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?"
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:5, Interesting)
KDE4's fine... once you're talking 4.1 and later. The 4.0 stuff was very alpha quality, though a necessary step to get developers to actively start supporting it.
They probably meant that the controversy would be because 4.0 was a temporary step backward from 3.5 in features and stability.
Mono 2 (Score:5, Interesting)
AMD Anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't believe nobody mentioned AMD open sourcing all of the Radeon documentation. That's some of the biggest open source news this year imho.
Open-source database (Score:1, Interesting)
pseudo-victories? (Score:3, Interesting)
Two of the best open source projects that I first learned about and utilized for "real work" in 2008 (though I don't know that they count as "victories"):
Puppet [reductivelabs.com], the system administration automation system. (Like cfengine, but way smarter and easier)
CodeIgniter [codeigniter.com], the PHP web application framework that doesn't box you into its idea of a web framework
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:3, Interesting)
Dude, if my desktop won't let me remove panels, it is in the way. (Really, try it yourself. You cannot remove the last Gnome panel, which to my knowledge has long been the case. But in the version of Gnome that ships with Ubuntu 8.10, you can't even remove it from the startup programs.) Super lame.
Re:Wine (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:4, Interesting)
>> they should probably scrap it and start over by porting KDE3 to Qt4.
I agree 100% that the KDE 4 lacks a horrible level of features for a release series, thus far. The 4.2 betas are more stable and usable for users than 4.0 and 4.1 combined (:P Literally if combining means combining bugs)
That said, since porting would involve re-reading and recoding the whole old codebase, and reimplementing would also involve re-reading and recoding the whole old codebase, I think that scrapping the _very nice_ desktop framework is a very poor suggestion.
Really the new Desktop model is better than the old. The current implementation sucks from lack of features - but it is a better start than a 3.x port. The underlying work are complete enough that a port is now simply beyond a waste of effort. KDE 4 is here to stay, and this is not a bad thing.
Re:Cheese with your Whine? (Score:5, Interesting)
> If Wine works well, why should I, (a developer) want to port my appz to *nix?
You should write them portable from the beginning. Use cross platform libraries, Qt (desktop applications/Games), wxWidgets (Desktop applications, license suits closed source apps also), SDL (2D games, very portable, but not very OOP), Irrlicht (3D games, easy to use) etc.
There libraries, e.g. wxWidgets, Qt and Irrlicht are easier to use than MFC and DirectX, so there is really no reason to write closed source applications. It is more expensive and it is not portable.
> but in all these years I've NEVER been asked about a Linux port
I quite rarely ask, especially if I see that the app has been written in MFC or Visual Basic, because I just know that they will never port it. That doesn't mean that I would not need Linux port. Instead I might write my own solution, release it as open source and become a competitor to you, with version that is portable and free.
Victories and ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:We won already. Geez. (Score:0, Interesting)
Wow... how good for you.
Linux distributions were "terrible" 3 years ago. Then the most important features on such systems, desktop environments became to that state that you can actually do things without suffering bad UI.
Linux OS has got good hardware support for typical desktop computers now in last 4 years and now it has almost as good as the Windows does. Only difference is that you do not need driver disks to get device work. But bad thing is, if your distributor does not include device driver to Linux OS, you need to change the distribution or even compile the Linux OS yourself to get the needed driver if not possible to get simple module.
I have used now 2 years a system what works even on the critical moments. It does not fight back for me when I want to change the UI or do even the rm -frd / kind stupid things. My system is not unsecure by root account disabled and only using sudo, but better way, root + sudo. This system is used by multiple people and everyone has got such computer as they would want, without whining from them.
And yes, this does not run crappy Ubuntu distribution or any Windows system.
Only one got idea to get a mac, but she is a graphic disigner and needs a computer what does fit to her look anyways...
Re:I like KDE 4 (Score:3, Interesting)
KDE 4.1 looks like Gnome, only worse. The default font sizes are HUGE, and the default antialiasing is horrible. The launcher button on the kicker panel, instead of just showing applications, shows a tabbed panel that starts on the "favorites" tab; to actually launch an app, I have to chose the application tab, then get a list in a HUGE font, when menu, instead of cascading, are replaced by sub-panels, and the replacement is made slower by stupid animation.
The kicker panel itself is way too large, probably 50 pixels high.
The desktop isn't a normal desktop, instead there's some pseudo-transparent lozenge in which desktop items are grouped.
When I open "System Settings", I get some multi-applet container like MS-Windows or Gnome, not the tree-view I saw in KDE 3.5. I can't even find most things I want to change (like Window Decorations) or even a menu with an about which would tell me what app I'm running.
Did I screw up the install somehow? Am I still running Gnome (no, can't be, every app starts with "K").
What the hell??? If I wanted Gnome or Vista, I'd run that crap. Why can't KDE be KDE?
Help!
I liked KDE because it was clean and functional. KDE 4.1 is a travesty.
Ok, read this bullshit marketing drivel from KDE, it reads like an MBA's sales pitch:
However Plasma is more than just this familiar collection of utilities, it is a common framework for creating integrated interfaces. It is flexible enough to provide interfaces for mobile devices, media centres and desktop computers; to support the traditional desktop metaphor as well as well as designs that haven't yet been imagined.
