svn commit: samba-web r995 - in trunk/news: articles/low_point team
deryck at samba.org
deryck at samba.org
Fri Jun 2 20:40:54 GMT 2006
Author: deryck
Date: 2006-06-02 20:40:54 +0000 (Fri, 02 Jun 2006)
New Revision: 995
WebSVN: http://websvn.samba.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi?view=rev&root=samba-web&rev=995
Log:
Add some articles to Jeremy's column archives.
deryck
Added:
trunk/news/articles/low_point/column12.html
trunk/news/articles/low_point/column13.html
trunk/news/articles/low_point/column14.html
trunk/news/team/low_point_update_2June06.html
Modified:
trunk/news/articles/low_point/index.html
Changeset:
Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column12.html
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--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column12.html 2006-05-31 16:04:43 UTC (rev 994)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column12.html 2006-06-02 20:40:54 UTC (rev 995)
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+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+ <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column 12</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point — a View from the Valley — Column 12</h2>
+
+<h3>“We are the champions...”</h3>
+
+<p>The sporadic Linux desktop wars erupted again recently. The first
+skirmish was a report criticizing my my own employer, Novell, saying
+they were “dropping support” for one of the favorite varieties of
+Linux desktop software, KDE (standing for “the Kool-Desktop Environment”
+in favor of GNOME (the “GNU Object Model Environment”). That was
+quickly followed by a retraction from Novell that KDE supporters hailed
+as a victory. The second ambush was from Linus Torvalds himself, claiming
+on the GNOME usability list that GNOME developers thought users were
+“idiots” and people should just “switch to KDE”. Whereupon the
+GNOME supporters invaded the pitch and a brisk battle with broken bottles
+occurred until the referee had to abandon the game. Sorry, wrong sport.
+But very similar supporters.</p>
+
+<p>Why are there two competing Linux desktop environments, both based
+on the underlying X Window System ? The answer lies in the split between
+the “Open Source” and “Free Software” philosophies. KDE was
+started first, in 1996 and made the mistake (to Free Software advocates)
+of selecting an initially non-Free Software toolkit technology called
+“Qt” created by a Norwegian company called TrollTech to base their
+desktop environment on. The fact that Qt wasn't Free Software wasn't
+a concern to the KDE developers, they just picked the best technology
+available at the time, damn the freedom of their users. This caused
+the Free Software camp to respond by creating GNOME, with a particular
+arrogance of their own. Usually, when software is mainly free and only
+dependent on one non-free component Free Software developers will work
+diligently to replace that non-free component with a compatible Free
+Software replacement. That isn't what they did with Qt. After an initial
+half-hearted attempt to replace Qt they decided to ignore all the amazing
+work already done by the KDE developers and instead thought they could
+quickly replace it by picking a Free Software toolkit called GTK (the
+“Gimp Toolkit”, originally created from scratch for the GIMP graphical
+manipulation tool). The KDE supporters kept coding, so did the GNOME
+people and after a long period of not talking we've reached the current
+situation today. Even after TrollTech eventually released the Qt toolkit
+under the GPL license the momentum behind the two software camps was
+too large to stop.</p>
+<p>This reminds me of something. Let's look back in time to 1994. I'd
+just arrived here in the Bay Area to work for Sun Microsystems on an
+exiting new grpahical toolkit called “OLIT”; the Open Look Interface
+Toolkit. At the time Sun and AT&T (who owned UNIX) were competing
+with a competing consortium of vendors called the OSF (Open Software
+Foundation, which included IBM and HP). One of the ways they were competing
+was with a choice of UNIX desktop environments. Sun and AT&T were
+backing “Open Look”. OSF had developed a competing technology called
+“Motif”. Both were based on the underlying X Windows System, the
+arguments were about what application API's that software vendors would
+use. Both systems, like KDE and GNOME, looked different to the users.
