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Linux Software

Freesoft vs. Microsoft 53

Posted by Hemos from the good-coverage-keeps-coming dept.
elam writes "The cover of this month's Tech Review is a boxing match mock-up "face-off" btwn Gates and Torvalds and reads "Freesoft VS Microsoft". The main article is good (and it's online), it talks a lot about GNOME, GNU, a bit about KDE, but has interviews with the man himself (Linus), Stallman, Eric Raymond and a boatload of other Linux devotees. Good reading for all."
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Freesoft vs. Microsoft More

Freesoft vs. Microsoft

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  • I agree 100%, gnome will be the standard desktop soon, and not because I like redhat either, I hate them with a passion in fact. And even when the free qt is released I still won't support it or KDE because it just plain sucks.
  • Anonymous Coward asked:

    Since when has there EVER been a standard desktop on UNIX?

    Since May 20, 1998. That was the day the Unix98 standard was relesed. In the workstation portion of the standard, it identifies CDE, running on Motif and the X Window System as the standard Unix desktop.

    Personally, I refuse to accept CDE as my desktop, and I would like to see healthy Free alternatives (such as GNOME, GNUStep and KDE) both competing and collaborating as a choice of desktop environments. None of them can be the standard, because the Open Group sets the standard, and they will never accept any of them.

  • It ought to be illegal to post stories containing 2 or more of the following on the front page of /.:
    1) Linux vs. Bill
    2) Opensource vs. CLosed Source
    3) KDE & Gnome
    4) Interview with [linux/rms/esr/etc]

    Oh well, I'll read it later I guess.
  • There are more important things to worry about than KDE/Gnome. I don't fret myself over it. I use both of them interchangeably.

    Think happy thoughts! Happy happy Happy HAppY HAPPY HAPPY GODDAMMIT I'M HAPPY! HAHAHAHAHAHA! (strokes fluffy white cat named "Precious" and pushes evil buttons).
  • The KDE people don't need to slander RMS's character. All they had to do was post a reference to RMS's own words and let RMS slander himself.

    RMS deserves a lot of credit for starting this movement. He also deserves a lot of ridcule for trying to exert exclusive control over it. Get over it, RMS, the movement is bigger than just you now, and if you aren't big enough to accept the fact that this means there will be some people in it that you don't like, then up yours. Welcome to the real world, where you can't control what everybody says and thinks, and where people don't want to fund software with a FSF tax. Why trade one unfair software tax for another? You shouldn't have to pay for what don't use - it's true for Microsoft and its true for the FSF also.

  • The article?s pretty good, but the site?s in some serious need of demoronizing, ?cause it?s got screwed up apostorphes (?).
  • Ubiquitous, enslaving, and conveniently incompatible with nearly everything else...

    Unfortunately, this has to be said abou the GPL.

    'It is perfectly acceptable to combine non-GPL and GPL software so long as the terms of both licenses allow the GPL to take precedence...'

    One thing the Linux community stands for is FREEDOM OF CHOICE.

    • We can CHOOSE to run Linux instead of some Micro$hite Redmond 1984 rubbish.
    • We can CHOOSE whether to leave some feature in the kernel, or whether to remove it or rewrite it.
    • We can CHOOSE whether to upgrade to the latest version or NOT TO DO SO.

    However, with the GPL, we have no choice whatsoever -- use ten lines of GPL code in our program and we have to make it GPL. Linking such a program to a non-GPL library and you cannot redistribute the result (unless you own the rights to the GPL code mentioned).

    You can have any license you want, provided it's GPL

    You can have any OS you want, provided it's Windows
    You can have any colour you want, provided it's black.

    Its worth discussing this, since we may end one 'lack of choice' only to be trapped by another one

    p.s. Take this a Devil's advocate statement, since I myself support GNU/Linux, but openly support the idea of more than one free software license.

