Open Source Victories of 2008 378
Meshach writes "Ars Technica has an interesting run-down on the major open source victories of 2008. Some, like Firefox 3, we can probably mostly agree on. Others — KDE 4 comes to mind — will be more controversial. And Mono 2? What else should be on the list?"
Python 3 (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty exciting stuff. Another notable open source victory was that of the release of Django 1.0 in November.
Sadly, Django is not written in Python 3, and python 3 breaks backwards compatibility [linuxtoday.com].
Since both the Django and python communities are very active, I suspect this will be remedied soon. I cannot wait.
Re:Awfulbar (Score:3, Informative)
What, the extension that restores the original functionality doesn't count as a "way to restore the stripped functionality"? And saying "adding features I don't like counts as making your product less functional" is kind of cheating.
Re:Wine (Score:5, Informative)
Seconded -- Wine is making amazing progress, just check the biweekly changelogs to see how much progress its making.
If this keeps up Linux becomes a solid games platform.
Re:Python 3 (Score:4, Informative)
You might end up in trouble, then; as explained by the FAQ [djangoproject.com], it'll be a while before Django officially supports Python 3.0.
Remember: even the Python developers themselves are talking about a migration timeline of years, rather than a simple "next version of every library will be on Python 3" (which just isn't possible with any kind of responsible release process). See this summary I posted on django-developers [google.com] for some more information.
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:4, Informative)
One thing I found particularly puzzling are the plasmoids - I couldn't see the point. They seem to be basically applications which can not be re-sized, brought in the foreground or moved around. They are not in the task panel either. So why would I use a plasmoid instead of a application window? To see it, I would need to minimize every other window on the desktop.
Then again - it didn't seem possible to add an application to the panel - only plasmoids. So no quick access to the 3-4 apps I need the most.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking it - it had a nice look to it, the eye-candy was neat. (The icons were damn hard to read though.) However I just didn't get the hang of it. At the time I couldn't find a general usage guide either, so I'd be curious for any insight you could provide.
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:3, Informative)
I'm using the nightly releases now; it's much closer to 3.5 in stability and has addressed all of my feature concerns.
Sun xVM VirtualBox (Score:5, Informative)
I know it was originally released by InnoTek in 2007, but VirtualBox has really taken off since being acquired by Sun. 3 major releases (1.6, 2.0, 2.1) this year!
phoronix (Score:5, Informative)
Check out this list:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=great_linux_innovations_2008&num=1 [phoronix.com]
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:5, Informative)
You can check the KDE bugzilla if you are curious about just how many things need to be fixed. KDE 4 is a complete mess, and was completely mishandled. It is getting to the point where, embarrassing as it would be, they should probably scrap it and start over by porting KDE3 to Qt4.
Re:Listen to yourselves! (Score:3, Informative)
At least Windows has a mostly-working version -- XP. KDE has no working version.
Is kde 3.5 not mostly working?, or did I misread most of your rant? Have you actually thought about trying any other distros that have kde 4 and see if they have those problems?
Re:Sun xVM VirtualBox (Score:3, Informative)
VirtualBox isn't truly open source. VirtualBox OSE is crippled. For example, it doesn't support USB.
Re:KDE simply isn't a factor (Score:5, Informative)
Qt4 has been released under GPLv3, Qt has been under the GPL since 2005, that's four years it's been free.
Re:Listen to yourselves! (Score:5, Informative)
I've got my fair share of complaints about KDE4. kwrite's tabbing - dude, WTF went wrong here? Konqueror's default icon view - Tiny icons AND shitloads of whitespace - sucks, and my sane settings won't seem to save Its file-management performace is heartbreakingly bad. Konq 3.5 and 4 both take some time to generate previews for the 4000 lolcats floating around my documents dir; 3.5 smoothly scrolls while doing so - I right well expect OpenGl-accelerated 4.2beta to. And please, God, make it so that when I switch to konqueror tab Y typing resumes going where it was if I had a textbox selected.
And since you mention Amarok 2 I'll join you in crying about that disappointment. 2.0, to be blunt, stunk, and it really turned me off to KDE4 since 1.4 won't start due to different audio architectures. In hindsight, I think it was the dealbreaker. mp3blaster is nice and mplayer -loop 1000 works, but I like being able to hit meta-z/c/b to go through things.
