On Thu, 2007-01-04 at 13:34 -0500, William Case wrote: Snip > The second expectation I had for Linux, is that somewhere amongst all > the normal routine applications, programs and development that a living > Operating System needs, would be a few inventive, radical experimenting > people who would be trying new things way before their time. I have > looked throughout the Linux world and have not had that expectation met. > I suppose the article referred to hinted at the hope someone would take > up the user's gauntlet. > > Thanks for lending me your ear (eye?). Hi, Bill, The comments you made prior to the one above were spot on! As to the one above, there are lots of innovative things going on in Linux, from robotics and artificial intelligence to personal portable devices; from CD's and DVD's that will mount and boot with the OS running, to the massively parallel computers running up to 1.7 teraflops (one being designed is for over 17 teraflops); AI projects that include an animated human body, CAM and CASE tools, even stock market predictive tools. Music programs, video editing programs, games, distributed computing, communications process experiments, and even amature radio systems with packet communications are all being done on Linux. My personal interest is robotics and stereo vision tools, with some interest in radar visualization. So I guess I am wondering what kind of radical tools you are thinking about? There is a force driving the user interface toward windows and away from the CLI, which I think is OK, but the CLI offers much more potential for voice interface type systems and is a better model for that. Some of the new video interfaces, using cameras to track the users body movements or eye movements are good also, and I have not seen the video interfaces on Linux yet, but I have no direct interest in that form of interface. However, I think if you google video tracking or video interface type queries you would find some Linux work going on there as well. I have not seen natural language translation software either, although the number of font packages available would show you the interest in Linux world wide, so I think it is safe to believe that such translation tools are in development somewhere if not everywhere. I also believe that there is a core of interested, participating individuals in most colleges, as many schools support the distribution of Linux software by hosting archives. Many of the larger schools are active in one or more "Linux Labs" where active learning and development in Linux take place everyday. So, what is the interest you have that is not being met at this time? Regards, Les H
