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Google Releases Picasa for Linux 486

chrisd writes "Hi, everyone. Today I'm pleased to announce that we're making Picasa, our photo management application, available for Linux. This is a pre-beta labs release and since we're still learning on how to best make software for Linux, we're asking that you submit your bugs as you find them. Picasa for Linux uses Wine internally; this shows a bit in the interface, but it works even better than we had hoped. Download it and check it out! A list of supported distributions can be found in the FAQ. We hope our patches to Wine will help make it easier for everyone to run Windows apps on Linux and other Unix-like systems. Thanks to our pals at CodeWeavers who did much of the heavy lifting, and to Marcus Meissner, whose libgphoto support patch was a welcome surprise."
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Google Releases Picasa for Linux

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  • by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @07:39AM (#15408556) Homepage Journal
    So, use coral as your proxy :)

    http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/ [nyud.net]
    http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/faq.h tml [nyud.net]

    Chris, looks good so far, big thanks.
  • wow (Score:3, Insightful)

    by minus_273 ( 174041 ) <aaaaa@@@SPAM...yahoo...com> on Friday May 26, 2006 @07:42AM (#15408562) Journal
    This is the kind of quality software that linux desperately lacks. It is interesting how wine was used here. I wonder if this will lead to the porting of other google apps like google earth.
    • Re:wow (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ithika ( 703697 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @07:45AM (#15408573) Homepage
      It's okay, we've already got plenty of pre-beta software. Have you seen SourceForge lately? Thanks. :o)
    • Re:wow (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not to be one to spread rumours, but ...
      Google recently turned up at Oxford University to tell us all about job prospects with them. There was a Question and Answer session at the end, and the chap from their Mobile department was asked whether Google Earth was coming to Linux anytime soon. He said he knew the answer, but wasn't going to tell us.
      Read into it what you will.
    • Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)

      by fimbulvetr ( 598306 )
      Actually, I found f-spot very, very nice. It rivals picassa in some areas and really fills in the gap on the linux side. I'm glad picassa is out, but I'll probably stick with f-spot.

      http://f-spot.org/Main_Page [f-spot.org]
      • Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)

        by jrockway ( 229604 ) *
        I was also going to post a recommendation for f-spot. Interesingly, f-spot has a Windows flavor as well -- it's written in .NET (erm, Mono) and is "f-spot.exe"!

        (I know, it's from Novell and Mono is Miguel de Icazza's little pet project. It's a fine app and runs plenty fast for me to not care one way or the other. Mono is Free, f-spot is Free, and the OS is runs on is Free, so that's all I care about.)
    • try digikam, it's a pretty good alternative to picasa.
      the only thing that I really noticed to be out of place is the bar on the top with the file, edit, view, etc options. it doesn't look like a native widget. but changing the color to the same color i use everywhere would already do a lot of good by itself;)

      other then that, I must say that the application is very fast and quite snappy.

      though i prefer a true native port I'd say thumbs up for making it a high quality port ;)
    • Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)

      by ookaze ( 227977 )
      Linux already have better quality softwares with more features like Digikam, thanks.
      These softwares are still improving too.
      And guess what, programs like Digikam actually integrate well with a KDE or even a Gnome desktop, are native apps that don't need Wine libs to run, and don't appear like a sore point on your desktop.
  • by Hektor_Troy ( 262592 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @07:46AM (#15408574)
    First of all, http://picasa.google.com/linux/faq.html [google.com] doesn't exist.

    Didn't really get any further than that.
  • not free (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anneco ( 710407 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @07:47AM (#15408578)
    Nice that you can use Picasa with Wine under Linux. But it is no free software (GPL, BSD or open source).

    No source code.

    • Re:not free (Score:5, Informative)

      by root_42 ( 103434 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @07:57AM (#15408627) Homepage
      And while we're at it. There is a free alternative [digikam.org]. It has even got all the spiffy KDE features like ioslaves and so on at its hands. Plus all the cameras supported that gphoto2 has.
      • I use digikam also, and I attest that it's probably one of the better photo management packages i've seen. Extremely simple, and has most of the features that everyday users would want. I like that it just uses plain old directories to store your pictures, instead of trying to do something more complex to accomplish the same thing.
      • Re:not free (Score:3, Informative)

        by Stalyn ( 662 )
        Don't forget about F-Spot [f-spot.org] for us GNOME users.
      • And F-Spot [gnome.org]. While it's nice to see Google supporting Linux, it'd be much nicer to get linux versions of the apps that we don't have a equivalent 8)
    • Re:not free (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MojoRilla ( 591502 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:04AM (#15408657)
      Typical Linux whine.