Now, I really like KDE 3. I've been using it since whatever came with Mandrake 8.2 was new. I knew KDE 4 would be different, it being a total rework and all. And there are a lot of things I really like that were done really well. The windowing system (sans a few configuration menu fubars), the scribble-on-desktop applet, the color scheme and widgets - awesome job. Konqueror 4 (as long as I don't try to save a file or browse my porn) - awesome job. Yep, that plus Konsole covers 9/10 of what I do. But until at least some of the issues I join SanityInAnarchy in ranting about are fixed, I'm not going to make the full leap (marked by copying my email from ~/.kde to ~/.kde4.
In short, my KDE4 trial left me with the same handful of "If they would just fix this damn annoying thing" complaints that so many would-be Windows users walk away from Linux with. Which is a shame, because as of 4.2beta2 they've got about 90+% of "it" nailed as well as or better than 3.5. I truly think that most of these shenanigans could have been avoided if they'd tested the final RC on 100 people who'd never used the alphas or betas before and fixed the top ten complaints, whatever they were, before going gold.
Re:not a fan of ff3 (Score:3, Informative)
The awesome bar is a learning thing. you need to use it for awhile before your sites float to the top of the list.
Also, there's a couple tweaks in about:config that make it nicer. Set browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped to true and browser.urlbar.matchBehavior to 2 (respect word boundaries) or 3 (search only beginning of urls and titles).
Re:Listen to yourselves! (Score:4, Informative)
Development on KDE 3.5 has stopped and outstanding bugs, as the poster you replied to said, are marked WONTFIX.
Re:AMD Anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
The Radeon 48xx cards kick the snot out of comparatively priced nVidia cards.
Re:Listen to yourselves! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:4, Informative)
SSL, ArK, and Samba though dolphin are working great in the 4.2 pre-release.
Actually, expect for ArK, the other two have been working since 4.1.
The configuration thing you mentioned I have never seen before and I don't use bluetooth so I don't know if you are right on that or not. (But based on your other comments, I doubt much of what you say in regards to KDE 4.)
And as far as checking the bugzilla as some kind of indication against KDE 4, the vast majority bugs are not for KDE 4.
Strange Ordering. (Score:5, Informative)
In my opinion, the biggest victory is the availability of notebooks from larger manufacturers with linux preinstalled, for a low price (netbooks).
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:5, Informative)
"I needed to import a CA public key for use in all my KDE apps"
Konqueror -> Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> Crypto -> SSL Signers -> Import.
"That is an embarrassing oversight,"
*cough*
"3.5 derived a lot of its power from a very solid, well refined OLE framework, and 4.1 has yet to even approach that"
the "OLE framework" in KDE is called KParts, and the infrastructure hasn't changed one bit between KDE3 and KDE4.
"ArK does not embed into Dolphin or Konqueror in 4.1"
it doesn't embed into Dolphin, no, because that's not Dolphin's design goal. i don't have 4.1 nearby to test this on, but in 4.2 you can navigate directly into tarballs seamlessly in Konqueror.
"you cannot open most files without extracting"
currently Ark relies on KParts for previewing files without extracting. an "open with" that would extract to a temporary location and launch the app would be nice, though.
"some application shortcuts are broken if you run the application with KDE as the WM,"
which shortcuts would those be? actually, better yet, go to bugs.kde.org and report it there so it can be handled.
Re:Listen to yourselves! (Score:5, Informative)
"KDE has no working version."
3.5 is still out there and used by millions.
"How do I make the panel thinner vertically?"
in 4.1 is was rather "hidden": there's a little strip at the top of the panel controller (right click on the panel -> Panel Settings, or click the toolbox button on the far right of the panel) that you can click and drag on. in 4.2 there's a nice obvious button that says "Height" (or "Width" if it's a vertical panel)
" How do I adjust its translucency"
select a Plasma theme that provides a translucent panel, which the default theme does. it requires compositing (aka "desktop effects") to be working, however.
the fake translucency in kicker was an insane hack (trust me, i did the bulk of the coding to get it to work ;) and it of course wasn't perfect: it only showed your wallpaper, not windows and heaven forbid if the wallpaper was animated or anything like that.
"-- how do I give it a completely transparent background, but solid foreground?:"
use a completely transparent SVG. =) in 4.2 there is a control panel in system settings (in the Advanced area) that lets you mix and match individual SVGs should you wish to.
