State Of Open Source In 2003 Reviewed 82
uninet writes "Open for Business' latest Year-in-Review article regarding GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source Software is up here. Things that made our list of notable occurrences include (not surprisingly) SCO's legal issues, MandrakeSoft's financial problems, our product pick of the year (Shuttle XPC SB62G2) and many more small and large items of note. For an interesting look back, you can find previous Slashdot coverage of OfB Year in Review articles here (2002) and here (2001)."
I think it was a very important year. (Score:3, Troll)
Re:I think it was a very important year. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I think it was a very important year. (Score:1)
Re:I think it was a very important year. (Score:2)
Re:I think it was a very important year. (Score:2)
Hmmm, I use Mozilla 1.5 on a 400MHz Celeron and it seems pretty snappy to me.
(Hint: Just because you can run NT on a 486 with 32MB RAM doesn't mean you should really be running a 486 with 32MB.)
Moz 1.6 should be out in a week or two, so I can have all my themes broken again, yippeee.
More seriously, I am *very* glad to see Mozilla survive the "not with a bang, but a whimper" demise of Netscape, and doing quite well at i
Re:I think it was a very important year. (Score:2)
GNU/LiNux (Score:4, Funny)
Even in year 2003 its still GNU/Linux. Will Linux gain independence in 2004?
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:1)
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:1)
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:5, Insightful)
The operating system is the lowest level software api that abracts the software from the hardware. Therefore the operating system is Linux. The Linux operating system includes absolutely no gnu software whatsoever. It doesn't even require an equivelent to the function of any gnu software. You don't name the operating system after software which runs on it. Even if you lived in some twisted world in which you did, it would be "Linux OS that happens to be bundled with some gnu software and other things"
When you bundle software with the Linux operating system (in the case of linux the kernel is the operating system, in the case of some microkernel systems there are more players), it's called a "Distribution", the distribution is named by whoever puts it together and distributes it.
Exactly where does Eric Stallman come in? At what point exactly does he suddenly have right to rename the linux operating system or any particular distribution?
Even if your one of those oddballs who believes that an "operating system" includes applications which run on what is actually the operating system (including all the GNU utils that ESR grumbles about), you have GNU software, which can exist independent of the Linux kernel, in which case the end result is NOT linux. And you have the Linux kernel, which can exist completely independently of any GNU software. In which case you DO still have a linux operating system.
Most people load GNU untils on Solaris, will ESR be contacting Sun and advising them they should change the name to GNU/Solaris next? Or how about BSD, is it no longer BSD if alot of people run GNU software on it and suddenly it should be called GNU BSD?
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, I want to know this, too. And what's his relationship with Richard Raymond?
L
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:1, Insightful)
Correct. GNU tools, just like the kernel, are replaceable. You can make a system containing GNU without having Linux in it and you can make a system containing Linux without having GNU in it. That says nothing about whether "GNU/Linux" is a reasonable name for systems that do contain both GNU and Linux.
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:2)
Debian GNU/KFreeBSD ( http://www.debian.org/ports/freebsd/ )
is FreeBSD. Even though, the only component common component is the FreeBSD kernel."
Why yes, that is correct. It's the Debian FreeBSD distribution. There is also a Debian linux distribution, I fail to see your point.
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? On Debian [debian.org] You'll find a much better definition of an OS : "An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run."
Therefore the operating system is Linux. The Linux operating system includes absolutely no gnu software whatsoever. It doesn't even require an equivelent to the function of any gnu software.
Linux is quite simply just a kernel that requires other programs (like ls) to be useful, or even bootable. Since many of those basic programs comes from GNU, some prefer to say "GNU/Linux" and call that an OS.
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:2)
There has always been some debate over what constitutes an OS. Is it the kernel, the kernel+drivers, or the minimum software required to start a computer? (Or if you're Microsoft, it's every application you might ever need, painfully welded onto the kernel to make it appear to be part of the OS)
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:2)
Yes, in the case of a macro kernel, the kernel is the operating system.
"requires other programs (like ls) to be useful"
You'll find this is true of ANY operating system.
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:1)
It's not a person's favorite definition but the definition from the textbooks that most people accept that really matters. Sadly, Microsoft saying that IE is part of the operating system has shifted perspective and left us open to a whole big pile of bullshit on this issue. Your most used application (even if it is "ls") is still a few steps away from
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:1)
And there's no "Eric Stallman", unless something very strange has happened.
Read the GNU/Linux FAQ [gnu.org]
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:2)
That's true, technically MacOS X is a distribution.
"its kernel is independent and is called Darwin"
No, actually Darwin is a subset of the distribution, I believe you'll find that technically the OS in this case Mach.
"And Windows should be called by it's correct name: KERN386.DLL."
Windows is a micro kernel system, there are more files than KERN386.DLL which form the hardware abstraction. However there is quite a bit in the windows distribution nobody could s
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:2)
An operating system is not useful by itself, in order to be useful you must have applications, just as an engine is not useful by itself. Actually that fits quite nicely. Your simply confusing what an operating system is. An operating systemm is just like an engine. What you and alot of others who support this GNU/Linux nonsense are thinking of as an operating system is actually a DISTRIBUTION,
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:2)
Apparently yes [debian.org].
