A Look at GNOME 2.14 602
An anonymous reader writes "Gnome has a nice preview of their newest version 2.14 posted which should be hitting the streets around the 15th of March. From the article: "As well as new features and more polish, developers have been working around the clock to squeeze more performance out of the most commonly used applications and libraries. This is a review of some of the most shiny work that has gone into the upcoming GNOME release."
Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
SW Dualprocessing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Progress! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not call it collaboration instead. OS X is using like 50 GNU programs straight off, source and everything. Gnome (Which is part of GNU) is borrowing some ideas, but not code from OS X. "Knocking off" seams like a bad thing when both GNU and Apple are using eachohers ideas and it's probably benifitial for both projects.
Program Naming (Score:4, Insightful)
I use linux both at home and at work, so I'm not some anti-linux zealot or something- I think it's a legitimate question to raise. On my mac laptop, I have a handy app for browsing mDNS networks called Rendezvous Browser (since mDNS was once called Rendezvous). The name is simple and describes perfectly what the program does. On the other hand, 90% of the linux applications available have names that look like they were chosen by picking random letters and squishing them together. I'm sure that the programmers think they've very clever by choosing a name that means something in some obscure language- or they just thing the name sounds cool- but that simple lack of meaningful names is detrimental. If I start up a GNOME session and want to use network meeting functionality, how is there any possible way that I could guess that "Ekiga" is the application I'm looking for?
open and save dialogs (Score:1, Insightful)
The Linux desktop is finally coming into it's own (Score:5, Insightful)
We also do need to thank the artists that put in the time to create the icons and mouse cursors for us. You can put in all the anti-aliasing you want, but if something like the icons dont look good, people get put off. I'm just really happy for the Gnome guys and all I can say is, "keep it up, you're doing a great job!"
Linux is about choice. I wouldn't want either Gnome or KDE to wipe each other out. They need to co-exist simply to show Windows users that there is a choice available if not for anything else
Re:Program Naming (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes that name makes perfect sense. What exactly is Rendezvous, again?
If I start up a GNOME session and want to use network meeting functionality, how is there any possible way that I could guess that "Ekiga" is the application I'm looking for?
The menu will probably say "Internet Telephony" next to it. GNOME is pretty good about labeling the programs.
Naming (Score:3, Insightful)
Oooh! Ekiga is a much more meaningful name than GNOME Meeting. GNOME naming just gets better and better. I know the last time I wanted to search for font information, overly sexually active monkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo [wikipedia.org] was the very first thing that popped into my head.
Re:Program Naming (Score:5, Insightful)
While I don't disagree that a lot of OSS software uses poor naming onventions, as an OSS developer myself, I can understand the reasons behind it.
Let's face it -- the obvious descriptive names are typically already taken. OSS developers want to write software -- they don't want to have to spend a lot of time doing name searches in order to ensure they aren't infringing on a trademark used by some tiny software house out in BF Nowhere, and they typically don't have the resources to fend off a legal attack. Thus, the tendancy these days is to pick (or make up) some sort of really obscure name that hopefully isn't going to attract negative attention from litigation-happy corporate lawyers, and then hopefully make a name for yourself.
Naming is difficult, even within the corporate world. But at least within the corporate world you have people who can do research on existing trademarks, and will hopefully come up with a suitable name for your new product -- and then have the lawyers to fight it as necessary. OSS projects don't have such resources.
Just take a look at your own example -- "Rendevous". Apple was forced to change the name to "Bonjour" due to trademark infringement with another company.
If Apple, with its bevy of lawyers and billions of dollars, can run into such a problem, what is the poor OSS developer to do? Picking some obscure name that nobody is likely to call their product is a good (but hardly guaranteed) way to avoid the problem in the first place.
Yaz.
Re:Program Naming (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if things have been installed and set up properly "Ekiga" will be under the "Internet" sub-menu of the "Applications" menu, and the entry itself will read something like "Ekiga video-conferencing" with a tooltip saying something like "Communicate with others using text, voice phone calls, or video conferencing". You hold up "Rendezvous Browser" as a well named application because it's clear what it does, but it really begs the question: what the hell is Rendezvous and what does it do? I think the GNOME approach - to choose a distinctive name and pair that with a concise description - is a very good one. You can't have everything named after what it does or else things quickly get pointlessly confused, so distinctive names are good - as long as you pair that with a description of what the app does so people can find it easily. You'll find GNOME conforms to that pretty well, and the result (always having descriptive menu entries and explanatory tooltips for those entries) actually makes for a system where it is easier to find what you want.