"Yet the KDE4 version of AmaroK doesn't yet support encoding scripts in any way, so my choice is mp3s, or no encoding at all. WTF?"
yes, there are some features missing in the first "dot-oh" release of Amarok2. there's an Amarok release coming in January that covers a lot of these (rather amazing how fast that goes, really), though i don't know if this is one of them. i do hope you've filed a feature request on bugs.kde.org.
oh, and if you're tempted to say "they should have just held 2.0 until January, then", don't bother: making releases from the code repository is an absolutely requirement to keep open source projects moving, and one of the downsides of that is that often a first release of a new series isn't what a consumer-grade user is going to what to cut their teeth on. that's why there is another step in row, e.g. distributions. not that they seem to always be doing their users the best favours lately in that regard. *shrug*
Re:KDE simply isn't a factor (Score:2, Informative)
"Oh, and before some idiot comes in with "hurf durf we don't want your PROPRIETAAAAAAAARY code!!!111""
the worst thing that can happen when you pre-emptively call other people idiots is showing that you're not so much better yourself in the process.
as you can see here:
http://doc.trolltech.com/4.4/license-gpl-exceptions.html [trolltech.com]
all the licenses you list are just fine, and then some. enjoy.
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:2, Informative)
If you want to use KDE4 in any useful way, then go for any KDE distribution. In particular, OpenSuSE is known to be quite good for handling KDE4: you can still install KDE3, or you can install KDE 4.1 with a bunch of KDE 4.2 features backported, which actually works quite well. As much as people like Ubuntu, Kubuntu is simply KDE 4.1 hacked together in what feels like the worst possible way. If you insist on Intrepid, then at least grab the KDE 4.2 b2 binaries. You trade in a constantly crashing plasma for a KDE version without the plasmoid that shows CPU/mem usage (and that one was really handy). So whatever Shuttleworth archieved with Ubuntu, his team doesn't deserve any credit for what they did to Kubuntu. :-(
Re:What about open source development platforms (Score:2, Informative)
I absolutely agree that there are things where VS are better, but even you have stated some advantages of Eclipse.
Evaluating which is better is a very difficult task. Even if one would try to make an objective analysis of each, not many would agree with such findings. Eclipse and Visual Studio are covering two different platforms and they don't have much common ground. Eclipse doesn't support .NET; and VS doesn't support Java. VS doesn't support makefiles, but you might not need them. Even code editors have different features; for example I haven't seen 'Call Hierarchy' feature in VS.
Generally, NetBeans is more polished than Eclipse, it needs less configuring, but is still underdog compared to Eclipse.
My conclusion is that you can work decently with all things they support. And they do support a lot of things.
Re:KDE simply isn't a factor (Score:3, Informative)
Sigh... I'm giving up my moderations for this...
The FSF has published a fairly straight forward article describing their thoughts on whether software should be released under the GPL or a more permissive license such as the LGPL.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html [gnu.org]
The exceptions in the Qt license are all free software licenses. Some of them are already compatible with the GPL, but some are not.
This makes the Qt license less restrictive than the GPL, but more restrictive than the LGPL (all of those licenses and more would be acceptable under the LGPL).
The FSF's stated position is that a less restrictive license should be chosen when the library in question doesn't offer advantages that would sway people away from proprietary projects. But the overriding consideration is that the choice of license should try to increase the number of free software contributors.
In the case of Qt, I think it is clear that the exceptions are geared towards allowing people to choose a different free license. The reason (AFAICT) is that otherwise they might go with a different (probably proprietary) option. Thus the exception in the case of Qt is unquestionably good.
In fact, I did a quick google search and found no criticism from the FSF on this subject. Whether you agree with RMS or not, I think we can all agree that he has been very outspoken about his opinion of Qt licensing in the past. Thus, I am sure that the FSF is quite happy with the license as it is.
Hope that helps!
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sun xVM VirtualBox (Score:2, Informative)
They're intentionally trying to differentiate the versions. It's obvious. The OSE version doesn't have a GUI, doesn't support USB, doesn't support a virtual SATA adapter, doesn't support VRDP, etc.
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe this is fixed in the nightly builds or in 4.2? I am using 4.1.3 right now, and yes, that option *exists* but it does not work, it does not propagate the public keys globally, and it does not retain those settings after hitting "OK." Claiming that is the solution to my problem is kind of like calling your alpha release "version 4.0 stable." Hmm...
"the "OLE framework" in KDE is called KParts, and the infrastructure hasn't changed one bit between KDE3 and KDE4."
