Tim Kossack wrote:
Am Sa, den 07.02.2004 schrieb Peter Boy um 13:10:Hmmm, seems to me that Sun's Java Desktop is not free. I suspect that Sun pays licensing fees for some things included in their Desktop.
Am Fr, den 06.02.2004 schrieb Tim Kossack um 17:51:
(sorry for the long response)
i tried to verify your statement in looking what comes included with
rhws, but i couldn't gather any info if it ships with those plugs
installed. given red hat's general stance in regards shipping
non-oss/free legally questionable whatever software as part of their
products, quite frankly i would be very surprised if they do.
The current RH wegsite is not very clear about what is included in detail. In the old days you could find a listing of the conent of each included CD. I'm missing that, too.
Of course, you will not find mp3 plugin, DeCSS and so on which may rise
legal or patent issues in the US. But you should find (at least I read
about it elsewhere) other ingrediens like Java, Acrobat and alike.
(ok... if not something _new_ and interesting comes up here, i'm out after this one - this gets too much timeconsuming and repetative!)
if so, one step into the right direction...
1. sun (us - based company) ships with all the other plugs, means media
player, java, mp3 (not sure about flash)
http://wwws.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/index.html
I can only presume that you have not worked for any commercial software company that is abiding by copyright laws. Particularly if you want to ship internationally.they also don't seem to have that "oss-compliance-problem" that red hat seems to have: "look, customer, uh yeah, we know our competition includes this stuff, but because it's somehow not in compliance with the oss-license, we're sorry we can't. so now you know this, you _do_ understand why you get less for same price here, don't you? besides, if you want this stuff, you can of course include it by yourself, but because it's not part of our offering, we aren't responsible for any problems occuring if you do (you might even loose your warranty)!" that's just _insane_ - i really don't envy red hats sales...!
I support Red Hat's ideals here. Maybe it will cause a move to oss and license-free solutions for more things (the common one brought up is mp3, maybe we can move to ogg or the like).
I don't know about Mandrake or Suse but Sun & Lindows are not free as far as I have seen...as far as the "apples to oranges"-comparison is concerned, my critics
was and is primarily aimed at their commercial desktop offerings
OK. missed that. We are on the fedora list here.
Some plugins you are talking about (e.g. mp3) are rarely essential
ingredients of a commercial desktop. Others are available (e.g. Java).
again - sun, lindows, mandrake and partly suse are strongly disagreeing
with you (and red hat).
WinXP home is about 2/3's of what Win98 was. WinXP pro provides more function (at more cost) and Win2003Server provides more function (at more cost) and starts to become equal to FC1 (IMHO).it's just that i'm asking myself why they seem not interested at all to
tackle the issues (let alone seeing that there's one in the first
place), when their competition seems not having to have any problems
acknowledging and adressing them...
The recent changes may be their way to address them
my impression is basically that red hat hasn't at all understood (orHm, MS offers a XP home and a XP Pro
needs to show it yet that they have) what makes a really polished
desktop distribution. i don't make any difference between a good desktop
for home use and a good desktop for businesses. neither does market
leader microsoft. ....
i'm curious -what are the differences between xp home and xp pro besides
that one is up to dual-cpu and the other just for single cpu, and
especially reg. plugs and usability?
But before you just said that you don't know the difference between WinXP Home and WinXP Pro!getting in danger to sound circular, a good desktop is a good desktopYou need a good "desktop basic infrastructure", which may be the same
because it's a good overall desktop.
for home and corporate usage (but populated with different pieces). As I
argued in my previous post, Red Hat is the one who heavily invested in
development of such a "desktop basic infrastructure" (using existent OSS
components and combining them in a new way). And they are the only one
of the big Linux distributors (but I don't know Lindows)
i don't know what you exactly mean by "desktop basic infrastructure". if we both mean the same, i' d say that suse, sun, ximian are at least as heavily involved in developing the "d.b.i"-parts as red hat is. also, they all rely on those same projects as core for their desktop offerings - can't see red hat doing anything "new" or different here! as for mandrake and lindows: they don't have the resources to play an important role in the big projects like kde, gnome, openoffice etc., but they're taking the stuff developed there and refining it, closing the gaps with selfdeveloped stuff etc.
as far as usability and plugs are concerned, i already stated that for the life of me i can't figure out why there should be any difference between home and corporate usage (neither do microsoft, sun, lindows, mandrake and to a lesser extent suse), and that i regard that "difference" an artificial one, a poor excuse for poor usability (or lack of plugs).
Isn't Lindows targeting the home market, trying to look as much like Windows as possible.
Home users typically don't require the same degree of networking domain stuff and other tools that are more key in the corporate environment. Also home users are more likely to require video and mp3 players, game performance, etc.
