Slashback: KDE, Tsunami Hacker, and Image Bugs 121
We Slashback, to provide updates to three recent stories. All happy news, for once. JoaoPinheiro writes "After last week's reports that Novell plans not to ship the KDE desktop on Novell and SUSE Enterprise products, the company got lots of feedback from its customers. Novell has listened to them and reconsidered its desktop strategy." Meanwhile, in the employment sector, sebFlyte writes "Daniel Cuthbert, recently a high-profile victim of the UK's outdated cybercrime laws, has found a job in the security industry." Finally, one less thing to worry about, as gUnit writes "eWeek is reporting that virus researchers at Trend Micro jumped the gun with a warning that a Trojan in the wild was capable of exploiting newly patched Windows security flaws. Just 24 hours after announcing the discovery of a proof-of-concept Trojan that supposedly exploits a trio of image-rendering vulnerabilities patched by Microsoft, Trend Micro is retreating from that claim and offering up a batch of excuses."
Trend Micro might've calculated it? (Score:1)
Slashback RFC (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Slashback RFC (Score:1)
Good news all round (Score:1, Redundant)
Must-have KDE apps (Score:1)
Indeed, here are some must-have KDE apps that are certainly going to help SuSE's popularity as a desktop operating system
AmaroK music player [kde.org] -- Intuitive, powerful, good-looking music player. Supports transfers to/from iPods and many audio formats.
K3b [k3b.org] -- Best CD and DVD authoring program with intuitive wizards, on the fly transcoding between WAV, MP3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis, normalization of volume levels, CDDB, DVD Ripping and DivX/XviD encoding, Save/load projects,
Re:Must-have KDE apps (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, half the apps on your list are toys ... nice toys for a home desktop (yes, amarok and k3b is lovely) but where are the more "serious" apps like scribus? [sourceforge.net] Is there an gtk equivalent? Edutainment? I mention this last because linux might become more and more important in education, and only KDE offers a nice, integrated solution. In fact, I just read about a specific case where schools (in Germany) used KDE because of the edutainment package (was in one of the blogs on kdeplanet).
Which leads me to what I wanted to say originally: marketing. KDE did no or very little marketing, and almost no research of KDE deployment. That's where the "other" project excelled: marketing, case studies, success stories, etc... This way, it was relatively easy for ximian's people to convince Novell's management that they should standardize on GNOME. It was at this year's academy that they decided to form the KDE Marketing Working Group [kde.org]. And in just a few days, oh look: Dutch Record Shop Chain Migrates 1000 PCs to KDE on Novell Linux Desktop [kde.org] that's bye bye for 1000 customers when the next upgrade cycle comes, if Novell standardized on GNOME. They use kiosk mode and the associated admin tools to lock the features - which seems to be a mature feature. In fact, here is an "enterprise ready" praise if there is any:"
And oh look, another two more cases (you have to scroll down) [blogspot.com]. Quote:
So someone (quess who) misrepresented KDE's readiness or usefulness - and the demand for it - in corporate environments. But the damage is already done. Who would trust novell on this now? I think most of the users in the past days were looking at distrowatch (or at the Kubuntu site)
Re:Must-have KDE apps (Score:2)
Konqueror File Manager -- Embeded image/PDF/music/video viewing (via KMPlayer [kde.org]) and a tree-view arrangement of the filesystem familiar to Windows users (Nautilus doesn't come anywhere close)
Nautilus has all the features you mentioned. There are some things Konqueror does that Nautilus doesn't (web browsing, for one), but nautilus is more capable than you give it credit for.
Compare this to the dismembered approach Red Hat (an
Damn, Gun Jumping (Score:1)
KDE is very polished on SuSE (Score:2)
Thats what amazing, Novell would drop it, but then again, they have a group of gnome developers in house...
Re:KDE is very polished on SuSE (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that they have Gnome developers in house would certainly help in integrating their apps and utils with Gnome but another good reason for doing so is that other enterprise players are al
Re:KDE is very polished on SuSE (Score:1)
I am playing with Ubuntu at the moment, and have found it to be wonderful.
I have managed to get basically everything the way I want it, except for configuring gnome properly. In Windows I can disable all the flashy eye candy and zooming windows etc ("Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing" tick in visual effects)
I cannot for the life of me find out how to do something similar in Gnome.
I have looked around and tried to read through th
Re:KDE is very polished on SuSE (Score:1)
Re:KDE is very polished on SuSE (Score:1)
I just installed all the packages and logged into it.
After running through all the configuration, it appears to have (almost) everything I was looking for.