  • The KDE people need to draft some ammendments, call these the 'KDE Qt/GPL software ammendments' or somehting similar, and then allow people to
    say (This program may be distributed under the GPL, they following may also be applied by whoever distributes the program... (quote KDE stuff)).



    Think about this a little, and bear in mind
    that the GPL only disallows additional restrictions, not additional permissions

  • it. You don't like
    the Qt license, then go Gnome and revel in your supposed
    superiority over the rest of us.

    Right now, I'm thankful I have a
    decent, STABLE system like KDE (unlike the bug-ridden
    crashfest known as Gnome...say, what functions failed to resolve
    in libgtk today?). You don't mind a constantly crashing desktop?
    Have fun.

    I don't have a
    problem that Gnome exists, unlike you Gnome fanatics

    Make your mind up.

    Daniel
  • ...complain about KDE fudsters and then try to spread fear by saying KDE is going commercial?

    I won't even try to dissect the dozen lies or attempts at searing there are in this utterly worthles post, but I will say this: The page he says smears RMS is an interview. With him.
  • ...complain about KDE fudsters and then try to spread fear by saying KDE is going commercial?

    On other notes: "Qt has not delievered (whatever)" Qt is not a company, TT is.

    TT has promised that Qt 2.0 will be released under a open source license. Qt 2.0 has not yet been released (it is available as a beta, though), so where is the lie in that?

    Finally: the chance of KDE going commercial is less than the chance of the FSF going commercial.

    At least the FSF owns copyright of its software, while KDE's belongs to each of the hundreds of contributor.
  • Download the beta and read the README.

    As for KDE's switching to Artistic, several pieces already have, didn't you look?
  • Is assignment of copyright to the FSF demanded for
    GNOME code?

    I would be very surprised since there is at least one piece of it that asks for copyright assignment to someone else (libart)
  • As they say: This will be a glorious battle [ucsd.edu].

    Anyone get the starting music of Star Wars anywhere? That's the music to go with the story...

  • This article was the first time that I had read that RMS had developed a disability that made it painful to type. I know that a condition that prevented me from typing on my computer would drive me crazy. This makes me want to look into getting some sort of ergonomic keyboard.

    Anyone know what he uses now? Voice recognition software?

  • It really suites the mainstream journalists and closed source funded media to emphasize Gnome over KDE. The reasons are quite simple.

    1 : KDE works already and a system with KDE preloaded is a credible contender on the desktop.

    2 : Gnome verbally promises to be better than KDE and everything else.

    3 : The Gnome Design is _not_ so spectacularly superior as to render KDE obsolete. In fact once you get past the stability and License issues. Gnome vs KDE becomes a simple matter of taste. No major objective superiority just "Well I like the Gnome theme manager or I prefer the KDE PPP Dialer".

    4 : Gnome is Alpha ( BETA is when the whole thing is frozen and only bugfixes are going into CVS ) Therefore any Semi clued person who tries to install it today will suffer for it and possibly hate the system.

    All these things taken together mean that Linux is an unfulfilled promise, just like Windows "Look how long we have been waiting for a desktop".

    They mean that the well hyped "way of the future" will be a massive letdown. Gnome is impressive on it's own. To someone who already has a Working KDE installation it's just an alternative with no clear advantages.

    Most important, it lets the apparent feud within the community flourish.

  • That was a great article. Yes, nothing new, but I sent it off to several that had never installed Linux who thought is was a good read, and inspiring.
  • Shut up, Jirka. :)

    Btw, panel crashed my X at least 2 times. And rename that damn thing gpanel, please.

    -N.
  • Time to add my fuel to the fire.

    Linux is great, it runs fast even on old hardware. Efficency and low overhead are 2 thing that characterize linux during. Let's put linux on a slightly older machine, like this:

    Pentium 150
    32MB Ram
    2MB VRAM
    2GB Hard Drive.