+This wasn't a Open Source/Free Software split, both systems were proprietary
+software, the argument was really about who would attract the most third
+party software to “win” the desktop war.</p>
+<p>I was fairly agnostic over this. Even though I was working on an
+Open Look toolkit, I was busily learning Motif (the “other” one)
+in my spare time. What really opened my eyes was going to a “X Windows”
+conference in San Jose, where all aspects of X Windows technology were
+being discussed. Both camps were there in force of course. My abiding
+memory is listening to one of the architects of the X Windows System
+(who I'll not name here for obvious reasons) answering questions from
+application developers. One question was from a developer working for
+Lotus Corporation, at that time the leading spreadsheet vendor (the
+“Lotus 123” product, if anyone can remember any non-Microsoft Office
+applications). She explained to him she was porting code over from Microsoft
+Windows, and wanted to know how she could make the printing code work,
+as on Windows you could just redirect the graphical commands to a printer
+object and you'd get the same output on paper as you did on screen.
+He fixed her with a steely glare and replied sternly “X is a <em>Windowing</em>
+system. It's not my <em>job</em> to tell you how to talk to your printer !”.
+I remember actually slapping my forehead on hearing that response. The
+Lotus developer walked out vowing never to develop on Motif or OpenLook
+again. Thus I can introduce the famous joke of the time.
+
+</p>
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none">
+<li>Question :“Who won the desktop wars between Motif and OpenLook
+?”</li>
+<li>Answer : “Microsoft Windows of course.”</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>At this point, asking the KDE and GNOME people to merge has as much
+chance as asking OpenLook and Motif to bury their differences did. About
+as useful as the “Can't we all just get along” appeal from Rodney
+King as Los Angeles rioted after the trial that acquitted the LAPD officers
+filmed beating him up. But I'm willing to stick my neck out and predict
+a long-term winner in the KDE/GNOME wars, but probably not for the reasons
+you might think. Technically they're both wonderful, I use both myself.
+What will cause the long term victory of GNOME is licensing.
+</p>
+<p>Most KDE applications are GPL licensed, as are most GNOME applications.
+The difference is in the licensing of the underlying toolkit. Qt is
+still owned by TrollTech who practice a successful Open Source business
+by dual licensing their product. It's available under the GPL for other
+GPL applications like KDE, but if you want to create a proprietary application
+you have to buy a developer license from TrollTech. The toolkit used
+in GNOME on the other hand is licensed under the LGPL. This allows use
+by proprietary applications without them having to be also under the
+GPL (and ship source code). There is no extra step of buying a developer
+license needed. This one crucial difference means the dominance of GNOME
+in the long term. Proprietary application vendors are lazy and cheap.
+I know as I used to do this for a living. One of the first things I
+did when coming into a new company was to switch out proprietary compilers
+for the Free Software GCC compiler. Not because it was better (although
+it was), but because it meant the developers didn't have to jump through
+one extra step to get licensing approval to buy a compiler to write
+code. That small extra step isn't really small. It means getting a purchase
+order and going through the purchasing approval department, as opposed
+to just downloading the compiler (or toolkit) and starting work.
+</p>
+<p>The Linux desktop is coming, and even though I'm a Free Software
+person I know that proprietary applications will be a big part of it.
+Increasingly those applications will be written to use GNOME, as the
+developers don't want to talk to purchasing. It's the little things
+that make a big difference in the end. I'll leave you with a song both
+the KDE and GNOME camps can sing along to.</p>
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0" class="credit">
+ <li>We are the champions my friend,</li>
+ <li>And we'll keep on fighting 'till the end.</li>
+ <li>We are the champions. We are the champions,</li>
+ <li>No time for losers, 'cos we are the champions.......</li>
+ <li>Of the world.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<br />
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+ <li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+ <li>Samba Team.</li>
+ <li>San Jose, California.</li>
+ <li>19th December 2005.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/footer.html" -->
Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column13.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column13.html 2006-05-31 16:04:43 UTC (rev 994)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column13.html 2006-06-02 20:40:54 UTC (rev 995)
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+ <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column 13</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point — a View from the Valley — Column 13</h2>
+
+<h3>Unintelligent Design</h3>
+
+
+<p>I'm the technical one in my family. There's almost always one, and
+if you're reading this magazine it's probably you. You know, the one
+who has to sort out computer problems, the one who has to reset the
+video recorder after a power cut, the person who knows how to work all
+the remote controls in the house. Over the Christmas holiday I visited
+my parents and brother back in Sheffield, and left my wife and her parents
+back home in California, and the trip taught me painful lessons about
+how completely <em>unusable</em> modern consumer electronics have become.
