Hogwash
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Fettoosh Sep 02, 2012 2:13 PM EDT |
The fact that many articles about Linux Desktop are still written and forums are still vibrant, Linux desktop is still alive and well. There are various reasons why Linux Desktop hasn't share an equal popularity level as Linux server, but a technical reason is not one of them. Those who claim it is dead don't know what they are talking about or have ulterior motives Miguel de Icaza might be a good programmer, but he is more of a political personality full of envy and jealousy than anything else. He might have gotten rich some how, but technically, he is a miserable failure. He participated in the start-up of GNOME (I doubt he played a major role), then he concentrated on Ximian. Those did get him any where. He then left GNOME to latch onto .Net, he failed doing any progress. Mono is hardly used or talked about any more. What is left for him is to try to latch to anything with potential to keep a noticeable presence. Apple and Android products are the trends lately and he is trying to get latch to them. As one expression goes, "The ox that can't plow its field, won't succeed in another" |
| dinotrac Sep 02, 2012 5:03 PM EDT |
**Cough** Gnumeric. You don't like de Icaza, I get that. No need to diminish his contributions. And -- "participated in the start-up of GNOME"? Seriously? Are you really and truly that ignorant and lazy in this, the Google age? Not only did de Icaza co-found the GNOME project, he received the 1999 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software for that work, and was selected as one of Time Magazine's 100 Innovators for a New Century the following year. There is a lot with which to find fault,especially in later years, but I don't know which KDE developers have contributed as much to that project -- and to free software as de Icaza. |
| tracyanne Sep 02, 2012 6:08 PM EDT |
Quoting:He then left GNOME to latch onto .Net, he failed doing any progress. Mono is hardly used or talked about any more. Actually Mono is very much used, it may not be discussed in forums like this, but it is doing very well thankyouverymuch. I'd even do some Android development, if they made the dev tools available for Linux. |
| jacog Sep 03, 2012 8:10 AM EDT |
Yeah, mono's popularity should not be underestimated. Usually in gaming news when you hear of a previously XBLA game coming to "PC" and also being available for Linux, you can bet the developers have ported from .net / XNA to mono / monogame. A recent notable example of this is Bastion. http://supergiantgames.com/?p=1501 |
| Fettoosh Sep 03, 2012 1:56 PM EDT |
Quoting:he received the 1999 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software for that work, and was selected as one of Time Magazine's 100 Innovators for a New Century the following year. All formalities and I have no regards to such things. Gnumeric! what is that again? That was then and what was so important that he invented that helped flourish FOSS? A copy of .Net and Mono? No thanks. Quoting: but I don't know which KDE developers have contributed as much to that project There isn't a single "hero" who contributed to KDE, but that is the thing, it is a team that created a wonderful DE with numerous application that is unmatched by any other in my opinion. Quoting:Actually Mono is very much used, ... Mono based application has either been replaced or totally removed from most distros. The only people who use it are those who still need .Net compatibility. Other than that, Mono has no useful role since other FOSS tools and frameworks are more native and better suitable. Qt is a better multi-platform supported, more popular and fully compliant with FLOSS licenses than Mono. |
| dinotrac Sep 03, 2012 2:17 PM EDT |
Fettoosh - You have no regard for anything except your own opinion. I am grateful there is more to the world than that. |
| tuxchick Sep 03, 2012 4:18 PM EDT |
I have a "Torvalds pours scorn" hotkey macro in my text editor :) |
| Fettoosh Sep 03, 2012 4:51 PM EDT |
Quoting:You have no regard for anything except your own opinion. @Dino, I don't agree with that, but I respect your opinion. By the way, my original rant was my opinion. I hope you respect mine like I respect yours. :-) |
| dinotrac Sep 03, 2012 5:22 PM EDT |
@fettoosh -- I actually have great respect for the free exercise of opinion. The thing is -- when you express an opinion (as I frequently do) you risk running up against the facts (again, as I frequently do). At those times, a wise person acknowledges such errors as must be acknowledged. The fact is that de Icaza started out as a fairly hot-shot (and energetic) developer. One - who AMAZEMENT!! -- was fully of opinions and ideas that he just knew were better than anybody else's. (Psst!! KDE team and countless others). You don't like where he went with all that. Even RMS, who once embraced him, has condemned him as a traitor. That's fair. It's opinion. You (and RMS) are entitled to that. It doesn't change the fact that de Icaza was once hot stuff, and it doesn't change the fact that his free software cred was sufficiemt to warrant a shout-out by RMS his own self. |
| Fettoosh Sep 03, 2012 5:49 PM EDT |
