Miguel de Icaza on Longhorn 662
An anonymous reader writes "In Miguel de Icaza's latest blog entry the Mono project leader discusses the threat Longhorn's new technologies and frameworks pose to Linux and open source. He also directs users to this recent USENET post about the goals of Mozilla, which is a very interesting read.
Originally seen on OSnews." Mmmm...Miguel smart. Seriously, good commentary - and ripe for discussion/flame wars.
Mozilla Goals (Score:4, Interesting)
Create a "drop-in" replacement for Internet Explorer. That is, it has the same layout and "feel" of the IE browser without all that monopoly crap.
I'd use Mozilla if I could shift+click and get a new browser window. But every time that I install it, I end up removing it because of little annoyances that happen from my IE habits. I can't expect to make others use it (I deploy many PCs) if I don't do it myself.
Re:Mozilla Goals (Score:5, Informative)
I use Mozilla, Konquror and Opera depending on what OS and which computer I use (work, home, friends, etc).
Every computer I'm forced to use IE, I end up wishing I could remove it because of all the little annoyances.
No tabbed browsing - something all modern web-browsers seems to have.
Crappy network handling. Try spelling an URL wrong. IE hangs for 10-20 seconds with no ability to abort
Ctrl+N to open a new window. IE starts to re-load the contents of the previous window. I start typing a new URL. IE finishes loading the page and inserts the old URL in the middle of my typing. I scream out and install Mozilla on that computer too, regardless of protests from the computers owner
Re:Mozilla Goals (Score:5, Informative)
Click [tntluoma.com]
The pacing is well-done. He encourages people to try the browser for a month, because that's how long it takes to really get yourself out of an IE rut.
You know, I just accidentally closed the window before I copied over the link address, but instead of having to search for it again, I just hit ctrl-alt-Z to re-open the last window I closed. Little things like this is why I can no longer stand IE. No offense intended to those poor souls who still like using the back button, or can't turn off images with a single button, or natively block popups without a third-party app.
Re:Mozilla Goals (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly my pet peeves with MSIE. Why, oh why, must you reload the *exact same page* when I open a new window? Wouldn't the logical path be that I wanted *to look at a different web page*?!? The only explanation I can see is if you want to fork out in your browsing, say follow a link to the slashdot comments and read the article in a different window, but isn't that what right-click -> open-in-new-window is for?
Also, the thing about focusing the cursor, if I access my webmail, I often start typing before the page is fully loaded. I type my username, hit tab, and start typing my password. In the middle of my password, IE decides to focus the cursor at the start of the login field, and I type half my password in clear view. Argh!
Re:Mozilla Goals (Score:3, Insightful)
One of my pet peeves with Firefox (and there aren't many) is that opening a new window, tab, etc, means starting with a clean history. Maybe nice for some, but I'd like a trail of what I did up to opening that window.
In the middle of my password, IE decides to focus the cur
Re:Mozilla Goals (Score:5, Informative)
Opening the same window with CTRL-N is something I've never understood about IE. It makes no sense, particularly when you're on a secure site and you ended up logged in twice or force some other odd cookie-based error.
-Augie
Avantbrowser (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mozilla Goals (Score:3, Interesting)
All that said though, a few sec
Re:Mozilla Goals (Score:5, Informative)
With Firefox, at least, shift-click does open a new window, and ctrl-click (or the middle mouse button/wheel) opens the link in a new tab, which is preferrable to me.). It has done so for months and months, I don't even know how long.
Now, no one (I hope) is saying you have to use a different browser, but the reason given doesn't hold anymore.
Re:Mozilla Goals (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you serious?
Your comment makes me envision all kinds of bizarre situations...
Supervisor: Your engineering report is already behind schedule, why are you using that slide rule?
Engineer: I'd use that elctronic calculator gadget to do my math if they could just make it so I can operate it like mike slide rule.
Supervisor: Why didn't you use t
I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's position (Score:3, Interesting)
The "Microsoft Network" lost out to internet because W95 shipped too late. Let's do the same with Longhorn!
It is interesting that he acknowledges Mozilla's work. XUL has the potential to supply a platform that could nullify Longhown's advantage before it hits the streets.
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:4, Insightful)
His post is all about getting something working out of the door first. The point is defining what you need to do and how to go about doing it. Someone has to mull all of this over, privately and publicly, and Miguel's one of the ones doing this.
Good for him.
(Did I troll feed? Sorry)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:5, Insightful)
That is specious reasoning; Microsoft gets to define the game regardless. No matter how much we innovate, the pain of migrating to another platform keeps companies on Windows. If we created the next killer app, Microsoft would have plenty of time to copy it before people started to migrate en masse.
The only way to ease the pain of migration is to make things work. Most companies' infrastructure is far too thick to be able to migrate to a whole new platform in one giant leap. So addressing Windows compatibility is critical before many people can even consider Linux.
