“[…] Still, Open Source software fails to lead in many areas. This could be from a historical disadvantage — the means of connecting and organizing people for sizable Open Source projects only recently became available and are only starting to approach the tight-knit nature of companies. But I think it’s for a whole different reason. Open Source software lacks leadership, unity and direction.” Read the editorial at NewsForge.
Open Source Community Needs More Unity
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Amen.
I don’t understand. Since when is it the aim of open source developers to lead in some area? Most open source developers I know develop their free software because it’s fun for them, it’s their hobby, some even do it to learn. But “to lead” is usually not one of their aims, not at all.
>”Open Source software lacks leadership,
> unity and direction”
Really, who wants that in his spare time?
Andreas
I read many computer magazines, and technology oriented websites. And what I am seeing in most all of the OSS stories is that the journalist is reporting just what this one is. That OSS does not have the leadershipt or whatever. But, they fail to remember that nearly all OSS projects are doing it “For Fun”. Not to make money. Not to build a business. But just for fun. Why do these journalists (and probably others) always forget that?
Depends how you see it. If you are an “outsider” and you watch the FSF and all its developers behind to try to make people only use open source software and bitch at Ms every day, then, it gets more than a “hobby”. If these people are serious to ask us to leave Windows for an open source OS and application, they will have to do better, as the editorial suggests. If not, then they should not bitch at people for using Windows, but to kindly ask us to have a look at their OS or apps and if we like them, to use them. I am really getting pissed off when I send sometimes some emails to some OSS web masters to tell them that their page does not render ok on IE, and they reply with sarcasm that I should be using Linux. Such things, really make me stay on Windows. Their attitude. So, if they want to have such an attitude, they better justify it with better products (which they do require leadership, unity and direction ), not with bitching.
I guess there are two kinds of OSS developers. The political/GPL ones, and the ones who indeed do it for fun. But the way Linux has progressed today, and it has progressed a lot, it is mostly about politicalities. Therefore, in order for a free Linux-based OS to be able to counter the commercial offerings, its devs indeed need leadership, unity and direction.
“Still, Open Source software fails to lead in many areas.”
While I won’t argue with that, the author really should tell us what areas he’s talking about.
To say that KDE, Linux, and Apache are the only fronts where open source programs are “equal to” or “better than” commercial offerings is blatantly wrong.
> While I won’t argue with that, the author really should tell us what areas he’s talking about.
A maya/3DStudio kind of thing (Blender is not leader), a DTP app (‘scribus’ is a joke), a *good* vector app like Illustrator or Freehand, a Photoshop killer (gimp is not), an Autocad killer, professional audio apps like the ones you find on windows and Mac, a DreamWeaver killer etc.
Want more? The author didn’t have to tell, these are well known limitations of the open source community. Most of the open source apps are either gui front ends, or server apps, with some desktop apps only. But professional grade workstation software, is what OSS *completely* lacks.
So if OSS got over all of it’s problems and ruled the world, then how would all the programers out there earn a living.
They can’t sell it, it’s open and free.
I thought I would looks like a bit of a troll and agree that for the most part open source software are crappy clones of better commercial software. Linux has nothing to offer that commercial unixes hasnt for ages. KDE is a buggy and insanely slow widnows clone. There are a few really neat projects of course, Apache has been mentioned, GCC has no competition at all in its niche and is also the application that show of any advantages of being open source directly. Other than that however I really cannot see any innovation going on much, open source seems to be all about cloning, and once the clone is 90% of the original it seems the effort is done for.
Being a cheap alternative at all times might be enough, but some innovation would not hurt.
Could also be noted that in most cases where open source applications have made it big quick there is a company behind it sponsoring, Apache has tons of paid developers, Mozilla is largely completely an AOL product and the GCC of today is not what the FSF used to call GCC but a renamed EGCS from Cygnus.
There, somewhat trollish perhaps, but reading too much open source glorification on slashdot does this to you after a while
The author does have to tell, if we should be able to analyze why the open source community fails to deliver those things. Is it really because of lacking unity, or is it because of something else?
Also, isn’t it asking for a bit much to get “killers” and “leaders” from a group mostly consisting of hobbyists?
Not to say that it’s impossible for the open source community to produce leading applications, as Apache has shown us, but to demand that and call it a failure if the open source community doesn’t deliver, say, a DreamWeaver killer app…
Then I think you’re asking for way too much. Especially if you’re not willing to help creating said applications.
> Choices are good.
Yes indeed, they are. Some people think that Open source is about “choice”, but more often than not, this is not the case. A choice is a viable alternative, but that is a point that most open source projects never reach. Look at Office Suites, for example: Open Office, Kde, Gnome, whatever. A million suites that don’t amount to one good thing together. A million applets to configure the network or view images.
Depends how you see it. If you are an “outsider” and you watch the FSF and all its developers behind to try to make people only use open source software and bitch at Ms every day, then, it gets more than a “hobby”.
Or you could view it this way; they are marketing something they believe in. Microsoft whines and bitches about open source, Sun, etc. and then pushes their .NET, Windows, Office, etc. on a daily basis. How is any of that different (other than you personally may like MS more than OSS)?
If these people are serious to ask us to leave Windows for an open source OS and application, they will have to do better, as the editorial suggests.
I don’t think that’s the problem. The users are. They aren’t willing to learn anything new. If they don’t know how to do something, then the immediate response is that it sucks. Whether or not that is in reality true is of no concern to them.
Looking at one of your other posts, you talk about OSS needing to deliver replacements that are better than Dreamweaver, 3DStudio, etc. Why does OSS have to provide everything (including user learning) in order for Linux or *BSD to be validated? Many of the OSS programs are very suitable to the tasks they were designed to handle. There are also commercial applications available for Linux that are far better than their Windows counterparts (if a counterpart even exists). Why do you think so many successful movie graphics are done under Linux instead of Windows? Because Linux is a better platform for doing that type of work.
If not, then they should not bitch at people for using Windows, but to kindly ask us to have a look at their OS or apps and if we like them, to use them.
I don’t see that this is what’s happening. I think they are asking corporations and government to take a serious look at their offerings. Microsoft tries to cut that off at the pass whenever they can by lying, giving away free software, etc. As I see it, vocal OSS types ARE asking people to kindly use their OS, but they have to stoop down to the MS level in order to get anyone to hear past the constant drone of MS propaganda. What else are they supposed to do?
Think about it this way. Did Microsoft only start marketing when their products had reached all user’s expectations? No, or they still wouldn’t be marketing anything.
I am really getting pissed off when I send sometimes some emails to some OSS web masters to tell them that their page does not render ok on IE, and they reply with sarcasm that I should be using Linux.
