The GNOME Foundation had a meeting with some representatives of the Mozilla Foundation about how they could collaborate a little closer in future. More info here about what was discussed.
GNOME Foundation & Mozilla Foundation On Discussions
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Eugenia Loli
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So basically nothing happened.
If you had followed the link, you would have noticed, that quite a lot has happend.
Seriously, take a look, it´s an interesting read.
hi there,
my opinion about this is that Linux-community has to catch-up with Microsoft and implement its own compatible version of XAML. Why? Very simple. What was the aim of Linus, when he created Linux? He wanted to have a UNIX-version on his desktop. How did he archieved this? He cloned UNIX, Linux is a UNIX-clone. Nowadays there is not much, what traditional Unices have in advance to Linux. Linux won the race. Now the next competitor is Microsoft. So we have to catch-up, before we can overtake Microsoft. In the former German Democratic Republic the Communistic Party always said, theey want to overtake the West-Germany without catch-up. We see, the history has proven them wrong. So we have to say yes to XAML, to virtual machines, to Mono and Java, say goodbay to C and C++ (at least in user space).
What makes me a bit nervous during the discussions like in the article (there have been many in the past few months), that KDE is hardly mentioned. The problem I see, is that the split between GNOME and KDE will become deeper and not more shallow as I hoped, when I read the announcements of fd.o. Since Novel has choosed KDE to their prefered framework, it is more important then ever. I also see an upcoming war between Novell and Sun with their JDS. KDE has also to have a path towards XAML. Of course a lot is dependent from Trolltech, so I’m very excited how they will react in the next time.
Just my opinion.
Anton
Hi
“my opinion about this is that Linux-community has to catch-up with Microsoft and implement its own compatible version of XAML. ”
the difference is that unix was already a dominant operating system while xaml isnt. we dont need to clone it. we could give them a valid alternative with xul+friends
Well, it’s a start, and that’s good. How soon before we get GTK + XUL + glade?
It would be nice to have GNOME ship a Firefox based browser (HIGified, of course). So distros would bundle one Gecko browser and one KHTML browser.
I don’t really mind the ‘split’ b/w KDE and GNOME as long as they follow the fd.o specs (WM, thems, menus, dnd etc.).
I read the link and concur with the original poster that nothing happened other than, “we should work together”.
Unless suggesting firbird become the default browser for Gnome is progess.
At least they realise they have a need to work together though.
Anyone following this bird catch any talk of a gameplan? All I’ve read about is talk-talk-talk, you know the spiel, “we should work together and encourage…” you know, marketing junk. Have they discussed their needs, you know, set up a gameplan yet, or what?
Thanks Linus for a free and open clone of Unix. Thanks Gnome and KDE for clones of pre-conceived windowing environments. Thanks Mozilla for taking over Netscape’s browser when it decided to mothball their R&D.
Is anyone out there doing any significant imagining?
Computers are more than circuits and code. They are a convenient means for we humans to extend our reach for the exchange of ideas, story and information. Unless the community pokes it’s head above the clouds, it’s always going to be stuck re-implementing what’s already been done in the proprietary world, letting them decide where to lead us. Popular-appeal open source needs to be first and foremost about understanding end-user needs, without limiting ourselves to preconceptions as to how meeting those needs should be implemented. From there . . . who knows where our imagination will take us! At least then we’ll be leading instead of following!
There’s no gameplan. There never is in the open source world, for the most part. Usually someone just starts coding something up and if it looks promising then they run with it.
Most likely scenario – Gnome and KDE will continue along with their current paths. Longhorn/XAML/Avalon will come out. It _will_ be good stuff and then open source will get on the ball for a competitor, but way behind on an implementation. I guess the only good news is that Microsoft seems to be exceptionally late this time and so open source does have a chance, but not unless people that have pull get together and make a stand for something.
“Longhorn/XAML/Avalon will come out. It _will_ be good stuff and then open source will get on the ball for a competitor, but way behind on an implementation.”
That would be totally disappointing. You know what would be nice? The GRE, whatever the badboy that powers Mozilla is called, Gecko-something-or-other, packaged as a managed assembly that I could invoke from Java or C#/.NET, and then, you know, pipe it some XUL for the presentation layer… and, like magick, it runs like a native application. That would be pretty sweet, in my humble opinion.
