Re: More Political Stuff

[Dan Siemon <dan coverfire com>]

Sean Middleditch wrote:
> 
> > That's just too bad. If find it a shame that we can't communicate
> > better within the free software community.
> > But if they had started their work on free software packages only,
> > probably the GNOME wouldn't even exist...
> > KDE seems to be a nice desktop but in my opinion it won't go anywhere
> > before they recognize and solve their licensing issues.
> >
> 
> It's only a few people that do this, mind you... it's not the entire KDE
> team.  It's just that it's always the morons that get publicized, not
> the intelligent people.  ~,^
> 
> > I am afraid not, seeing how it is going now.
> >
> 
> So what exactly will make GNOME 2.0 so different that it can't just be
> 1.6?  If it's going to use the same libraries, etc. what's so important
> about it?
> 
> GNOME DOES need some streamlining.  I can tell its built upon something
> built upon something built upon something... at least integrate it for
> the end-user, so all they need to know is "there's a new GNOME-libs, new
> GTK, etc." and not have to keep track of 10 million packages.  Even the
> Helix-Updater requires people to select the packages, and it can be
> daunting to the newbie.  Yes, OSes like Windows require 10 million
> different "components" to be upgraded, but almost no-one on Windows
> does.  Linux or UNIX, you have to.
> 
> > AbiWord is barely useable, Gnumeric is not yet complete. StarOffice,
> > as I can see it, is a way for us to be able to say "hey people,
> > GNU/Linux is now even useable for end-users; you can now drop you
> > proprietary programs and switch to our free system." without them to
> > have an excuse.
> 
> So in short, yes, we're stuck with StarOffice?  Not to start pointing
> fingers are starting a war or anything, but, for example, the KDE team
> put together an excellent office suite all on their own.  Seriously,
> many people who say Linux is ready for the desktop get criticized not
> over the lack of office suites, but the lack of quality.  Bringing in an
> inferior system wont make GNOME any better, its just going to show that
> we cant develop our own software that works better.
> 
> Seriously, it is going to be a TREMENDOUS amount of work to port
> StarOffice to GTK/GNOME/Bonobo.  In that time, perhaps developers could
> make AbiWord usable, complete Gnumeric.  And they both have a lot more
> potential than StarOffice.  I'm certainly not pleased over the prospect
> that GNOME is simply going to make use of inferior technology just to
> get something done quickly.
> 
> Also, GNU/Linux isn't even close to ready for the desktop.  Even if
> GNOME was complete, there are still way too many problems.  The whole
> issue of "root" for example is confusing to newbies.  You'd be better
> off developing a stable gnome-su and whatnot so that there is never a
> need to open a terminal and su as root.  If someone has to do that even
Sean Middleditch wrote:
> XFree86 locks up, a
> lot.  Even the old 3.3.x series.  Most of the 'stable' GNOME crashes a
> lot.

I have no idea what you have done to your machine but XFree 4.0.1 has
*never* died/locked on me. Nor have I ever had 1.2 GNOME crash.
	Dan