Hmm, I don't see a lot of usability difference between FC1 and Windows. My kids seem to be able to use FC1 with virtually no instruction. I'm sure my elderly Mom would have difficulty as she sometimes has woes with Windows (but mostly stability problems so maybe not).i just miss them going the extra-mile which oneThey did, see above.
should and could expect from the market leader.
they don't. they do the basic stuff as you outlined above, but then leave the extra polishing to mandrake, lindows, sun etc. means they sew, but leave the crop of their efforts to others (or at least the others are making more out of it)...
then, besides certain undoubted advantages - i also see a problem withIn theory you may be right. But in reality there were a lot of
the "community-based" approach, namely because the community around red
hat's testbed - fedora - consists mainly of geeks, means people who want
all the latest stuff, who know about configuring linux, where to get
stuff that's missing etc. therefore, they are mostly satisfied with
the ease-of-use, amount of polish/status quo.
discussion here about usability for non-geek users.
not enough by far!
Yast is not a menu system nor a desktop, but a configuration tool.Rh is the first distro with a usable, structured menu system and desktopwhat are you talking about? you might call suse, mandrake etc.
to be meant "for work". Compare it to thw bloaded SuSE, Mandrake, ...
menues and destops. It needed a lot of developement efforts to make it
work. It's not perfect yet, but a huge step into the right direction.
So, contrary to your statement, you might say RH was the first distro
which made some real efforts to bring Linux on the end users's desktop.
"bloated", but afaik, many suse/mandrake users are appreciating yast or
mandrake control center etc.
Regarding the menues and the desktop SuSE is "basically waiting for ...
kde" as you wrote (not RH).
suse is afaik as heavily involved into kde as red hat is into gnome. and yes, both could do more atop their efforts in these projects...
They try to extend the KDE menue and you
find a SuSE menue inside a (hidden) KDE menue, but the menue editor
shows you the kde menue first, menue entries are doubled, they install a
lot of software which does not show up in the menue, the don't obey
different context (e.g. the configuration menue entry in their Gnome
menue opens the Kde configuration). And there are many more examples of
the un-usability of the SuSE desktop (or Mandrake - not so bad as SuSE).
just because the other distros might no be perfect, it doesn't mean that they not at least having recognized how important usability/plugs are, and trying their best (ok, maybe not suse) to improve it. red hat doesn't do it's best, at least what they consider "best" is not enough.
In short: I can't see any proof for your theses that SuSE (or others)
have a better polished desktop (desktop - not quantity of delivered
software)
look - leaving this plugin issue aside (which, again, _does_ make a huge
difference) - they're tons of reviews out there which are outlining the
pros and cons of the various desktops. my impression is that red hat's
desktop offerings (up2 red hat 9, rhpw seems not to be much different
reg. usability - maybe partly in plugs) are - in terms of overall
desktop experience - _last_, and that the gap is widening, not closing.
to continue that discussion, we'd need to get into the details, the
differences (advantages) of the mentioned distributions. i've experiences with suse 8.x, red hat 8+9, lindows (fresh install).
as and when time allows, in order to not rely on other people's reviews
(which nevertheless should contain enough descriptions of concrete
adavantages of other distros over red hat), i'll try to also install
mandrake, suse 9.x, (can't get sun for free) over the next few weeks and
post the findings. besides, running linux and windows side by side as i
do can sometimes be a real eye-opener!
at least suse seems to have been able to make a profit from their normalThey are not. They are heavily sponsored by IBM, they had to cut down
distribution,
their stuff, they had to switch to a smaller office suite, .....
ok.
even if it's correct that red hat was the first to bring linux on theIt's an open race (with Red Hat currently being (slightly) in front?).
enduser's desktop, so what? fact is, nearly every other distro aiming at
the desktop has surpassed red hat's offerings regarding usability and
completeness by a more or less wide margin - at least they are seeing
the issue that needs to get adressed.
no way, s. a.
But the finishing line, the criteria who will be the first, is subject
to decision while the race is going on. If the criteria is "feature
richness" SuSE may win. If the criteria is a smaller, but well
integrated und functional software, specifically selected for your work,
Red Hat may win. And there more criteria which can be combined and will
result in different decisions.
can't see the contradiction you seem to see here, to the contrary, both
"feature richness" as well as "integration" are two requirements to
achieve good usability.
One thing that has long bothered me with Windows (other than the sky-rocketing license fees) is the fact that they bundle so much junk with it. Rather than shipping a somewhat buggy operating system with lots of glitz and games & stuff why could they not put more effort into simply shipping a sold operating system at a reasonable cost. However, just like presentations to higher management it seems that glitz is what sells and Windows has caught on madly so that now the prices can go even higher. Linux, on the other hand, is a solid operating system and Red Hat has done a good job (IMHO) of packaging it up with a raft of other open software for your free use. So maybe it is time to work with them and suggest ways to improve things, within their constraints of course. Or maybe even come up with a groundbreaking desktop idea, implement it on Linux and release it as free oss ?
It is true that FC has room for improvement, that is life in software but it ain't as bad as you make it out to be. I'm looking forward to FC2 !
Just my CAD$0.02,
Mike