Why get mad at them? It is IE that renders things poorly. Get mad at Microsoft if you have to get mad. Mozilla, Netscape, Opera and several other browsers support the intranet page I created at work, but IE screws up the table widths, doesn’t render RGB color values correctly, doesn’t support PNG as well, doesn’t render my forms the right way, just to name a few of its faults. How are OSS webmasters supposed to help you with that?
Also, why is it okay to only support IE, but not the other way around. If your audience is Linux users (meaning 0% IE), it doesn’t matter if IE works or not; right?
Such things, really make me stay on Windows. Their attitude.
Which is exactly the same attitude of Windows users. Or in otherwords, human nature.
So, if they want to have such an attitude, they better justify it with better products (which they do require leadership, unity and direction ), not with bitching.
It is you, and other Windows users that would like to be Linux users (but apparently can’t), that are bitching, not OSS programmers. And they have provided a better product without leadership. Perl, Python, Linux, Apache, Tomcat, JBoss, to name a few.
Therefore, in order for a free Linux-based OS to be able to counter the commercial offerings, its devs indeed need leadership, unity and direction.
I think you are failing to recognize the progress Linux and other OSS products have made and the level of quality that you find in them. Many people keep saying that Linux and OSS would be better with leadership, but then they mourn the loss of many corporate projects, that smacked of leadership, which eventually failed. Like BeOS. BeOS had leadership , and was a nice OS, but it never really amounted to anything.
The truth is, Linux would never have gotten where it is today if it weren’t for the model by which it is currently being developed.
I don’t think that’s the problem. The users are. They aren’t willing to learn anything new. If they don’t know how to do something, then the immediate response is that it sucks. Whether or not that is in reality true is of no concern to them.
Users not wanting to learn… unfortunately, it’s a problem in the Windows world that makes projects like Lycoris have to mimic the Windows UI to make those users happy with it.
And I had to put this link
:
http://pinsa.escomposlinux.org/sromero/linux/pringao/techslacky.htm…
Don’t think that I hate Windows users, I was one myself (and suffered the same tortures as the techslacky up there). But it’s really a problem that people want to use computers without reading a single manual. That’s impossible, and problematic in the long term.
>It is you, and other Windows users that would like to be Linux users (but apparently can’t),
APPARENTLY CAN’T????
WHAT THE f*ck are you talking about??
I DON’T LIKE the Unix *desktop*. It revolts me. It is not that *I* can’t (I have four Linux distros installed currently), it is that it is not good enough for me.
>How is any of that different (other than you personally may like MS more than OSS)?
The difference is that this was replied to the guy who said that all OSS is just a hobby. These are corporations who try to keep their products up and running. If a HOBBY developer wants us to check out his apps, their apps better be good!
You seem to reply to my sentences one by one, without the context that they were replied on.
>I don’t think that’s the problem. The users are. They aren’t willing to learn anything new.
This is where you are 100% wrong. The user(“customer”) is never wrong (even if he/she is). Microsoft knows that. This is why persuades their customers with what they want, not what they should want. The OSS developers haven’t realize that yet.
>Looking at one of your other posts, you talk about OSS needing to deliver replacements that are better than Dreamweaver, 3DStudio, etc. Why does OSS have to provide everything (including user learning) in order for Linux or *BSD to be validated?
AGAIN, you take my replies out of context. I could mod you down just for this kind of reply from you.
I WAS REPLYING/ANSWERING to the person who **asked** what OSS lacks. And you now took my sentences out of context and you are trying to present them as a “wrong thinking”.
Who said that OSS OSes would be validated only if they have all apps? They won’t. But we were talking about this sentence originally: “Still, Open Source software fails to lead in many areas.”
And that was a valid answer I gave.
Ok, I am stopping replying to you here. You have really pissed me off now. You don’t know how to discuss in this kind of conversation, you just misinterpret everything and pulled it out of context for your own good.
>Why get mad at them? It is IE that renders things poorly.
Yeah, the 95% browser of the market, renders poorly. Their development skills were perfect… Give me a break, will you? How DO YOU know if that was IE’s fault or THEIR fault? How? I did not provide URLs. And even if it was IE’s fault, the devs should test with this browser, just because it is the most used one (you create a page so it can be viewed by people, not to lock people away because they use an “evil” browser).
I am stopping here.
Anonymous: To say that KDE, Linux, and Apache are the only fronts where open source programs are “equal to” or “better than” commercial offerings is blatantly wrong.
It is blatantly wrong. Here is an example. There are no commercial scripting languages as popular or as good as Perl; even Microsoft uses Perl extensively to do their builds and other tasks.
In a nutshell, here is the problem with many of the Windows user community. They are discontent with Windows and want something else, but they aren’t willing to sacrifice some brain power to learn anything new.
I used to use Windows exclusively, but I was unhappy. Then I bought RedHat Linux. It was version 4 something. It was a bear to install and setup for me, but I did it. I spent the next few years dual booting into Linux and Windows. During the first part of that two years, I spent little time in Linux and a great deal of time in Windows. Over time, that statistic reversed until I removed Windows from my system once and for all. Most Windows users aren’t willing to put forth the effort.
Today’s users are luckier than I was. Distros like SuSE, Mandrake, Caldera (excuse me, SCO), Lycoris and RedHat are extremely easy to install. Most computer users write documents, nose around on the web, send and recieve email, balance a budget and play some games. OSS apps running under Linux are every bit as able to do all of these things as apps under Windows (some, like Mozilla, exceeding the abilities of Windows IE browser).
It’s unfortunate that the Windows users who want something more always seem to want it as long as it’s exacly the same as what they already have.
Eugenia: I am really getting pissed off when I send sometimes some emails to some OSS web masters to tell them that their page does not render ok on IE
One more comment on this. I have seen during my short stay at OSNews, that you get pissed off whenever anyone disagrees with you or tries to correct you. I mean no offense, but let’s be fair, when somebody tries to tell you what to do, you tell them to screw themselves or face moderation/deletion. Why must the OSS community behave any differently than you do? Do the marketing numbers of Windows give you personality rights that should somehow be denied to non-Windows users who’s OS isn’t quite as popular?
>> “I am really getting pissed off when I send sometimes some emails to some OSS web masters to tell them that their page does not render ok on IE”
> I have seen during my short stay at OSNews, that you get pissed off whenever anyone disagrees with you or tries to correct you.
Yeah… and now I am also pissed off that you quoted my above sentense, WITHOUT quoting the REST of the freaking sentense to EXPLAIN the reason why I would be angry on this. I was getting angry not because someone’s page is full of HTML errors. Who cares? I get pissed when they tell me to not use IE because its “evil”.
Again, you quote parts of my sentences, in order to make me look like a fool with its incomplete meaning.