That said, I agree largely that a single project can't lead and follow, but GNU/Linux is not one project. If you are arguing that resources spent copying Microsoft are wasted, then I think it is only your own time that is being wasted, since open source developers work on what they want and will never all agree to one ideology.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:3, Insightful)
Miguel's crusade to badly copy where Microsoft has gone before isn't really that productive and it has produced rather a lot of sloppy, unfinished, unpolished software that has more promise than usefulness.
I desperately want this not to be so, but it is.
Microsoft have an important ally in Miguel. It is not necessary to announce vaporware for Linux to frighten off the competition since everyone is already waiting for applications like Evolution to stop sucking so badl
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:5, Informative)
because I stated that there were two options:
to implement Avalon, or to build our own.
We are in the process of specing out what
ours should be (the platform we call
"salvador").
Miguel.
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:5, Interesting)
10% (Score:4, Insightful)
In other countries however this is a different story.
If AOL were to market Netscape like they do Winamp and AIM, everyone would be using it instead of IE. We use AIM and ICQ over MSN already even though MSN comes with the damn OS.
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:5, Interesting)
So maybe the Mozilla team should consider creating a XUL plug-in for IE then. Is that feasible, or are there technical quirks preventing that from happening?
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:5, Interesting)
You can already "embed" XUL in IE of course, by having the user download the Gecko ActiveX control and effectively embed a renderer within a renderer, but that's a cheap hack and has severe performance implications.
To be frank, I'm 100% not convinced that Avalon is going to be as world changing as Miggy predicts. I think it's especially rash to be starting internal projects even if they are "thought only" to develop a competitor.
Miguel thinks Avalon will be great, because it will let you deploy applications via the web browser that use native widgets, and be nicely integrated with .NET and so on.
But ... but ... but ... Microsoft did this years ago (minus .net). Or am I really the only one who remembers the version of Outlook implemented entirely using DHTML/HTA (which produces native widgets). I can't remember the codename, but the project was scrapped. The benefits of running Outlook inside IE just were not compelling enough to overcome the performance and other problems.
I'm not denying it'd be useful. The long term UI goals for my own packaging/installer project are that the user should be able to launch (and implicitly install) software simply by clicking on an icon embedded in a web page. As far as the user is concerned then the effects would be the same, so the real differences lie in how the developer sees things.
In the Avalon world view, the developer creates widgets on a canvas (AFAIK), ties them together with .NET code, and then .NET CAS allows you to launch it from a web browser without fear of it doing nasty things to your machine (which is a massive oversimplification, but oh well).
In fact, we can do this sort of thing today, with technologies that are either here or just around the corner. SELinux allows you to effectively sandbox native code to a fine degree, similar to .NET CAS except enforced at the kernel level and not by a VM. It's not just a set of kernel security checks - it's actually a security architecture with an exposed set of APIs which allow people to use MAC security features to a high level.
I don't know enough about .NET security to know how it compares, but SELinux policy is easily distributable in the form of text files and allows you use native code, which runs directly on the CPU without the overhead of a VM and huge set of managed APIs.
So, if you can download some native code and correctly sandbox it, you have the start of web app deployment. XAML appears to bear a superficial representation to Glade (note: NOT xul) but using a more customised and therefore human friendly schema.
I say Glade and not XUL because a Glade file is, in actuality, not an UI description at all. It's really a persisted GObject tree that libglade uses along with the GObject reflection APIs to reconstruct the GUI at runtime. I have read that XAML despite appearances is similar: it is a persisted .NET object graph.
So, I think if Miguel starts from "what user experiences does this technology allow" and work backwards, he'll find we already have the basics in production. Sure, they need to be improved and tied together, but they are there nonetheless.
Finally I think it's wrong to say that the reason desktop Linux didn't happen in 1994 was because people were "sleeping at the wheel". The fact of the matter was in 1994 Microsoft already had several thousand people working on Windows full time, whereas desktop Linux had .... none.
Really, I think a simpler explanation is just that MS had a monopoly pumping cash into their development teams, and Linux did not. Its falling behind was therefore completely inevitable until it gained enough momentum to move as fast as Microsoft do.
Here's Why (Score:4, Insightful)
Miguel "gets it." The future of the web is seamless, safe perfectly integrated rapid application delivery. Imagine delivering an app via website that used native widgets and looked and felt like part of your OS, all while safely sandboxed. It's gonna happen come the Longhorn./NET heydey.
Many fanboys bitch and moan that Miguel laps up the Microsoft swill and ensures their success, but I'd argue it's the converse: Miguel knows we need to reach interoperability to have a meaningful competition in the first place. The better technology doesn't always win. Sometimes you gotta play the game via the home team's rules before the league lets you vote to change them.
