LWCE Wrapup 92
An anonymous reader writes "Extremetech.com reports that: 'Computer scientists from think tank SRI will present a novel take on distributed computing at LinuxWorld, all in a search for a little lost penguin.' For more information on Centibots, head over to the Centibots Project homepage." ReadthePaper writes "I just read a great interview with Jon "Maddog" Hall of Linux International." And finally, Hawkxor writes "Sun Microsystems VP Jonathon Schwartz demoed Sun's new desktop-oriented Linux distro 'Mad Hatter' and 3-D Desktop Environment 'Looking Glass' at LinuxWorld. Sounds pretty cool."
My experience (Score:5, Funny)
Typical Sun Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds just like the typical Sun opinion about Linux (and open source) in general. They miss the point and focus on the free-as-in-beer part (and therefore focus on producing cheap solutions) instead of the free as in speech part (and cooperate with the developers a little more).
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Sun wants to sell stuff (hardware and software), make money, and solve problems. They don't give a shit about the proper attitude to hold when approaching Linux--and they SHOULDN'T! There's nothing sacred about it.
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
OpenOffice.org isn't exactly a small contribution either. Sure, they are probably quite happy about unpaid contributors that make their proprietary StarOffice better, but I'd say that this is quite a fair deal. And there are also some smaller projects, like XMLroff [sf.net], an XSL FO formatter that I personally consider very promising.
So please, take your "proper attitude" elsewhere and don't talk about things you have no idea about.
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:2)
Or even when companies use open source and pass it off as their own work. Remember when sections of some BSD utilities were found in microsoft utilities (i.e. the version of ftp in windows)? Sure, they were legally allowed to use those under the BSD liscense, but don't you think it is a little suspect that they never once me
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:2)
Uh, who the fuck is doing that? Define huge profits. Redhat is making money, but NOTHING that could be considered huge. IBM? They're making money off hardware and support, they just happen to sell Linux as part of the deal (for some customers). SUN? HA! It must be SCO, then. Most companies/individuals that are making money off of Open Source are not making HUGE profits. Most are simply making a living.
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:2)
Oh, this is so cute I want to pat you on the head.
The proper attitude? The proper attitude is to run your business and make a profit within the laws. The ONLY attitude a company (or anyone else) has to have is one that doesn't land them in court.
That may or not be moral, but that's irrelevant. Utterly irrelevant.
I mean, if a developer is going to write code and release it under the GPL (or any other free-ish licen
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
*TWHAP*
What company recently spend millions to acquire a mature desktop office software suite, and then released the source code open source? What company recently bought into Netscape when it was strapped for cash, on the ropes, and looking like it was MS road kill?
I am SOOOOO sick of the slashdotters bashing Sun as somehow an evil unix corporation th
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:1)
Ya. It's really too bad they dumped SunOS and switched to Solaris.
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:1)
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the point he is trying to make is that in the end, software is all just bits on a disk. There is nothing about the development process that makes open source software magically better. Good software always takes hard work, thorough testing, and talented developers.
It's pretty
Re:Typical Sun Quote (Score:1)
Always said OpenOffice, Sun Grid, JXTA,
Is more easy to say: "Linux doesn't scale good" than work for "Enterprise" scalability on Linux. I know that they are join to OSDL recently. But when thay support and extend the Linux kernel (like IBM or HP for example)?
Base Linux Distro? (Score:1)
Re:Base Linux Distro? (Score:2, Interesting)
Instead of searching for the penguin... (Score:5, Funny)
Or beer.
(did I spell that right?)
"linux approaching XP stability" (Score:1)
And you expect me to belive anything else that page says after that?
Hmm 90% less then microsoft products.. thats still too much to charge.
Re:"linux approaching XP stability" (Score:2)
Re:"linux approaching XP stability" (Score:2)
The only thing remotely resembling this in the IT world link is "Study: Linux nears Windows XP in usability", which was covered by slashdot very recently.
Strange concept of 'truth' (Score:2)
As a disclaimer i support approx 10000 users that are mostly running XP, as does one of my workstations.
The stablity of the XP machine is somehwat less then my other BSD based workstation. They use identical hardware.
I do admit however, as windows 2000 ( both server and workstation ) matured, it was useable and not THAT much worse, but in pure numbers *nix is still more stable if managed properly.
SouthPark knockoff? (Score:1)
Misleading story (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Misleading story (Score:2)
From the site:
The Centibots project, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is aimed at developing new technology to support the coordinated deployment of as many as 100 robots for missions such as urban surveillance.
I would hardly call them peaceful.... This is a project for war.
Re:Misleading story (Score:2)
The Centibots project, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is aimed at developing new technology to support the coordinated deployment of as many as 100 robots for missions such as urban surveillance.
I would hardly call them peaceful.... This is a project for war.
I think the grandparent to this was trying to say "peaceful as in non-flesh eating and unarmed" rather than "peaceful as in not used for any military purpose" - but since I'm not him, I could be wrong.
Re:Misleading story (Score:1)
On a more serious (but still pleasant) note, is it just me, or is there a little too much testosterone superimposed, in robot culture? Once in a while I see a documentary on Discovery about a lady scientist who is coo-ing daily at a baby emulation robot, only to discover that her software (amazing) and hardw
Penguin hunting... (Score:1)
Proprietary network closing in around the penguin - NOT an image that fills me with joy.
Any idea why this can't run on plain ol' 802.11?
Awards speech (Score:3, Funny)
"Thanks to the efforts of these robots, we now know that this building we couldn't enter due to its being filled with toxic gas does contain chemical weapons. And we've found that this other building we couldn't enter due to smoke is indeed on fire and has people inside; once the fire's died down, we'll know exactly where to go to get them out."
