
My take on this is that we are observing the first major split between producers and consumers in the computing market. Prior to the iPhone and similar devices, both consumers and producers had to use the same hardware and software for their disparate tasks. Now that hardware has become smaller and software more powerful, consumers can for the first time use a "computer" that functions more or less like a video game--i.e. it is "easy to use", "pretty", "simple", it "connects people together", etc. Producers on the other hand will continue to demand more and more power to fuel their increasingly complex tasks and meet their wall clock deadlines.
I have had comments from people who "got used to" KDE4 and Unity, and when they tried TDE again years later, they found that they were vastly more productive in a tasks accomplished vs. hours spent metric.
Consumers will always outnumber producers, therefore they will always have the largest vote. Producers on the other hand know what they need and will pay lots of $$$ to get it, even as the software they require becomes more and more of a niche item. TDE is one of the few projects that can continue to satisfy those needs, and in reality it will have very little impact on the consumer market for Linux.
Just my $0.02. :-)
Tim
I was at a local LUG meeting today and was very distressed that the above view should be expressed, and forcefully. I found it distressing because that is quite some allegation - that we and Mate users and Cinnamon users etc., (all splinter groups) are actually damaging Linux, doing it harm.
The fact that we are free to digress and disagree is why I like open source so much. Take away that freedom and we might as well all use Windows. It seemed to me a quite extraordinary allegation. And as I say, I found it personally upsetting.
Since Linux without its freedom would not be Linux, nothing would seem to me more terminally harmful to Linux than to destroy that freedom.
I am a congenital maverick. I claim the right to remain a maverick and to swim against the tide as much as I like!
Lisi
My take on this is that we are observing the first major split between producers and consumers in the computing market. Prior to the iPhone and similar devices, both consumers and producers had to use the same hardware and software for their disparate tasks. Now that hardware has become smaller and software more powerful, consumers can for the first time use a "computer" that functions more or less like a video game--i.e. it is "easy to use", "pretty", "simple", it "connects people together", etc. Producers on the other hand will continue to demand more and more power to fuel their increasingly complex tasks and meet their wall clock deadlines.
I have had comments from people who "got used to" KDE4 and Unity, and when they tried TDE again years later, they found that they were vastly more productive in a tasks accomplished vs. hours spent metric.
Consumers will always outnumber producers, therefore they will always have the largest vote. Producers on the other hand know what they need and will pay lots of $$$ to get it, even as the software they require becomes more and more of a niche item. TDE is one of the few projects that can continue to satisfy those needs, and in reality it will have very little impact on the consumer market for Linux.
Just my $0.02. :-)
Tim
One further thought: What if all Linux users were forced to use a GUI exclusively, simply because the GUI is "newer" and a "step forward" compared to the command line? Users could adapt, but tasks that naturally favor a command line would become cumbersome when forced into an exclusively graphical environment. Instead of taking such radical steps, developers chose to offer both a GUI and the original command line functionality.
What I see at the moment is a large group of people attempting to fully replace the mouse and keyboard interface with a touch-only interface, simply because the consumers demand it. Personally I like touch technology, but only as an *addition* to the mouse+keyboard interface, not a full replacement.
As an aside, touchscreens tend to to produce repetitive stress injury much faster than the mouse+keyboard interface, simply because one must keep one's index finger and arm in a very still, unnatural position for the entire time one is using the interface.
Tim
On Sat, 21 Jul 2012, Timothy Pearson wrote:
Consumers will always outnumber producers, therefore they will always have the largest vote.
"Consumers" == Appliance Operators.
And they, in turn, will always outnumber the rest of us. sigh...
Jonesy
Lisi wrote:
I was at a local LUG meeting today and was very distressed that the above view should be expressed, and forcefully. I found it distressing because that is quite some allegation - that we and Mate users and Cinnamon users etc., (all splinter groups) are actually damaging Linux, doing it harm.
When Linus Torvalds comes out publicly and states that he is moving to Windows because people are using the wrong desktop environment, that is when I will give credence to the above ignorant, arrogant opinion.
I have worked for a company doing Linux consultancy for 10+ years, and we have spent vast amounts of time and effort evangelizing for Linux to the business community and government. I would say that, of all the reasons why people stick to Windows and don't migrate to Linux, "too many competing desktop environments" is about #87, just below "don't know whether to call it LINE-UCKS or LIN-EX" and "My astrologer told me never to use a computer program starting with L".
The fact that we are free to digress and disagree is why I like open source so much. Take away that freedom and we might as well all use Windows. It seemed to me a quite extraordinary allegation. And as I say, I found it personally upsetting.
Please excuse my language, but opinions are like arseholes -- everyone has got one, but not everyone should expose theirs in public.
I would pay no attention to a bunch of ignorant people, especially since they are not in a position to do anything except yack-yack-yack. But if you insist in arguing with them, I suggest that you tell them that you agree that there are too many desktop environments. Thank them for their tireless work in decreasing the amount of software freedom, and ask them to come back and report once they have got KDE 4, Gnome 3 and Unity closed down. Ratpoison for everyone!
http://www.linuxgoodies.com/review_rat.html
120721 Lisi wrote:
I was at a local LUG meeting today
Is it out of order to ask which city it meets in ?
and was very distressed that the above view should be expressed forcefully.
It sounds like a few trolls trying to provoke an argument. Certainly, it's not the view of the vast majority of free-software users.
I am a congenital maverick. I claim the right to remain a maverick and to swim against the tide as much as I like!
You don't have to be a maverick to want to go on using KDE3 = Trinity.
I was a long-time user of KDE 3 , tried the KDE 4.x desktop once, took another look at Fluxbox & found it a good enough substitute & have been using it ever since. At that time, it looked as if KDE 3 would disappear altogether: Trinity hadn't started.
Since then, I've adopted a number of KDE4 apps, eg Gwenview + Okular, but continue to want to use 3 KDE3 apps, which KDE4 doesn't have: hence my subscribing to this list a few days ago & asking for advice. I can certainly understand others wanting to use the whole KDE3 desktop.
As a Gentoo user since 2003, I'm on the fringe of Linux orthodoxy, but like other Gentoo users, I would never go back to a binary distro: the freedom to install just what I want & configure it how I want is much too important for comfort & for productivity.
Any chance there's a Trinity supporter prepared to make it available for Gentoo ?