Jedidiah.
Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
when you remove the DRM from the code, you remove the ability to decode the DRM content.
how is this different from simply not installing the DRM-enabled plugins in the GNOME product, aside from being far more difficult and pointless?
Re:Will it be in FC5 or Ubuntu 6.next? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but the clever people at Ubuntu have managed to find a (patent-pending) way to keep their standard 6 month release cycle nicely in sync with the Gnome standard 6 month release cycle. I don't have time to explain to you how it works, though. Sorry.
Re:Program Naming (Score:2, Insightful)
A name should be descriptive, or a name should take on a life of its own. It's ones in between that cause the confusion, but very few products / apps are instantly successful to become their own identity.
Geeks like geek-speak. Urban kids like their slang. etc...
Re:SW Dualprocessing (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Program Naming (Score:3, Insightful)
My personal preference is a word, made up or no, followed by a descriptive subtitle. So, Ekiga Softphone, GIMP Image Editor (ignore the redundancy), Sabayon Administration Tools (or whatever it is), and so on. I really dislike the coopting of generic terms like "Windows" or "Word". Granted, they have the adjective "Microsoft" in front, but Microsoft also claims a trademark on "Windows" (and "Word" too?). I would prefer something like Microsoft So-and-so (or just so-so) Word Processor as the full name.
That said, "weird" sounding names are very off-putting, such as "kubuntu" (even though it's an actual word), "GIMP", KDE's "keverything", and other prefixes such as "x", "g", and "gtk", and many others I can't think of at the moment. Strangely enough, I don't dislike "Ogg Vorbis" in the least. I guess it's a matter of taste. The post mentioning trademark clashes had a good point though in favor of "weird" names.
So what to do? Well, not much but be an armchair program-name disapprover. Doesn't horse racing have a committe that approves names of horses? Not that I'd ever suggest that, but it's an interesting thought.
Re:Progress! (Score:4, Insightful)
Congratulations (Score:5, Insightful)
I just wish for one thing, and that is that the Gnome and KDE people would cooperate on clipboard and drag and drop standards so that software from one would work in that department at least in the other.
Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM is just a propietary file format to keep people tied to a software just like CSS is a very succesful way to control the dvd-player market. It's not there to keep people away from seeing video. By implemeting DRM support you break the main purpose of DRM
The one reason why itunes sells DRMed songs is because in 5-10 years, everyone who bought itunes songs will NEED to buy a ipod to listen those songs, no matter if by that time ipod is the worst and more expensive player of the galaxy. You're stuck with apple products
The same goes for DRM'ed
So DRM is just a closed document format. But instead of being a standard closed format which can be reverse-ingeniereed, they use crypto to make the "perfect closed format": A closed format that can't be reverse-enginereed. By allowing people to use DRM in other systems you break the purpose of DRM. But yes, DRM should be avoided. It's ironic that DRM has been created in the country that is supposed to love capitalism - DRM keeps me away from choosing products from other companies which is what the capitalism is about.
Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people are going to want to run and use DRM-ified content. You are trying to restrict their rights to do so by demonizing a technology that can not be evil so as to push forward your own agenda. Information does not want to be free, it can't want anything. Software does not have rights, computers do not have rights. People do have the right to use their system the way they want, and that includes choosing systems that use DRM.
A truly free system allows the user to choose how to use it, it is not one where the developers force their agenda.
Re:Program Naming (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:KDE? (Score:3, Insightful)
When I want a painting of a UI then, I'll talk to GNOME. Since I want to actually *USE* the UI, I'll stick with kde
Re:Link KDE/GNOME applications w/ Motif library? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not as crazy as you think. If you need to migrate a large Xt and Motif application to a modern toolkit, that's the most sensible solution. And the exact reason why the TT has developed the Qt Motif Extension. The Qt Motif Extension provides a complete and working solution for incremental migration. http://doc.trolltech.com/3.3/motif-walkthrough.ht
Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets be clear. DRM is not evil. Abuse of it's functionality and usage from RIAA/MPIAA is, well, it is close to stupid and shortsighted (at least so far - region coding for DVD for price fixing, requesting DRM for bough songs in Internet shops like iTunes). But there are lot of LEGAL and UNDERSTANDING uses of DRM in multimedia, even for small media companies.
I understand that music and movie cartel actions is something is should not taken lightly, however, such hyperbole which are claimed by RMS and other "wisle blowers" are too much. Fight companies which abuse DRM, don't fight DRM itself. Because by itself it is just one of technologies to allow copyright holders have their rights fullfilled. If it is abused to limit anything.