Re:Here's Why (Score:5, Insightful)
This capability has been available with Java WebStart [sun.com] for a while now. Like many Sun and Apple products, they are consciously ignored until Microsoft "invents" them and the fanboys come running into my office to show this "new" technology on MSDN. Yawn. Trying to keep up with Mono is a Microsoft-sponsored hamster wheel, IMHO. If we really wanted
You can make really good Java Swing desktop or browser apps that look every bit as good or better than
R vs I (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the difference between being a realist and an idealist. It would be ideal if Microsoft wasn't a guarantee, but it is for now. Accept it and maybe we can do something about it.
Developing (say, mono ) to prevent platform lock-in is a hell of a lot better than trolling Slashdot and whining about how everyone else's actions are wrong.
Re:Theres no demand for these features. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, Java "failed" [as a web app framework] because Sun never could put together an applets platform that was fast and produced professional-looking apps.
If you really believe there has never been any demand for fully functional applications running in a browser, your vision of the demand for apps has been far too narrow over the last 10 years. There was absolutely high demand for this type of application in 1995, and even more so now. Some isolated examples are coming closer and closer to this vision already, just making use of DHTML and proprietary browser enhancements. Good examples are the newer versions of Exchange Web Access and Hotmail, which are both coming closer to fully functional web apps with every new release. Once
More importantly, there is high demand for easily deployable applications in many business environments, and it's obvious that the easiest deployment is no deployment - something which is only accomplished via a universal tool that everyone already has - i.e. The Browser. Just because you personally don't see the need for a web app, does not mean that many thousands of companies with billions of dollars to spend don't have business needs for them.
Not a problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft is on top of that.
LUA [microsoft.com] is supposed to take care of that. And yes, it is a bit like Unix permissioning, but it does do some cool stuff, like provide each app its own copy of local files and even mock registry hives.
Re:The success of Linux has nothing to do with .Ne (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as there was no reason to buy Windows XP. But still, many people did it. And new computers come with Windows XP, so there is no easy way to avoid it.
Especially when the first applications are written that only run on that version of Windows. (Either XP or Longhorn.)
Re:The success of Linux has nothing to do with .Ne (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's just hope that never happens... Is there anything around at the moment that ONLY runs on XP?
I help blind users with access to computers, and the evil JAWS screen reader package ($1800!) comes with limitations; you can only install it on win95, 98, ME (why?), and XP home only. No win2000 of any flavour, and no XP pro. The reasons for its restrictions are not technical though; they are built in to ensure that corporate users are charged more than personal ones...
I've started teaching one of my clients some linux skills as X can now talk... the Linux revolution is here for the blind community, as it is for the rest of us!
Re:The success of Linux has nothing to do with .Ne (Score:4, Interesting)
There are plenty of others. For Speech synthesis, you are probably looking at Festival. For Voice recognition, you are probably best off looking at IBM Viavoice for linux. GNOME has gone a very long way with the Accessibility toolkit and will continue to push down the accessibility path - for example, take a look at Dasher for an interesting app to aid writing for impaired users. There is a lot more on GNOME Accessibility [gnome.org] to read.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:The success of Linux has nothing to do with .Ne (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The success of Linux has nothing to do with .Ne (Score:3, Informative)
What version of DirectX did Windows 2000 ship with? I think it was way behind or something. Games and other multimedia apps weren't very good...
What was the cost? If I remember correctly, didn't Win2000 cost more than Win ME and Win XP?
Win2000 boots up slower than Win XP.
Win XP has better sleep mode, and other power consuming features.
And so on...
Overall, Win
Re:This is changing (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Someone had better tell Dell, HP and IBM because I think they're still flogging them as fast as they can make them, and we wouldn't want to see them go out of business would we?
Oh we would? My bad.
Re:This is changing (Score:4, Insightful)
People will always buy new desktop computers and upgrade their OS (you'd be suprised how many typical home users actually do this...).
Longhorn will have a pretty decent installed base once all is said and done I bet.
Re:The success of Linux has nothing to do with .Ne (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:5, Interesting)
Certainly he has boundless energy, but many people were allready pointing out that it could be the case to concentrate on getting P&P functionality with what was allready available (and hence beating MS to the market), rather than play MS at a game of catch up that you could never win (they make the rules).
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:4, Insightful)
As for XUL...i can't see why anybody who touted the life of C could also praise XUL. XML is a nice idea for encapsulating data in a hierarchical, human readable format, but it's a bad bad BAD idea for user interfaces and anything else where you want INSTANT access to data. Parsing -- or should I say compiling -- all those words into language a machine can understand wastes time. Sure, it makes sense for a handful of widgets (like a web page), but what if you have an application that loads 300-500 per form like most of the apps I deal in? Not only do you have the rendering overhead, you also have the XML parsing overhead for each of them. I'll stick with JVM and the Windows Forms frameworks.
