while at my sister's place a couple weeks back my brother-in-law, mark, asked about linux and if we could install it on his system. at first i thought, "oh man. i'm supposed to be here enjoying myself, i don't know if i want to have to support someone through the process of switching to linux ...." and then i caught myself. i mean, this is 2007 not 1997. if we can't make it now, when can we?
so we downloaded a linux distro (kubuntu), threw another hard drive in his computer and installed it. well, actually, he installed it. then he configured printing, networking and started exploring all the software that was right there. within days he had the family accounts in kmymoney, was playing web games, sharing drives and much more ...
the only thing he needed help from me for was getting multimedia (read: proprietary codec crap) to work (we really, really, really need a solution for the codecs problem; and it needs to be gratis for users and integrated into the distro), to set up gpg-agent so he could cache his password (he'd never used gpg before but discovered it in kmail and decided he wanted that =) and to share his printer over the network with windows machines.
except for the multimedia issue, these aren't overly trivial tasks on any operating system and to be honest, *buntu doesn't make printer management as easy as it can be.
he fell in love with the system. for one, unlike xp which he claimed took a coffee break to boot up, he was at his kde desktop in less than a minute. for another, there was all that great software. and he was doing everything he was doing on windows (he couldn't get print sharing to work reliably there either, btw =).
i saw him installing the system updates every day they were available and he really dug the idea that there was all this really great software to use at his disposal. he ended up spending more than a couple nights up late playing with things.
but best of all: he didn't ask me how to do this-or-that trivial thing. he just point-and-clicked his way around to his satisfaction. i overheard him a couple times telling some of his friends and workmates who came by the house about how cool this new operating system was. =)
it isn't 1997 anymore, indeed.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
on the success of kde4
it's interesting to see people picking up the "kde4: hype-or-revolution" story in the media, including some even mainstream-ish sources. i'm not going to go off (or on?) about the details of how kde4 is and will be a revolution. many of us have done a good and exhaustive job of that already and continue to do so. if you are reading this blog, you probably already know all about it.
instead i'm going to go on (or off?) about the idea of success and revolutionary events.
most people have no idea what success takes, looks like or have been a part of one that was bigger than a personally meaningful event (and many have even yet to achieve that). most people's idea of what a major success and/or a revolution looks like has been formed by story books and hollywood-esque movies. what most people don't really understand is that the popular story is a simplification.
the popular story goes something like this: "someone had an idea, they put their all into it and it worked. great rejoicing and riches were to be had, perhaps after one or two nail biting moments of tension." unfortunately the popular story is crafted to be interesting to people as entertainment. the reality is somewhat different.
every major success (let alone revolution), be it a political, economic or social one, started with an idea and then people putting years, sometimes decades, of effort into it. when a music star "explodes onto the scene" the reality is that there are literally years of effort prior to that, most likely sacrificing a lot of "normal" life things to tour around the countryside playing in unglamorous spots for small crowds of people who didn't know them, didn't care about them. ditto for other sorts of success, such as business successes.
but that's a discouraging and boring tale. so it gets hidden and all most people see is "new meg-star!" and "new awesome product!". here's where open projects go very, very differently:
we couldn't hide the necessary years of effort that lead up to the moment of "instant success" or "revolution" if we tried to. we wouldn't be an open project then. everyone gets to see every painful, annoying, rewarding, troubling, enjoyable, fun and boring moment along the way.
and so people wonder, "will kde 4.0 be a revolution?" and people get their panties all up in a knot over the issue while asking the wrong question. (a correct question might be "will kde4 amount to a revolution?")
the answer to the incorrect question is: of course 4.0 won't be a revolution. it's a step towards the "instant success" that one day will be all that most people will remember. 4.0 is a necessary, unavoidable and critical point in our efforts towards reaching that success, in creating the revolution. the role of the dot-oh release in that has never been in doubt in my mind: it's an interesting step, but not the the interesting step people will identify as "the revolution".
now, we can't skip 4.0 anymore than a runner can skip running the the 3rd kilometer in a marathon. we can't delay 4.0 since that wouldn't delay anything but the time when we arrive at the mythical moment of "instant success". so 4.0 will come out and will be a part of the success that one day people will look back upon and understand, incorrectly, as a single event (kde4) much as people look back at kde3 as a single event (and forget the direct role of kde2 and the more indirect role of kde1 in it, let alone what 3.0 was for 3.5).