It is NOT a black/white situation. And claiming that Fluendo is doing just to give "control of Linux desktop media to cartels" are plainly overblown and childish claim. Fluendo actually created LEGAL mp3 plugin for you to use, freerly. you can download it at their webshop, put it in your home directory, and vola - no half-legal repositories, no endless searching. It is just works.
And by the way, Xine is illegal to distribute in US with mp3/divx/quicktime support. It is just by the way. Mplayer too.
Of course, there is "nothing wrong" with these apps in geeks view. But it totally wrong to think that any distro will get ANY kind of support for those prioritary formats out there with such attitude. Oh, you don't want prioritary formats? What about your XVID videos? What about divx movies? Mp3? Quicktime trailers which geeks love so much? Haven't got enough?
Be real. There is world out there which are seeking compromises not always screaming about something they don't like. And trolling (yes, such claims about Fluendo ARE trolls) won't help not your cause, nor KDE, nor Linux desktop overall.
Re:Program Naming (Score:4, Insightful)
The French word meaning "a meeting". Maybe in your attempt at making a point you meant Bonjour [apple.com].
The point he was making was that a perfectly meaningful name was intentionally obscured for who knows why. Also I've never heard ZeroConf Networking Browser on any platform, but I know of Bonjour on Windows and Macintosh, as well as being listed on a lot of printer boxes lately.
Where's an integrated spellcheck? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why hasn't gnome got on the ball with this?
Re:BSD, not GNU (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares about features (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Advanced GNOME configuration (Score:4, Insightful)
I should be able to explore the majority of the useful functionality just by opening the application and clicking through it.
You should bloody well be able to explore ALL of the functionality, PERIOD. There is simply no excuse for ANY of the configuration options not to be exposed within easy/obvious reach and explorable in as much or as little detail as desired. Don't want to put off beginners? It's dead simple to cater to both beginners and in depth users. It's as simple as putting an "Advanced Preferences" line under the "Preferences" line in the "Edit" menu on the app. Hello? Gnome? Anybody home? How hard is that, damnit!?
Re:Biggest change: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Are You Serious? Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
And when that day comes, if it ever does, there will be great rejoicing.
Re:Ironic choice for app that has ... (Score:4, Insightful)
They're not. Gnome Terminal is a good indicator of how fast their font rendering is now. Don't confuse the benchmark programs with the actual technology.
They put attention towards font rendering.. gnome terminal can render anti-aliased fonts faster than an unanti-aliased xterm.
Re:Will I be able to configure the screensaver? (Score:4, Insightful)
From the gnome-screensaver FAQ [gnome.org]:
Why doesn't the screensaver preferences tool allow me to change the settings for the theme?
We are trying to take a different approach. We would prefer for the themes to simply work.
From Bug 316654 - no ability to configure the different screensavers [gnome.org], which is resolved and marked WONTFIX:
I don't have any plans to support this. My view is that any screensaver theme that requires configuration is inherently broken.
From Bug 316655 - no ability to full screen preview individual screensavers [gnome.org], which is also resolved and marked WONTFIX:
There are no plans to implement this feature. I don't think this feature solves any real problems.
Res ipsa loquitur.
Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole reason why GStreamer started was to create a framework that would enable these "ugly" DRM plugins. GStreamer has hurt the multimedia effort on Linux and the Free Desktop because they stole talented developers from much more mature projects like Xine [xinehq.de], MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu], and VLC [videolan.org]. In other words, they further fragmented the developer base purely for the selfish, immoral purpose of ramming DRM down Linux users' throats.
Of course, they've tried to sugar coat this in order to attract developers (heck, their propaganda machine is quite good) but the fact remains that GStreamer is technologically inferior to Xine even now (Xine has a much cleaner, light-weight, robust API than GStreamer can hope to achieve in a long time).
Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are You Serious? Seriously? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, Word sucks, but it sure beats writing a typical document from the command line. And Excel doesn't suck. In fact, it's by far and away the best piece of software ever written. I know I'll be flamed for saying that, but I kindly ask you all: Is there any other software out there that is in general use, that actually works, that is easily usable for novices and skilled users alike and that is as versatile?
The biggest problem with Excel is that almost all other software have serious flaws. Thus, people use Excel for purposes it is definitely not suited for, primarily "databases" (I use that term loosely here).
It's like if someone developed a 2005 VW Golf in 1920. All the other cars and trucks would be terrible by comparison, and everyone and his mother would use the Golf for all kinds of purposes. And it would take two minutes to complain that too little cargo will fit, even though the actual problem is a lack of a proper truck.