As for "catching up" with Microsoft...de Icaza's point is that while Linux is treading water with its own kind of uniformity and platform cross compatibility, trying to make inroads into Windows apps, de Icaza's aiming to replicate the
Which I'm sure was the whole thrust behind standardizing
Re:I have never understood Miguel de Icaza's posit (Score:3, Informative)
Why would a bank use XUL for an application (forcing all thier users to download mozilla), when they can let them run native Longhorn appps from thier browser without any installation?
Mozilla has the GRE (Gecko Runtime Engine) which is all that is needed to execute XUL apps. The GRE can be loaded without the browser. Last time I check I think it was a little under 10 megs which is not too bad since 1 GRE can support multiple XUL apps.
Microsoft platform subset (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft will not be a bigger threat. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft will not be a bigger threat. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft will not be a bigger threat. (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't be so sure. Integrated XML user interfaces? Sandboxed VM execution for user-mode applications built in to the OS? Longhorn's got em, Linux doesn't. In particular, the emphasis on
It's attitudes like yours that Icaza is talking about. "Oh, XYZ huh? Yeah Linux has that, if you follow these seemingly endless instructions to get this kludgy hack working." I hate to say it, but just watch. Microsoft's XML UI technology is going to be faster than Mozilla's XUL, and their
Re:Microsoft will not be a bigger threat. (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft follows through with many of the changes they've announced for Longhorn, it essentially means Linux would be set back to square one as far as being able to work together with a Windows system on several fronts. Nothing MS haven't done in the past, but the thing that makes this particularly dangerous for us is the fact that they're going all the changes are much lower level this time.
This is the reason I've always been unable to decide if I agree with the Mono project philosophically or not. On one hand, I do feel that trying to play catch up with a language implementation where MS is making up the rules cheapens Linux to an extent. On the other, Microsoft is pushing
In between both extremes (Score:5, Interesting)
Just my 2ç
Great Blog (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great Blog (Score:3, Interesting)
Omega1045 wrote "This weekend I went to install some GNU software on my WinXP Pro laptop. "
A good, GUI-based XP apt-get, even if it only provides access to Unix-derived apps on XP, will serve two purposes:
--dave
Finally seeing the truth? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally seeing the truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally seeing the truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I am not a Java fanboy, but if you really wanted to do this, why not use Java? Instead of waiting for Miquel to try and reimplement an unofficial port of a moving target (.Net), Java on Linux is officially supported by Sun. There are many IDEs available for Java. If you want GUIs, JBuilder is probably the best. For general coding, Eclipse is about the best IDE I've used, once you get used to its philosophy. After a couple of months with Eclipse, I had to go back to VS.Net 2003 for a couple of days, and I was shocked hollow it was and how dependent I had become on the "lightbulb" feature (fix my code) of Eclipse and the refactoring tools. Not to mention the on-the-fly compiling.
As an aside, VS.Net 2005 will have this lightbulb feature, and I predit the MS mainframers at our company will come running into my office to show this innovative "new" feature that Microsoft invented.
Anyway, the features you want are already available. Once you get the cheerleaders from both sides out of the room and get down to real work, Java is about the same as
Re:Finally seeing the truth? (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is: right now Java is available on Linux. And not just available, but officially supported by Java's manufacturer, Sun. Right now, full .NET support (yes, the framework is important, too) is still a long ways away for most Unix platforms, including Linux.
You do bring up valid points, in that Java does have minor compatibility problems across platforms and that Sun ownz Java the same way MS ownz .NET. But what is better: *slight* incompa
Re:Finally seeing the truth? (Score:3, Interesting)
How did you miss that .NET is going to get gnome bindings? This will allow the development of not just portable gnome code, but write-once-run-anywhere gnome code.
It doesn't matter if Microsoft makes enhancements to .NET, because its core is open. It's true that applications written to run on both Linux and Windows will have to use separate functions if you want to take advantage of Windows-specific functionality in your
.NET and sandboxes (Score:5, Insightful)
That's true...if Microsoft can get it right. But as in any complex software system, there will be bugs, and considering the scope of Microsoft's deployment base, it could be disastrous. I do not think Microsoft makes worse code than anybody else, it's simply that updating their massive install base is very difficult once bugs are found. Also, the majority of Windows desktop users make poor systems administrators, there will always be bugs and crackers that exploit them. Sad, but true.
He's got a point (Score:5, Insightful)
Market, damit! (Score:4, Interesting)
And, in my opinion, it doesn't matter that I'm a power user in both OS's. I work as a student tutor at the local community college [grcc.edu], and I see people completely new to computers coming into the lab every semester.
They don't find Windows intuitive. They don't find Office intuitive ("Where is cell B5?"). They don't find MS Paint intuitive.
The easiest thing for them to use is the Internet. And that's actually easier to use under Linux than Windows, since IE is absent under Linux. People get all these windows popping up over their screen, and they have a hard time doing anything about it.