PLEASE BEHAVE, or you WILL face moderation and I don’t give a f*ck what you think about me.
This is where you are 100% wrong. The user(“customer”) is never wrong (even if he/she is). Microsoft knows that.
Since I’m your customer, does that mean that I’m right?
Now, you said that I took what you said out of context, if I did, I didn’t mean to.
>I don’t think that’s the problem. The users are. They aren’t willing to learn anything new.
This is where you are 100% wrong.
I politely disagree. Why does Linux have to BE Windows? When Linux tries (Lycoris) everyone complains and when they don’t (most other distros) everyone complains. What are they supposed to do?
Yeah, the 95% browser of the market, renders poorly. Their development skills were perfect… Give me a break, will you? How DO YOU know if that was IE’s fault or THEIR fault?
By using only technology standards and not anything wierd. If MS is not supporting the standard technologies and every other browser I tried is, then IE must be the problem. That’s the only scientifically logical answer.
I’m not attacking you at all. I just posted an alternative path of thought. I have reread the original post that you were replying to, and I don’t see how my comments have broken your posting rules or taken your comments out of context in the least. The only problem I can see is that my opinion differs from yours. I’m fine with that. Can you be?
> That’s the only scientifically logical answer.
The other one is that these HTML devs had buggy code.
IE is a *very good* browser and it has an exceptionally good HTML parser for compliance with the standards.
>Why does Linux have to BE Windows?
No one said that it has be windows! MacOS is not Windows and it still does very well. Linux is just not good enough for me, not because it is different, but because it ain’t good for what I want to do wiht my desktop.
>Since I’m your customer, does that mean that I’m right?
Not really. You are David’s customer (the OSNews owner), but not mine. I don’t have to do anything with the financial on osnews. I don’t get paid.
“In a nutshell, here is the problem with many of the Windows user community. They are discontent with Windows and want something else, but they aren’t willing to sacrifice some brain power to learn anything new.”
It’s amazing that many Linux/OSS fanboys assume that the only reason people are using Windows is because they are too lazy/stupid/incapable of learning anything new. Well, let me fill you in on something …
MANY OPEN SOURCE PROGRAMS DO NOT HAVE THE SAME LEVEL OF FUNCTIONALITY AS THEIR COMMERCIAL COUNTERPARTS.
Now, say that out loud and repeat it to yourself 100 times … rinse, lather, and repeat. If it is possible to wrap your microscopic brain around this concept, then maybe .. just MAYBE you will begin to understand why many of us are still ‘tied’ to Windows.
Switching operating systems (and I mean switching FROM any operating system TO operating system) means that you gain some benefits and make some trade-offs. The question is, will the benefits outweight the trade-offs? In the case of Linux, the answer is yes for some people and no for others. It is simply a matter of what you use your computer for and what is most important to you.
if he isnt your customer, then i dont think people could be considered OSS’s developer’s customers. Rarely do the developers have anything to with the financial part of their projects.
Rakuda I agree with you 100%..
I think that the problem is that most users doesn’t understand why developers develop OSS programs. They do it for fun and to learn _not_ to take on Windows or attract users.
When it comes to rendering I think that sites should
confirm to the official standards that exist not to IE.
Eugenia: If a HOBBY developer wants us to check out
his apps, their apps better be good!
Euginea, That summarizes pretty good your standpoint.
> The question is, will the benefits outweight the trade-offs?
Exactly!
For example, the reason I stopped using BeOS was because it lacked a good browser. Mozilla is fine, but even its recent BeOS ports is just unusable and slow and crashy beyond belief. That was a no-go for me, even if BeOS is more responsive than Windows.
As for Linux, I tried with 4-5 distros so far. Both KDE and Gnome don’t cut it for me as my desktop. I don’t like them, and the most important thing is that there is no real integration with the underlying OS on to change drivers on the fly etc. When I am on Unix, most of the times I use WindowMaker btw.
MacOSX is the only OS today that could make me leave WindowsXP. But OSX is VERY slow on *scrolling, resizing* and ALL its browsers seem slow compared to IE on Windows on a similar machine. If Apple could fix these issues, I could very well consider switching to OSX indeed. But not before these issues are fixed.
The other one is that these HTML devs had buggy code.
IE is a *very good* browser and it has an exceptionally good HTML parser for compliance with the standards.
Your first comment is not possible. HTML standards are HTML standards. The COLOR=”<RGB-value>” attribute is a standard. If the bug is not in IE, then Opera, Netscape 4x, Mozilla, Photoshop, Illustrator, GIMP and Dreamweaver all have an RGB rendering bug and it reveals itself in the exact same way across all these products.
I’m sorry, but the only logical conclusion is that IE has difficulty rendering RGB values correctly.
To test this for yourself, create a solid square graphic in Photoshop using an RGB value of #808BCE. Next, open Dreamweaver and insert the graphic into an empty page. Next, change the background value of your page in Dreamweaver to an RGB value of #808BCE. Your graphic will effectively become invisible on the page since the background and the graphic are the same color.
Now, save this page and view the resulting html document in several browsers. You will notice that in IE, your square will be quite visible in the page since IE does not render the RGB value of the background correctly. On other browsers, your square graphic will remain invisible because they do render the RGB color of the background correctly.
This is just one of the problems I have at work with IE.
My name is Eugenia, not Euginea.
Second, I think the whole problem here is that we see OSS differently. I explained that in the beginning. There are the political developers who want to recreate software to overthrown Ms and make everything Free, and there are these who are doing OSS software for hobby. These are DISTINCT and DIFFERENT kind of devs.
Myself and the author of the editorial is talking about the first kind of people. For these people, who really do it for a reason, and not for a hobby, yes, their “products” should be better than the commercial ones if they want us to switch. Because they ASK us to switch. If they ask for something, I will have to ask about their quality too.
>To test this for yourself, create a solid square graphic in Photoshop using an RGB value of #808BCE
I just tested this. It works as it should be on IE, Mozilla and Netscape 4.80. Opera 6.x has a problem and shows the square image in a slightly lighter color.
IE worked AS IT SUPPOSED TO.
Please note that if you saved the image as gif, PaintShopPro changed slightly the color hex number when saving. When tried it as gif, I was able to see the square on ALL browsers. But when saved it as png, where PSP did not played any tricks when saved it down, I was NOT able to see the square with ANY browser, but only with Opera.
Eugenia wrote:
>My name is Eugenia, not Euginea
Sorry about that.
And I must add that I think you are doing a great job here at osnews. I know that talking to zealots is a pain in the behind.
Perhaps the trouble with Open Source is that too many programmers get
involved, and projecdts lose direction.