Why wait, why wait? The technology is available now, y’know, shouldn’t they start using it, making it stronger and more powerful than what has ever been known before!
One ring to bind them all…
Congratulations for posting the single most ignorant post I have seen in a very, very long time. I don’t say such lightly I have no desire to personally attack people who post things which I happen to, however strongly, disagree with. However I must also concede that I am still giving you credit that your post is merely borne of ignorance, rather than malice or or sheer braindeath.
If you have understood nothing at all about Free Software try and grasp this simple concept: The unique thing about Free software is not *what* it is, but how it comes into being. If one simply asks “what” is Free software one quickly can come to the meaningless conclusion that it is software which happens, incidentally, to be free, like free beer.
What Free software however is all about is how software is developed, the way it comes about. Free software is not developed commercially although it can be sold and bought. It is not developed based on propietary secrets and the whole culture of secrecy which is the hallmark of propietary buisness practices. It is not developed by *a* company, exclusively developed by this or that particular companie’s employess.
Rather Free software is developed by individuals who freely associate themselves with one another to commonly create things of value for a community of freely associating users. No company, no government, no institution dictates the goals, aspirations or methods used in Free software and the overwhelming majority of those who develop Free software are neither paid to do so nor ordered to do so.
In terms of how Free software is developed, and this is the essential point, Free software is in no way shape or form playing catch-up to propietary software. Free software is redefining the game of software development-freeing it from the enslaving bonds which propietary firms imposed on software development over the past 25 years.
Propietary software has always been based on the self-interest of the corporations which produce it. A certain residual effect of this development has been the establishment of monopoly-based defacto standards which has benefited, indirectly, the populace at large. Yet this benefit has come at a tremendous cost, a cost in terms of freedom, choice, quality, openness, and accountability-not to mention the real economic costs which are outrageously large-whether one is talking about our tax payer dollars underwriting Microsoft or the exorbitant costs and extreme inefficiency of Medicare/Medicaid which underwrite EDS.
Free software benefits all of mankind in a game where winning doesn’t mean “I win if and only if you loose”. Millions of software developers spanning the entire globe work in loosely-knit collaboration creating software which benefits themselves and the societies in which they live-directly. In the last 5 years certain large corporations have themselves started investing their time and energy dedicating some of their employees to working on Free software-they have realized that they themselves can benefit from this. Free software is free enough to allow for otherwise propietary-based corporation contributing to Free software. Vice-versa is simply unthinkable.
You may choose not to believe what I have written-perhaps it seems to idealistic for your jaded eyes-many cannot really grasp that certain people do things for reasons which are not primarily, or in the first instance economic. But the real the real hallmark of Free software is that it has no price-money cannot buy you what Free software gives away. And that is, in and of itself, priceless. Perhaps it has no value to you-but this only reflects your values.
Oh man, all of your ideology reeks so bad that it’s sickening. You and others like you are exactly what is wrong with open source. You see open/free software as some kind of ideology/political movement. Seriously, it’s just freaking software. Someone from the “outside” reading your post would wonder WTF you’re smoking. You are not morally superior because you use free software. You might think you are, but you’re not. People just laugh at you. If you want to be an activist, get out and do something that really matters. Lay off the drugs fan boy.
What I see here is a stronger more unified community. Open source has traditionally existed in many seperate projects that come together in small ways. Which is why there is so much duplication. Duplication is not a bad thing but many, like myself, often hope to see a day when things are unified. What was achieved here in terms of progress may be small in what was decided but don’t underestimate what happened here. Your seeing the start of many seperate open source projects collaborating. Most importantly you’re seeing them act more pro-actively as opposed to reactively. Your seeing these guys come together and discuss where the entire community needs to go and what to focus on. This has not happened.
You’ll see this happen with Open Office, KDE, Gnome, etc., etc. This will only make thing better so stop being so shortsighted and read between the lines a bit more.
A more unified community is a good thing. There is too much duplication of effort. Of course you always get fanboys that complain about “choice” or some other nonsense.
This is a good thing. I think some of the posters were just complaining of the vageries of the whole thing. But hey, at least they’re getting together and discussing this stuff. That’s a first step.