      No where in this annoucement do they say that they are releasing Picasa as open source software. They do allow use of it free of charge.

      Software developers are really in a bind with Linux. If you don't create software for Linux, Linux people whine that you are not supporting them.

      Create software for Linux, Linux people whine that its not open source.

      Picasa is an awesome photo management application. Be glad Google ported it to Linux, and that you can use it for free. If you demand that all software you use is open source, look elsewhere. Note that there are many useful applications that developers, for many reasons, don't want to release as open source. Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices.
      • Re:not free (Score:5, Informative)

        by Bungopolis ( 763083 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:10AM (#15408679)
        It should further be noted that Google in the process of porting Picasa to Linux participated in committing a number of patches back into the Wine source, as can be seen here [google.com].
      • Re:not free (Score:5, Informative)

        by N Monkey ( 313423 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:18AM (#15408728)
        Typical Linux whine. No where in this annoucement do they say that they are releasing Picasa as open source software. They do allow use of it free of charge. Software developers are really in a bind with Linux. If you don't create software for Linux, Linux people whine that you are not supporting them. Create software for Linux, Linux people whine that its not open source.
        Actually, it sounds like there should be enough to even stop the latter from moaning. According to the WINE home page:
        Google just released Picasa for Linux. .... Interestingly, there's some technical details available about how the Linux version came to be. The port was done using Wine and in the process over 200 patches were contributed back to the Wine project.
        • Re:not free (Score:4, Funny)

          by DragonWriter ( 970822 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @12:17PM (#15410343)
          The port was done using Wine and in the process over 200 patches were contributed back to the Wine project.
          This is impossible. Steve Ballmer just told me that if a company touches something open source, like Wine, then all their software must be open source. Thats the way The License works, he said.
      • Re:not free (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Bromskloss ( 750445 ) <auxiliary@address@for@privacy.gmail@com> on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:26AM (#15408763)
        Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices.
        Many of us care about the freedom that comes with free software. Compare with free speech and free press. In the long run, it's really non-free software that limits ones choices. Compare again with free speech in this example:

        Someone offers you to come live in their country, but only under the condition that you keep very quiet about your own opinions and never criticize the government. Initially, it may seem that standing firm in your belief in free speech would limit your choices -- you would have to turn down the offer to live in that country. It is not hard to see, however, how abandoning free speech is what really would deprive you of your freedom. Who knows, after some time you might not even be able to leave their country, would you wish to do so.
        • Re:not free (Score:3, Insightful)

          by jbeaupre ( 752124 )
          Let's take your free press comment. Do you only read free books, newspapers, magazines? If you do, you're in the minority. I enjoy reading the free local newspaper, but sometimes I want more info than music and restaurant reviews. So I go buy a book, read a paid newspaper, etc. It's great to have options. The free press lets them decide what to print and what to charge. I'm free to pick and choose, including paid sources. That's right, freedom isn't all about free stuff. Freedom is the ability to c
        • Re:not free (Score:3, Insightful)

          by jabbo ( 860 )
          > Many of us care about the freedom that comes with free software. Compare
          > with free speech and free press. In the long run, it's really non-free
          > software that limits ones choices.

          OK, that's great. So did you miss the part about how Google's Picasa porting effort resulted in over 200 patches to Wine, and a high-profile bug-chasing effort? If you don't think that Windows compatibility for Linux is important, you are out of your mind. The only reason I ever boot into Windows is when a research p
        • Re:not free (Score:3, Interesting)

          "Someone offers you to come live in their country, but only under the condition that you keep very quiet about your own opinions and never criticize the government."