but mark my words: kde4 is a revolution unfolding and you're getting to watch it all happen from the very beginning. this is apparently something so rare and out of the ordinary experience for most people that many can't even properly identify what they are watching happen (the process of revolution rather than a point-in-time-and-space product called revolution).
going back to the musician anology: we're all getting to be one of those people who knew jimmy from high school before he was a rock star, who went to his first concert back in his home town, who was a roadie with him on his first tours and maybe even you get to be one of the people who plays in the band or writes some of the music. you get to decide and that's cool.
instead i'm going to go on (or off?) about the idea of success and revolutionary events.
most people have no idea what success takes, looks like or have been a part of one that was bigger than a personally meaningful event (and many have even yet to achieve that). most people's idea of what a major success and/or a revolution looks like has been formed by story books and hollywood-esque movies. what most people don't really understand is that the popular story is a simplification.
the popular story goes something like this: "someone had an idea, they put their all into it and it worked. great rejoicing and riches were to be had, perhaps after one or two nail biting moments of tension." unfortunately the popular story is crafted to be interesting to people as entertainment. the reality is somewhat different.
every major success (let alone revolution), be it a political, economic or social one, started with an idea and then people putting years, sometimes decades, of effort into it. when a music star "explodes onto the scene" the reality is that there are literally years of effort prior to that, most likely sacrificing a lot of "normal" life things to tour around the countryside playing in unglamorous spots for small crowds of people who didn't know them, didn't care about them. ditto for other sorts of success, such as business successes.
but that's a discouraging and boring tale. so it gets hidden and all most people see is "new meg-star!" and "new awesome product!". here's where open projects go very, very differently:
we couldn't hide the necessary years of effort that lead up to the moment of "instant success" or "revolution" if we tried to. we wouldn't be an open project then. everyone gets to see every painful, annoying, rewarding, troubling, enjoyable, fun and boring moment along the way.
and so people wonder, "will kde 4.0 be a revolution?" and people get their panties all up in a knot over the issue while asking the wrong question. (a correct question might be "will kde4 amount to a revolution?")
the answer to the incorrect question is: of course 4.0 won't be a revolution. it's a step towards the "instant success" that one day will be all that most people will remember. 4.0 is a necessary, unavoidable and critical point in our efforts towards reaching that success, in creating the revolution. the role of the dot-oh release in that has never been in doubt in my mind: it's an interesting step, but not the the interesting step people will identify as "the revolution".
now, we can't skip 4.0 anymore than a runner can skip running the the 3rd kilometer in a marathon. we can't delay 4.0 since that wouldn't delay anything but the time when we arrive at the mythical moment of "instant success". so 4.0 will come out and will be a part of the success that one day people will look back upon and understand, incorrectly, as a single event (kde4) much as people look back at kde3 as a single event (and forget the direct role of kde2 and the more indirect role of kde1 in it, let alone what 3.0 was for 3.5).
but mark my words: kde4 is a revolution unfolding and you're getting to watch it all happen from the very beginning. this is apparently something so rare and out of the ordinary experience for most people that many can't even properly identify what they are watching happen (the process of revolution rather than a point-in-time-and-space product called revolution).
going back to the musician anology: we're all getting to be one of those people who knew jimmy from high school before he was a rock star, who went to his first concert back in his home town, who was a roadie with him on his first tours and maybe even you get to be one of the people who plays in the band or writes some of the music. you get to decide and that's cool.
Monday, August 27, 2007
xinerama and plasma
so andreas pakulat notes that plasma doesn't work with xinerama very well at the moment. perhaps that's because none of the developers are using it on such a system at the moment. "humorously" i still don't have such a system to play with either. it is "cute" that andreas picked on a UI element that isn't even going to be in the final release; it is cool that he's using testing features (the form factor drop down) to find issues, though, since that's what they are there for. =)
and so, andreas concludes, that with some other apps crashing for him he's not going to "eat the dogfood" until 4.1. that's unfortunate. why? because that's precisely how we can ensure that things don't get better. so what to do? here are my thoughts:
first, use kde3 apps in your kde4 environment for the critical stuff when it crashes. if you rely on kdevelop, use the kde3 version.