PS many years ago cities Worldwide wiped out their tram systems & a lot of them built networks of urban expressways (motorways); they soon found that the latter clogged up with traffic, while downtown neighbourhoods deteriorated into slums. Toronto & a few other cities stopped expressway building in time & spent the money on renewing their street railways: here at least, we still have healthy safe downtown neighbourhoods. Nowadays increasingly, cities Worldwide are installing light rail lines in an attempt to revive their central areas & relieve auto congestion.
That's a parallel with the GUI + touchscreen fad now in vogue in contrast to the traditional CLI + keyboard method of using computers.
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On 07/22/2012 05:02 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
I was a long-time user of KDE 3 , tried the KDE 4.x desktop once, took another look at Fluxbox & found it a good enough substitute & have been using it ever since. At that time, it looked as if KDE 3 would disappear altogether: Trinity hadn't started.
KDE v3.x was my de jour until it went away. I remember with particular fondness the compatability with Compiz and transparent panels that could slide away completely out of view. I couldn't do the later in GNOME, there was always at least a bar of 1 pixel's thickness on the edge. Maybe I never dug deeply enough to know :(
Used GNOME until v3 was being pushed around. I know Gentoo hasn't pushed it yet, but I'd been using Arch when it happened, and it completely foobar'd my work set up. I quit Arch and GNOME on the same day. Gentoo + Fluxbox as well, here. =)
As a Gentoo user since 2003, I'm on the fringe of Linux orthodoxy, but like other Gentoo users, I would never go back to a binary distro: the freedom to install just what I want & configure it how I want is much too important for comfort & for productivity.
Any chance there's a Trinity supporter prepared to make it available for Gentoo ?
I'm building a cross compiler factory from various sources to support my Yeeloong 8101_B. I have some Raspberry Pi coming, so x86, x86_64, and ARM support are going to be included at some point, too.
Although desktop environments are going to be part of a separate related project, I'm looking at MATE and Trinity to be the forerunners there, too.
Until then, maybe this will help Gentooians ;) http://wiki.hasnoname.de/tde:trinity-overlay_on_funtoo_gentoo
120722 Bryan Baldwin wrote:
On 07/22/2012 05:02 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
Any chance there's a Trinity supporter prepared to make it available for Gentoo ?
maybe this will help Gentooians ;) http://wiki.hasnoname.de/tde:trinity-overlay_on_funtoo_gentoo
Yes, it should help others, but my 3 apps are not included. As I said earlier, I'll try to compile from source & install manually: the prefered dir seems to be /opt/tde/ .
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On 07/22/2012 08:59 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
120722 Bryan Baldwin wrote:
maybe this will help Gentooians ;) http://wiki.hasnoname.de/tde:trinity-overlay_on_funtoo_gentoo
Yes, it should help others, but my 3 apps are not included. As I said earlier, I'll try to compile from source & install manually: the prefered dir seems to be /opt/tde/ .
At the rate I'm going with my project, in ninety days I *might* be at the point that I'm testing packages on top of my base system. I'd be delighted to see MATE and Trinity running on a Yeeloong 8101_B :D
On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 2:37 AM, Bryan Baldwin bryan@katofiad.co.nz wrote:
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On 07/22/2012 05:02 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
I was a long-time user of KDE 3 , tried the KDE 4.x desktop once, took another look at Fluxbox & found it a good enough substitute & have been using it ever since. At that time, it looked as if KDE 3 would disappear altogether: Trinity hadn't started.
KDE v3.x was my de jour until it went away. I remember with particular fondness the compatability with Compiz and transparent panels that could slide away completely out of view. I couldn't do the later in GNOME, there was always at least a bar of 1 pixel's thickness on the edge. Maybe I never dug deeply enough to know :(
I actually use KDE v4.x with Compiz. I prefer it and the keybindings to KDE's compositing.
That said, I still like Trinity. My daughter can't stand KDE4, and since I support her installation, I still manage Trinity.
Used GNOME until v3 was being pushed around. I know Gentoo hasn't pushed it yet, but I'd been using Arch when it happened, and it completely foobar'd my work set up.
And I think this is the crux of the issue. (For Lisi's original post.) Everybody has a workflow that is comfortable for them. Some people just take whatever Redmond or Cupertino (or London, for that matter) shove at them and adapt. What Lisi referred to as the "mavericks" will go to longer lengths to maintain the computing environment that is comfortable for them. As I have said on IRC before, "I'm not going to change my computing paradigm so that some guy in a suit, or some guy in a turtle neck, or some guy who's been to space can make a buck." (Because forcing unity on users puts Canonical in the same category as the others...)
Linux gives me the freedom to make these choices and developers to write these applications/desktops. And if people to choose to do this, it is in no way damaging to Linux. You just keep on doing what you're doing, Lisi and others.
--b
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On 07/23/2012 01:38 AM, Brad Alexander wrote:
Some people just take whatever Redmond or Cupertino (or London, for that matter) shove at them and adapt. What Lisi referred to as the "mavericks" will go to longer lengths to maintain the computing environment that is comfortable for them. As I have said on IRC before, "I'm not going to change my computing paradigm so that some guy in a suit, or some guy in a turtle neck, or some guy who's been to space can make a buck." (Because forcing unity on users puts Canonical in the same category as the others...)
I can't follow you to Canonical with this example, because of the multiplicity of environments available to Ubuntu. You don't _have_ to take Unity, afaict. I avoid Ubuntu like AIDS, but it is largely made of free software. You can change it, you can remove the non-free bits and call it gNewSense.
You can't do those things with Microsoft or Apple.
On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 8:25 PM, Bryan Baldwin bryan@katofiad.co.nz wrote:
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On 07/23/2012 01:38 AM, Brad Alexander wrote:
Some people just take whatever Redmond or Cupertino (or London, for that matter) shove at them and adapt. What Lisi referred to as the "mavericks" will go to longer lengths to maintain the computing environment that is comfortable for them. As I have said on IRC before, "I'm not going to change my computing paradigm so that some guy in a suit, or some guy in a turtle neck, or some guy who's been to space can make a buck." (Because forcing unity on users puts Canonical in the same category as the others...)
I can't follow you to Canonical with this example, because of the multiplicity of environments available to Ubuntu. You don't _have_ to take Unity, afaict. I avoid Ubuntu like AIDS, but it is largely made of free software. You can change it, you can remove the non-free bits and call it gNewSense.
The reason I include Canonical because they have systematically eliminated desktops other than Unity. Yes, the others are available, but I credit that more to Debian than Ubuntu. Canonical developed Unity in answer to Gnome 3, as well as dropping support for KDE (which was picked up by Blue Systems). Out of the box, Unity is now the only option under Ubuntu. Yes, you can install the other desktops, but that is, IMHO, a result of the Open Source underpinnings of the OS, rather than a conscious decision of Canonical's. I may be doing them a disservice in this respect, but unlike Mate and Cinnamon (and the other desktops available for Linux), Unity has never been made available to other distros. Mate and Cinnamon, OTOH, are available on several distros.