+</p>
+<p>The home front first. I have a modern TV with three inputs, and naturally
+enough three different devices that can output video into it. The TV
+and all the input devices have remote controls, and add to that a surround-sound
+system with a radio-controlled remote control that looks like a Star-Trek
+control pad and you've a recipe for chaos. I know how it works and can
+make it display anything, but then again I put it together. As soon
+as I walked out of the door my long-suffering wife and her parents wanted
+to watch a DvD and they were completely stumped. There are controls
+for changing the aspect ratio, color temperature, sound clipping and
+other esoterica that are completely unnecessary for simply watching
+a movie. They eventually retreated into the kitchen where there was
+an integrated TV and DvD with <em>one</em> remote control. They're not stupid,
+they knew exactly what they wanted to do but were completely unable
+to make an overly flexible system do the one simple thing they wanted.
+Remind you of any specific software yet ?</p>
+<p>The second battle occurred back in England, when I wanted to get
+my parents a new flatscreen TV for Christmas. Living in the states I
+knew vaguely that the digital switchover was happening back in the UK,
+and tried to do some research into what they'd need. My parents aren't
+scared of technology, far from it, my father was an early adopter of
+the DvD and regular readers might remember my Mum copes with a Linux
+machine as a desktop. But they are pensioners, and their eyes, ears
+and physical co-ordination aren't good. I found them the perfect TV,
+they were very happy with it until it came time for them to use the
+new remote control. The buttons on it were <em>tiny</em>. They kept hitting the
+wrong one and getting the damn thing into a mode where the easiest way
+to get it into a known state was to hit the power button off, then on
+again. That button was also small but at least had been arranged away
+from the other buttons so it was easy to find even if you can't see
+so well. No one over the ago of thirty had to have been involved in
+the product design of the thing. Either that or people who only communicate
+via text messages from tiny cell-phones. Eventually we copied out a
+large A4 image of the remote control onto paper, labeled all the useful
+buttons and taped it to the cupboard above the TV. So much for elegant
+design.</p>
+<p>Finally I had to help my brother, who is a newly qualified teacher,
+connect his laptop to the new expensive school blackboard device. Having
+had to turn up at various conferences around the world and get a Linux-running
+laptop connected to whatever projector they have available, often working
+with Windows-only trained staff I know a thing or two about getting
+laptops to connect to video devices, but this was the hardest setup
+I've ever had to work on. To make things worse he even runs Windows
+XP on his laptop, refusing to run Linux as he claims he needs full Microsoft
+Office compatibility (he still hasn't complained I put OpenOffice on
+it instead, maybe he hasn't noticed :-). To cut a long story short,
+it turned out his “auto-configuring/plug and play” Windows laptop
+refused to output to the projector device unless it was first connected
+to a standard external monitor, and <em>then</em> connected to the projector.
+If you want to know how this should work just Google for DDC/EDID to
+get the gory details. There was <em>no way</em> he could have figured this out
+himself given the messages the software was giving, he just thought
+his computer was broken.</p>
+<p>There are elegant and useful designs for consumer electronics, just
+not the ones I ran across last month. As an example of how successful
+they can be when someone designs something right look at the success
+of the Apple iPod. I'm not an big Apple fan (I gave up most proprietary
+software a while ago) but they do tend to get the usability aspects
+of these things right. I was terribly amused to read a complaint emailed
+from Bill Gates to the head of his Windows Media Center group that the
+remote control for their device has over thirty buttons, whilst the
+Apple one has six. In a nutshell that sums up the difference between
+Apple and Microsoft and their respective systems. But I can't smile
+too much, as Free Software is even <em>worse</em> than Microsoft in this respect.