It is customisable as I expect and runs as quickly as I like, however I cannot get the application list inside a single taskbar. Damn annoying really, I prefer the window titles to be at the very top and the app list inside the taskbar at the bottom (like XP). I have configured this part in gnome perfectly, but its not so e
Re:KDE is very polished on SuSE (Score:1)
Ok, so tell me how to raise a window in Gnome _without_ clicking on the tiny two pixel wide frame (i.e., by clicking in the middle of the window) when the focus policy is set to "mouse follows cursor" and auto-raise is off.
Simple answer - you can't. And Gnome doesn't want you to. M
Re:KDE is very polished on SuSE (Score:1)
ALT-leftclick: raise the window by alt-clicking anywhere inside it
ALT-leftclick and drag: move the window without having to grab the title bar
ALT-middleclick and drag: resize the window without having to grab the corner
ALT-rightclick: bring up the window menu (equivalent to clicking on the top left corner of the window).
Hope that help
Re:KDE is very polished on SuSE (Score:2)
more details: official Novell PR on KDE (Score:5, Informative)
* WRONG * (read it yourself) (Score:3, Informative)
"All future enterprise-class Linux product releases, including Novell Linux Desktop, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Novell Open Enterprise Server, will continue to ship with both the GNOME and KDE desktop environments. In upcoming versions of Novell enterprise applications, the default desktop environment will be GNOME. When customers install Novell Linux products, they will be given the option to choose either the GNOME or KDE environme
* RIGHT * (read it again) (Score:5, Informative)
--
Evan
KDE "Supported" (Score:3, Insightful)
The real question isn't whether KDE will be included on SuSE Linux, or supported by Novell. The real question is how much money is Novell willing to spend *developing* KDE.
Re:KDE "Supported" (Score:1, Troll)
Re:KDE "Supported" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:KDE "Supported" (Score:2)
Newsflash: you didn't.
Re:KDE "Supported" (Score:2)
Re:KDE "Supported" (Score:1, Informative)
No, it is a netware pun.
Puns have two meanings.
The obvious one - which in this case is the sony drm reference that EVERYBODY knows.
And the groaner one - which in this case is related to netware SYS: naming convention.
Two guys asserting it wasn't a pun just because it was so obscure that they didn't get it themselves even though they were warned it was obscure.
More obscurity (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:More obscurity (Score:2)
Re:KDE "Supported" (Score:2, Informative)
Re:KDE "Supported" (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:KDE "Supported" (Score:2)
My colleague, however, is quite real, and ran into some very real problems. KDE solved those problems.
KDE will not be the default (Score:3, Informative)
I hate excuses (Score:3, Interesting)
EXCUSE
He said the company received the Trojan sample from a customer in Japan and, during the initial research, the code definitely crashed the "explorer.exe" and EMF File Viewer in unpatched Windows systems.
EXCUSE
"We're still working with Microsoft to clarify what it is exactly and how it will be categorized in relation to MS05-053. But it's not exactly as we originally described it," he added.
Ahh hah.
Bad law vs. stupidly pissing off the judge (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair, if you look at what happened:
The judge indicated that he would normally have let Cuthbert go for the core act.
However, Cuthbert didn't just commit the core act, acknowledge what he'd done and then say sorry. Instead, when the police investigated, he concocted a lie about what he'd been doing, causing them to spend a lot more time and money investigating, and only told the truth when caught.
The judge outright stated that, whilst he would be inclined to simply give a slap on the wrists, the fact Cuthbert deliberately lied to the police led him to impose a harsher sentence.
The same holds true of pretty much any law. If the judge feels the law is dubious, unmerrited or whatever, he has freedom for leniency. If you piss them off by deliberately lying to the police though, don't expect them to go easy on you.
Re:Bad law vs. stupidly pissing off the judge (Score:1)
And what about the incompetent police investigators? Seen so much stupidity I am wondering what would happen if the police could hold an innocent person for 90 days without charge just because the person own a computer with harddisk. Now they can hold everybody without charge for 28 days. Better than vanishing in some secret camp for years, but imagine someone puts you away for a month.
Re:Bad law vs. stupidly pissing off the judge (Score:3, Insightful)
The judge said he would normally be inclined to leniency but that lying to the police meant that, when considering degree of intent, thus severity of the act, thus appropriate severity of the punishment, it implied Cuthbert knew what he was doing was wrong (as, if he felt he was in the right, why would he feel the need to lie?) and did it anyway.
The judge didn't act because he was in a b
Re:Bad law vs. stupidly pissing off the judge (Score:1)
Re:Bad law vs. stupidly pissing off the judge (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad law vs. stupidly pissing off the judge (Score:2)
Consider it something of a plea bargain in return for a full confession and cooperating with the police. It's quite common, except that a cop can't officially do that. But beyond that, it's common procedure in dealing with the law.
