arctic Posted February 17, 2007 Report Share Posted February 17, 2007 Some bad blood between Linus Torvalds and GNOME developers is flaring up again. Full story at linux.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artificial Intelligence Posted February 17, 2007 Report Share Posted February 17, 2007 Here we go again.... I'm not looking forward to the next week Gnome vs. KDE war because of this *sigh* :mellow: ...I'm going for a beer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted February 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2007 Yeah, it is an endless story. And next week, there will be at least 300 useless posts at sites like osnews. :sad: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted February 18, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 Christian Schaller (gnome dev) gives some answers to Linus: http://blogs.gnome.org/portal/uraeus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted February 18, 2007 Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 Yeah, it is an endless story. And next week, there will be at least 300 useless posts at sites like osnews. :sad: Oops, misread. I thought you said useless sites like OSNews ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artificial Intelligence Posted February 18, 2007 Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 OSNEWS is the best so far. The others (like digg.com and slashdot) is full of braindead comment from braindead people, it reminds me of a Jerry Springer show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted February 18, 2007 Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 Sometimes the responses are better than the lead story... gnome-screensaver, as described in its FAQ, has as one of its stated goals preventing users from doing Rude Things like making GLtext display rude messages. It does that be denying the user almost any control over the screensaver whatsoever. Unfortunately, this goal is just as achievable as victory in the War on Drugs. There's nothing that keeps me from turning the screensaver off and leaving an OpenOffice document reading "THE CEO IS A BASTARD" (the example from the FAQ) on display in 288-point Cooper Black, or leaving an image open on screen that would create a "hostile work environment." This really for me sums up Gnome... or at least this type of thing which seems about locking down the desktop and if not limiting user choice making their minds up... It all depends how your going to work ... but the way I see it I don't like gettiing to do something and then not finding the option and think "Ah OK if it doesn't do that then it must be for a good reason" .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted February 18, 2007 Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 Sometimes the responses are better than the lead story... gnome-screensaver, as described in its FAQ, has as one of its stated goals preventing users from doing Rude Things like making GLtext display rude messages. It does that be denying the user almost any control over the screensaver whatsoever. Unfortunately, this goal is just as achievable as victory in the War on Drugs. There's nothing that keeps me from turning the screensaver off and leaving an OpenOffice document reading "THE CEO IS A BASTARD" (the example from the FAQ) on display in 288-point Cooper Black, or leaving an image open on screen that would create a "hostile work environment." Horrible misinterpretation of the faq, and horrible wording on the FAQ's behalf. http://live.gnome.org/GnomeScreensaver/Fre...yAskedQuestions Straight after the above usage example, it states this: So, now it is possible to allow the theme engines but to add restrictions based on sets of parameters. Note, that it is now possible for an admin to ADD restrictions to what can be done with a screensaver. out of the box, these restrictions are obviously NOT enabled or even configured. out of the box, gnome-screensaver DOES NOT PREVENT you from abusing your CEO. Though if you do need to use your screensaver to abuse your CEO, I suggest you find some other way of venting your anger. This really for me sums up Gnome... or at least this type of thing which seems about locking down the desktop and if not limiting user choice making their minds up... It all depends how your going to work ... but the way I see it I don't like gettiing to do something and then not finding the option and think "Ah OK if it doesn't do that then it must be for a good reason" .. That's a terrible stereotype of the Gnome developers. While I agree, they do overdo it with their focus on UI and usability -- it DOES result in cleaner and better designed applications. Life isnt black and white. There's a continuum. | extreme ------------ fair -------------- whatever | Keep in mind that fair is near impossible, and Gnome, in it's focus on UI, gnome has tended slightly to the extreme, I agree, but at the same time, the results coming out are honestly not that bad. Each gnome release is polished and popular. If so many people use Gnome, then they can't be completely messing everything up. KDE on the other hand tend a little to the right of the continuum, they'd prefer to get a feature in rather than bitch about the implementation. So while their implementation may not initially be as clean as Gnomes, it tends to have more options. KDE4 looks a bit fairer though than past releases. This is about personal choice. Different people like different setups. I cannot work in a messy working area for example, so KDE tends to be uncomfortable for me to use. Not implying KDE is messy, but it's currently not as tidy and refined UI wise as gnome. Some like the KDE setup of everything, every option, every configuration. back to the topic.... Horses for courses. Linus is overstating his opinion, and because of his status, people are giving it more attention than it's honestly worth. Sites reporting on this really don't help. It's not news, it's someone just attempting to enforce their opinion on others by abusing their public status. Once you mess with linux for a while, things become repetitive, things happen again. People don't learn, because so many more new people join. If I had a dollar for every stupid article about desktop linux for example, or poorly researched extreme point of view I've seen posted on Linux news sites, I'd be very rich. A majority of that wealth would come from OSNews, which tends towards this sort of crap. This has happened before and should blow over fairly quickly. Forecast is a storm in a teacup people, so don't worry about the umbrellas. