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Open Source Awards 2004
Posted by
michael
on Sat Jan 17, 2004 03:07 PM
from the applause dept.
from the applause dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The first Open Source Awards 2004 have been announced. These newly created awards aspire to be the Nobel Prizes of the open source world. Congratulations to the developers of Valgrind, VideoLAN, JACK, and Pango."
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The Grandmasters and Specials yet to be announced (Score:5, Interesting)
That having been said, these projects definitely deserve their awards. I only have experience with VideoLAN, and it's an awesome piece of software.
The committee allows nominations from the public any time, here [opensource.org], so go nominate your favourite project or Open Source person today!
About valgrind (Score:5, Interesting)
Valgrind has saved so many hours of debugging that I don't think any developer should live without it. If you haven't tried it, give it a shot, it might not help you now but it's surelly a valuable asset to have in your toolbox.
Assuming the others are just as great as Valgrind, I'll surelly give them a try (VideoLAN and JACK, because if you run a gui in linux you probably already run something that uses pango).
Anyway, kudos for the winners!!
Parent
Re:About valgrind (Score:3, Interesting)
Your code might compile and run, but it might also be full of memory bugs just waiting to crash your program as soon as a user gets hold of it. valgrind will find those holes.
The first memory checking tool I used was insure++ by Parasoft, which, once I realised it's usefulness to debug problems users had encountered, I made it part of the development process and used it in tests to fix the code before it went out. An I
Re:The Grandmasters and Specials yet to be announc (Score:5, Insightful)
Acrobat. FrameMaker.
Flash. Shockwave. Dreamweaver.
This is not limited to open-source software whatsoever.
In any case, Pango is not user-level software; it is a library. JACK is essentially the same. Valgrind is also developer software.
I don't see what's wrong with the name Xouvert. "X-Open."
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Re:photoshop, poser, word, visual basic (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose things like ImageMagick, Sendmail, and OpenOffice don't count?
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Re:photoshop, poser, word, visual basic (Score:2)
After all, photoshop is just like the iTunes Music Store, Poser is a program that "habitually pretends to be something [it] is not", or rather one that "can talk the talk, but can't walk the walk.", or is it "the bishop's examining chaplain"? A puzzeling question. [google.com]
The only thing "Visual Basic" says is that it's easy and you can see it. I like that in french girls.
The only name that really is descriptive in your list is Word, and that's not only descriptive, but totally generic.
Re:The Grandmasters and Specials yet to be announc (Score:5, Informative)
Valgrind, okay, I'll give you that one. The name is from Nordic mythology, as explained in an interview [com.com] with Julian Seward. It actually makes a bit of sense if you know what it means.
VideoLAN is obvious.
JACK is used to connect audio programs together. The name makes sense to me.
Pango, well, I got the name immediately, and I think it's a perfect description. But I admit that many people won't understand a combination of Greek and Japanese roots meaning "all languages".
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Re:The Grandmasters and Specials yet to be announc (Score:4, Informative)
JACK = JACK Audio Connection Kit. It's a recursive acronym, like GNU (GNU's Not Unix).
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Nature of the beast. (Score:5, Interesting)
In Open Source however the development is open to the public so a project can quickly become known by the first name it is given. Meanwhile coders aren't going to sit back and stop coding while focus groups and naming comittees mull over a good name. They'll quickly come up with something they are happy with and get on with the business at hand, actually creating the software.
At the end of the days names aren't that important . That's obviously true for infrastructure applications like most of those given these awards that no user needs to ever hear about. Even for end user apps assuming distributers/packagers follow sensible guidelines [gnome.org] there should be no issue for end users.
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Re:Nature of the beast. (Score:4, Interesting)
I dont know how many stupid acronyms you can go through before you can agree "we shoudlnt use a meaningless acronym(and yes, i know thats an oxymoron)
I think i lasted ten minutes(of what, 2 hours?) before I was fighting like the devil not to pass out.
Parent
It could be worse (Score:3, Funny)
What intrigues me... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe... (Score:2)
Re:What intrigues me... (Score:5, Funny)
Because, man, you never got off your lazy ass and did it!! Everyone was like waiting and waiting for you, but nadda. Someone finally got sick of waiting and put it together. And now its here. What the hell is your problem, slack-off?
Parent
Hall of Shame (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, you know who they are... I think what ticks me off the most is these violators don't give money, credit or code back - grifters...
My favorite Open Source projects (Score:5, Interesting)
K3b
Plone: The most mature open source CMS. http://www.plone.org
Mamboserver: Not as mature or featurefull as Plone, but very nice as well.