Re:Bad law vs. stupidly pissing off the judge (Score:2)
So, instead you bent over and took it from your insurance company which raised your rates so that you will pay them way more than you would have paid to fight the ticket in the first place.
Very commendable of you to do your bit for our corporate welfare state.
Re:Bad law vs. stupidly pissing off the judge (Score:1)
you don't know what you're talking about (Score:2)
That "explanation" is a confabulation. Judges aren't supposed to decide based on whether they are "pissed off", and it shouldn't take any longer to determine whether the defendant typed "../.." whether or not he admits it.
The re
Hacker? (Score:4, Insightful)
>To check, he added
So are we to believe that simple act resulted in a criminal conviction? Really?
Surely there is more to it than that.
Re:Hacker? (Score:1, Redundant)
What a flip-flop! (Score:2)
This begs the question: Was the initial decision to only support GNOME made with no anticipation for consequences? If there were no consequences expected, then those who made the decision should be fired in my opinion.
If there were anticipated consequences, then why did the PR personnel not do it in a sane way? This flip-flopping by Novell does them no good. They already have a [bad] reputation of spoiling e
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:5, Insightful)
Novell made what amounted to a mistake in the eyes of many of their users, and such users let Novell know that. So Novell did the responsible thing, listened to their users, and cleared up the problem. That's not a bad thing. They were being responsive to their customers needs.
Indeed, it's very good when people go back and fix a mistake that they made. It's called being responsible.
However, I do agree with you about the GNOME file selector being quite unusable. It is what keeps me from using Firefox.
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:3, Interesting)
If that were the case, then Novell should have adopted KDE ad the default desktop long ago. Some on-line survey indicated that SuSE had the best presentation of KDE and that it was why 76% of SuSE users were using KDE. In comm
KDE was always the default SuSE desktop. (Score:2)
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:2)
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:1)
Because no one has ever done that [google.com] before, hehe
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:1)
Actually, Firefox doesn't use the GNOME file selector, the Mozilla people wrote their own.
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:2)
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:2)
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:2)
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:2)
Unlike you, the rest of the world finds the need to upload a file once in a while using a HTML form. Example: using gmail and attaching a file to an email.
people's complaints about Gnome just because of a dialogue box that is open 0.1% of computer usage time or less is really clutching at straws.
No, what you are witnessing is people airing a legitimate complaint. By the way, it's not just the file selector. I know I am veering off-topic sl
Re:What a flip-flop! (Score:2)
A week ago Novell's position was that KDE would be shipped, but not as the default.
Today's Novell's position was that KDE would be shipped, but not as the default.
That's is a huge inconsistancy isn't it?
they didn't reverse their position (Score:2)
No, it's not a "flip flop". Because of user demand, they'll continue to support KDE, but Gnome is going to be their focus.
Changing the default to GNOME *is* the indication (Score:2)
You can put as much sugar on the subject as you like Novell PR, the proof is in the pudding.
Only offering KDE support to technical-savvy users that know one window manager from the other is an attempt to appease the well-grounded pioneers of the SuSe platform.
It is clear that this is a business decision to change the default to GNOME, and for all their
Re:Changing the default to GNOME *is* the indicati (Score:1)
I personally prefer GTK for now other reason than asthetics. Even with theming, something about QT has always seemed off to me.
KDE should be default. GTK file selector bkoken. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's bad enough having Firefox and Gimp rendered unusable (shameless exageration) in this way let alone a whole suit of applications.
KDE makes much more sense to me (shameless flamebait) and I hope there is another German distro that can become what Suse was once to fill the void that has been left by the "restructuring". All the times I've seen a US corporation take over a European company (shameless generalisation) they have just sabotaged it. I used to work for a European Harmen pro-audio company before the writing was on the wall what they wanted to do with it.
GTK selector not broken, just simplified (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not a troll at all - it's a reasonable opinion backed with a coherent justification. That said, I've got my own reasons for disliking the GTK+ file selector, but this isn't one of them. In fact, it's the way that applications work on the Mac, which has influenced many Gnome design decisions.
Having f
Re:KDE should be default. GTK file selector bkoken (Score:2)
No it isn't. Because the GTK file dialog looks almost exactly the same as MacOS X's file dialog. [uwrf.edu] Everybody praises MacOS X for its usability, including the file dialog, and the GTK dialog looks almost exactly the same, therebefore the GTK dialog is good. If you say the GTK dialog is bad, then you must also admit that the MacOS X dialog is bad.
it's business (Score:2)
As for the US-vs-European angle, the KDE developers already screwed up big time once before on licensing issues. Perhaps the problem is that
Suse and KDE (Score:2)
It looks like Novell is being pushed to make some bad moves by a major investor or two, with lots of R&D layoffs and pressure to sell off some of the technology that strongly identifies Novell with quality. Rings bells of the sort of thin
KDE is a mistake (Score:1, Flamebait)
I think for Novell to continue spending time on supporting two desktops is a mistake; they should focus on doing a great job with one desktop, and they really don't have much of a choice other than to use Gnome.