You can't do those things with Microsoft or Apple. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
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On 07/25/2012 12:59 PM, Brad Alexander wrote:
unlike Mate and Cinnamon (and the other desktops available for Linux), Unity has never been made available to other distros
Well, if Unity is under a free software license, I can't agree. Just because no one other then Canonical sees any value in supporting it doesn't make it wrong.
If Unity has a non-free license, then I agree with you.
On 25 July 2012 05:33, Bryan Baldwin bryan@katofiad.co.nz wrote:
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On 07/25/2012 12:59 PM, Brad Alexander wrote:
unlike Mate and Cinnamon (and the other desktops available for Linux), Unity has never been made available to other distros
Well, if Unity is under a free software license, I can't agree. Just because no one other then Canonical sees any value in supporting it doesn't make it wrong.
If Unity has a non-free license, then I agree with you. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
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being open source and being a good project are very different. For example when red hat has to release their kernel patches they just send a giant crappy tarball out and say "here we released it". Ubuntu is the same way. Unity does not work well with others, doesnt work on most distros, has weird patches required for low level libraries, is rather hackey... the source is available, but it doesnt mean its usable
just because its open source doesnt mean its a good project
Calvin
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On 07/26/2012 02:06 AM, Calvin Morrison wrote:
just because its open source doesnt mean its a good project
Well, when I said it isn't wrong, I mean not morally wrong. If it is extremely stupid technically that's Canonical's jeopardy. Other distributions do not seem to be suffering without it. It doesn't prevent users from switching to what works.
On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 5:33 AM, Bryan Baldwin bryan@katofiad.co.nz wrote:
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On 07/25/2012 12:59 PM, Brad Alexander wrote:
unlike Mate and Cinnamon (and the other desktops available for Linux), Unity has never been made available to other distros
Well, if Unity is under a free software license, I can't agree. Just because no one other then Canonical sees any value in supporting it doesn't make it wrong.
If Unity has a non-free license, then I agree with you.
Concur. And if I am honest, I could not be bothered to look up the license. Like you, I avoid Ubuntu like the plague. I went back to dumped Ubuntu and went back to Debian around Gutsy. Between the broken encryption in the installer and the beginnings of what I saw as the writing on the wall (which has borne out over the years), I'm much happier with pure Debian.
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On 07/26/2012 04:47 AM, Brad Alexander wrote:
Concur. And if I am honest, I could not be bothered to look up the license. Like you, I avoid Ubuntu like the plague. I went back to dumped Ubuntu and went back to Debian around Gutsy. Between the broken encryption in the installer and the beginnings of what I saw as the writing on the wall (which has borne out over the years), I'm much happier with pure Debian.
I was doing Sarge back in the day when I tried Ubuntu 6.10. I still have the CD I'd burned. I used it for about 90 days and went back when Etch came out. I may have already mentioned I left Debian for Arch when I discovered GFDL packages in non-free. I did Arch and from scratch for awhile, then Gentoo and from scratch after that.
Unity is GPLv3, btw. I suppose after several years of development it might reach a point where it could be ported around without so much effort. If Mr. Morrison is correct when he says Unity requires excessive low level patching (and I have no reason to think otherwise), I imagine its development strategy will largely be Canonical's burden. One might think that's what they wanted all along.
On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 09:50:42 +1200 Bryan Baldwin bryan@katofiad.co.nz wrote:
Unity is GPLv3, btw. I suppose after several years of development it might reach a point where it could be ported around without so much effort. If Mr. Morrison is correct when he says Unity requires excessive low level patching (and I have no reason to think otherwise), I imagine its development strategy will largely be Canonical's burden. One might think that's what they wanted all along.
Judging from the contents of the unity-gentoo overlay, it requires a patched glib, xorg-server, gtk+, assorted qt bits, and $DEITY knows what else. So Unity can be installed on other distros with some work, since someone has evidently done it, but it seems like a lot of effort for little benefit for anyone not absolutely in love with it.
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On 07/22/2012 05:02 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
Toronto & a few other cities stopped expressway building in time & spent the money on renewing their street railways: here at least, we still have healthy safe downtown neighbourhoods.
Funnily enough, I work in this arena doing the on board vehicle software and embedded systems that helps us manage bus, rail, tram, and ferry sign predictions for service's arrival/departure. It is true, forward thinking cities are investing in light rail. Auckland, NZ is planning a CBD system to augment the larger, preexisting rail that services outlaying suburbs. =)
On Saturday 21 July 2012 22:58:03 Lisi wrote:
I was at a local LUG meeting today and was very distressed that the above view should be expressed, and forcefully. I found it distressing because that is quite some allegation - that we and Mate users and Cinnamon users etc., (all splinter groups) are actually damaging Linux, doing it harm.
The most interesting thing about this is that it has very little to do with Linux or Trinity, or any of the other packages mentioned and says much more about how people perceive reality, at least in the field of computing.
The concept of Linux being 'damaged', in the sense of those people claiming it to be so, _only_ makes sense in the context of a competition where Linux is competing with alternative options; this is where many people have ended up with a completely incorrect view of what Linux is and even why it exists at all.
Whilst there are a number of commercial companies, such as Red Hat, Suse, Canonical etc. who have made businesses out of Linux, and who do need to compete for market share to maximise their revenue, none of them can claim ownership of Linux. Indeed, we need to get the horse clearly in front of the cart here: Linux pre-dated all of the commercial organisations that have been founded upon it.
The reality of the situation is that what we refer to as 'Linux' was created from a collection of components, just one of which being the 'Linux' kernel, that were originally produced as alternatives to existing solutions, the important distinction being that these were alternatives and not competitors. None of the originators of the components that were eventually pulled together and combined to create 'Linux' did so on the basis of competing with and supplanting the existing solutions but for a range of other reasons, ranging from dissatisfaction with those existing solutions, to wanting to learn how something worked, out of idle curiosity.
Once they'd done their work they simply offered it up for people to use, or not, as they chose, having no vested interest, other than personal pride perhaps, if their solution came to be preferred over the existing solutions.
So although business organisations that are founded upon Linux may compete, not just with each other but also with other non-Linux based solutions, for market share, it is those businesses that are competing, not Linux. Those businesses are not Linux and Linux is not those businesses; Linux is not owned by anyone, it just 'is', take-it-or-leave-it, and as such is fundamentally non-competitive.