IMO good application programs (eg a DTP program) are best written by
one or two coders, with perhaps 2 or 3 good beta testers. The program
then hangs together logically, the interface is more likely to be
consistent, and priorities can be set.
When World+dog can add bits to the code, the project gets messy. So it
is better to keep the source closed until the program reaches version
5.
Just a thought.
MANY OPEN SOURCE PROGRAMS DO NOT HAVE THE SAME LEVEL OF FUNCTIONALITY AS THEIR COMMERCIAL COUNTERPARTS.
I personally find the exact opposite to be true. Actually, I like a good number of programs that run under Windows, but Windows just doesn’t offer me the level of functionality, security and stability that I want.
Now, say that out loud and repeat it to yourself 100 times … rinse, lather, and repeat. If it is possible to wrap your microscopic brain around this concept, then maybe .. just MAYBE you will begin to understand why many of us are still ‘tied’ to Windows.
Putting words into my mouth and flacid attempts at insult are not good ways of convincing me of anything.
I never said that Windows users have to be Linux users. I don’t care what you or anyone else in the world uses. All I said is that there is a large number of Windows users who have great disdain for that OS. They want something better, but wont accept it when it’s given to them because it isn’t exactly the same as Windows. Which in my experience is often true (not only of Linux, but of Mac, BeOS, or anything else they are shown).
You can’t say that Linux isn’t functionally equivilant to Windows in the area of email, browsing, writing letters and playing games like Solitare. Linux beats Windows in the Solitare-like games arena and Mozilla beats IE in functionality (and no, in case you wanted to bring it up, Mozilla doesn’t run as well under Windows as it does under Linux). You can say you don’t personally like Linux, but to shout what you did above is inaccurate and not intellectually honest. Tucows has a ton of crappy shareware junk for Windows, but it would be wrong for me to shout the nonsense above about Windows wouldn’t it? You just don’t use the crap. It’s the same for any OS.
The whole purpose of my post is to try and debunk the notion that Linux NEEDS leadership (corporate or otherwise) and to shead light on the misnomer that Linux is a developer and server only OS. I don’t care what YOU use, there may be people out there who would give Linux a try and find it to be exactly what they’ve been searching for; but who never take the chance to look because of all the negative FUD being shoveled around like oh so much manure.
It is for the sake of those who haven’t had a chance to look at Linux that I write what I do. If they look and don’t like it, it really doesn’t matter one way or another to me; as long as they get the chance. I’m sure that’s true of most of the people who are labeled “Linux zealots”. They are simply trying to correct all the inaccuracies held and spewed by people who don’t like the OS.
>but Windows just doesn’t offer me the level of functionality, security and stability that I want.
I find the opposite. I do not know about security, I am behind a FreeBSD firewall anway and always run an anti-virus. WindowsXP has been _extremely_ stable for me and its applications give me all the functionality I want. I never had a so stable Windows or OS in my life. I have crashed and burn many Linuxes, many BeOSes several times, but THIS XP PRO I am running here, is stable as a rock.
> You can’t say that Linux isn’t functionally equivilant to Windows in the area of email, browsing, writing letters and playing games like Solitare.
Yes, but Linux does not have other things, like the ones I mentioned earlier (DTP, Dreameweaver etc). And it simply does not have the gaming industry and number of commercial/professional games that Windows has.
I just tested this.
Well, I can send you screenshots if you like of IE sucking wind and Opera 6 and the rest working fine (it will have to wait until Monday though since I’m not at work). I don’t use PaintShopPro and I don’t use GIF formats for anything.
I can also send you examples of IE resizing tables it shouldn’t be and it’s poor PNG support as well. I can also send you screenshots of all the other browsers we support working correctly.
No, thanks. I can send you the HTML and png file that works fine though. Email me and I will send it over and you will see that IE 6 renders it perfectly, while Opera does not. It is just a single .png image and a .html file.
Switching operating systems (and I mean switching FROM any operating system TO operating system) means that you gain some benefits and make some trade-offs. The question is, will the benefits outweight the trade-offs? In the case of Linux, the answer is yes for some people and no for others. It is simply a matter of what you use your computer for and what is most important to you.
I won’t argue with you there.
-> To test this for yourself, create a solid square graphic in Photoshop using an RGB value of #808BCE. Next, open Dreamweaver and insert the graphic into an empty page. Next, change the background value of your page in Dreamweaver to an RGB value of #808BCE. Your graphic will effectively become invisible on the page since the background and the graphic are the same color.
There’s an option in photoshop called “show web colors” or something like that, i think.
Because they ASK us to switch. If they ask for something, I will have to ask about their quality too.
I totally agree with you that quality needs to be in a product. But it seems to me that you are saying nobody has a right to push their product until it meets your standards. It is that point that I disagree with you on. Linux marketeers have every right in the world to peddle there products; just as Microsoft gets to peddle theirs.
I also posted what I did because I disagree that OSS needs to change its development process and structure. In fact, I think that without the current structure, OSS projects like Apache, Linux, etc. would never have gone anywhere.
I don’t disagree with you that you like Windows better than Linux. That is not for me to decide and has never has been my point. My point has been and always will be that everyone should have the opportunity to try OSS and make their own choice.
If I were an owner of a company who had never before used computers in the office, and I was interested in trying this newfangled Linux thing, your post has the potential to turn me away from it. I would take your article as “Linux lacks unity, structure and leadership” and I would probably eschew Linux and run away scared. I find your article smacks of a lot of fear, uncertanty and doubt than anything else. I posted what I did to offer an alternative point of view and a very positive experience with Linux, nothing more.
I certainly do not purport to dictate your opinions, but please allow that others have, and could have, differing needs and tastes than you. They all deserve a fair chance to search the possibilities out there without wading through a bunch of partisan opinions.
There’s an option in photoshop called “show web colors” or something like that, i think.
There is, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that under IE, the background displayed is several degrees lighter than the graphic. This doesn’t happen under any of the other browsers I have to support.
No, thanks. I can send you the HTML and png file that works fine though. Email me and I will send it over and you will see that IE 6 renders it perfectly, while Opera does not. It is just a single .png image and a .html file.
That’s fine. You were saying the other day that you see bugs that nobody else sees. I will just jot this down as my own special view of an IE quirk. If anyone wants my evidence, it is here for the asking.
Thanks for trying out what I said though.
“All I said is that there is a large number of Windows users who have great disdain for that OS. They want something better, but wont accept it when it’s given to them because it isn’t exactly the same as Windows. Which in my experience is often true (not only of Linux, but of Mac, BeOS, or anything else they are shown).”
I have to respectfully disagree with you there. First of all, you sy ‘something better’ as if it is a fact that something is better than Windows. It is merely your opinion and just because it’s better for you personally does not mean it’s better for anyone or everyone else.