Quoting:It doesn't change the fact that de Icaza was once hot stuff fair enough, and if you notice, I said "Miguel de Icaza might be a good programmer,..." since I didn't know of him until he co-established Ximian with Nate Friedman(?), which was funded by VC. I never thought of him as a FOSS advocate because, in my opinion, he was in it mostly for the money. His Ximian and Mono/.Net for Linux endeavors failed and he is trying his luck with Apple IOS & Android tablets/devices. My questions is, was it necessary for him to bash the Linux desktop and declare it dead? |
| dinotrac Sep 03, 2012 6:27 PM EDT |
>was it necessary for him to bash the Linux desktop and declare it dead? Of course not. So....how many other people in the free software spectrum do you hold to the "was it necessary" standard? I know you don't like seeing the KDE team held to the "Was it necessary to piss on the great bulk of KDE users" standard. De Icaza expressed his opinion -- a concept you claim to respect. It is completely fair to disagree with him -- roast him over the coals, even. You don't even have to be nice about it. |
| tracyanne Sep 03, 2012 6:33 PM EDT |
I should point out here that just because you dislike .NET (that nasty Microsoft stuff), that does not in any way invalidate the innovation of the framework, nor does it in any way detract from the actual usefulness of Mono on Linux and as a cross platform development framework. Nor for that matter does it in any way detract from de Icaza's choice to develop Mono. Here's me defending a GNOME developer, but then that's because nothing is ever that simple, and there are multiple issues here, I'll stick to this one. Quoting:he was in it mostly for the money. Well greedy fat pig him. I suppose Red Hat is in it for the pleasure of giving away Free Software. This is what FOSS is all about, a new or different business model, read the GPL, the bit about what price you can charge for Free Software. Quoting:His Ximian and Mono/.Net for Linux endeavors failed and he is trying his luck with Apple IOS & Android tablets/devices Actually no they haven't failed, there is just more money in selling tool sets to Windows and Mac developers. In other words, the resistance of the Linux Community to this innovative toolset, because of it's Microsoft origins, is the reason he doesn't bother with Linux, there's more money to be made elsewhere. Good for him, if we don't support his efforts. Quoting:My questions is, was it necessary for him to bash the Linux desktop and declare it dead? Actually when I read his blog, I kept thinking "It sounds like he's talking about the GNOME desktop". On the other hand given the way in which the community in general has bashed him, for the path he has taken, I'm surprised he any longer cares about the Linux Desktop. |
| Fettoosh Sep 04, 2012 10:00 AM EDT |
Quoting: I know you don't like seeing the KDE team held to the "Was it necessary to piss on the great bulk of KDE users" standard. Bad comparison Dino, apples & oranges. KDE didn't bash Linux or GNOME for that matter, they just made a mistake in the roll out of an innovative product. Quoting:I should point out here that just because you dislike .Net ... I didn't say I dislike .Net and I wasn't attacking it, I was just pointing out that De Icaza failed in cloning it on Linux. But now you mention it, I used .Net but I don't think it was a new innovation. It was a copy from Java and it wasn't that much better than Java in my opinion. Besides, Java is more in tune with Linux and there was no need to have .Net for Linux since there is enough better technology. Quoting:I suppose Red Hat is in it for the pleasure of giving away Free Software. Bad comparison and not the same. Red Hat didn't bash Linux Desktop and they continue to support it. Please, don't misunderstand me, I am not against making money of FOSS. I use K/Ubuntu and I encourage Canonical because they do support Linux in ways similar to what Red Hat is doing. What I said "he is mostly in it for the money". Before Kubuntu, I was a big advocate of Suse. I abandoned it after Novell signed their famous agreement with MS. Quoting:there is just more money in selling tool sets to Windows and Mac developers. In other words... That's my point. "Mostly in it for the money" Quoting: I kept thinking "It sounds like he's talking about the GNOME desktop". ... I'm surprised he any longer cares about the Linux Desktop There are multiple other desktops for Linux as you know and they are alive and well. I don't think he cares about the Linux desktop any more since iOS & Android are the trend. I doubt he really cared before since he just follows the money. |
| JaseP Sep 04, 2012 11:29 AM EDT |
Quoting: KDE didn't bash Linux or GNOME for that matter, they just made a mistake in the roll out of an innovative product. No, it's bigger than that,... The KDE developers still take the attitude that they know better than the users how the desktop should be used... Nepomuk, Stringi and Akonadi server are examples, as is the "forcing" of the KDE netbook environment on machines with a certain screen dimension. When you go to the KDE developer forums, they are always defending and justifying their poor decisions despite overwhelming user feedback and criticism to the contrary. |