+
+</p>
+<p>Our only hope is usability studies, like the ones done recently by
+the GNOME desktop developers, where they finally recognized errors like
+the “Send/Receive” button in the Evolution email program (I'd seen
+my Mum have problems with that for years and hadn't twigged as to why
+she was having difficulties with it). The problem at the moment is we
+design software for ourselves, the “technical” people in our family.
+We have to remember that <em>we're not normal</em>. We have to learn to see technical
+devices and software as others see them. Feeling a sense of pride in
+getting a device to do what we want doesn't mean we're clever, it means
+the design was wrong.</p>
+<p>I'll leave you with a quote by Marcus J Ranum, from the old classic
+“the Unix-Haters Handbook” available for free download if you have
+a few hours spare for a fun read. It's very relevant even today.
+</p>
+<p class="credit">“If the designers of X Windows built cars, there would be no fewer
+than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed
+the same principles – but you'd be able to shift gears with your car
+stereo. Useful feature, that”.</p>
+
+
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+<li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+<li>Samba Team.</li>
+<li>San Jose, California.</li>
+<li>14h January 2006.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/footer.html" -->
Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column14.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column14.html 2006-05-31 16:04:43 UTC (rev 994)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column14.html 2006-06-02 20:40:54 UTC (rev 995)
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+ <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column 14</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point — a View from the Valley — Column 14</h2>
+
+<h3>Why we fight</h3>
+
+<p>The Free Software Foundation (FSF) released a new draft of their
+General Public License last month, the GPL version 3. The previous version
+was pretty successful: it's lasted fifteen years and is the license
+chosen by over seventy percent of all Free Software projects including
+my own project, Samba. I went to Boston, Massachusetts to take part
+in the publicity around the launch, and to help form “Committee A”,
+one of three groups who have been asked to raise any issues that reviewers
+of the new license might find and pass them on to the original author
+and founder of the FSF, Richard Stallman, so he can decide if they need
+addressing.</p>
+<p>The GPL has always been a somewhat contentious software license.
+It was born out of anger over Non-Disclosure Agreements imposed by proprietary
+vendors and has come under much criticism for it's “viral” nature:
+in essence, if you distribute software under the GPL any modifications
+you might make to it must also come under the same license terms. Rather
+than the pejorative term “viral” I prefer to call it the nursery
+school principle of “share and share alike”. But it's getting a
+little old to confront some of the direct threats that Free Software
+is coming under from the new opponents of freedom, the “Intellectual
+Property” crowd, whose ultimate goal is to apply property law and
+ownership to every idea and expression of human creativity.
+
+</p>
+<p>The GPL version 2 wasn't written to address the world of 2006. Back
+in 1991 when it was written the main threats to freedom came from proprietary
+software vendors, who wanted to lock up all software code in “black
+boxes”, preventing any studying of code, or education from it. Those
+people are less of a threat these days, as the healthy ecosystem of
+Free Software developers and companies encourages more and more old
+proprietary vendors to join in to gain the benefits of an ever expanding
+pool of open code. I think that's a battle that we can say we're ultimately
+going to win, or at least create a world of peaceful co-existence, where
+people have the choice of a Free Software alternative for ultimately
+all of their computing needs. Don't forget that “computing needs”
+are fast moving out of the realm of luxury and into that of necessity
+for basic communication between people, as more and more of our daily
+lives move online. This is no insignificant feat for Free Software.
+</p>
+<p>The main changes proposed for the GPL version 3 are to combat two
+fearsome new threats, and to make some changes to help expand the Free
+Software universe by bringing more Free Software licenses into compatibility
+with the GPL. After seeing an early version several years ago which
+was a very different document to what was published last month I must
+confess I'm extremely happy with the proposed new license. It makes
+what Isaac Asimov in his wonderful science fiction novel “The End
+of Eternity” might have called the “minimum necessary change”
+to the license to achieve these goals. Of course he was referring to
+the dangerous changes to reality that could be caused by time travel,
+and I'm only talking about license texts, but the principle is the same
+:-).</p>
+<p>The two threats are those of software patents, which have become
+a worse scourge on the industry than could possibly have been imagined
+back in 1991, and the true evil of what is called “Digital Rights
+Management” or DRM, but really should be termed “Digital <b>Restrictions</b>
+Management”. Software patents threaten to choke off the very building
+blocks of all software, not just Free Software, but DRM threatens the
+very existence of an open society: moving towards a world where the
+public library cannot exist, as the viewing of all digital books, music,
+movies and art is restricted by their owners and permission must be
+explicitly granted for every “performance”: that's <em>reading a book</em>
+to you and I.</p>
+<p>The GPL version 3 is just a license after all, and on it's own can't
+cure the sickness that leads to either of these things. But it can make
+sure that software that implements DRM restrictions isn't ever allowed
+under the GPL version 3 license. In other words, people wanting to implement
+DRM have to write their own code, not get a free ride on GPL software.