          You are referring to the Netherlands [msn.com], I assume?
        • Re:not free (Score:3, Insightful)

          by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
          "Many of us care about the freedom that comes with free software."
          I here that a lot. The answer is simple. Write your own. I support fighting for the right to create free software. However it is just as wrong to force others to write free software.

          Google is providing a good program that you can use under Linux. This means one more reason that you don't have to run Windows.
          Google has given back code to the wine project. This will make it easier for other people to port code from Windows to Linux. Also it pro
      • Re:not free (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Entropy ( 6967 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @10:08AM (#15409421)
        Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices.

        Our choices to limit, neh?

        Or do you think your argument works well with other things -

        "Why be a vegetarian, it limits your choices!"

        "Why boycott company _x_, it limits your choices!"

        or even:

        "Why be straight, it limits your choices!"

        Limiting choices is not, of itself, such a horrible thing. Especially when much of that "choice" is shit software made by a company who doesn't give a flying monkey anus about making quality products, or anything remotely secure.
    • Re:not free (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AstroDrabb ( 534369 )
      So? There are other non-free/open apps on Linux. We use Oracle on Linux where I work. Picasa is not Free, but it is free; which is nice. Also, in the process of this effort, Google has contributed tons of patches to Wine which will help other porting efforts.

      You can't expect the IT world to change from proprietary/closed to open over night. It will take time. This is a very good step in the right direction IMO. I would love to see more free apps on Windows brought over to Linux.

      Having more "mains

  • I don't get it. Why announce a fairly standard application on /.? Surely Freshmeat would be a better forum? And the other stuff about reporting bugs and submitting updates to other FOSS projects is hardly new, either.

    Don't get me wrong - I'm always happy to see new contributions to the cause, but this makes me a bit uneasy, somehow.
    • Why announce a fairly standard application on /.?

      It's not a "fairly standard application" that we all take for granted. It's Google, a big corporation, openly and freely providing one of their major software applications for Linux (albeit using Wine). This does NOT happen very often, and we should bow down and praise those (Google) who do it! It's NOT just a "regular" software release.

    • This is, to my knowledge, the first desktop application for Linux from Google. In the past, they were often criticised for using Linux on their servers and otherwise supporting it, but not providing Linux ports of their own applications - just check any past /. discussion on Google Earth or Picasa. So, yes, I'd say /. is a proper place for such an announcement.

      I expected more than just a WineLib port, though. Hopes were high that they would use one of the de-facto standard widget toolkits for Linux, GTK+

    • Why announce a fairly standard application on /.? Surely Freshmeat would be a better forum?

      Because it's from GOOGLE.

      Slashdot:
      News about Google. Stuff about Google that matters. Google, Google. Google.

    • by pla ( 258480 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:59AM (#15408940) Journal
      I don't get it. Why announce a fairly standard application on /.?

      This announcement has very little to do with Picassa.

      Read between the lines (or even one particular line, explicitly):
      "We hope our patches to Wine will help make it easier for everyone to run Windows apps on Linux and other Unix-like systems."
      OUR patches to wine.

      Google, which has a proven track-record of success when they start off in some strange new direction, has taken on the task of making Wine work better.

      Think about that for a minute, and you'll get the "big" news here.
  • "and to Marcus Meissner, whose libgphoto support patch was a welcome surprise"
    Can someone explain this?

    • Re:suprise? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bungopolis ( 763083 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:01AM (#15408646)
      libgphoto [gphoto.org] is an OSS library for interfacing with digital cameras. Marcus Meissner [www.lst.de] is a major Wine developer. Presumably, he wrote a patch that integrates libgphoto with Wine, thus enabling Picassa to download photos from digital cameras - a neccessary feature that would not have otherwise been available as part of the Wine API.
      • Thanks!!!
        Mod parent up!
      • Re:suprise? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by roystgnr ( 4015 )
        Presumably, he wrote a patch that integrates libgphoto with Wine, thus enabling Picassa to download photos from digital cameras - a neccessary feature that would not have otherwise been available as part of the Wine API.

        Are you sure? All the digital cameras I've ever used have been USB Storage devices - so, presuming your Linux distribution is friendly about autodetecting and automounting, downloading photos from cameras can be no more esoteric than reading a file off your hard drive.
        • Re:suprise? (Score:2, Informative)

          by resiak ( 583703 )

          Lots of cameras use PTP [wikipedia.org], rather than USB Mass Storage. My Canon IXUS 55 is one example. I'm not sure why they do. =) Anyway, libgphoto is what's generally used to speak to such cameras.