It is here where those people who think that Linux is being damaged have gone wrong; they see a competition where no competition exists, because they see no further than the businesses based upon it; the real nature of open-source, that of the freedom to take-it-or-leave-it, has entirely eluded them.
LeeE
Well, I've been telling for years now that we were better off with one desktop that has the flexibility to adapt to everyone's needs. Be lightweight without graphical mumbo jumbo if desired, be all the visual monster with tons of effects, be as simple as a task bar and systray, be a full blown cornucopia of gadgets if somebody prefer that. Make it configurable from simply to rocket science, from 486 to i7 but have ONE API. Offer developers a safe base. The goal of side projects or underdogs like Trinity or others should be an inspiration to the bigheads, but instead they push their own ideas for the sake of making a name. When I started linux ages ago I was told the power of open src was that you do not have to reinvent the wheel over and over again as you can take code from other projects and start on that.
Desktop Environment developers reinvent the wheel over and over again. My favorite picture viewer is GThumb. It's GTK so it looks a wee bit different from qt/kde no matter how much I adapt themes and engines. It's gui bahviour is gtk and I can't do much about it. I do *not* have a choice if I want to stick with that program. (Unless I port it to qt myself. Some choice.)
By now the KDE people should have grasped there is a reason there is Trinity, there is a reason SuSE has official KDE3 packages again, there is a reason Gentoo users maintain a KDE3 branch. KDE4 has tried to overthrow a GUI paradigma that has come to its final form ages ago and has been like all the WinXP clones for a reason: it's good to work with. What we don't need is NOT a more powerful desktop, what we need are more powerful *programs*. If I am looking for an old email I use filter fields and whatnot and fancy keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard itself should be replaces with something dynamic that offers intelligent macro tasks. Computers as we know them have gone from 1MHz 8bit with 640k RAM to multicore teraflop 8GB+ powerhouses and STILL we need to feed them in mostly the same way we did in the 90s.
Where's my Star Trek?
It's partially in my smartphone, actually. I can actually *tell* the nav soft where I want to go and it recognises that surprisingly well. But there is no semantic interface, there is no brain power. I cannot tell it to bypass this and that path, when I do that I have a limitied set of buttons I have to press (and all the Star Trek air vanishes instantaneously), where *I* have to do the task's abstraction again. It doesn' t do that for me, I cannot have it ponder options and relate data to the situation. Everything is broken down to running this algo faster and having a new button there. What we need is not a better desktop, that's like saying we need a better hammer. There is nothing to improve about hammers. The one I get in a hardware shop has been perfected to its purpose. To say it should have a video camera and a light so I can better aim at the nail is not how we think. If we need better aiming at the nail we need glasses and a head mounted lamp.
And there we are again at Desktop Environments: the gnome people develop their index system, the kde people develop theirs. Neither made anyone write home about it.
There's the cloud idea, think "Siri". Then again there's trust issues while the hive mind intelligence *does* lie in the hive, not in the node. (I don't trust Apple the slightest bit.) It's time to start making an open source cloud that allows specialised task bots to have some degree of autonomy granted plus the capability to interact. Think | .
Leave the desktops alone. All we need to organize our programs is a taskbar, launchers and a systray. If at all.
Am Saturday 21 July 2012 23:58:03 schrieb Lisi:
I was at a local LUG meeting today and was very distressed that the above view should be expressed, and forcefully. I found it distressing because that is quite some allegation - that we and Mate users and Cinnamon users etc., (all splinter groups) are actually damaging Linux, doing it harm.
The fact that we are free to digress and disagree is why I like open source so much. Take away that freedom and we might as well all use Windows. It seemed to me a quite extraordinary allegation. And as I say, I found it personally upsetting.
Since Linux without its freedom would not be Linux, nothing would seem to me more terminally harmful to Linux than to destroy that freedom.
I am a congenital maverick. I claim the right to remain a maverick and to swim against the tide as much as I like!
Lisi
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120728 Dexter Filmore wrote a lot of stuff, but esp:
All we need to organize our programs is a taskbar, launchers & a systray.
All I use is a Fluxbox menu, which I edit myself to include what I use & arrange items under sensible submenus, & the delightful Apwal, which shows an array of icons on the desktop when I right-click there, which I configure to taste & which quickly starts LibreOffice, Krusader etc. The Fluxbox menu is called up by left-click on the desktop or Alt-space, which I can employ anywhere on any desktop. The same on my netbook.
So I agree, tho' others may prefer to vary the details.
On Saturday 28 July 2012 16:50:05 Philip Webb wrote:
120728 Dexter Filmore wrote a lot of stuff, but esp:
All we need to organize our programs is a taskbar, launchers & a systray.
All _you_ - and apparently Philip - need is a taskbar, launchers & a systray. You are free to have them. They exist. But why should you - or anyone else - be able to dictate to me what I need or want?
All I use is a Fluxbox menu, which I edit myself to include what I use & arrange items under sensible submenus, & the delightful Apwal, which shows an array of icons on the desktop when I right-click there, which I configure to taste & which quickly starts LibreOffice, Krusader etc. The Fluxbox menu is called up by left-click on the desktop or Alt-space, which I can employ anywhere on any desktop. The same on my netbook.
Great. You have found something that you like, and you are free to use it. But why should everyone else use it just because you want to do so?
So I agree, tho' others may prefer to vary the details.
I disagree, and would vary more than the details.
You both have the freedom and the right to use whatever you choose and whatever you feel happy with.
You do not have the right to dictate what the rest of us should use!
Lisi
Am Saturday 28 July 2012 18:15:54 schrieb Lisi:
On Saturday 28 July 2012 16:50:05 Philip Webb wrote:
120728 Dexter Filmore wrote a lot of stuff, but esp:
All we need to organize our programs is a taskbar, launchers & a systray.
All _you_ - and apparently Philip - need is a taskbar, launchers & a systray. You are free to have them. They exist. But why should you - or anyone else - be able to dictate to me what I need or want?
Either you did not read the portion about my idea to have a desktop that's flexible enough to suit all tastes or choose to ignore it.
On 31 July 2012 09:17, Dexter Filmore Dexter.Filmore@gmx.de wrote:
Am Saturday 28 July 2012 18:15:54 schrieb Lisi:
On Saturday 28 July 2012 16:50:05 Philip Webb wrote:
120728 Dexter Filmore wrote a lot of stuff, but esp:
All we need to organize our programs is a taskbar, launchers & a systray.