Except that the use of KParts has changed. In KDE3, all the KParts components played well with each other (except for the Kontact KParts, which only embedded in Kontact), which is exactly what OLE is supposed to do. In KDE4, a few components still embed in one another, but nothing on the level of KDE 3. The OP was claiming that KDE 4.1 was approaching 3.5 in terms of functionality; where are the useful, play-nice-with-others KParts?
"it doesn't embed into Dolphin, no, because that's not Dolphin's design goal. i don't have 4.1 nearby to test this on, but in 4.2 you can navigate directly into tarballs seamlessly in Konqueror."
Then Dolphin was poorly designed. I do not need a file manager if all it does is browse normal, already mounted file systems. Dolphin certain supports some level of OLE, the fact that it cannot embed an ArK component is, once again, an oversight, and an embarrassing one. Maybe this will be fixed in 4.2.x? 4.3?
"currently Ark relies on KParts for previewing files without extracting. an "open with" that would extract to a temporary location and launch the app would be nice, though."
And once again, they do not play well with others. Why not have an Okular component embed into ArK? Why force me to extract a PDF file just to view it? If the file manager does not embed an ArK component, and ArK cannot embed an Okular component, then why would I use Dolphin/ArK when I could just use a terminal? In 3.5, there was no question: KPDF embedded in ArK, ArK embedded in Konqueror, and the software stack was more useful than trying to navigate using just a terminal.
"which shortcuts would those be? actually, better yet, go to bugs.kde.org and report it there so it can be handled."
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=165441#c2 [kde.org]
Notice that they did not even PLAN to fix it in 4.1. Maybe it will be fixed in 4.2? I can only hope so, because it is clumsy, annoying, and frankly stupid for shortcuts to fail. What is very odd, though, is the kxkb shortcuts work in Fluxbox; oh wait, that is confirmed too:
http://markmail.org/message/dxz6fntbrp73cljl [markmail.org]
Again, NO PLANS to fix. Why are there no plans to fix this? Keyboard shortcuts are the only way to keep a large GUI like KDE from being too clumsy to use, but they are sitting around scratching their heads and not even trying to get this working. Again, one is forced to ask just what design methodology they are adhering to, if any. Another commenter noted that there are other shortcut daemons; is that really what we are stuck with?
Re:Listen to yourselves! (Score:3, Informative)
3.5 is still out there and used by millions.
And is no longer maintained, to the point where big, obvious, probably easy-to-fix bugs are ignored, because it's in 3.5, not 4.x.
Either one is going to give me showstopper bugs.
in 4.1 is was rather "hidden": there's a little strip at the top of the panel controller (right click on the panel -> Panel Settings, or click the toolbox button on the far right of the panel) that you can click and drag on.
Thanks, someone else just pointed that out to me.
I've also noticed how when I do this, it breaks the clock applet more than it was before.
the fake translucency in kicker was an insane hack (trust me, i did the bulk of the coding to get it to work ;) and it of course wasn't perfect: it only showed your wallpaper, not windows and heaven forbid if the wallpaper was animated or anything like that.
Yes, I understand that. It would be nice if the real translucency/transparency at least provided the same features, though.
I said "adjust" its translucency, not "make it translucent by whatever the theme designer wants it to be."
use a completely transparent SVG. =)
Great, thanks. You realize in 3.5, this was a slider control. I should not have to build a fucking SVG to get basic functionality back.
i do hope you've filed a feature request on bugs.kde.org.
What, "Please support everything Amarok 1 did"? This seems kind of obvious. Maybe I should post it just so they realize there are people with iPods who have files other than mp3s to put on them.
No, I'm done. I'll keep using kde4 until I find something better -- at which point, I hope to be done with KDE.
oh, and if you're tempted to say "they should have just held 2.0 until January, then", don't bother: making releases from the code repository is an absolutely requirement to keep open source projects moving
Yes, that's why we call them "release candidates", or "betas", and most importantly, don't break the old one while you're working on the new one.
that's why there is another step in row, e.g. distributions. not that they seem to always be doing their users the best favours lately in that regard. *shrug*
True, plenty of blame to pass around, but this sounds a bit like passing the buck. KDE screwed up, in many spectacular ways. There is currently no consumer-grade version of KDE. But of course, let's blame the distros for not holding back to a sufficiently old version of 3 so as to keep things working until 4 is really ready.
Not that they are blameless -- I place the blame for my current lack of Bluetooth squarely on Kubuntu's shoulders. But when most open source projects make a dot-oh release, it's ready for general consumption. Firefox was.