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux is nothing without X?
Come off it. It's not quite like a fish needing a bicycle, but what about the hordes of webservers, router boxen, scientific application and 3d modelling clusters to which X would be nothing more than useless overhead?
L
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:1)
No, either we acknowledge all the different sources for the OS, or we quit being childish and immature about this and just call the whole conglomeration "Linux", no matter what pieces happen to reside on each particular instance.
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure. For many people, it's MORE important. But it's not fundamental to the actual OS.
What sets the GNU tools apart from other useful subsystems like X is that the GNU tools are (by and large) the tools with which the linux environment was created, and upon which its contiinued development relies. That's not to say there aren't alternatives, but the ease of development which distinguishes linux from other systems derives from
Re:GNU/LiNux (Score:1, Insightful)
I can understand saying that insisting that everyone else should call it GNU/Linux is c
It's a dynamic site, and getting slow: repost (Score:1, Redundant)
2003 in Review: One Step Backward, Two Steps Forward
By Timothy R. Butler
Editor-in-Chief, Open for Business
December 31, 2003, 19:58:35 EST
This year was a year that wasn't exactly how we might have hoped, but overall, the state of GNU/Linux was overall better at this side of 2003 than it was at the other. In our annual tradition, what follows is a look at the ups - and downs - of GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source Software in 2003.
The year started hopeful - in our last year-end article, I said, "all indi
Forgot Red Hat changing focus to RHEL (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Forgot Red Hat changing focus to RHEL (Score:1)
"Red Hat's Fedora Core, release in October, along with Mandrake Linux 9.2 and SuSE Linux 8.2 were major advances over similar distributions even just a year ago concerning ease-of-use and functionality."
I think that a big step seemingly in the direction of ease-of-use and functionality is a very good thing. If you asked someone why they still use Windows and not Linux, they might say because Linux is too hard for them. Anything to increase the ease-of-use of Linux ju
Re:Forgot Red Hat changing focus to RHEL (Score:2)
Real Player (Score:5, Interesting)
*sigh* Who thinks the Helix Player will be just as bloated as Real Player?
Re:Real Player (Score:4, Insightful)
If they actually go and cram cruft into the binary codec itself, well then we'll drop the whole thing. mplayer supports real format, both audio and video (x86 only, but I suspect so's this). mplayer's very sleak -- no problem there.
Re:Real Player (Score:1)
I tried RealPlayer for Linux a while ago and hated it (I'm not a fan of the Windows version, but at least it worked right)..the interface sucked, and it had no aRts support, which meant things like my volume wouldn't work right (my sound card isn't too well supported on Linux...the only volume control that works is artscontrol). So I said ``screw it'' and tried to configure XMMS to use the
And looking forward to 2004? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mike Home, who works on Wine, posted a great summary [slashdot.org] of planned open source developments in 2004, mentioning Wine's continuing development (0.9 should be out in 2004), and planned leaps in KDE and GNOME. GNOME will finally get a full and stable version of Epiphany, too.
Development continues on Perl 6 and the Parrot virtual machine [parrotcode.org], and I am particularly interested in the development of Dashboard [nat.org], a GNOME 'just in time' information manager project created by Nat Friedman, of Ximian fame.
Alan Cox should have his MBE this year, er, MBA, rather
So, what do YOU see happening in open source in 2004? Fill us in on what you plan to do, and why 2004 is going to be a bumper year for open source, Linux, and all. What technologies are going to spring up this time around?
Happy GNU Year (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Happy GNU Year (Score:1)
Anything less is uncivilEYEzed.
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oh dear got what have I done.
Re:Happy GNU Year (Score:1)
My Christmas present to myself, 2 17" flatscreens.
Re:Happy GNU Year (Score:2)
My new years resolution: 1152x864. 1024 too low, 1280 too high.
Re:Happy GNU Year (Score:1)
They Missed Gentoo (Score:1, Interesting)
Un-important in the grand scheme of things, but still: go take a gander at the gentoo forums. Hundreds on thousands of new Linux users asking questions and getting answers (answers beyond RTFM, no less).
Well-engineered distros, along with killer apps like Karamba, along with government after government adopting to Free/Open Source, along with the phenominal 2.6 kernel all combine to spell the best year for Linux yet.
Off for more beer...
1:43 AM? New year's! (Score:1, Funny)
Oh.. this is slashdot
Double oh...I'm one of them.
And no, I haven't been waiting up all night for the first
Shuttle noise? (Score:2)
Re:Shuttle noise? (Score:1)
Why free software is more free market. (Score:3, Interesting)
If the government gave a farmer a monopoly on growing oranges, and then called it free market because other farmers could buy and sell shares of that monopoly - i think most people would see it as a lie and a farce. But this is exactly what they do with companies like Microsoft, who are the only ones legally allowed to copy Microsoft software. Asserting the right to restrict what others copy that is freely at their disposal is bullshit morality and bullshit markets.