All _you_ - and apparently Philip - need is a taskbar, launchers & a systray. You are free to have them. They exist. But why should you - or anyone else - be able to dictate to me what I need or want?
Either you did not read the portion about my idea to have a desktop that's flexible enough to suit all tastes or choose to ignore it.
Dexter,
Having any sort of configuration will just pile up and pile up. You still need to stick to a basic paradigm, like the classic desktop metaphor or a mobile interface. It's fine to have customizations, but it is best to be able to have a solid core. Without a clear focus like TDE has, it's easy to get lost. The are many different use cases and using a single product for all would result in an a giant bloated piece of software, without it being remarkable. By having one focus, we can continue to perfect and improve that, and put our resources to that end, instead of satisfying everybody - which is inevitably impossible.
Calvin
On July 31, 2012 7:38:35 am Calvin Morrison wrote:
Having any sort of configuration will just pile up and pile up. You still need to stick to a basic paradigm, like the classic desktop metaphor or a mobile interface. It's fine to have customizations, but it is best to be able to have a solid core. Without a clear focus like TDE has, it's easy to get lost. The are many different use cases and using a single product for all would result in an a giant bloated piece of software, without it being remarkable. By having one focus, we can continue to perfect and improve that, and put our resources to that end, instead of satisfying everybody - which is inevitably impossible.
Hi,
What if you are clearly focused on providing the solid core of a single product for all... a project like that is not doomed to failure (e.g., I can install Debian on desktops, servers, and embedded devices), it is simply a matter of providing infrastructure which allows for the option of leaving out or including bits appropriate for the task.
As long as TDE doesn't arbitrarily close the door on any of the options it could potentially cater to as many tastes as there are competent cooks. It may well be that providing the polish/infrastructure needed to simply (from the user's pov) accommodate all kinds of weird (from the general pov) uses is a desirable, or at least reasonable, way forward... after all, by some pov, TDE is a niche product, maybe it should cater to niche markets.
- Bruce
On Jul 28, 2012 8:30 AM, "Dexter Filmore" Dexter.Filmore@gmx.de wrote:
What we don't need is NOT a more powerful desktop, what we need are more powerful *programs*.
One thing I've wondered about users of desktops like TDE, is how many people use the standard set of apps. I notice a lot of TDE development seems to go toward the K* programs which I don't use (IM, email, editor, etc), or use in a limited fashion (konqueror, for files), or I use the KDE4 version of (k3b, ktorrent).
Since I started off in Gnome rather than KDE 3.5, I got used to a lot of those Gnome programs so have some from that, found some others when I needed something, picked some up from LXDE, etc etc.. my system is a frankenstein of the various UI libraries. I pretty much only use the essentials of TDE, any major programs are something else.
My guess is that most users started off in KDE so they got used to all the K* choices, or have only swapped out a very few. It's probably only people like me that migrated from something else that pick and choose.
Jeff
Dexter Filmore wrote:
Well, I've been telling for years now that we were better off with one desktop that has the flexibility to adapt to everyone's needs.
I can't imagine when it was that "we were better off with one desktop". Was it perhaps in the days of the Windows 95 desktop? Or the Apple Mac System 6 Finder?
Be lightweight without graphical mumbo jumbo if desired, be all the visual monster with tons of effects, be as simple as a task bar and systray, be a full blown cornucopia of gadgets if somebody prefer that.
So what you are actually saying is that this one desktop should actually be... a hundred different desktops, only all in one code base.
I'm guessing that you're not a programmer or an engineer, are you?
Configuration choices increase the complexity of a program exponentially. One desktop capable of being all things to all people, as you suggest, would be a thousand times more complicated than 100 desktops which each focus on one small segment of the users. That means a thousand times bigger, a thousand times more development time, and a thousand times more bugs.
Desktops of the complexity of KDE or Gnome are, in my opinion, already at the edge of being too complex to be maintained successfully. With so many combinations of configuration options, there is no possible way that every combination has been fully tested and is bug free. The best we can hope for is that the most commonly used combinations are bug free, and that any bugs are buried in combinations that nobody uses.
Make it configurable from simply to rocket science, from 486 to i7 but have ONE API. Offer developers a safe base.
While you're wishing, don't forget to ask for a flying pony that craps rainbows.
[...]
Desktop Environment developers reinvent the wheel over and over again. My favorite picture viewer is GThumb. It's GTK so it looks a wee bit different from qt/kde no matter how much I adapt themes and engines. It's gui bahviour is gtk and I can't do much about it. I do *not* have a choice if I want to stick with that program. (Unless I port it to qt myself. Some choice.)
But it *is* a choice, and the only reasonable choice. Why should the GThumb programmer spend hundreds of hours, perhaps thousands of hours, trying to adapt his program to every imaginable toolkit?
If *you* want to turn GThumb into a qt app, then *you* can do the work, or pay somebody to do it for you.
[...]
What we don't need is NOT a more powerful desktop, what we need are more powerful *programs*.
The desktop is a program. Many programs. Are you saying that they *don't* need to be more powerful? Who decides which programs are allowed to be more powerful and which are not?
I think the KDE 4 developers made an incredible boneheaded mistake in the way they abandoned KDE 3 and started a new project from scratch. I think that the new functionality they created is mostly unnecessary and mostly unusable. (If I thought the opposite, I would be using KDE 4.) But it was their right to make that mistake, and who knows, next time they might actually get it right.
[...]
What we need is not a better desktop, that's like saying we need a better hammer. There is nothing to improve about hammers. The one I get in a hardware shop has been perfected to its purpose.
And which hammer would that be?
Tack hammer. Ball-peen hammer. Cross-peen hammer. Sledgehammer. Drilling hammer. Bush hammer. Claw hammer. Framing hammer. Geologist's hammer. Lump or mash hammer. Rubber mallet. Copper or lead mallet. Wooden mallet. Dead blow hammer. Soft-faced hammer. Stonemason's hammer. Tinner's hammer. Dog-head hammer.
It never ceases to amuse me when people use the hammer as an analogy for why we only need one tool for some purpose.
Leave the desktops alone. All we need to organize our programs is a taskbar, launchers and a systray. If at all.
Maybe that's all *you* need.
Am Saturday 28 July 2012 19:41:28 schrieb Steven D'Aprano:
Dexter Filmore wrote:
Well, I've been telling for years now that we were better off with one desktop that has the flexibility to adapt to everyone's needs.
I can't imagine when it was that "we were better off with one desktop". Was it perhaps in the days of the Windows 95 desktop? Or the Apple Mac System 6 Finder?