| claudecat Sep 04, 2012 1:10 PM EDT |
Forcing of the KDE netbook environment? I run a few KDE distros on my netbook and have never seen the netbook interface unless I ask it to be there. That it is an option is a good thing, but I don't like or use it. Also, all that semaantic desktop stuff can easily be disabled, and in some cases is actually useful (or so I hear). Gnome does a whole lot more "forcing" of alleged features upon the end user, at least from my perspective as a non-technical person. |
| Fettoosh Sep 04, 2012 1:55 PM EDT |
Quoting:The KDE developers still take the attitude that they know better than the users how the desktop should be used ... @JaseP, Obviously you haven't seen some of the changes in attitude on KDE web sites, I suggest taking a look at http://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=9 http://www.planetkde.org/ http://wadejolson.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/membership-survey... I believe that FOSS projects can't be successful if they were guided by democratic forum. If developers were to listen to every opinion and idea posted on blogs, forums, and web sites, where many of them are conflicting and influenced by preferences and biases, the project would turn to mediocracy. Meritocracy is a better approach. Users would make their suggestions and opinions heard, developers would hash things among themselves and make final decisions about users input and determine the direction the project should go. Frameworks are specially sensitive to too many opinions & suggestions. I believe that is the model being followed by the KDE team now. There were issues before, but currently, I think they are listening quite a bit. As for KDE being made to the taste of its developers, I believe this is not entirely accurate. May be the default settings by a specific distribution is not to the taste of some, but is perfectly likable by others. KDE is extremely flexible and extensible to the extent that distributors and users alike can tailor it any way they choose. I don't think anyone can deny that. Quoting:as is the "forcing" of the KDE netbook environment on machines with a certain screen dimension. "forcing" is a too strong of a word for something that is chosen as the default and can easily be changed by the user. Again, that could have been changed when a distribution is created. Edited: Note: At one point, when KDE is launched, it detects the size of the display and determine whether to use Plasma Desktop or Plasma Netbook interface. I believe when the user does change it, it retains that setting after reboots. I am not sure whether that is still the case or not. |
| CFWhitman Sep 04, 2012 5:09 PM EDT |
Actually, it seems to me that Mono has actually ended up better than .NET as far as stability and modularity are concerned (I have seen .NET bring a system to its knees and require a complete operating system reinstall more than once). However, I'm not sure that it's really better than, or even as good as, the alternatives, like Python, Java, Ruby, etc. I tend to respect some of those other systems more than Mono (way more than .NET itself). Since Qt is a toolkit and not a virtual machine or interpreter it's not comparable. |
| tracyanne Sep 04, 2012 6:55 PM EDT |
@FettooshQuoting: It was a copy from Java and it wasn't that much better than Java i Not really a copy of Java. Aguably better, but only because it is language agnostic, while Java is well Java. C# is a copy of Java, with some changes that are claimed to make it better, Yes, but .NET isn't a copy of Java, .NET is a language agnostic framework, as is Mono, Mono also be OS agnostic, and it works very well on Linux, development of MonoDevelop for all platforms continues, no it's quite successful. Here's the reason I was given for why there is no Linux version of the toolset. A perceived difficulty. "Thank you for contacting Xamarin!. We currently don't have any plans to do so, as most software is built and distributed by the distro. This would require cooperation by the groups themselves (Suse, Debian, Ubuntu) which means maintaining multiple code bases." This is of course bullshit, but it's in line with de Icaza's thinking re GNOME and the desktop. |
| Fettoosh Sep 04, 2012 7:21 PM EDT |
Quoting:Not really a copy of Java. Aguably better, ... @TA, What I meant is what I said in a previous statement "I was just pointing out that De Icaza failed in cloning it on Linux." , by copying ideas from .Net In my opinion, the bottom line is that Mono is a handicapped clone and in my opinion is not worth the trouble. Quoting:We currently don't have any plans to do so, Could it be that patents have something to do with their decision? |
| tracyanne Sep 04, 2012 7:58 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh This would require cooperation by the groups themselves (Suse, Debian, Ubuntu) which means maintaining multiple code bases." |
| jdixon Sep 04, 2012 8:52 PM EDT |
> ...they just made a mistake in the roll out of an innovative product. And Krakatoa was just a volcano. > Red Hat didn't bash Linux Desktop and they continue to support it. For their selected customers, yes. For the masses, no. But those are really minor nitpicks in the main flow of your argument. |