Christ, man, I just want to launch an app, and occasionally glance down at the laucher to see how much battery life I have. I don't want a "framework" that can do everything.
But, says KDE:
Plasma takes a different approach, engaging the user by creating a dynamic and highly customizable environment.
I don't want to be engaged, I just want to launch an app. I'll probably maximize that app, so the desktop won't even be getting a look.
But, says KDE, you can get rid of the gee-whiz gee-gaws:
With Plasma, you can let your desktop (and accompanying support elements) act like it always did. You can have a task bar, a background image, shortcuts, etc. If you want to, however, you can use tools provided by Plasma to take your experience further, letting your desktop take shape based on what you want and need.
Oh, ok, that's cool. So can I get rid of the "cashew" control on the desktop?
Although putting an option to disable the cashew for desktops sounds reasonable, from a coding point of view it would introduce unnecessary complexity and would break the design. What has been suggested is, since the destkop itself (a containment) is handled by plugins, to write a plugin that would draw the desktop without the cashew itself. Currently some work ("blank desktop" plugin) is already present in KDE SVN. With containment type switching expected by KDE 4.2, it is not unreasonable to see alternative desktop types developed by then.
So let me get this straight: Plasma's a revolutionary framework that can do things "that haven't yet been imagined." But it also supports the traditional desktop.
But getting rid on a "cashew" on the desktop is too hard to code, but if you write a trivial plugin that redraws the entire desktop (which isn't so trivial, as it's a yet unready work in progress, and won't even be possible until the next release of KDE) you can get around this unwanted "feature".
Come on, guys, your super framework requires a plugin to be written just to present a blank desktop? And plugins won't work until 4.2? And a boolean "don't show" would break the design? You guys got seduced into major mission creep.
This isn't a desktop environment, it's the dev's toy. Which is great, but don't claim it's ready for end users.
Re:Wine (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey! At least Wine was relased! Do you not remember the Duke Nukem Forever?! Over 12 years and it mayby it comes this year... we sould finally get more than just wo preview videos and few screenshots.
Wine, VMs, and 3d accel (Score:4, Interesting)
VirtualBox 2.x (2.1? not sure) recently got 3d acceleration support. Most of the other open source VMs (as well as the proprietary ones) are also going to accelerated 3d. Combined with the general move towards multiple cores and hardware support for virtualisation, this is pretty much guaranteed to bring decent windows (and OS X) app and gaming support to Linux. If physics acceleration takes off more, it'll be the next milestone, but there's still time for that, and the 3d acceleration technology combined with things like OpenCL should help to make physics accel support a smaller/faster project.
Re:Wine? (Score:3, Interesting)
As another poster says, Django is a win. Pyjamas is a win. Even KDE 4 is more of a win. But Wine? No, Wine is nothing more than a legacy layer in a world that increasingly doesn't need such.
You're not flaming, you're just wrong. Wine enables many people to leave Windows even though they rely on just one program.
It also supports an entire class of gamer which refuses to dual-boot :)
Linux can run Windows programs, but not vice versa. (coLinux et al don't count.) This can only be a benefit.
Unfortunately, I had to go back to Windows because Linux never really properly supported my hardware. I even paid $20 for the conexant hsfmodem driver, which didn't work. nVidia can read my display's characteristics on Windows but not Linux because they haven't bothered to add EDID 2 support to the Linux driver, and the Linux Quadro support is ++crashy anyway. But let's face it, the wine devs wouldn't be working on making Linux more stable anyway.
Wine is a hugely used and useful project. But I won't put them on MY list of open source wins until we have both MAPI and TAPI working properly. Especially TAPI, without which you practically can't do anything with a modem or similar device (like run Motorola Mobile Phone Tools.)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Listen to yourselves! (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not going to argue DEs with you, but I can report that the panel complaints you raise are fixed in 4.2.
Okay, maybe I'll argue a little. What the hell, it's Slashdot.
I use KDE 4 not for what it could be, but for what it is. Better. Kwin alone is so improved, so much faster, so much more feature-rich, that I'd be using KDE 4 if that were the only improvement. But it's not.
Plasma is a giant leap forward into the future of the desktop metaphor. It's light-years beyond anything anyone else is doing, and already more functional than kicker and kdesktop were. Koffice 2, bugs, weird layout and all, is the only place where any innovation is happening in office suites at all, anywhere by anyone.
On a more general level, the whole desktop just feels faster than KDE 3 ever was on this hardware. Yeah, really precise and objective measurement there, I know, but there it is. And it seems to get faster with every update, which God knows wasn't the case with KDE 3.
Do I have problems? Hell yes. Kontact likes to hang on start, and damned if I've figured it out yet. Last week something in my plasmarc was causing the entire desktop to hang on login, I never figured it out, had to blow away kontactrc since which it seems to be running fine. Amarok...well, I think you covered that.
I could go on with both pros and cons, but it's been hashed out to death around here already. Ultimately, my position is this: Yeah, there's problems. Some fairly glaring ones, still, that frustrate the hell out of me every day. But the pros are totally worth it. There have been "Goddammit" moments, but there have way more "Holy crap, that's awesome!" moments. Worth it.
And for cryin' out loud, somebody's got to take some risks here. Somebody's got to try to move forward even if hurts a little bit. God knows it ain't Gnome.