+Whenever you hear apologists for the “content” industries decry
+the additional prohibitions on DRM code in the GPL version 3 - remember
+this, it's only requesting that they write their own code to restrict
+your freedom. Use of the pool of software created under the GPL is a
+privilege granted to those who play by the rules, not a right for people
+wishing to destroy it.</p>
+<p>I urge all to readers take a look at the online comment site for
+the GPL version 3, at :</p>
+<p><a href="http://gplv3.fsf.org">http://gplv3.fsf.org</a></p>
+<p>and get involved by reading and reviewing the proposed license. You've
+got a year to do so, so there's no rush. If you see a bug in the license
+please add a comment to it and explain the problem. One important matter
+to realize is that most of the Free Software projects out there contain
+language allowing them to be distributed under the terms “either version
+2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version”. What this
+means was pointed out to me in Boston by Andrew Tridgell, the original
+author of Samba and someone who tends to think of language in the same
+way as code (and who incidentally was awarded the FSF Free Software
+award at the same meeting). If the GPL version 3 has a problem with
+it that allows someone to figure out a way around the intent of the
+new license, this essentially creates an exploitable “security hole”
+in all Free Software published under the GPL and prevents the “share
+and share alike” principle. It's extremely important that the new
+license be completely bullet-proof when first published, we won't get
+a chance to recall a mistake. Please help us to pore over every possible
+meaning to get this right the first time. Unchecked, DRM will affect
+all of us, we need to fight to protect our Free Software digital future.
+</p>
+
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+<li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+<li>Samba Team.</li>
+<li>San Jose, California.</li>
+<li>19th February 2006.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/footer.html" -->
Modified: trunk/news/articles/low_point/index.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/index.html 2006-05-31 16:04:43 UTC (rev 994)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/index.html 2006-06-02 20:40:54 UTC (rev 995)
@@ -21,6 +21,9 @@
<li><a href="column09.html">Column 9 — Freedom Fighters</a></li>
<li><a href="column10.html">Column 10 — Macho Geek Madness</a></li>
<li><a href="column11.html">Column 11 — The Land of Nothing for Free</a></li>
+ <li><a href="column12.html">Column 12 — We are the champions...</a></li>
+ <li><a href="column13.html">Column 13 — Unintelligent Design</a></li>
+ <li><a href="column14.html">Column 14 — Why we fight</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The following article was rewritten for publication in
Added: trunk/news/team/low_point_update_2June06.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/team/low_point_update_2June06.html 2006-05-31 16:04:43 UTC (rev 994)
+++ trunk/news/team/low_point_update_2June06.html 2006-06-02 20:40:54 UTC (rev 995)
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+ <h3><a name="low_point_update_2June06">Low Point Archive Update</h3>
+
+ <div class="article">
+ <p>Three new columns have been added to the
+ <a href="/samba/news/articles/low_point/">archive of Jeremy Allison's
+ Low Point columns</a>. Check out
+ <a href="/samba/news/articles/low_point/column12.html">We are the champions...</a>,
+ <a href="/samba/news/articles/low_point/column13.html">Unintelligent Design</a>,
+ and <a href="/samba/news/articles/low_point/column14.html">Why we fight</a>.
+ Jeremy shares his thoughts on the Linux desktop, designing for users,
+ and GPL v3 in this round of articles.</p>
+
+ <p>As always, Jeremy provokes thought and entertains, so check out
+ the columns when time allows.</p>
+ </div>
+
+
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