        • Re:suprise? (Score:2, Informative)

          by msparshatt ( 877862 )
          Some cameras (like the Kodak Z740 that I use) use PTP for uploading pictures rather than USB mass storage. You need GPhoto in order to access the pictures from these sorts of cameras.
        • Re:suprise? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Bungopolis ( 763083 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @09:10AM (#15409000)
          Many digital cameras do not support a mass storage mode as you describe and can only operate using the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) [wikipedia.org], which also supports some more advanced features like remote-shooting (but Picasa doesn't support any of those). For this reason, libgphoto is very useful for Picasa because it provides the PTP communication layer that enables support for a much wider array of cameras.
    • Re:suprise? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Marcus Meissner ( 6627 ) <marcus@jet.franken.de> on Friday May 26, 2006 @11:00AM (#15409787) Homepage
      There are cameras that do not support Mass Storage. Notably the Canon cameras for instance (PowerShot, Digital IXUS, et.al.) and others.

      Second, Windows has several methods to interface with digital cameras. One of the is direct filesystem access (works just fine). The second is TWAIN. Originally just for scanners it is also used for digital cameras. On third, WIA (Windows Imaging Architecture).

      WINE already had a TWAIN implementation (written by Corel during WordPerfect 2000 times) but it was only able to use SANE, and not really able to use libgphoto2 in a good way.

      So what I did was to just add the lowlevel libgphoto TWAIN driver to WINE, and CodeWeavers provided a gphoto Import GUI for it. My part of work was small compared to the stuff the CodeWeavers people did.

      Voila - importing from any kind of cameras into Picasa.

      Btw, I think all of this is in regular WINE 0.9.14.

      Ciao, Marcus

  • Glorious (Score:4, Funny)

    by sunilhari ( 606555 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @07:54AM (#15408612)
    Step 1 - announce software
    Step 2 - make all your links to software dead
    Step 3 - Profit?
  • story title wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 )
    Should read Google releases Picasa that runs under wine.

    Picasa for linux would be a great thing, but it seems that a native version is either not in the interest of Google or out of their reach.

    I like Picasa but I really hate the half assed ness of releasing an app for "linux" when it's simply rewritten windows code so that it runs under Wine.

    Google, you want to gain the everlasting love of the linux people? Release a native picasa that does not use wine in any way, shape or form.

    Everyone remembers how wel
    • by brunes69 ( 86786 )
      The app does not "run under wine". It links against WineLib. Big sh*t.

      In this fashion it is absolutely no different than if the app linked to GTK or QT to release a "native" version. It is native. It is compiled for and runs under Linux without any API emulators or ABI interfaces required. That is the definition of a native application.

      All this aside, have you even downloaded the thing? From your comments I would venture you have not. It is extremely well-polished and as stable as the Windows version.

      As

      • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @09:01AM (#15408950) Homepage
        From your comments I would venture you have not. It is extremely well-polished and as stable as the Windows version.

        really? what crack are you smoking. I have tried it and I have ran into some of the below released bugs that the Picasa guys admit to.

        # You can't backup pictures or burn CDs
        # The system tray does not close with loss of focus
        If you bring up the media detector menu, you have to either start picasa or stop the media detector to get the menu to go away.
        # If you have a remote home directory, the performance may be poor. Picasa uses many small files in the ~/.picasa directory, and if the home directory is slow, then Picasa will be slow. Picasa will warn you if it detects your home directory is on NFS. To work around this, you can create the directory /var/opt/picasa with permissions 1777, and Picasa will use a subdirectory of that instead of ~/.picasa. See the comments in /opt/picasa/bin/wrapper.
        # Picasa notices don't stay on a given desktop.
        Picasa pops up notices to let you know it's found new photos or has added photos to its library. These notices come on the current desktop; some users would rather they stayed on the same desktop that Picasa itself was on.
        # On Ubuntu 5.10, the 'Ctrl-K' shortcut for keywords doesn't behave correctly.
        Using the menu works correctly.
        # Dual head video cards don't work properly with Picasa for slideshows and timelines and so operate in a fallback mode.
        # Blogging - the palette selector is truncated.
        You can't change colors of text while posting to your blog.
        # Music playback during slideshow doesn't work
        # The opening Picasa dialog has a spin loop and consumes a lot of CPU
        # We do not support browsing to hidden directories

        Funny I dont have those problems in the Windows version.