Secondly, I have never seen ANYBODY test drive Linux or Mac and say “Well, golly gee .. this really is better than Windows, but I think I’ll stick to Windows!” But if they try out something and say “Geez, this is really a pain in the ass to deal with”, they’re probably going to stick with what they know, even if the pain in the ass way would turn out to be the most efficient way if they gave it time. And there are two schools of thought on this a) That the user should not be expected to take the time to learn something different if the tool is not intuitive enough ot get easily into b) it’s the user’s fault because they are too lazy to understand this other logic.
I won’t argue which school of thought is right, because it’s all a matter of opinion, just as it is a matter of opinion that one OS is better than the other.
“I would take your article as “Linux lacks unity, structure and leadership” and I would probably eschew Linux and run away scared. I find your article smacks of a lot of fear, uncertanty and doubt than anything else.”
That isn’t really much different than Linux fanboys screaming from the rooftops that if you use Windows, it is so unstable that you have to reboot several times a day because the OS keeps crashing. Yes, there is a lot of misinformation from both camps, but saying that some OSS software is NOT up to snuff with their commercial counterparts is NOT misinformation. Of course, it works the other way around (as you said, there are a lot of crap Windows shareware apps out there) – it just depends on what you use and what your needs are.
As for not supporting IE, if you can’t/won’t support itbecause it is not following ‘the standard’, well … I’d say that since it has 90%+ of the market share, then I don’t give a damn what any ‘consortium’ says – IE *IS* the standard!! You want to complain about how IE does not render this and that correctly (and still insist on using it because I suppose it is ‘the standard’), I’d be willing to bet that if you were using the standard and some browser that you actually LIKED didn’t render correctly, I’d bet anything you’d be willing to make changes to work around the problem. You can talk all day about the standards, but the truth is that webmaster who do this kind of thing are STUBBORN and do it because they don’t like IE. Of course, I don’t see anything wrong with this practice, but AT LEAST be honest about it!!
>Myself and the author of the editorial
>is talking about the first kind of people.
Ok.. Then I agree with you.
I think those that want users to use Linux
instead of Windows aren’t the developers.
But anyway…. What these editorials and political zealots
are leading to is developers
like the MPlayer devs (that is RTFM-devs).
Raging Eugenia again.
Whatever, I don’t understand this “if they want me to use it completely free of cost and even getting the sourcecode, they better make sure it is good!!” attitude.
Advocates/zealots and developers are usually completely different people. So if advocates ask you to use Linux because they like it so much, the developers better work harder? That just doesn’t sound right to me. If a developer flames you for not using his software, yes then you can flame him back but not everyone.
Also you should clearly differentiate between commercial free software and uncommercial free software. Some do it for fun or education (The Gimp, most of KDE, XMMS, etc) and others do it for money making purposes (Ximian with Evolution and GNOME, RedHat with Linux and GNOME, Trolltech with Qt, etc). The companies you can complain at, the developers you can’t. Of course you can but it will only make you look silly and not help anything.
It is also silly to expect Open Source to rule the world just because it’s Open Source. This simply won’t happen, sorry (and I also hope that some Linux fanatics will take it a little bit more slow and humble because they are not doing anyone good with stating the opposite, especially not the developers who have to take the heat).
Luckily most people don’t care that much and enjoy Open Source even though it doesn’t rule anything (but many hearts
). If you want Free Software to stand up against Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and co., what we need mostly is simply more money. “Big” companies like Red Hat, Ximian and AOL/Netscape are incredible important for this. The success of Linux, Apache, Mozilla, Evolution, etc really shows what’s possible with commercially backed up free software in a relatively short amount of time. If the trend to adopt Open Source continues in the current pace, I honestly expect Free Software to be mainstream for common applications in about 5-10 years. Not less, not more.
But whatever happens, it is important that we stop flaming each other for every silly reason. Strong advocates should accept that Linux and co. just can’t fullfill the needs of everybody yet and not flame anyone for using it and “anti-advocates” should stop flaming Free Software users and developers and accept that most of them do what they do because they enjoy and believe in it. Not everybody is a blind advocate just supporting Linux and such because it’s “cool” and flaming everybody who doesn’t. I remember a situation when someone flamed me as a “Bluescreen lammer” (yes, lammer), while I was sitting in front of my Debian box. What a joke. That just showed me how annoying and stupid “Linuxers” can be but that doesn’t mean that everybody is like that. In fact, I guess that those are just a natural sideeffect of the hype. Every hype will make some people use a product just for the hype, not for it’s qualities and those are usually dumbheads.
Besides of that, I agree with the article that unity is important but I don’t agree that it’s a problem with free software. I see loads of unity going on actually. GNOME/KDE is the only really big exception and that has historical issues and has something to do with proprietory software so it can’t really be used as an example for Open Source fragmentation. It is a silly idea to believe that GNOME developers joining the KDE team would create the perfect desktop. This simply want happen because of different opinions. Just some easy examples: GNOME prefers to use the powerfull Gecko HTML engine, KDE has created it’s own. Would KDE accept to embrace Mozilla? Never ever (and I can understand that, KHTML is their “baby” and pretty good). Would KDE accept the new usability way of GNOME, like much less options or changes like the new button order? They already stated that they don’t. And then there is the problem of Qt not beeing free for proprietory developers. This would be a big disadvantage that most other systems don’t have (do you have to pay to be able to create proprietory applications for Windows, MacOS or BeOS?? Guess not).
OTOH, KDE developers joining GNOME wan’t happen either for basically the same reasons and they believe that they desktop is way superiour. It’s easy to make claims like the author of this editorial did, but it’s much less easy to come up with a solution that actually works.
And lastly, about the “innovation” thing… It is wrong that there would be no innovation, I see lots of it happen. But most of this is either experimental (Fresco, etc) or minor details in usability/features. The reason for this is that Free Software is simply not in the lead yet and most people concentrate on catching up with already existing technology (for proprietory systems). This is the number one priority right now. Of course that doesn’t mean that this technology will be copied 1:1, but that it will be similar (and hopefully better).
Gna, that was way too long again…
->There’s an option in photoshop called “show web colors” or something like that, i think.
There is, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that under IE, the background displayed is several degrees lighter than the graphic. This doesn’t happen under any of the other browsers I have to support.
This could also related to your color settings mode(16bit/24bit/32bit).
For me, the RGB test went xactly as Rakuda described it would. It rendered fine as expected in Opera 5 and 6, and Mozilla; but in IE6, the box was clearly visable against a lighter background. (I’m in 32-bit mode.)
Dekkard, thanks for the excellent link… exactly my thoughts and exactly why I won’t “talk” anyone into using Linux.