Be lightweight without graphical mumbo jumbo if desired, be all the visual monster with tons of effects, be as simple as a task bar and systray, be a full blown cornucopia of gadgets if somebody prefer that.
So what you are actually saying is that this one desktop should actually be... a hundred different desktops, only all in one code base.
I'm guessing that you're not a programmer or an engineer, are you?
Configuration choices increase the complexity of a program exponentially. One desktop capable of being all things to all people, as you suggest, would be a thousand times more complicated than 100 desktops which each focus on one small segment of the users. That means a thousand times bigger, a thousand times more development time, and a thousand times more bugs.
OSS people tend to brag how OSS is superior due to the massive number of developers at the bazar. Yet the all are spread over a million projects. Some form and become stronger, evolve, most don't. If I had a buck for every interesting approach that never got beyond 0.0.5 I'd need a bag to carry them.
Desktops of the complexity of KDE or Gnome are, in my opinion, already at the edge of being too complex to be maintained successfully. With so many combinations of configuration options, there is no possible way that every combination has been fully tested and is bug free. The best we can hope for is that the most commonly used combinations are bug free, and that any bugs are buried in combinations that nobody uses.
Make it configurable from simply to rocket science, from 486 to i7 but have ONE API. Offer developers a safe base.
While you're wishing, don't forget to ask for a flying pony that craps rainbows.
Yeah, one of my wiches being that people do not take every single fscking word 100% literally and think in the idea, not in absolutes. If you resign at striving for an utopia you resign at "new ideas" already.
[...]
Desktop Environment developers reinvent the wheel over and over again. My favorite picture viewer is GThumb. It's GTK so it looks a wee bit different from qt/kde no matter how much I adapt themes and engines. It's gui bahviour is gtk and I can't do much about it. I do *not* have a choice if I want to stick with that program. (Unless I port it to qt myself. Some choice.)
But it *is* a choice, and the only reasonable choice. Why should the GThumb programmer spend hundreds of hours, perhaps thousands of hours, trying to adapt his program to every imaginable toolkit?
If *you* want to turn GThumb into a qt app, then *you* can do the work, or pay somebody to do it for you.
There goes the "free" train, as all the years before, been there.
[...]
What we don't need is NOT a more powerful desktop, what we need are more powerful *programs*.
The desktop is a program. Many programs. Are you saying that they *don't* need to be more powerful? Who decides which programs are allowed to be more powerful and which are not?
Don't know what you're on about here.
I think the KDE 4 developers made an incredible boneheaded mistake in the way they abandoned KDE 3 and started a new project from scratch. I think that the new functionality they created is mostly unnecessary and mostly unusable. (If I thought the opposite, I would be using KDE 4.) But it was their right to make that mistake, and who knows, next time they might actually get it right.
Yeah well next time we might all be dead.
[...]
What we need is not a better desktop, that's like saying we need a better hammer. There is nothing to improve about hammers. The one I get in a hardware shop has been perfected to its purpose.
And which hammer would that be?
Tack hammer. Ball-peen hammer. Cross-peen hammer. Sledgehammer. Drilling hammer. Bush hammer. Claw hammer. Framing hammer. Geologist's hammer. Lump or mash hammer. Rubber mallet. Copper or lead mallet. Wooden mallet. Dead blow hammer. Soft-faced hammer. Stonemason's hammer. Tinner's hammer. Dog-head hammer.
It never ceases to amuse me when people use the hammer as an analogy for why we only need one tool for some purpose.
It never ceases to puzzle me how people take analogies into real life and expect the crowd to cheer about them being smug. Have fun driving in nails with a bush hammer.
Leave the desktops alone. All we need to organize our programs is a taskbar, launchers and a systray. If at all.
Maybe that's all *you* need.
See above.
On Tuesday 31 July 2012 14:27:01 Dexter Filmore wrote:
If you resign at striving for an utopia you resign at "new ideas" already.
And you think that what you describe, which sounds like an absolute nightmare, is *Utopia*!!
Well, at least you do not write "u" instead of "you".
Am Tuesday 31 July 2012 15:36:40 schrieb Lisi:
On Tuesday 31 July 2012 14:27:01 Dexter Filmore wrote:
If you resign at striving for an utopia you resign at "new ideas" already.
And you think that what you describe, which sounds like an absolute nightmare, is *Utopia*!!
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On Monday 06 August 2012 18:00:21 Dexter Filmore wrote:
Well, at least you do not write "u" instead of "you".
What have I ever written that might lead you to suppose that I might do such a thing? My typing is lousy so I make a lot of mistakes, but I *never* *ever* use text-speak.
You seem to dislike anyone not agreeing 100% with you. Freedom in my book includes being allowed to dislike intensely something someone else views as desirable.
Lisi
On 08/01/2012 01:27 AM, Dexter Filmore wrote:
OSS people tend to brag how OSS is superior due to the massive number of developers at the bazar. Yet the all are spread over a million projects. Some form and become stronger, evolve, most don't. If I had a buck for every interesting approach that never got beyond 0.0.5 I'd need a bag to carry them.
Is this a discussion over the most appropriate direction to take in desktop interface design, or the merits of free software vs proprietary development? Do you want a proprietary system?
Maybe people do brag about superior development characteristics in free software. Maybe it does possess said advantages, maybe not. Maybe it depends on the people involved. But that's beside the point. The point of free software is that it gives you your freedom. If you don't have that first and foremost, who gives a crap how "good" it seems?
Freedom isn't about price, and it isn't about making software "free." Its about empowering people free and keeping people free.
<snip> and keeping people free.
+1! This is really what FOSS is about--preventing entire portions of the population from falling back into the pre-computer dark ages on the whims of some politicians hundreds of miles away.
Tim
Am Wednesday 01 August 2012 01:08:37 schrieb Bryan Baldwin:
On 08/01/2012 01:27 AM, Dexter Filmore wrote:
OSS people tend to brag how OSS is superior due to the massive number of developers at the bazar. Yet the all are spread over a million projects. Some form and become stronger, evolve, most don't. If I had a buck for every interesting approach that never got beyond 0.0.5 I'd need a bag to carry them.
Is this a discussion over the most appropriate direction to take in desktop interface design, or the merits of free software vs proprietary development? Do you want a proprietary system?
Did I say that?
Maybe people do brag about superior development characteristics in free software. Maybe it does possess said advantages, maybe not. Maybe it depends on the people involved. But that's beside the point. The point of free software is that it gives you your freedom. If you don't have that first and foremost, who gives a crap how "good" it seems?