        You must be a microsoft developer to consider picasa "It is extremely well-polished and as stable as the Windows version." with some of those big show stoppers in there.

        The first one on the list is a major show stopper for me and nearly 50% of picasa users.

      • by Stalyn ( 662 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @09:11AM (#15409010) Homepage Journal
        The app does not "run under wine". It links against WineLib. Big sh*t.

        In this fashion it is absolutely no different than if the app linked to GTK or QT to release a "native" version. It is native. It is compiled for and runs under Linux without any API emulators or ABI interfaces required. That is the definition of a native application.


        Actually... from this post [winehq.com] on the Wine devel mailing list
        Many people assume that when porting a Windows app to Linux
        using Wine, the best thing to do is link Winelib into the
        application to create a native Linux application. Not so!
        It's just as effective, and a heck of a lot easier, to run
        the same binary on both Windows and Wine. So that's what the
        Picasa team did. Picasa for Linux uses slightly different
        text messages, but the .exe file is identical for both Windows
        and Linux.
        Can anyone confirm that the Windows and Linux binary are identical? If true it should be read as Google pays Codeweavers to fix Wine to run Picasa. Which I guess is still a good thing.
        • by 14CharUsername ( 972311 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @09:58AM (#15409344)
          Let's see...
          Windows version
          md5sum Picasa.exe:
          b8806a095619d3327e7e415af8b72d48 *Picasa2.exe

          Linux version
          md5sum /opt/picasa/wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Picasa2/Picasa2.exe
          b8806a095619d3327e7e415af8b72d48 /opt/picasa/wine/drive_c/Program Files/Picasa2/Picasa2.exe

          Yeah, its pretty much the same.

    • by Bungopolis ( 763083 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:27AM (#15408766)
      Wine is an implementation of the Windows API. It is not an emulator of any kind. It enables code written using it to run natively on non-Microsoft platforms. By extension of your logic it would seem that any application written using a library "intended" for use in the Linux world (such as Gaim and GTK+) cannot be considered "native" to Windows when ported to it, but this is clearly not the case. Using Wine may not be the nicest way to develop an application from the ground-up for Linux, but if it works, it works. What Google has released is indeed a native Linux application. Furthermore they have obviously made an extensive effort to improve both the code of Picasa and of Wine [google.com] to address any bugs in Wine that might have resulted in poor performance.
    • If they compiled with winelib then it would be a native Linux app. The rewriting would be to take out the stuff winelib doesn't support.

      I think that's a reasonable path to take when porting smaller apps. If Wine was 100% Windows compatible then you could take any Windows source code and compile it against winelib to get a native Linux binary.
    • Google, you want to gain the everlasting love of the linux people?

      Yeah, Google wants the love of all five of them.
    • Stop it.

      Google has indeed been working on Picasa, and it's finally available for download at http://labs.google.com/ [google.com] For the curious, here are a few tidbits about how it came to be. When Google wanted to port Picasa to Linux, they faced a problem: the Picasa team was busy working on new projects, and having them also do a native port would have taken a while. As an experiment, Google decided to give Wine a try. A quick look showed that much of Picasa already worked, but key features were missing: the

  • by ISoldMyLowIdOnEbay ( 802697 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:08AM (#15408668)
    Is it me or has Gooogle disappeared? Wouldn't have thought that the 3 linux users starting a download could have caused that... :-)
  • What kind of info does this upload to google?
  • First impressions (Score:5, Informative)

    by kkiller ( 945601 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:12AM (#15408694)
    Well it works.... just like the Windows version. With the exception of slightly crummy looking fonts in the menus, the interface is quite slick and near-identical to the original, and appears to be as fast and slick as the original. Nice job.