I now “live and let live”. When people ask I plainly say I use linux and when they say they like Windows better, I just answer: “Hmm, ok, then.”.
Some are curious and ask how I do letters, spreadsheets, e-mail and I answer them; they may like the answer or not, but they learn what linux can do.
Some insist Window is better and, usually, I don’t argue with them. I don’t know it, but Windows XP has to be at least “good” after the millions of dollars they invested in it — so using Windows, at least nowadays, isn’t that bad (if you have the money and use another OS for added security, as Eugenia does).
Nevertheless.. Linux is advancing in a slow but unstoppable pace. When I started using it in 1998 people didn’t even know what linux was.
When people ask now, I say I use “another OS” — and they immediately ask “Linux?” — I grin and answer “Yeah”, only to be treated with greater respect from then on.
I usually don’t give a rat’s ass about status, but going from weirdo to smartguy surely is ego-rewarding.
I even wish Windows users such a good experience that they never feel the need to change to Linux. I, for one, don’t want anyone by my side telling me to use Windows.
“Whatever, I don’t understand this “if they want me to use it completely free of cost and even getting the sourcecode, they better make sure it is good!!” attitude.”
I think this attitude is completely justified, so long as it is aimed towards the zealots and NOT the developers. As far as I’m concerned, the developers can do whatever the hell they want. It’s just when you get the fanatics on boards like this who post snide remarks on any article even relating to Microsoft and/or Windows and boldly proclaim the superiority of God’s gift to operating systems, Linux. I think it is these people that the statement is referring to .. in other words “shut the hell up!”
Hah, open-source software developers don’t develop software to “lead”. Who cares if they lead or not, as long as it’s fun.. Like Linus said when asked about Microsoft considering Linux number 1 threat: “I don’t care, let them fight an enemie that doesn’t care for a while” (or something in that effect). Pretty good way to look at things, if you ask me. Btw, the current open source strategie, is one of the very few strategies that have hold up against MS. Os/2 dead, Beos dead, Next dead.
Eventough they were “leading” in some areas. Wether or not you ‘re technically superiour has *zero* to do with wether or not your a market leader. What? You think when a human picks a product over another it has something to do with rational thoughts?
And, why the “Gnome should merge with KDE” crap again? It’s just such a big pile of bullshit. I like both orange juice and apple juice, they both have a “reason to live”. God, mix orange juice and apple juice, and what do you end up with?
Does open-source development go slow? Yes. Does it end up with one excellent great program? Hell yes!
In the first “decade” of open source we had Emacs, Apache, Bind, Perl, .. And they all pretty much beat their commercial equivalents. Will the same thing happen on the desktop? I’m pretty sure of it.
I see alot of: “People will switch when a program is better”. “It’s not good/easy enough for Joe Average, so they won’t use it, maybe the next version”.
Absolute bullshit offcourse. People will switch because they have to. (peer-pressure or pressure of your company). Don’t change what’s not broken is pretty popular with alot of people.
Ask someone who has worked with Corel Draw 8 for over a year if he wants to have Corel Draw 10. I asked someone this afternoon, answer is: “no”.
So please stop pretending that when a product is better than another, the better product wins. That’s just way too naive.
Better marketing wins, not better product.
Calm down, DON’T START YELLING AT PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY DISAGREE (<– yelling like that I mean :-)). Calm down, and you will be a much better editor, and maybe osnews would be a reliable source of information.. Greece didn’t outlaw electronic games for example, only the commercial exploitation of it in internet cafés or commercial lan parties. Internet cafés were pretty pissed about it, and hyped it a bit up. Maybe you would have noticed it if you paused for a second, and had control over your emotions.
since I am a user ?
It took me two weeks before giving up with Linux.
I installed Gentoo, it went fine, community helped a lot, it was a great experience. Now I know about rcs, various setup, X11, samba…
Then I installed KDE. Wow. Sucked. Installed fluxbox. Hmm better. Usability ? -1. Switched back to KDE. Then I tried to install a multi-network IM client (icq, yahoo, msn…) and tried Kopete, the KDE IM client, and everybuddy. None was good enough. Sorry, but they were BOTH YEARS behind what I have under win32 (trillian). I’m not talking about features, but BASIC usability.
Oh, when I’ll boot under gentoo, i’ll unmerge kopete and everybuddy and install GAIM. Sure. Next time I boot into linux.
And about the “it’s free so shut up”: MANY windows apps are free. the ones I use the most ? Trillian. Mozilla (tabs and mail client). Litestep (my “desktop environnement”)
Getting back to the article I’m not really sure where there is a lack of unity. When needed the open source community can pull in tremendous numbers of people and build standards. Nroff / troff work perfectly and the same across every Unix still being made and as a result complex terminal manipulations (like you see in man pages) work perfectly to the point that people don’t even think of it as a feature. The problem existed, it was widely acknowledged and it was solved. The Windows world still doesn’t have a clue how to do a decent terminal; much less have apps that transparently support a wide range of them and haven’t had to be changed in decades.
Sticking with the man themse when troff/nroff limitations were found the TeX / Postscript standard emerged. With the use of ghostscript unixes have support highly advanced typesetting and layout for printers for 2 decades even on cheap hardware. However users were having problems getting all the pieces to work together; cups came in and now again problem solved.
I could go on and on but there are major differences between how Microsoft solves a problem and how Unixes solve problems:
1) Microsoft tends to have a single apps solve the problem and thus the problem sticks forever on an app by app basis. Unixes look for solutions that will be able to be used by the entire system and so the problem is killed permanently.
2) Microsoft often 1/2 way fixes the problem and tries to convince end users that this 1/2 fix constitutes a solution. On the other hand the 1/2 solution is often quite easy to use. Unixes focus on completely fixing the problem but during the early years implementing the solution can be so difficult that in practice it isn’t solved.
3) Microsoft tends to focus on corporate problems, Unixes focus on developer problems. The core customer base is different and thus they often have different and sometimes contradictory problem spaces.
4) Microsoft tends to announce policy and change its mind frequently as a way of experimenting. Unixes openly have multiple solutions conduct the experiments openly and announce “policy” only after the results are in.
etc…
If Microsoft was not guilty of anti-competetive behaviors, we may not have to argue about all this – if companies and OSes could have developed in the natural course of enterprise. My aim is not to bash Microsoft here, I use XP Pro and it’s by far the best Windows I’ve ever seen. I guess there are those basically two groups of coders – the hobbyists and political – but there are also the users. I would like Linux to be able to become whatever it becomes in a natural fashion. But, there are politics no matter where one looks. To me, a user, Linux and OSS represents something on top of what it actually is at this time – it represents hope, hope that the whole field of computing will be opened up as it once was. I know that is a lot to hope for and it is no doubt unfair to Linux and all of its developers and programmers to burden it with that hope. But, it has assumed that mantle whether it likes it or not, I guess. Who knows, perhaps Linus is right – the best way for Linux to succeed is to just allow it to develop as if it is in a vacuum, I don’t know.