There's a lot of people around who still don't know how to use a computer well. They go to community colleges to learn. Community colleges exist to serve the needs of bussinesses, and they have a tendency to swallow market speak. So market, damnit!
Re:He's got a point (Score:5, Interesting)
I switched to Linux once and for all in 1995, after trying out a beta copy of Windows 95 (on 13 floppy disks!). Since then I've been exposed to Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, and Windows XP. For the most part the useful changes in Windows are in the user interface. There's less "configuration" of hardware devices with each iteration of Windows, and the interface itself gets "prettier." (Except for XP, which reminds me of Fisher-Price toys.)
Microsoft has incorporated good ideas into Windows, such as autoconfiguring hardware, automatically recognizing file types on removable media and launching the appropriate program, etc. But for someone for whom the computer is a tool to accomplish work, Windows is, at least for me, a royal pain in the ass in other ways: I can't configure it to my personal tastes. I can't customize it to work the way I want to work. This is where Linux is a big win: it lets me work the way I want (or need!) to work.
Case in point: Even when I'm managing files in Nautilus, I frequently find myself sliding the mouse over to a terminal and running a command on the files. It's easier for me. It's very difficult to manage files with CMD.EXE, however, as anyone who's tried can attest.
As a developer, I'm comparing Linux to (now) Windows XP, and yes, it has some shortcomings that will have to be addressed, and in each case I've found a shortcoming, I've also found a project working on addressing it. So I have nothing to do. :-) (Not exactly true; the project [citadel.org] I'm working on aims to replace Exchange and possibly Active Directory.)
It still remains, though, that my productivity drops sharply on a Windows platform, simply because the tools available do not lend themselves well to efficiency and productivity. They do, however, look really pretty.
Java is a good fit (Score:5, Interesting)
This "analysis" is poor:
Where is "Java" in that list? Java's only big problem, at this point, is the mindset that "something is wrong with it". It's really quite good, and there is a growing ecosystem of open source stuff (see SWT and friends) growing around it.
Every major computer company besides Microsoft supports it, and a Sun JVM now ships with many (most?) new Windows PCs. Even if not, a broadband JRE download is only a couple of minutes...and ~40% of U.S. households are on broadband if I remember a recent article correctly.
There is also plenty of effort going into Free/OSS JVM development, including gcj and IKVM on Mono.
Java tends to break the MS monopoly...Mono/.Nyet tends to lock it in. Which do we really want?
Re:Java is a good fit (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Java is a good fit (Score:3, Interesting)
GNUStep (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GNUStep (Score:3, Informative)
First, the GNUstep runtime has no concept of a sandbox (or applets for that matter) so you lose a big part of Java's appeal. Second, it uses native code, so you don't get easy portability. Third, it uses Objective-C, which for better or worse has struggled to gain devel
Re:Java is a good fit (Score:5, Informative)
things: the easy-to-build functionality of a web
page (XAML) and the advanced graphics and rendering
of Avalon.
Sure, they can both be built on top of Java, but
they need to be built, hence the `Come up with our
own competitive stack'.
I happen to think that our stack should use the
best technology available today, and since it
must be a new stack, that stack should be built
on top of the ECMA CLI. For plenty of technical
reasons.
Now, if you disagree with my thought direction,
nobody is stopping you from building your stack
on top of Java, I know that am not spending a
minute there
Miguel.
But let's not overlook the basic differences (Score:4, Interesting)
I think in the browser game it's the little things like pop-up blockers and being able to manage your configs across multiple desktops are what make Firefox kick ass all over IE.
These are the things that closed source has no reason to compete on. It doesn't make anybody money to prevent ads. There's no way MS is going to compete on that front, and yet it's a huge factor for most end users.
We are not doing OpenSource because we hate MS! (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know nor care much about whether or not going to support Avalon and XAML is a good idea if your goal is nuke Microsoft and Redmond.
However
My goal for Mono, being an active supporter and a small contributor, is not to try and kill Microsoft. My goal is not like most slashdot zealots to wipe and replace Microsoft. My goal is to provide Linux with a platform for developers that they can and will enjoy.
The point is not to compete with the Java world nor to compete with the Microsoft world. The point of Mono is to create both a self hosting platform and a platform that will be somehow compatible with Microsoft.
The point of Mono is not the be 100% compatible! It has never tried to be 100% compatible. The main point of Mono is to create a self hosting platform.
People often argue that it would be better to implement our own kickass framework. Well, Mono is just that. Agreed they are filling in the specifications which Microsoft made. But Mono is doing much more than that. And the specification is not that bad at all. Why throw a way a nice specification just because you hate the creator of it? That doesn't make any sense. And I don't hate Microsoft, nor do most Mono developers (oh by the way, Miguel is not the only developer).