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted February 18, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 As expected: The story is now also published at osnews and ... it has already 160 rather useless comments. I bet in two days they will break the 300 posts mark. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted February 18, 2007 Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 Horses for courses. Linus is overstating his opinion, and because of his status, people are giving it more attention than it's honestly worth. Sites reporting on this really don't help. It's not news, it's someone just attempting to enforce their opinion on others by abusing their public status. Iph, I agree with most of that but I think the bone of contention for linus is philosophical rather than anything else. I think in many way's its the idea of "denying something" to the user because it doesn't quite fit some standards? In many ways I think this is a reflection of the way the kernel has developed and perhaps partly he is defending the model he has taken for kernel development which has been put in what works and clean it up later? The thing is really about how it feels as much as anything ... I just feel Gnome wants to restrict me and to be honest I don't use most of the self-config functionality of KDE, I just sorta like feeling I can if I want? One thing the screensaver thing reminded me of was my old job where the Win95 PC's had a locked down screensaver. The screensaver was loads of "exersizes" and if you were on the phone etc. it would kick in.. once it kicked in you were forced to go through the exersizes or at least watch them finish... indeed the annoying thing was just before it started you lost the ability to jiggle the mouse and cancel it... This was "policy"... no discussion every PC had to be the same... so you could be in an important meeting presenting something and if people asked questions the screen saver kicked in... How stupid did that make people feel when you have other companies in and a 1 hr meeting has to just sit there for 5 mins while a screen saver finishes? Or sat on the phone to a contractor and just as you're going to give them figures POW... no PC for 5 mins? This has left me strongly abhoring all control mechanisms on PC's.... because it forgets the basic point of using a PC in the forst place which is to get a job done. If you just use a booking screen that's one thing but to give a PC as a tool then disable its use for the same just seems wrong... We developed a whole stupid bypass culture, for instance from time to time I would get a call from the big boss and ask the guy in the office next door to spend time every five mins wiggling my mouse while I was in the meeting, just in case I had something urgent to do when I got back....? The excuse, sorry I couldn't print that contract out while you had the people in your office because I had the screen saver on is kinda lame? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted February 18, 2007 Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 Sometimes Linus is like your old uncle that sits with his whiskey in the corner - you have to respect him, but try to keep his mouth shut around your friends :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted February 18, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 The thing is really about how it feels as much as anything ... I just feel Gnome wants to restrict meFunny... I don't feel restricted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 The thing is really about how it feels as much as anything ... I just feel Gnome wants to restrict meFunny... I don't feel restricted. Not really because you made a concious effort to chose Gnome... for good reasons I might add. Life is full of little choices and the ones we feel we make ourself seem less restrictive. Sometimes Linus is like your old uncle that sits with his whiskey in the corner - you have to respect him, but try to keep his mouth shut around your friends tongue.gif Aye, true but he's also the sort of uncle who might have a few funny ideas but has seen the world... Kinda quirky but with good reasons or at least what he sees as good reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 Sometimes Linus is like your old uncle that sits with his whiskey in the corner - you have to respect him, but try to keep his mouth shut around your friends tongue.gif Aye, true but he's also the sort of uncle who might have a few funny ideas but has seen the world... Kinda quirky but with good reasons or at least what he sees as good reasons. Exactly ;) You have to respect your uncle for what he has done - but now he is just an embarrassment in his old age :P I'm not saying Linus is an embarrassment... just sometimes. People also tend to forget that he was just one piece of the Linux / Open Source puzzle. The developers of Minix and the GNU GPL don't get enough attention imho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 I'm not saying Linus is an embarrassment... just sometimes. People also tend to forget that he was just one piece of the Linux / Open Source puzzle. The developers of Minix and the GNU GPL don't get enough attention imho. Minix was simply a source of inspiration for Linux, little more. It's creator Tanenbaum (i knew his name, and how to spell it!) has actually received a fair bit of press over the years. And I'm sure i'm not alone in remembering the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate that flared up again last year about OS kernel design. If you look Tanenbaum up, he does actually receive a fair bit of attention too, with a few accolades and many titles published under his name. As for the GPL..... you can't possibly say RMS doesnt get enough attention, and through him the FSF (although the GPL was written by RMS long before the FSF was about). James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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