    One or two problems remain (and I'm sure more will pop up after I play with it for more than 10 minutes). It doesn't integrate into any desktop environment at all - its very much a Windows application hacked to bits so it runs smoothly in Linux, and it shows at points. With the exception of Desktop, it does not remember stored folders from either Konqueror or Nautilus, and maintains meaningless links to "My Documents", "My Pictures", "My Music" and other folders which don't exist in the file requesters. This could use some work.

    • None do (Score:4, Informative)

      by HalAtWork ( 926717 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @09:26AM (#15409118)
      A lot of applications don't really integrate well into the desktop, there's not much new about that. But people still use them. They all have to use their own widgets. QuickTime, MSOffice, WinAMP, MusicMatch JukeBox, Windows Media Player... even PhotoShop doesn't integrate well in Windows, FireFox struggles to integrate well with desktop environments other than Gnome (but is doing a better job than most cross-platform apps), etc...
    • C:\NGRDLTNS.W95 (Score:3, Informative)

      by r00t ( 33219 )
      They actually use the Windows binary instead of linking with winelib.

      This means they are 100% constricted by the Win32 ABI. There is no way to escape the worst of the Windowsisms, and no way to bypass things that are badly emulated.
  • Picasa and QT (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tvoglou ( 916088 )
    I though Picasa was written in QT... so porting it to linux it was supposed to be an easy task.

  • Works in Gentoo (Score:3, Informative)

    by rdwald ( 831442 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:13AM (#15408704)
    Using my excessively-modified Gentoo install, with the Ion window manager, it works perfectly...don't know what everyone else is complaining about.

    And before someone says something, no, I didn't try to compile it from source...
  • While this may not be a direct contribution to open source, at least we have the positive side-effect of corporate time enhancing the FOSS landscape in some way. Google mentions contributing code to Wine - and I appreciate that.

    Until someone decides to make an equivalent open-source version of Picasa, I'll gladly take a free version that enhances the community as a byproduct of its development.
  • by rdwald ( 831442 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:18AM (#15408727)
    Do you people honestly think that any Google software will be released as open source? Even their Firefox extensions aren't open source! They're relatively good about contributing back to existing open source projects, but I don't know of a single novel application they've written and then released as OSS. If you're not going to use any non-open software, don't download stuff from Google.
  • Possible motive? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:27AM (#15408765) Journal
    Why is Google all of a sudden releasing programs for desktops? Despite MS attitude towards them, Google actually seems to promote the 'Windows World View' of all things computing.

    Even the Linux-platform releases (like this one) use Windows concepts, architecture, standards etc. So long as Linux emulates Windows, its never gonna attain superiority as a better platform.

    Is it Googles intention to establish that Windows is indeed the better option for the computing world?
    -
    • Is it Googles intention to establish that Windows is indeed the better option for the computing world?
      It think its Google's intention to establish that Google is indeed the better option for the computing world. I don't think they have a whole lot of interest in getting too deeply into OS wars, except inasmuch as that may become relevant to their search war with Microsoft.
  • by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:30AM (#15408779)
    Thank you Google and CodeWeavers.

    I know there are 100 fair reasons to mod this post down, but it just seemed important to say.

    I often get depressed about changes to copyright law, patents, etc. which favor media companies at the expense of most citizens. This code contribution goes the other way. Thanks to everyone who worked on it.
  • Yes I know that other commercial vendors have previously released commercial apps for linux, but this step by Google is pretty bold; they are the first commercial software vendor to deliver a Linux application for the masses (acrobat reader doesn't count guys..)

    Linux for the masses has been suffering from the "chicken and egg" issue. Sure there is some awesome quality free (beer, speech etc.) software out there for Linux, but Windows and Mac still benefit from some must have (photoshop and al).
    As far as my
  • by msh104 ( 620136 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @08:48AM (#15408882)
  • Eeep! (Score:5, Funny)

    by baadger ( 764884 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @09:18AM (#15409053)
    Well this is [tinypic.com] one of the scariest things i've ever had to witness on my process list in recent times...
    • Re:Eeep! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Don't worry - you're safe... it's asleep. ... ..

      Just don't wake it up! :-o
  • by radarsat1 ( 786772 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @09:59AM (#15409356) Homepage
    What is this need for special software for "managing my photos", anyways?