Hating Microsoft is foolish and stupid. You don't have to love them (hell I don't) and you don't have to agree with their marketing point NOR technical point of view (mostly for the marketing part I for sure don't), but that doesn't mean that you also have to ignore them completely. I even dare to say that you are a fool and an idiot if you do so.
I would very much support introducing support for Avalon/XAML in Mono if Avalon/XAML is a nice technology. And yes, it looks nice to me. So if it's possible to implement that technology (using Mono or using whatever) then I think that we as an OpenSource community should do that. We should, indeed, (re)implement it, at some point in time.
Not because we can then compete with Microsoft, thats not the point, but because we want to provide developers (and in the end, users of our softwares) with the best technology, the best platform and most choices.
Our users will have the benefit of not having to get locked in that Microsoft monopoly because WE recreated a part of that Microsoft-world.
Lets not forget that we are doing this because of the love of the art of programming, not because we HATE Microsoft. Thats what those stupid newbie Linux usies think why we do it. We love the art of programming. We love to show our art and the best way to do this is by making it public. And we, OpenSource developers, think that the best way to make things public is by licensing it using for example GPL, MIT or whatever OpenSource license.
Just like a lot musicians release their compositions for free, so that students can learn using their materials. I often compare such (classical) music with software code. The author thinks that it's art, the listener mainly enjoys it. But for a lot people it's art, okay?
For software developers, our code is our art. Our users don't give a shit about that code. They want to use our code. We want to distribute our art and show our skills. THATS the main reason why OpenSource exists. NOT because we HATE Microsoft.
Regretfully most people think we are doing this because we hate Microsoft. We don't. (And I speak for a lot OpenSource developers, I am confident about that).
OT: Mono Examples? (Score:5, Insightful)
Web apps, desktop apps, utilities
Re:OT: Mono Examples? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's the Muine music player [gooeylinux.org].
Re:OT: Mono Examples? Dashboard (Score:3, Informative)
Presumably these dependancies will come out of CVS and will be packaged with GN
I see only one option (Score:5, Interesting)
* Implement Avalon/XAML and ship it with Linux (with Mono).
* Come up with our own, competitive stack.
wxwidgets and python with a sandboxed execution stack using the already existing xmlrpclib.
Here's the nail, watch your thumb... (Score:3, Insightful)
"If we choose to go in our own direction, there are certain strengths in open source that we should employ to get to market quickly: requirements, design guidelines, key people who could contribute, compatibility requirements and deployment platforms."
Pity that he's obviously not been watching how most programmers actually do programming. Hint: most of them wouldn't know how to create a real requirements document if their lives depending on it. And read the requirements, and then develop real test cases that verify both functionality and coverage? Don't make me laugh.
Once upon a time there used to be two groups of people creating software: the analysts/engineers and the programmers/coders. The first group did the analysis, requirements, modeling and design; the second group converted it into code and punched it in. There was a reason for that, and those people produced some serious applications. Some of those apps are still in use today.
But, sadly, with the advent of the IDE it's now possible for anyone to be a bonafide Code Monkey, and just starting PAK'ing (programming at the keyboard) like crazy.
We're doomed, people. Submit to Bill now and just get it over with and save your passion for something more productive. Like sex.
Miguel: "Linux posed to conquer Desktop in 1994!" (Score:4, Insightful)
People were sleeping at the wheel. In 1993-1994, Linux had the promise of becoming the best desktop system.
Miguel is fabricating some silly, alarmist, revisionist history with statements like these.
Linux was a lot of things in 1994, but one thing that is was not was a viable desktop. It was so lacking in the mindshare, number of developers, driver support and basic desktop technologies in 1994 as compared to today, that statements like this just make Miguel look like a silly idealogue.
Re:Miguel: "Linux posed to conquer Desktop in 1994 (Score:4, Insightful)
In 1994, the desktop was not a GUI desktop, the
desktop was mostly a command-line universe both
on DOS-based systems and Linux systems.
Linux did have an advantage: multiple virtual
consoles, real multi-tasking, tcp/ip stack
bundled, nfs, file serving capabilities, and
DOSemu with compatibility with the past.
I have to say, way better than DOS + pile of
device drivers and Windows was only starting to
be used with very few applications. Windows 3.11
was out, with really few applications.
Miguel.
Re:Miguel: "Linux posed to conquer Desktop in 1994 (Score:3, Insightful)
It's going to be the greatest thing that ever was (Score:3, Interesting)
So what's the reality. It's been three years since Almighty Bill declared to the world that Microsoft would make its software secure. Still waiting? Remember how the XBox was going to be the greatest gaming machine ever made --- a year before it was to be release? Well, I see playstation still has 60% of the market. I also hear that XBoxes have been know to catch the carpet on fire.