Recently here in OSNews, we have talked a lot about the average user and Linux, whenever there are stories about Lycoris, Lindows, etc. And most of this discussion has been about developing and higher end applications. And that’s good. I would like to bring the average user back in for a moment though. I just want to do that because, whereas Linux has quite a ways to go to get the kind of applications spoken of above, on the lower end, things are different. The gap is not nearly so wide. I use Lycoris and I try to use it and view it as an average user would. It is not far away from its potential. A few more updates, expansion of their already very friendly website and community site, get a deal like the Microtel/Wal-Mart deal, and they’re really in business. And they have *five* employees! That is what is possible. They are not far away from Joe Average at all. And it is not beyond hope.
Troll indeed. I suppose you’re typing this paragraph on an IBM PC, with an Intel processor, Intel chipset, 3COM network card, and Intel motherboard? Or are you using a Mac? After all, someone like you wouldn’t dare use a Compaq clone PC, or an Athlon (clone of Pentium), or a VIA clean-room clone chipset, or a Macronix/Linksys/Netgear/D-Link/SMC clone network card…
Face it, sometimes the clones make better stuff. There is certainly room for innovation in the cloning process – Athlon processors and VIA chipsets are arguably more technically advanced than the Intels they cloned – but copying someone else’s product, better, is a very good place to start. Even Windows and all the commercial Unixes started out as clones; Windows of IBM’s OS/2, and Unixes of AT&T’s BSD-licensed Unix. The only completely new operating system today with any marketshare is BeOS; and that is being faithfully copied by the OBOS team, open source, but the Glass Elevator team is hard at work on innovative ideas, that Be, Inc. never thought of, for the next version.
Open source isn’t particularly innovative. Neither is closed-source. Outside of games, there just hasn’t been much innovation in the software industry lately. It would be great if everyone could take OBOS/Glass Elevator’s lead, but don’t blame open source for a problem that is systemic throughout the industry.
and now I am also pissed off that you quoted my above sentense, WITHOUT quoting the REST of the freaking sentense to EXPLAIN the reason why I would be angry on this.
Yeah, this has been happening to you at lot recently
it’s very annoying… it’s like some one saying
“well, this is impossible to belive unless you consder this factor and that blah blah”
but people who disagree with that person just quoting “this is impossible to belive”
very lame.
And a general comment about the subject of the article (i havent read it all)
And in other breaking news, the United States is no longer ruled by England.
PLEASE tell me that it really didn’t take people this long to realize that the open source community needs more unity. This is just sad.
Leadersheep is for sheeple.
Open source is not a rifle. It is a shotgun. What does the author think, Microsoft is not dead today, so there’s something wrong? Newsforge is such a trashy place for news; Roblimo, Tina, and others are good, but they have to shovel shit with a keyboard there.
They know this article is bullshit, but it attracts viewers who post. It’s for the Businessweek club, posting news that’s behind the curve for people behind the curve. I suppose in that light it’s an honorable goal, but I just feel bad for them.
I know … Let’s start a poll. I hereby cast the first vote to officially change the name of OSNews.com to “flamewar.com” … and the new slogan can be, “If it’s not guaranteed to to be full of enough rumor, bullshit, or just flaimbait — we won’t post it!” Now, the sentence I never thought I’d type:
I’m gonna head over to Slashdot to get away from the same old tired, redundant flames …
Here is an interview in wich Linus Torvalds talks about oss:
http://www.webreview.com/1998/04_10/developers/04_10_98_4.shtml
I like this part:
Quote – “However, that doesn’t mean that I’m opposed to commercial software. Commercial software development has some advantages too — the money-making aspects introduces some new incentives that aren’t there for most free software. And those incentives often make for a more polished product.“
Not sure if it works (I use Gnome 2 on my Linux), but if you’re using WindowMaker and want to change the resolutions on the fly, this page might have something (unless of course you have already tried it!):
http://www.windowmaker.org/projects-utilities.html
Look for “wmres”.
God, mix orange juice and apple juice, and what do you
end up with?
Orange&Apple juice mixed by God?
seriously though, I think you should go back and read his post, perhaps you’ll find out that you actually agree with him
also, there are OSS devs that tries(at least wants) to compete with commersial software and tries to make a better product. even though most of them probably wouldn’t admit it… cause it’s cool not to care.
seriously there’s as many reasons to develop open source apps as there are open source developers. not all of them does it for the “fun of coding”.
What has been truly slaughtering open source software on the desktop is the false belief that the ideals, ideas, ideologies and methodologies that won linux the server will work equally well on the desktop. The desktop requires a radically different way of thinking, a radically different developer attitude, and failure of software (or its success) is defined in a radically different way. As long as the OSS software development community approaches the desktop as nothing more than a server that just happens to draw pretty pictures on a monitor, it will only experience constant failure in all its attempts to extend OSS software to non-geeks.
Like I said in the title, linux is hard to use because people, OSS developers, just don’t want to learn.
You obviously have no idea what’s happening behind the scenes at Red Hat, SUN, Ximian, etc. Those guys are more than aware of what a desktop system needs and that we aren’t there yet.
To say “they don’t want to learn” is pretty damn ignorant. It just won’t happen over night.
“As long as the OSS software development
community approaches the desktop as nothing more than a server that just happens to draw pretty pictures
on a monitor, it will only experience constant failure in all its
attempts to extend OSS software to non-geeks.
”
There are many different markets for computers. The office user who
does little more than type letters or use one accounts package is a
totally different user from the person who is setting up
computer-controlled lighting for a stage show, or the teenager who is
starting to learn programming.
Neither of these are likely to be interested in server technology, but
they also have very different attitudes to the equipment and software.
There is no such thing as “the” desktop.
seriously though, I think you should go back and read his post, perhaps you’ll find out that you actually agree with him
I read it, and I read it again. I read past the plain misinformation (Apache and Linux-kernel is only recently better than the commercial equivalents? Hah!). I read past the redundant “we have to achieve standards compliance!” (oss already does that alot better than MS).
So the only thing in the article is about slapping a commercial software development process on a open source development process. This open source development process works surprisingly well (allthough somewhat slow). I could give plenty of reasons, but you only have to look at history, and compare with closed-source projects like Beos, OS/2, Amiga, heck Apple is pretty much dead here in belgium, I know no-one IRL that has an Apple pc.
also, there are OSS devs that tries(at least wants) to compete with commersial software and tries to make a better product. even though most of them probably wouldn’t admit it… cause it’s cool not to care.
seriously there’s as many reasons to develop open source apps as there are open source developers. not all of them does it for the “fun of coding”.