Do you mean by this you prefer poor free software over proper proprietary?
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On 08/07/2012 05:04 AM, Dexter Filmore wrote:
Do you mean by this you prefer poor free software over proper proprietary?
By this I mean retaining freedom over relinquishing it in exchange for the technological equivalent of rifles and blankets.
This is a variation of the old and tired bit of husksterism, which goes, "If you object to nonfree X, then you would have gotten rid of nonfree Y." Which is rubbish.
Technological freedom movements are not about auditing the contents of peoples closets. People who care about freedom might tell you why nonfree is bad for you, but its not about telling users what to do. Its about examining the things developers are distributing to users, criticizing the nonfree things, and promoting and developing alternatives that support freedom.
Am Tuesday 07 August 2012 04:26:05 schrieb Bryan Baldwin:
On 08/07/2012 05:04 AM, Dexter Filmore wrote:
Do you mean by this you prefer poor free software over proper proprietary?
By this I mean retaining freedom over relinquishing it in exchange for the technological equivalent of rifles and blankets.
The metaphor eludes my grasp, sorry.
This is a variation of the old and tired bit of husksterism, which
My standard translation sources do not even list that word or similar ones.
goes, "If you object to nonfree X, then you would have gotten rid of nonfree Y." Which is rubbish.
Yes, quite obviously. Yet again I did not see anybody make such a claim. Quite frankly, I do not see your point or an answer to my question or where this is leading.
Technological freedom movements are not about auditing the contents of peoples closets.
Claim never made either. You keep pointing out things that are wildly outlandish and nobody had a point for or against or even loosely connected to. What is this?
People who care about freedom might tell you why nonfree is bad for you, but its not about telling users what to do. Its about examining the things developers are distributing to users,
Examining as an assessment instance?
criticizing the nonfree things, and promoting and developing alternatives that support freedom.
On 12/08/12 22:34, Dexter Filmore wrote:
Am Tuesday 07 August 2012 04:26:05 schrieb Bryan Baldwin:
On 08/07/2012 05:04 AM, Dexter Filmore wrote:
Do you mean by this you prefer poor free software over proper proprietary?
By this I mean retaining freedom over relinquishing it in exchange for the technological equivalent of rifles and blankets.
The metaphor eludes my grasp, sorry.
I believe that Bryan is making a reference to the practice in the "Wild West" of the USA in the 1800s, when white European settlers would trade rifles and blankets to native American Indians.
Of course the rifles would soon run out of bullets and become useless, and the blankets were often deliberately infected with smallpox.
Bryan is implying that non-free software is a trap: if not directly harmful like smallpox-infected blankets, it makes us dependent bullet factories that we do not control.
This is a variation of the old and tired bit of husksterism, which
My standard translation sources do not even list that word or similar ones.
I'm not sure what Bryan means either. I think he may have conflated a couple of different words:
"husker" -- one who husks corn (removes the outer husk to get to the kernels)
"hustler" -- one who hustlers, a shrewd and unscrupulous person who knows how to get around difficulties, usually implying that they are a confidence trickster ("con artist")
The "-ism" suffix creates a noun, in this case, the state of being a "huskster", whatever that is supposed to be. Hustler?
This is a variation of the old and tired bit of husksterism, which
My standard translation sources do not even list that word or similar ones.
I'm not sure what Bryan means either. I think he may have conflated a couple of different words:
huskerism (EN) = "Hausierei" (DE)
Describes the activity of an unwated door-to-door salesman.
Nik
On Sunday 12 August 2012 15:08:19 Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
This is a variation of the old and tired bit of husksterism, which
My standard translation sources do not even list that word or similar ones.
I'm not sure what Bryan means either. I think he may have conflated a couple of different words:
huskerism (EN) = "Hausierei" (DE)
Describes the activity of an unwated door-to-door salesman.
Nik
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I think that he probably maent "hucksterism", which certainly exists. I confess to not having come across the form "huskerism".
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/huckster
Lisi
On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 9:54 AM, Steven D'Aprano steve@pearwood.infowrote:
This is a variation of the old and tired bit of husksterism, which
My standard translation sources do not even list that word or similar ones.
I'm not sure what Bryan means either. I think he may have conflated a couple of different words:
"husker" -- one who husks corn (removes the outer husk to get to the kernels)
"hustler" -- one who hustlers, a shrewd and unscrupulous person who knows how to get around difficulties, usually implying that they are a confidence trickster ("con artist")
The "-ism" suffix creates a noun, in this case, the state of being a "huskster", whatever that is supposed to be. Hustler?
I couldn't post to the list so I sent the OP an email which I hope he will forgive me for; won't happen again.
the word I think you are all looking for is 'hucksterism'.
Felmon
On 08/13/2012 08:26 AM, felmon davis wrote:
the word I think you are all looking for is 'hucksterism'.
Quite right, which is to say that I think its useless to go looking for mud puddles in the backyards of those who are worried that the dam is going to burst.
On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Dexter Filmore Dexter.Filmore@gmx.de wrote:
Well, I've been telling for years now that we were better off with one desktop that has the flexibility to adapt to everyone's needs. Be lightweight without graphical mumbo jumbo if desired, be all the visual monster with tons of effects, be as simple as a task bar and systray, be a full blown cornucopia of gadgets if somebody prefer that. Make it configurable from simply to rocket science, from 486 to i7 but have ONE API. Offer developers a safe base.
Dexter,
This is the thing that the competitors (e.g. Mac, Windows) have done, or at least tried to do. I have my own workflow, and am not going to change it just because someone thinks I should. For Mac and Windows, they are telling me that I have to do task X in this way and that is the only way I can do it. If I decide to color outside the lines, then that is not allowed.
I think that's why many of us have gravitated to Linux. Because of the freedom to compute in a way that is comfortable for us. Gnome and KDE have completely different paradigms for how they operate, and I think that trying to force them into a single box is wrong of you.
Not to put too fine a point on it, find a way to compute that works for you and go with it. But don't try to dictate to everyone else that they have to compute in the same way. And don't try to tell the developers, who are doing this in their free time as a labor of love that they are doing it wrong. If the "there is only one way to do it" paradigm is what fits you, go back to Windows or Mac.
I've heard similar debates about how there are too many distros. That we should force all of the distro devs to work on one big unified distro. So which would it be? RedHat? They are king in the corporate space. Debian? They have a couple of hundred distros in their progeny. What about all the specialist distros like Backtrack for security/pentesting? Or should we stop OpenMediaVault? What about DBAN or Parted Magic or system rescue cd? And who would make this decision? I tend to run Debian on the desktop, but have about a dozen specialist distros on cd or thumb drive.