    I never understood it...

    I just use a little thing called "directories". Hey, Nautilus and Thunar and Konqueror and Windows Explorer even have these nifty "thumbnail" things that allow me to see them all at once!

    Why would I need special software for this purpose?
    I'm honestly curious here... I've never been "managing my photos" and thought, "hey I wish I had a special application that could show me all the pictures in thumbnail format so I can organize them into directories..."

    Granted, I've never tried Picassa.
    What's so great about it?
    • Well, lots of people don't even need computers for managing their photo's. There's no definite answer to your question.

      But here's my experience. I use iPhoto to "manage" (very ugly word for the funfactor involved) about 10.000 pictures from the last six years.

      I import them by way of connecting the camera to my computer. It's literally a one button process. The pictures are kept in filmrolls (directories with cute filmroll icon and useful metadata), and I can then do a number of things to the pictures, like
  • by Kiaradune ( 222032 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @10:05AM (#15409396)
    Google have no obligations to the Linux/OSS communities, period. The fact that they've invested so much time, money and effort into not only their own Linux app, but also back to the Wine community should be applauded. Nobody is forcing you to use this. Don't like the way they've done it? Don't use it.

    Seriously, give them a break. They're making baby steps in the right direction. They've released what, a pre-beta via their labs? And so many people on Slashdot are expecting it to be a polished product... that's just wrong. Their forte is definitely not Linux desktop apps, but from the sounds of things, they certainly want to improve. Oh shock! They're not there on day 1. Or day 2. Well, Linux wasn't written in a day, nor were the plethora of other desktop apps for Linux.

    Let's not forget the human factor. Those programmers that worked on getting Picasa running on Google I'm sure would love some positive feedback to encourage them to continue working hard on it. I know I would. They're probably also unhappy that this pre-beta version isn't 'up to par' with the Windows version, but they're working on improving that. Reading their FAQ endeared the team that did this to me.

    As for Wine usage. Big deal. It's not like they're charging you $69 for the app. It works, and they aim to improve it. Sounds to me like they had a hard time trying to get it to work on so many different distros, instead of just say.. Red Hat. This project was only announced 4-5 months ago. Let's hope to see Google Earth before Christmas!
    • Thank you for saying this and I agree with you. I am so sick of Open Source zealots putting down good software because it isn't "free" or "libre" or whatever. JUST because it's Open Source does not mean it's good or better then a closed product. I, for one, am willing to use closed software that works well for me.....ie if it did not read jpg's, I would not use it but since it does.....

      Yes there's DigiKam. Yes there's Fspot. However people on Windows don't know how good those things are and when they m
  • Poorly designed (Score:4, Informative)

    by GRW ( 63655 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @10:10AM (#15409434) Homepage Journal
    I am not impressed. I installed this thing and it tells me that my pictures are located in Y:\pics instead of ~/pics. Also, it is too stupid to realize that the simlink on the desktop is the same directory and it indexes everything twice. Stupid!
  • by npsimons ( 32752 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @10:37AM (#15409610) Homepage Journal
    Kudos to Google for finally releasing end user software for the platform that their whole business is built on! Thank you to Google for funding development on Wine and advancing yet another piece of open source software! All that being said . . .


    No source? Okay, that's understandable (I guess), and I have to admit, I still buy closed source games (for Linux). But . . .


    It uses WINE? With all due respect to the hard work put in by CodeWeavers and countless others on WINE, WINE is not the answer. WINE is a stopgap measure, a way to open people's eyes to the power and Freedom of open source while still letting them use apps they are comfortable with. When you have the source code to an application and you use WINE to "port" it instead, that shows that you are either really lazy (which I'll grant is one of the three great virtues of programmers), or you aren't really interested in porting your software to Linux.


    And that's not even getting into the fact that WINE is ia32 only, so this only runs on one of the many platforms that Linux runs on. If they'd only open source it, I predict it would soon become a true port without WINE, and run on all platforms that Linux runs on.


    This isn't software for Linux; the correct title of this article should be "Google Donates Patches to WINE" with a sideline that WINE now runs Picasa.

If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro

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