Maybe I'm too old. At the ripe old age of 33, I've smelled enough MS BS for a lifetime. The only thing I do now with this kind of news is use it to compost my wife's azaleas. I've yet to witness The Unix Killer, trustworthy computing, DCOM in my life, and somehow I doubt Longhorn will change this. I am quite happy with that "Cancer" called Linux and GPL software, that just three years ago was never going to take off. Yep, I'm shaking in my boots.
"Of course?" (Score:3, Interesting)
Why "of course"? Some kind of conspiracy theory?
There is No War (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead they look at the market and say, how can we solve someone's problem. A great example is thin media clients. Linux could have dominated this market. Linux is a robust OS that just runs. It has a low to no cost for deploying to millions of homes. The HD1000 from ROKU (http://www.rokulabs.com) is a great example of what is possible for Linux in this $100+ billion industry.
However, Linux is squandering away the opportunity. MS came in to the marketplace and said to the hardware manufacturers here is a complete solution just install. To a company that cares more about selling hardware than software the choice is clear. Pay MS and design the hardware to run MS technology (especially when you have multiple hardware vendors saying here is the base platform already designed for you). The consumer electronic companies make money by selling hardware not software. Anyone who says to them here is a complete and working system just build the hardware will get there attention.
That is why MS wins. They solve problems; they don't just invent technology for technologies sake.
Re:There is No War (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter. Perhaps Miguel is trying to "beat Microsoft". If it works, bully for him. Torvalds understands it -- the destruction of Microsoft will be (if it happens) an unintended consequence.
If Longhorn is that good -- it will be used. But lets be reasonable. Linux is a hobbiest OS. And it works really REALLY well. Some companies are deploying it; leveraging its strengths. It will go into cell phones, TV sets, home routers, and internet applianc
Reality Check (Score:3, Interesting)
The client side (desktop) is the area where all Miguels comments seem to be directed. Will your word processor of choice be written in
You see, software developers work on projects. And projects ARE NOT PRODUCTS! You can have a successful project, which may not be a successful product. And as microsoft shows, you can have an unsuccessful project, which is a successful product. Projects become successful products because of good marketing. OSS has little or no marketing, and this is the fatal flaw. If only apple could help market some OSS projects we could see just how successful they could become. Think about it, if you saw an ad for the "Sexy, New, Feature Rich, Gimp project"(note that a name change would be mandatory for this project to be marketed, project vs product). Now put this ad in Cosmopolitan magazine (this is where you see ipod ads...). Put it everywhere. Make it sexy, make consumers, that's who we're really talking about here, want it.
Many of the developers on these projects are not going to like this. Nobody wants to "sell out" their project. But if you're after the client side market(aka desktop), then you're targeting consumers, not developers.
Miguel's bleak viwe of the future... (Score:3, Insightful)
Follow Miguel, follow Microsoft... there's not any difference except in the end, one may have more of a surprised look on their face than the other. I can hear, "Oh... well.. I never saw that one coming." But in reality, I think Miguel is smart enough to FULLY comprehend what will happen... and that's what is really scary.
Miguel would say that we're all asleep... are we?? I wonder who really has their eyes closed on this one.
Open strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure enough, Microsoft has DEDICATED people reading this stuff. Access to it is just a click away. Market strategy is all about surprise. So I'm proposing a new movement. Open Source, Closed Strategy (OSCS). Seriously.
As usual he's about halfway right. (Score:4, Interesting)
He is definitely right that MS won a lot of its marketshare by simply bundling stuff with the OS and by having enough money and time to survive mistakes that killed competitors (XBox, WinCE, Plug and Pray, Bob, J++ etc).
He is only halfway right that Longhorn and XAML, Avalon and
But, as has been the case before, it's only half the picture. The other half of the picture is that those people who see it as critical to have their web applications be compatible with the myriad different Windows OS versions, the myriad different OS types right across the board will still use Java/PHP etc for server based apps and keep the frontend in the browser. The XAML local web applications are very similar to Java Webstart in concept, but will find it only marginally more acceptable in the real world, for purely compatibility reasons.
Granted Java has been an unmitigated disaster client side, with Sun having screwed up by introducing the white elephant known as swing and thereby permanently giving client side Java the reputation of being slow, even though this is no longer true with modern CPUs. This hole will probably be filled by
And the price/performance and price/freedom of implementation benefits of Linux are truly starting to find adherents across the world in a serious manner.
In the end it will probably be that Windows will provide the better experience but that Linux will provide the lower cost and "be good enough" very much like Windows 95 was compared to its competitors.
Re:Migel please just go work for Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for Mono, software should be cross platform, and and it would be nice to see this succeed where Java unfortunately didn't.