Code something because of your hatred towards Microsoft, and you end up with a Hello World program.
Code something because of your love of code, and you end up with Gnome, KDE, Linux, Apache, or something like that.
There we go, was afraid that no one were going to answer when I went through all that trouble writing a troll and all
As I said in my original post, nothing wrong with clones in itself, it is just that the open source community seems to be completely obsessed with cloning things.
I would happily continue to discuss all the ways things go wrong with open source but you brought up a much mroe interesting point, OpenBeOS and Glass Elevator, people coming from a closed source operating system with a clear software focus on closed source applications reimplementing it with quite a bit of innovation planned it would seem in an open source manner. And I will give them that, it seems that they are planning ahead far beyond making a new BeOS.
The interesting part though is that it seems the people of the project isnt your regular open source advocates but from a different part of the demographic. It will be very interesting to see what they come up with in the future and I wouldnt be suprised at all if this project ends up surpassing the so called “GNU” operating system that has been under development for two decades without ever looking up from the goal of cloning first unix and lately windows.
A bit of a troll this one too I know, but it is fun trolling
For me, the RGB test went xactly as Rakuda described it would. It rendered fine as expected in Opera 5 and 6, and Mozilla; but in IE6, the box was clearly visable against a lighter background. (I’m in 32-bit mode.)
I knew it would. I would be interested to know what Eugenia did to achieve exactly the opposite results.
I have to respectfully disagree with you there. First of all, you sy ‘something better’ as if it is a fact that something is better than Windows.
There are several facets of “better”. There is the personal taste level, but that is unique to each person and not something that can be debated. To try and do so is retarded.
However, there is also fact. “Linux is more secure than Windows” is a fact. You may need some knowledge to make it so, but it is possible and this is well documented all over the web. “Linux is more stable than Windows” is also a fact that is well documented. My personal records with both OSes is 6 months for Windows 2000 and almost 3 years with Linux; the only reason my Linux machine went down then was because I moved. What more proof could you ask for? Sure, there are things Windows is better at for the moment, like 3D games, so if that’s what you want from your computer, then Windows is a better choice for you (although some may argue that OS X is better than Windows is that arena).
It is merely your opinion and just because it’s better for you personally does not mean it’s better for anyone or everyone else.
And the opposite is true. Just because you sport wood while using Windows doesn’t mean that everyone else does. Most people that I deal with hate Windows and want something better. I didn’t say Linux was better for everyone, but it is an alternative that fits some peoples needs. Just because it doesn’t fit yours doesn’t mean it has no value.
Secondly, I have never seen ANYBODY test drive Linux or Mac and say “Well, golly gee .. this really is better than Windows, but I think I’ll stick to Windows!”
You obviously don’t deal with many switchers. I know a lot of people who have tried Linux, but they keep switching back into Windows because they are familiar with it. I did it myself when I first started using Linux. It wasn’t until Linux because familiar to me that I finally dumped Windows for good.
And there are two schools of thought on this a) That the user should not be expected to take the time to learn something different if the tool is not intuitive enough ot get easily into b) it’s the user’s fault because they are too lazy to understand this other logic.
Well, if you only write programs that a new user can figure out just by looking at the interface, then you probably won’t have very useful programs.
That isn’t really much different than Linux fanboys…
Wow, and I was beginning to think I would be able to get all the way through one of your posts without reading the word “fanboys”. You really enjoy spouting that moniker don’t you?
Yes, there is a lot of misinformation from both camps, but saying that some OSS software is NOT up to snuff with their commercial counterparts is NOT misinformation.
It most certanly is! You are comparing freeware running under Linux to commercial software running under Windows. Why not compare freeware running under Windows to freeware running under Linux? Because then your point could not be made. That is what misinformation is.
As for not supporting IE, if you can’t/won’t support itbecause it is not following ‘the standard’, well … I’d say that since it has 90%+ of the market share, then I don’t give a damn what any ‘consortium’ says – IE *IS* the standard!!
If your target audience is Linux users, then IE has 0% of the market. So why, if your audience is not Windows users, would you go to all the extra effort to support it?
The logic that you are using doesn’t make sense either. There are standards (or rules) in programming just as there are in life. Those standards are there in both instances for a reason; to keep order. If all the most popular kids at school started coming to school naked, would it be right to say, “since they are the most popular public nudity should be the standard”?
You want to complain about how IE does not render this and that correctly (and still insist on using it because I suppose it is ‘the standard’), I’d be willing to bet that if you were using the standard and some browser that you actually LIKED didn’t render correctly, I’d bet anything you’d be willing to make changes to work around the problem.
If I ever run across any of the standards that don’t work in the other browsers, I will work around it just like I worked around the buggy rendering in IE. So far, I’ve not run into that scenario.
You can talk all day about the standards, but the truth is that webmaster who do this kind of thing are STUBBORN and do it because they don’t like IE. Of course, I don’t see anything wrong with this practice, but AT LEAST be honest about it!!
Why support IE if it is not your target audience? By the way, there are far more sites on the web that ONLY support IE than sites that exclude IE. Go preach to them. Oh wait, they are Windows users so I guess we couldn’t do that. I forgot that Windows’ market share somehow makes their farts not stink.
63 posts and much flame but little light.
All developers better understand that they are working for the customer (“user”) or else it’s simply mental masturbation. A program (even a hobby program) with no users does not get – well, used! It reminds me of the network engineers who lament that their network would be perfect if it weren’t for those damn pesky users! If only those same lame users would understand how my program is so much better/faster/prettier/efficient then they would switch in an instant!
Reminds me of when I had to migrate all of the editorial staff at work from IBM Display Write 36 on dumb terminals to WordPerfect on PCs. I had a few hard headed ones until I sat down and showed them what they could really do with WP. Software in the corporate realm requires training (which is why corporations are loathe to invest in moving to Linux). I write apps for the lab techs at work and the company requires that I do training sessions and review the on-line help with them.
BTW, I finally learned this week how to make money with an OSS – get the corporation to shell out $561,000 to Red Hat for consultants to install and configure the OS. Doesn’t sound free to me…
I don’t know if you’re still reading this thread and I’m not going to waste time replying if you’re not
But if you are and would like to continue with our discussion, email me at: [email protected].
Cheers.
IMHO, it’s all quite simple. Developing consists of, a.o., two phases, namely designing and coding. Most programmers like coding best and hate documenting and designing, so they want to skip the design phase. What better opportunity to do that in OSS than to implement somebody else’s design / standard’s document, like Mono and DotGNU are doing?
Don’t get me wrong, this can actually result in great software; I just want to point how common this pattern is.