    This computer will get the job done, and be nice and responsive. Now, lets load gnome onto it. But we know that X in general is a memory hog, so let's bump the ram up to 128MB which should be plenty. Let's also run it as a decent resolution, for this we need a better video card, let's go with an older 4MB card; say a Number Nine GXE64 Pro. Not a bad little card. Ok, now linux runs great. Start gnome... HOLY F**K*NG S**T, I can actually see it drawing the menus on the screen for gnome panel. AAARRRGGGHHH, I just tried to resize the gmc window. It should start responding again in 5 seconds or so.

    Gnome is the most inefficent desktop environment I've ever used, Lose95/98/NT are WWAAAYYY faster on this hardware. M$ forces hardware upgrades by bogging down your machine. Gnome does the same, but to a more insulting degree. I'm not going to upgrade just so I can have GTK+ Themes. I guess this is what happens when all the programers testing gnome on their octuple processor 8000 gigahertz workstations with 4 terabytes of ram dont' test it on older hardware.

    Linux make a great server, because it can use hardware considered out of date by NT people. Linux may be free, but if you want a workstation it's going to cost you a testicle in hardware upgrade fees.

    While not the fastest thing around, KDE is at least responsive, functional, and productive. I've used it since the 1.0beta1 days on the above hardware. It's very productive for programming, graphics manipulation, and data processing & vizualization. Gnome loses lots of points and people because they can't afford to upgrade to be productive on it. In that regards Gnome is NOT free for most people. In fact it's even for expensive than Window 9* or NT. I'll upgrade someday, after I finish school, get a job, sell my first 2 children. Then I'll try gnome again, until then I'll use something free and productive.

    Andrew
  • It is bad, since they either by accident, by stupidity or on purpose did not base their work on pure GPL foundation. Now they are in trouble because of that. Well, GPL is best, pure copyrighted software is acceptable under certain circumstances, but playing the kind of games QT, BSD, KDE and others is bad. Let's be honest. There is enough of one Bill Gates as a master liar for the industry.
  • Has the site been slashdotted already?
  • I'm going to start reading old news only. I can never get into a site just announced.

    *whimper*
  • Some of you keep saying that the article is either old...or that you liked the article but it's nothing new. I for one liked the article...and it's all new information for me.

    Linux, and other participating projects in the free code movement are all new to me. This is a very interesting article to found out what my new experimental operating system is all about. It's nice to know a projects roots. Whereas with something like MS-Win95's history isn't taken. Probably that has to do with the fact that it was bought, but you never know.

    Great article...thanks for the heads up.
  • I belive that this one's already been posted, way back in Dec. I know I looked for my fathers copy of Technology Review when I visited at Christmas, and read the article. See the previous posting [slashdot.org]. --A
  • It sounds as if they talked about you. I mean, you really seam mad about this. Don't take things like this so personally.

    By the way, this article is over a month old.
  • I am a student at Penn State and we are exmining this story in an ethics in technology in class on Thursday afternoon. The issue is whether Bill Gates is ethical in his business practices, given the state of the Freeware movement. Please note, many of the students in this class didn't know before this article that there was another operating system available for PCs. Tehy have only seen Macs and WinNT.

    I'll post some notes about our discussion of this topic after class Thursday.

    Thanks Slashdot!
  • Very well written, and serves the eternal function of attracting Doze users over.

    >The notion of a small band of unpaid part-timers >challenging one of the world's most
    >dominant corporations may seem absurd...

    "That's the way UH HUH UH HUH I like it UH HUH UH HUH!"
  • I have to say, even coming from MIT, that unless you were a CS major, Linux wasn't that prevalent. However, after reading the article in Tech Review, I think I'm going to set up an inexpensive laptop running Linux just to play around with. I certainly learned more about Linux from that article, than I did in 4 year at MIT. I'm keeping that issue! (Plus my wedding picture is in it too :)
  • KDE -- here, awesome and free -- is my best choice
    especially when I have nothing close to compare.
    After using -and loving- KDE, I don't really care
    when or if GNOME is available. Probly will try it tho.

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