| tracyanne Sep 04, 2012 9:17 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh Patents are irrelevant. The development tools (Mono For Android) are a commercial product not available as source code, they are maintaining the code base, any alleged patent licenses are part of their costs, and are passed on to the purchaser of the product in the usual manner. |
| Fettoosh Sep 04, 2012 9:30 PM EDT |
Quoting:For their selected customers, yes. For the masses, no. I wasn't aware they stopped supporting Fedora, did they? |
| jdixon Sep 05, 2012 6:25 AM EDT |
> I wasn't aware they stopped supporting Fedora, did they? In the sense you seem to be using the word, Red Hat has never "supported" Fedora. They supported Red Hat Linux. They now support Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop. They don't support Fedora. |
| CFWhitman Sep 05, 2012 10:49 AM EDT |
Actually, the Java Virtual Machine is not locked into one language either. The list of available languages includes Clojure, Groovy, Scala, Kotlin, Ceylon, JavaFX Script, JRuby, Jython, Rhino, AspectJ, JNAT (Ada), Jawk, BBj, Boojay, C, COBOL, ColdFusion, Common Lisp, Component Pascal, Erjang (Erlang), myForth, jgo, Logo, Lua, Oberon-2, OCaml, Oxygene (Object Pascal), Pascal, PHP, Rexx, Scheme, and TCL. .NET and Java are quite similar as general concepts. Of course another virtual machine, and one that has been open source from its inception, is Parrot, which is the basis for Perl 6, but was intended from the beginning to host multiple languages. My problem with .NET is that it's tied closely into Windows, both to the extent that .NET issues can make Windows itself unstable, and it doesn't run on anything else. That's why Mono is actually better than .NET in some ways. However, as long as they are chasing .NET, Mono developers will always be a step behind. They don't really have as much leeway to forge ahead on their own, and that's really a shame. There are also concerns that Mono may leave a bigger opening for patent suits from Microsoft, but that may or may not amount to much difference in the long run. |
| caitlyn Sep 06, 2012 12:55 AM EDT |
Quoting:In the sense you seem to be using the word, Red Hat has never "supported" Fedora. They supported Red Hat Linux. They now support Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop. They don't support Fedora.I disagree. They pay the salaries of a number of people working on the Fedora project. They don't offer the kind of support for the end user/customer that they do for the enterprise product, but to say they don't support Fedora at all is simply not accurate. |
| jdixon Sep 06, 2012 8:27 AM EDT |
> They pay the salaries of a number of people working on the Fedora project. Supporting the development of a product is not the same thing as supporting the product itself. > They don't offer the kind of support for the end user/customer that they do for the enterprise product Exactly. > ...but to say they don't support Fedora at all is simply not accurate. I did say "In the sense you seem to be using the word", didn't I? If you use a different definition, then you are correct, but that's not the definition I was using. |
| vagabondo Sep 06, 2012 9:31 AM EDT |
"Supporting .." Fedora, Red Hat, Gnome, KDE, etc. are no different from most other Free Software projects. The _projects_ get dedicated, organized support and sponsorship. The _users_ either pay for an expert, rely on neighborliness, or work it out for themselves and gain expertise. |
| Fettoosh Sep 06, 2012 10:48 AM EDT |
Quoting:Red Hat didn't bash Linux Desktop and they continue to support it. @jdixon, In the context of the Linux Desktop subject, it wasn't in relation to furnishing support to its users, it was in relation to the development of Linux Desktop. May be I should have said "Red Hat didn't stop supporting the development of Linux Desktop". Thanks Caitlyn for clarifying that. |
| caitlyn Sep 06, 2012 3:36 PM EDT |
You're welcome, Fettoosh. In general, of course, most free/community versions of Linux distros don't offer support at all. Fedora, like Ubuntu or Mint, has a very large and very active community. The net result is that you can get answers and support in the forums when you need it. Of course, there may be some bad answers with the good, but the community support is there and it is helpful most of the time. Fedora also has some of the most thorough and complete documentation I've seen and Red Hat does pay to develop that :) |
| jdixon Sep 06, 2012 5:19 PM EDT |
> May be I should have said "Red Hat didn't stop supporting the development of Linux Desktop". If you were using it in that sense, then yes, Caitlyn is correct and I misunderstood your meaning. |
| caitlyn Sep 06, 2012 7:47 PM EDT |
Quoting:If you were using it in that sense, then yes, Caitlyn is correct and I misunderstood your meaning.You're actually quoting Fettoosh so I can't take any credit for the line. OTOH, I agree with Fettoosh and that is part of what I call support. Of course, they're developing GNOME 3 and I imagine some folks here aren't thrilled with that. |
| BernardSwiss Sep 06, 2012 8:22 PM EDT |
On the other hand, they may well be thrilled that the mess is at arm's length. |
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