OfflineIMAP: Simple, reliable, powerful
Kstars and KDE Technology in general
The ones that are almost there but could use a hand to make them more intuitive:
*GNUCash. Can't wait for their Gtk2 version.
*Mr. Project
*KOffice has a great technological underpinning. Needs a bit of work, but it's already looking very good.
they're called HYPERLINKS (Score:4, Informative)
Other than that, thanks for the pointers.
====
ImageMagick [imagemagick.org]
K3b [sourceforge.net] - DVD/CD burner software
Plone [plone.org] - The most mature open source CMS.
Mamboserver [mamboserver.com] - Not as mature or featurefull as Plone, but very nice as well.
OfflineIMAP [quux.org] - Simple, reliable, powerful
Kstars [kde.org] - and KDE Technology [kde.org] in general
The ones that are almost there but could use a hand to make them more intuitive:
GNUCash [gnucash.org] - Can't wait for their Gtk2 version.
Mr. Project [codefactory.se]
KOffice [koffice.org] - has a great technological underpinning.
Parent
valgrind (Score:4, Informative)
nobel prize? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is, isn't the noble prize reserved for those who make a massive contribution to science and/or human wellfare? In this case, there are probably only a very very small handful of people who should receive a noble-like oss reward (e.g. Linus, RMS). And, from the list of people who receive rewards it doesn't seem like they are only limiting them selves to such individuals.
Re:nobel prize? (Score:2)
They have a Fields Medal for that [wolfram.com]
Some of those peeps work on bio, nuclear, and chemical weapons.
Encryption software can be readly by individuals of lesser moral standing for devious purposes. By no means does this mean that there should not be research undertaken in cryptology and made freely available
However, I do think that software could have a signifigant impact on humanity. For instance, look at Linux, OpenOffice etc... Individuals from impovreished areas c
Re:nobel prize? (Score:3, Insightful)
Need I even go into the amount of highly sophisticated math required to design something like VideoLAN? How do you think humans gained the capability to develop such sophisticated means of audio and video compression? How about the number theory involved in the asymmetric encryption used by many secure networking protocols?
Sure the math involved in th
Re:nobel prize? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I gotta go with literature on this one. Anway, computer scientists have the Turing award, which is basically the same thing.
Also, hacking linux apps and libraries isn't really computer science, although it is useful itself. Certainly these contributions are not of the scale and import as nobel-prize winning breakthroughs.
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Valgrind: an amazing tool (Score:5, Interesting)
IMHO valgrind is the single most useful programming tool available on linux. Congratulations to the developers!
Greetings,
Re:Valgrind: an amazing tool (Score:4, Interesting)
I sent the (lead?) developer some email a while back, saying how entirely l33t he is and hoping that somebody somewhere had given him a job using these skills. The answer? Yup. Works for ARM.
Must go, I think there's a dead router. On a Sunday.
Dave
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Re:Valgrind: an amazing tool (Score:5, Informative)
In short, valgrind manages to find many bugs in programs and gives you the information so you can actually solve those bugs.
Greetings,
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bully pulpit (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a reason these folks were singled out that should resonate beyond the consoles of the like-minded. That reason should state plainly the importance of open source to the mission of civilization overall: service to the higher ideas of truth, freedom and better flavors of ice cream.
But what is that message? And in language that I (or other person with developmentally-delayed level programming knowledge) can understand?
My opinion (Score:3, Offtopic)
No FLOSS - organisation had done more for Open Source Lobbying in 2003. They smashed the EU software patent legislation while the OSI kept silent, OSI even announced [opensource.org] they were not opposed to software patentability: "The Open Source Initiative does not have a position on whether ideas can be owned, whether patents are good or bad, or any of the related controversies. We think the economic self-interest arguments for open source are strong enough that nobody needs to go on any moral crusades about it."
So who works against us?
I'd like to extend my thanks to... (Score:4, Funny)
Who is Brian Wellington and Matias Duarte you say? Well, they are the creators of XBill [xbill.org] and let me get out so much aggression. Go pick up the latest copy for your favorite platform.
Re:I'd like to extend my thanks to... (Score:2, Funny)
Why VLC has "surprising amount" of OS X users (Score:2, Interesting)
-Was (and is) easy to install (MPlayerOSX was still at a fledling state, IIRC getting it to work required compiling or something
-Handled just about every media file you got to throw at it, in some cases even better than the official
My thoughts... (Score:5, Insightful)
The older version, v1.6.x series, has a few cosmetic problems under Panther (works perfectly under Jaguar), but in general is outstanding. Why anyone would use the AOL client under OS X with Adium and iChat available is beyond me. The only thing that iChat has going for it over Adium is the video conferencing feature.