Standard for what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Standard for what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Standard for what? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Standard for what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Migel please just go work for Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless Mono seperates itself from Microsoft completely as a stand alone replacement technology, I don't see a use for it to even exist. Mono must be better than Microsofts
Also I wouldnt give up on Java just yet, with the embedded market picking up steam Java has a bright future, brighter than
Re:Migel please just go work for Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
Mono means they can stay in their comfort zone, but still produce software that will work for people moving to Linux. You're not likely to change the minds of all those Windows programmers who are just doing a job because they are being paid to do it, but you can at least open a path of least resistance towards portability. Go Mono!
Re:Migel please just go work for Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Mono SHOULD NOT be a Microsoft
I am amazed that people think it is in Microsoft's interest to build cross-platform application. Microsoft has said, time and time again that it is not in their interest. Microsoft has their own operating system and that is their interest. So what I wonder is why people keep thinking it would be good to run Windows Apps on Linux.
Wine, and CrossOffice are hacks until more applications are ported. When I use my OSX box, or my Linux box or even my Windows box I look for native applications, not emulation. Native apps run faster, better and are more stable.
Mono should go back and focus on doing their own thing again. Just like the Jakarta team focused on building good Open Source applications.
Re:Migel please just go work for Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Mono is not the new Wine. The mono implementation of WinForms may be (at one time they talked about binding it to wine). I see the main use of Mono to be building Linux applications that only *happen* to work on windows. At first they will use GTK# and later some new better UI toolkit (Avalon# ???, XUL# ???)
2) Mono opens the doors for many more programmers to contribute to Linux, but not just unwittingly. When (if) mono become comm
Re:Migel please just go work for Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Its always interesting to see people dismiss java as a failure out of hand with no real arguments for it. Did it fail? Depends on your point of view. Is java cross-platform? Most certainly is! And will continue to be so to a bigger extent than
Is java a failure on the client? Well, as far as circulation goes, probably, but that has three main reasons:
1. Higher learning curve, VB will always be easier to learn.
2. Old myths die hard: yes, Java was slow and java interfaces where ugly and clunky. 5 years ago! Newsflash, Java has moved forward in great leaps since the days of Java 1.1
3. Applets are mostly useless. But: Java != Applets!
Java is a great success just about everywhere else BUT on the desktop computer though, there are millions of java-enabled handsets, there are tens of thousands of java server deployments etc etc.
But.. Hopefully in the future I wont have to choose "java or
Re:Migel please just go work for Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
If that was the case a URL would look something like \\My Google Company\search
It's a big world out there if you look out the windows - there's more to computers than the receptionists PC or using a desktop PC to replace a Playstation.
The unix way is to have configuration files in known locations with sane names (generally not one of the names of the three stooges followed by a string of numbers), and to use pipes or ports
Re:here is what i think (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Over used argument (Score:4, Insightful)
And just how many people do that? If you want a clue, look at the adoption of Opera, and especially Mozilla (which doesn't have the cost barrier Opera hase) against IE. Despite the fact that IE is a security-hole-ridden pile of outdated junk and Opera and Mozilla beat it hands-down on features and standards compliance, huge numbers of people still use IE. Why? Because it came with the computer and they either don't know there are alternatives, don't want to know or aren't allowed to use them because they "aren't supported".
Re:Over used argument (Score:5, Insightful)
And because webmasters, especially those using Windows Media, are too stupid to embed multimedia in a way that mozilla can handle (i.e. no ActiveX, dummies). Especially big commercial sites with loadsacash budgets tend to fuck this up, whereas joe schmoe geocities sites tend to actually work (before their bandwidth limit is reached).
Most "IE-only" sites (that don't use javascript to kick you out) work perfectly in mozilla, mostly the windows(multi)media/plugin infested sites suck ass.
Re:3D Icons (Score:3, Funny)
Re:3D Icons (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:3D Icons (Score:3, Interesting)
what linux needs is a technology that windows simply cannot produce without bending over backwards. and i do not mean simple UI enhancements, like tabbed browsing, or virtual d
Re:A Third Option: Java! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think Java as a specification is any more open than
Re:Thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
I can write insecure software on Linux just as fast as I can on Windows.
B: Realiability
See above. I've had Windows boxes that are very stable (a year of uptime).
C: Peer review, I, John Q random engineer can verify it.
When was the last time you looked over every line of any OSS package?
D: Speed, basically Windows is bloated and slow.
Funny... my benchmarks in the past don't show this. Compilers from Microsoft (which are what
Re:For those who don't know (Score:4, Insightful)
No it won't. All the existing APIs will still be there, because existing applications use them, and if Microsoft was interested in breaking existing apps for a good reason they'd have done it already.
Avalon will add a new 8,000-element API to the 70,000 already there.
[more blurbs]
Sounds like Cocoa.
Re:Hate to break it to you... (Score:4, Insightful)
UNIX was designed by programmers for programmers. It's always been blindingly easy to develop applications using any number of great toolkits. If "easy" was enough, or even important, Microsoft would be an also-ran.