Re:KDE is a mistake (Score:1)
Obviously, there is at least one other choice. KDE.
Re:KDE is a mistake (Score:2)
standardized gui? (Score:1)
Re:haxx0red (Score:2, Funny)
Feel free to try. My I.P. Address is 127.0.0.1
Knock yerself out.
Re:haxx0red (Score:1)
CH
Re:KDE == Proprietary and expensive. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to hear about commercial apps written with gtk. Can you name any? I can't.
Re:KDE == Proprietary and expensive. (Score:1, Insightful)
TrollTech survive by selling licenses for their toolkit, obviously. There are literally hundreds of apps out there written using it (Photoshop CS, for example).
So.. why can I not buy a Linux version of Photoshop? What's the point crippling KDE (and hence Linux) with Qt - IF NOBODY USES IT FOR COMMERCIAL APPS ON LINUX?
If you made money from your apps, a Qt license would be no big deal. Sorry.
So Linux development has bee
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:KDE == Proprietary and expensive. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:KDE == Proprietary and expensive. (Score:1)
Hahaha.
back to the good ol' days, I suppose (Score:2)
Ah, I see, we are back to the good ol' days where only the big, money-making developers matter. According to you, shareware developers can go to hell. People creating technology demos can go to hell. Software developers that are trying to get started on the side can go to hell. Community projects like Eclipse can go to hell. BSD-licensed software can go
Re:KDE == Proprietary and expensive. (Score:1, Insightful)
If you are really a "Free Linux desktop enthusiast" why would you want to see proprietary applications (for which you likely have to pay) at all? Shouldn't everything rather be free software? Or at least those companies wanting to write closed-source applications should give something back (like via paying Qt licenses)?
And are you talking about users paying "fees" to Trolltech or developers (o
Re:KDE == Proprietary and expensive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your subject is misleading. KDE is not proprietary. It can be expensive though, if you wish to develop proprietary software.
One important thing to consider is that Qt is so darn good. People complain about programming in Gtk. No one complains about programming in Qt. If your employer buys you Qt to develop with, then you're a lucky bastard. The only thing people complain about with Qt is the commercial license cost. In some ways, this reminds me of Apple: pricey, but there are people out there that will pay that price. This is why a lot more "high end" apps are written in Qt (like Pixar's tools, for example).
That said, this is further complicated by the fact that Qt is also free as in GPL. For open source developers, the choice between Gtk and Qt is simple, and this is why KDE thrives. Granted, Gtk is used by a lot of open source developers, but I'd say this is mostly due to preference of the C progamming language. It is the KDE crew that loves what they are doing, and they make faster progress.
You wrote: If you're a "Linux enthusiast", you're using a "free" desktop to prevent paying fees to the likes of Microsoft. But with Qt, you are encouraging people to pay Trolltech.
Maybe so, but you have to admit it is a very different situation. I like that Trolltech gets paid. They give us free stuff. Free as in GPL. That's like corporate suicide. Nobody gives their stuff away like that. Fortunately, here we have a business model that allows it to happen. In fact, it turns the whole system upside down. When you pay Microsoft, you encourage further closed source development. When you pay Trolltech, you are sponsoring open source development. Qt would not be as good as it is today without this funding.
It might be that Qt is "hurting Linux" in some way, as you say. But in my opinion I don't think we'd even be talking about Linux if it weren't for Qt (and you can take that any way you like... simply technical merit, or the fact that without Qt, Gtk wouldn't have been started).
I hear you though. On some days I wish Qt were LGPL/BSD. Simple licenses make life so much easier... But it would be a tradeoff.
Re:KDE == Proprietary and expensive. (Score:2)
The downside of Qt is that there's a broad range of apps between GPL'd apps and high-end commercial apps that naturally must exist on a desktop. One of the problems is that you can't use any other toolkit to make an application that seems to fit on a KDE/Qt desktop. Yes, I know you can make GTK use Qt for drawing but I doubt it is legal to do that for a commercial app, since Qt is
Re:KDE == Proprietary and expensive. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:KDE == Proprietary and expensive. (Score:1)
No. Everything in KDE is available under the GPL. That means KDE is free to develop for. You only have to pay if you want to make your software proprietary.
When I see that someone is being dishonest like this, I immediately assume that they are trying to trick me, and discount what they are saying. A bit like using the word "steal" in a copyright infringement argument. If your point has m