Highly configurable, easy to use, and has a great feature set.
v2.0, now in late-alpha, looks to be even better, going to a modular protocol backend, meaning it can do AIM/MSN/etc.
I have used VideoLan Client on OS X and really like that, as well. It opens about 98% of the files that MPlayer can handle, and has an interface that is leaps and bounds beyond MPlayer (for a good example of how *not* to write an OS X interface, check out MPlayer for OS X).
More of this sort of thing needed (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Never heard of these things, and
b) Would probably never use them
Obviously the criteria for choosing these tools as being worthy of mention isn't based on how sexy they are, it's based on how USEFUL they are.
OSS development still suffers from an excess of people wanting to work on the 'sexy' code... the things that blink and humm and make people go 'wow cool', and a deficit of coders willing to slug it out on the basic, relatively un-sexy tools that make those other things possible. Giving kudos to people who take the time to build solid and dependable frameworks enhances OSS and software generally, and imo deserves more recognition than they currently get.
Who knows, maybe they can encourage a shift in young coder minds that building solid tools can be sexy too...
Damn... (Score:2, Funny)
Well, we almost made it through January.
Yes valgrind! (Score:5, Insightful)
And now you heave heard of them. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would I haven't heard of any of these.
Yes, these are projects that have less fame than Openoffice. Isn't that cool? You just learned about four great new pieces of software rather than hearing about Openoffice for the millionth time. Sweet.Parent
Re:Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've worked with many bounds/integrity checking programs, both on windows and linux, commercial and otherwise, and oddly enough valgrind beats them hands down in quality.
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Re:Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Obscure? To you, maybe. Flash-in-the-pan? Definitely not. And don't advance Free Software? All of them (except maybe JACK, which I've never heard of before) have improved OS/FS enormously. Valgrind is just amazing - although you may never have heard of it, the chances are you use daily a program that it's debugged. Pango makes using multiple languages actually easier on Linux than Windows in my experience. VideoLAN, well, try it yourself.
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Re:What a boring lineup... (Score:5, Informative)
Then you use videolan technology, as they are the ones who developed libdvdcss.
Do you use any gnome program that can work in any language? Probable you use pango too.
Do you use mozilla or similar? Then you should now it is debugged with Valgrind
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Re:So, we're awarding wasted duplication of effort (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So, we're awarding wasted duplication of effort (Score:2)
Now you have no excuse, put your money where your mouth is!
Re:So, we're awarding wasted duplication of effort (Score:2)
I know the GPL allows you to charge ($40?), but shouldn't Lindows make the source available?
Re:So, we're awarding wasted duplication of effort (Score:2)
Maybe they did a private non gpl fork for them
Re:So, we're awarding wasted duplication of effort (Score:2)
Not necessarily.
For one thing, the GPL only requires you to make source code available to the people who have the binaries. In other words, if you haven't paid, you don't have any right to complain.
Another issue is how integrated the DVD decoder is. If it's sufficiently modular, then there is nothing in the GPL to stop them distributing a totally closed-source proprietary decoder module along with a GPL'd play
Re:So, we're awarding wasted duplication of effort (Score:2)
Re:So, we're awarding wasted duplication of effort (Score:3, Informative)
No [gnu.org], you [gnu.org] can't [gnu.org].
Re:So, we're awarding wasted duplication of effort (Score:2)
Even if they charge for the binary, someone can give a copy to someone else [gnu.org], and then that person can request the source without paying [gnu.org].
Re: GPL and copies of copies (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, that person can request the source from whoever gave it to him/her, but not necessarily from whoever gave it to whoever gave it to him/her.
If you read your second link [gnu.org] carefully, you will see that your friend has to give you a copy of the offer.
Since the offer refers to the entity giving you the copy, it's the person who gave you a copy of the binary (i.e., your friend) who must supply you with a copy
Re: GPL and copies of copies (Score:3, Interesting)
If the third party gave your friend a copy of the source along with the binary, that third party is not responsible for providing you with a copy of the source code if your friend gives you a copy of the binary without the source.
I screwed up in applying this reasoning to your second link, which was actually refering to section 3b, not 3a.
However, section 3b does allow the
Re:What a boring lineup... (Score:5, Interesting)
Greetings,
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Re:I nominate GROKLAW.NET (Score:5, Funny)
Reason:
Most creative interpretation of the GPL.
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