Lumbergh, rather than gratutiously suggesting you use drugs, I’ll be rather short and just point out that free software, as defined by its creator, the ever-so-political RMS, is politically motivated. The motivation is so much more than just having a working, coherent alternative to Microsoft and Apple. We had those in the 1980s when free software began. We had it in the 1990s when Linux was created and began to take off. The only reason we don’t have them in the 2000s is because free software is it.
Nice to see someone with your intellectual capacity posting here for a change.
Of course you are right and the zealots are wrong. Ideology does have no place in a capitalist world.
Now if only we could stop those zealots of saying that capitalism is a much an ideology as their silly “freedom”.
You’re joking, right ?
Please tell me you’re not that stupid. Please tell me you don’t really think that “Ideology does have no place in a capitalist world”.
And, by the way, the world is not capitalist. Some governments are capitalist, some are not.
You’re joking, right ?
I could tell you, but you would have to sign a NDA.
I am smoking Drum tobacco right now-if that interests you.
You are free to believe I am simply spouting idealism-or perhaps even an “ideology”. Whatever. The fact is, whether you relize it or not or even want to admit it or not-FOSS is *not* just software. FOSS is not a mere property of some software(accidens)-in the world of FOSS software *that* it is FOSS is it’s raison d’etre. I venture to state, unequivocally, that every FOSS developer agrees with this sentiment-although the free nature of FOSS allows for an incredibly wide-range of of differing stances based on certain core share assumptions. Some hold this abover everything else, some consider this equally important to many other aspects-but I have yet to hear of a FOSS developer who would distance themselves from such a sentiment.
Many people develop software firstly and then use FOSS licensces for certain particular pieces they write according to their needs-ie. as they see fit. These people contribute to FOSS but do not consider themselves, primarily, to be FOSS developers. For these people this sentiment many not be the most significant aspect-yet if they actually disagreed with this sentiment they would be foolishly supporting which they really do not support.
The distinction between *what* something is- which is trivial, and *how* something is, ie. in what ways something comes to be, is fundamental. Comparing FOSS software with propietary software inevitably leads to a profound simplification, ie. trivialization, of that which distinguishes and differentiates the two. For you these distinctions might seem irrelevant-but for most FOSS developers it is “the difference which make a difference”.
I do not believe myself to be morally superior to anyone else, period. I, like all other, have values, some of which I choose to focus on-adding additional value. If you don’t value these distinctions- that is merely a reflection of your values-just as my valuing these distinctions is a reflection of my values. Rather simple, actually. If you feel unconformtable with such-then that is, respectfully, your problem- not mine.
If it were not for the sentiment which I have inadequately sought to express in this forum- FOSS would not exist, period. It would not be available as an option and you would never have heard of such. In fact this whole issue would be a non-issue. But you can’t put the horse before the cart-if others has not held such sentiments there would only be propietary software, and that which one calls the “public domain”.
Free software does serve the public domain- but it does not belong to the public domain-it belongs to those who wrote the code and those who use it and/or further develop in accordance with it’s licences. Free software is not a “no-mans land” of abandoned intellectual property. It does not serve the public domain because it was neglected or simply became ubiquitous through time and usage. That is it at the disposal of the public domain is a insgithful choice which is made by the authors thereof.
My writings may appear to you to be “the problem” with FOSS but that is because you are not judging FOSS according to it’s merits, the uniquness of it’s existence. You take it for granted- that is your luxury, a luxury afforded to you by others for whom this is not a luxury, a price those who have worked so hard have been willing to pay. You respecting such, or valuing such is not really all that important-FOSS will persist even in the face of attacks from people who do not even recognize that which they are talking about. I personally find it disrespectful to take such for granted- but that is my personal disposition-I cannot and do not speak for other FOSS developers. Perhaps another FOSS developer would wish to take issue with what I have said ?
Oh and if you got sick reading what I wrote perhaps you should stop drinking so much ?
Let’s get this straight. Free software was not invented by Richard Stallman! I was using free software before GNU or the FSF was a twinkle in Stallman’s eye. Just because Stallman has tried to hijack the word “freedom” as it relates to software doesn’t mean it’s correct. Don’t drink the kool-aid!
Not entirely certain what the full ramifications of Longhorn will be. XAML and Avalon will probably have a big effect.