So, variety being the spice of life, and since you cannot dictate what we do with our free time, if we want to contribute to one or more projects, then I think the best you can do is just say thank you.
Just my $0.02, --b
Am Sunday 29 July 2012 06:03:41 schrieb Brad Alexander:
On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Dexter Filmore Dexter.Filmore@gmx.de
wrote:
Well, I've been telling for years now that we were better off with one desktop that has the flexibility to adapt to everyone's needs. Be lightweight without graphical mumbo jumbo if desired, be all the visual monster with tons of effects, be as simple as a task bar and systray, be a full blown cornucopia of gadgets if somebody prefer that. Make it configurable from simply to rocket science, from 486 to i7 but have ONE API. Offer developers a safe base.
Dexter,
This is the thing that the competitors (e.g. Mac, Windows) have done, or at least tried to do. I have my own workflow, and am not going to change it just because someone thinks I should. For Mac and Windows, they are telling me that I have to do task X in this way and that is the only way I can do it. If I decide to color outside the lines, then that is not allowed.
Win/OSX = binary, Cathedral style. Does not make a good base for comparison imo.
I think that's why many of us have gravitated to Linux. Because of the freedom to compute in a way that is comfortable for us. Gnome and KDE have completely different paradigms for how they operate, and I think that trying to force them into a single box is wrong of you.
If the box is big enough for both?
Not to put too fine a point on it, find a way to compute that works for you and go with it. But don't try to dictate to everyone else that they have to compute in the same way. And don't try to tell the developers, who are doing this in their free time as a labor of love that they are doing it wrong.
I don't. I say there should be a standard. And from a certain level on there isn't. We agreed on how to address mem, how to address hdd sectors, we agreed on byte order (mostly, this is where the exceptions start but at least all cases are covered). And I've been in the OSS game since last century now and have my part in growing the community, if I don't get to complain I don't see why I should contribute.
If the "there is only one way to do it" paradigm is what fits you, go back to Windows or Mac.
MS/Apple don't listen to me at all. There is no dialog. I don't say I the OSS community is not for me, I say there are more possibilities and there could be more archievement than there is.
I've heard similar debates about how there are too many distros. That we should force all of the distro devs to work on one big unified distro. So which would it be? RedHat? They are king in the corporate space. Debian? They have a couple of hundred distros in their progeny. What about all the specialist distros like Backtrack for security/pentesting? Or should we stop OpenMediaVault? What about DBAN or Parted Magic or system rescue cd? And who would make this decision? I tend to run Debian on the desktop, but have about a dozen specialist distros on cd or thumb drive.
I never said anything about distros. While I see that BSD has a different standard, just mentioning as you bring it up.
So, variety being the spice of life, and since you cannot dictate what we do with our free time, if we want to contribute to one or more projects, then I think the best you can do is just say thank you.
Since others gave me the "dictate" thing I assume I conveyed my intention wrong somewhere. I wanted to weigh an idea, I'm not telling anyone what to do with their time. Unless I payed, of course...
On 07/28/12 10:30, Dexter Filmore wrote:
Where's my Star Trek?
plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install startrek [sudo] password for plaws: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package startrek plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install "star trek" Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package star trek plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install "tobias trek" Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package tobias trek plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install "trek" Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package trek
No idea, dude. Sorry.
On 07/28/12 10:30, Dexter Filmore wrote:
Where's my Star Trek?
plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install startrek [sudo] password for plaws: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package startrek plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install "star trek" Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package star trek plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install "tobias trek" Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package tobias trek plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install "trek" Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package trek
No idea, dude. Sorry.
Nah, it's more like this: apt-get install lcars Error: technology unavailable; not invented or non-free (patented) Wait 20yrs? [Y/n]
;-)
Tim
Timothy Pearson wrote:
On 07/28/12 10:30, Dexter Filmore wrote:
Where's my Star Trek?
plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install startrek [sudo] password for plaws: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package startrek plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install "star trek" Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package star trek plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install "tobias trek" Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package tobias trek plaws@toto:plaws $ sudo apt-get install "trek" Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package trek
No idea, dude. Sorry.
Nah, it's more like this: apt-get install lcars Error: technology unavailable; not invented or non-free (patented) Wait 20yrs? [Y/n]
;-)
Tim
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$ aptitude show bsdgames Package: bsdgames State: installed Automatically installed: no Version: 2.17-19 Priority: optional Section: games Maintainer: Tobias Quathamer toddy@debian.org Uncompressed Size: 2,449 k Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libncurses5 (>= 5.6+20071006-3), libstdc++6 (>= 4.4.0), wamerican | wordlist Conflicts: bsdgames-nonfree (< 2.14) Replaces: bsdgames-nonfree (< 2.14) Description: collection of classic textual unix games This is a collection of some of the text-based games and amusements that have been enjoyed for decades on unix systems.
It includes these programs: adventure, arithmetic, atc, backgammon, battlestar, bcd, boggle, caesar, canfield, countmail, cribbage, dab, go-fish, gomoku, hack, hangman, hunt, mille, monop, morse, number, pig, phantasia, pom, ppt, primes, quiz, random, rain, robots, rot13, sail, snake, tetris, *trek*, wargames, worm, worms, wump, wtf
There's your Star Trek! :)
No idea, dude. Sorry.
Nah, it's more like this: apt-get install lcars Error: technology unavailable; not invented or non-free (patented) Wait 20yrs? [Y/n]
;-)
Tim
Nah, a friend of mine did an LCARS interface, turned out LCARS is not half as cool as they make it look :)
On 07/31/12 08:38, Dexter Filmore wrote:
No idea, dude. Sorry.
Nah, it's more like this: apt-get install lcars Error: technology unavailable; not invented or non-free (patented) Wait 20yrs? [Y/n]
;-)
Tim
Nah, a friend of mine did an LCARS interface, turned out LCARS is not half as cool as they make it look :)
Well, no, not without the touchscreen. And the starship.
On 07/31/12 08:38, Dexter Filmore wrote:
No idea, dude. Sorry.
Nah, it's more like this: apt-get install lcars Error: technology unavailable; not invented or non-free (patented) Wait 20yrs? [Y/n]
;-)
Tim
Nah, a friend of mine did an LCARS interface, turned out LCARS is not half as cool as they make it look :)
Well, no, not without the touchscreen. And the starship.
So basically, outside of (or without) the intended application the interface is of little use. Not surprising. :-)
Tim
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