Can't help but wonder... (Score:2)
That dude standing in the hallway is my guess.
Looking Glass? (Score:2)
Re:Looking Glass? (Score:2)
Mad Hatter = Red Hat Distribution (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me take the aura of mystery away- it's obviously based on Red Hat. If it wasn't I'm sure Red Hat would take serious issue in the product name.
Re:Mad Hatter = Red Hat Distribution (Score:2)
Re:Mad Hatter = Red Hat Distribution (Score:2)
Re:Mad Hatter = Red Hat Distribution (Score:5, Interesting)
it's SuSE for the desktop & Red Hat for the servers.
Sun is being smart & not getting locked in to one distro.
IIRC that strategy is serving IBM fairly well
Re:Mad Hatter = Red Hat Distribution (Score:1)
Re:Mad Hatter = Red Hat Distribution (Score:1)
Ximian build several Mad Hatter components: Evolution, GNOME, Ximian connectors, Red Carpet.
Microsoft Booth Fun (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Microsoft Booth Fun (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Booth Fun (Score:1)
Re:Showed this to my boss. (Score:2)
The only loser I see here is your boss for ignoring Linux because he didn't find a joke funny.
Now THAT is funny! :-)
Looking Glass == useless eye candy (Score:1)
I was at the keynote where Mr. Schwartz demonstrated the Looking Glass desktop. The major points:
Re:sounds like: indeed they are... (Score:2)
For the few who don't know, Dodgson was in some ways the Douglas Adams of his day - the ideas in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are as linked to cutting edge science of the day, and as riddled with social comment, as the Hitchhiker's Guide series. Dodgson was also
Re:sounds like: indeed they are... (Score:1)
Re:sounds like: indeed they are... (Score:2)
A visitor's wrapup (Score:5, Informative)
One booth (it might have been Computer Associates) needed a "grammar checker" that could remove "extraneous" quotation "marks".
Microsoft had a medium sized pavilion. Even with how crowded the place was, most people avoided it like the plague.
Novell is porting its products to Linux. This is the probably the most important development going on in the entire computer industry right now. Novell's administration tools are generally considered top-notch but nobody uses them because nobody wants to learn Novell's OS when they can use other tools available on familiar Windows or Sun. Novell is porting its client-side tools as well. They have a cross-platform Groupwise client in beta right now. For many organizations that stuck with Novell, Groupwise has been a killer app preventing desktop Linux deployment. With Novell filling the gaps of groupware and LDAP network administration, Linux becomes more suitable for the business desktop. Still, Novell has to learn to undercut Windows's price for equivalent functionality. One of the big reasons NT caught on was because it was cheaper than Novell.
Genaware is the only company I've seen so far offering GIS products for Linux. Unfortunately, the screenshots they had make their products look ugly as hell, and I can't tell if you can actually edit GIS data with them or just display it. They didn't have any leaflets, but gave me a demo disk that they had hidden under the counter.
Most of the displays were directed towards IT directors and engineers. There was very little there for desktop users. The KDE booth promoted Kolf, which kicks ass. There is a Knoppix for Kids distro which I haven't tried out yet. There is also a Knoppix DVD which includes more programs than the CD distro.
The Zynot Foundation (the Gentoo fork) was totally unprepared. They bought themselves a booth and didn't know what to do with it, so you basically had two guys sitting in the back of the booth playing with their laptops while people would intermittently come by and ask "Who are you?".
There was nothing from VA/OSDN/Sourceforge/Slashdot. I don't think CmdrTaco and crew even made it. I miss the old "relax and have fun" party-like attitude at previous conventions where Slashdot would be showing anime and you could deathmath other attendees at the Red Hat booth. A little of that stayed on in the Gentoo booth, which was showing off an RPG and the most crudely drawn anime I have ever seen (it looked like those Conan O'Brien sketches where he takes a picture of a celebrity and makes the mouth move). The booth was in an aisleway, though, so you couldn't actually sit down to watch the movie or play the game.
Copyleft did have two rest areas with their Penelope Penguin cartoons. In one of them, Penelope asks "where is Brian Aker when you need him?" Who the hell is Brian Aker, I thought. Turn the corner, see a nerdish fellow with long hair, look at his nametag: "Brian Aker / MySQL Developer". That answers that question. As far as other celebrities go, Bruce Perens was there but I didn't see anyone else whose name I was familiar with.
Now I have this big pile of propaganda on the kitchen table to go through and read.
Re:A visitor's wrapup (Score:1)
With black slacks and button-down white shirt. I would have fainted in shock but for the sugar rush I was having from the Microsoft Jelly Bellies.
Looking Glass (Score:2)
Re:Looking Glass (Score:2, Informative)
click here [gulker.com]
Re:Looking Glass (in high res) (Score:1)
SuSE rocks (Score:5, Funny)
In the end I received a Geeko plush toy and a copy of their boxed professional desktop product. Yaaa swag.
Re:SuSE rocks (Score:1)
Interesting to see Sun's VP missing the point... (Score:2)
"The thing I worry about most with the open source community is the sentiment that open source is somehow different. It isn't," he said.
They like linux because somehow, the gods smiled upon it, and somehow - by magic - it's "better and it's cheaper". By adopting this attitude, you can see that they miss th eentire point - that Linux is cheaper and better because it's free, not in spite of it.
They show that if success in the IT world ever co
eWeek article (Score:1)
link here [eweek.com]
does anyone know of photo's of the GUI?
Centibots (Score:1)
Other way round (Score:1, Interesting)
I would say that Maddog is the "main mouthpiece" of OSS, and that Linus is the one who works behind the scenes.
References
[1] Attended a talk by Maddog earlier this year. (Believe me, he enjoys talking)
[2] Read "Just for Fun", Linus' autobiography
Linux World CE (Score:2)