second, try to have a slightly higher tolerance for work-in-progress. don't let things like missing icons in the control center freak you out. i know we're all spoiled by the years of working with kde3 which was amazingly complete, but most of us really can deal with minor inconveniences so as to get more testing in.
third, try and patch something that doesn't work every so often ... even if it isn't "your" code. taking that time out to fix a common annoyance may take time away from your own project, but it will add to the entirety of the experience and let more people use the betas with greater comfort, thereby bringing more hands on deck.
fourth, find the things that are cool and a reason to use kde4. for me, those include krunner (ok, perhaps i'm a bit attached to it for personal reasons ;), the games (i really can't stand to play the kde3 games anymore), marble (probably specific to my traveling nature) and konsole's new hotness. i put up with the other annoyances (and even try and fix some of them here and there =) because of those things.
we're on the home stretch as far as time goes right now. it's time to get the apps in shape and the features we absolutely need in working order. there's a lot left to do, and 4.1 will certainly be the desktop release that most people will start using compared to 4.0 but we owe it to ourselves (let alone our users) to plunge in an enjoy the pain a bit ;)
and so, andreas concludes, that with some other apps crashing for him he's not going to "eat the dogfood" until 4.1. that's unfortunate. why? because that's precisely how we can ensure that things don't get better. so what to do? here are my thoughts:
first, use kde3 apps in your kde4 environment for the critical stuff when it crashes. if you rely on kdevelop, use the kde3 version.
second, try to have a slightly higher tolerance for work-in-progress. don't let things like missing icons in the control center freak you out. i know we're all spoiled by the years of working with kde3 which was amazingly complete, but most of us really can deal with minor inconveniences so as to get more testing in.
third, try and patch something that doesn't work every so often ... even if it isn't "your" code. taking that time out to fix a common annoyance may take time away from your own project, but it will add to the entirety of the experience and let more people use the betas with greater comfort, thereby bringing more hands on deck.
fourth, find the things that are cool and a reason to use kde4. for me, those include krunner (ok, perhaps i'm a bit attached to it for personal reasons ;), the games (i really can't stand to play the kde3 games anymore), marble (probably specific to my traveling nature) and konsole's new hotness. i put up with the other annoyances (and even try and fix some of them here and there =) because of those things.
we're on the home stretch as far as time goes right now. it's time to get the apps in shape and the features we absolutely need in working order. there's a lot left to do, and 4.1 will certainly be the desktop release that most people will start using compared to 4.0 but we owe it to ourselves (let alone our users) to plunge in an enjoy the pain a bit ;)
the wii-mote
the ipod is often held up these days as a modern example of industrial design brilliance (the simplicity, the ergonomics, the utility) and marketing genius (the ads, iTunes, etc). i agree that it's a pretty interesting combination of design and marketing. but there is something on the market today that is also rediculously popular and, i think, goes far beyond the iPod's brilliance. the item? nintendo's wii. in particular, the wii remote. or as i like to call it, the wii-mote.
now, there are lots of brilliant things about the wii: it's internet access and built in apps for things like weather and news; the ever-present wii menu that removes the game as the base interface and turns the system into a general purpose device; the name itself is brilliant with its play on the words "we" (showing how it's something you play with others) and "me" (mii's are your characters that follow you from game to game); the standardized game components (such as the mii characters or the 3D globe); the small, light and innexpensive base unit (at the expense of rather basic graphics by today's standards, but that's way made up for by the affordability and playability which is more important to the target market here, e.g. not hard core gamers) ... but really it's the wiimotes that "do it" for me.
there are four really interest things about these game paddles, aside from the fact that they are wireless (this is an option on other systems to, but brilliant to make it the only option; wires suck) and have rumbling features (standard fare these days):
these things combined make for a completely different game play experience. by splitting the controller into two pieces (and calling it a remote even =) it makes it feel far more natural and allows for better ergonomics, with each piece able to be molded to a hand and allowing people to use all those buttons while still moving the hands independently (a natural motion for people).
the motion sensing attributes make for games that feel natural, are more engaging for non-gamers and are instantly learnably by applying already learned movements. what's really interesting is that when playing, for instance, wii sports tennis all you control is the swinging of the racket. the players on the court move of their own accord (not to mention they don't have arms or legs, just feet and hands that float around their body, though in a most convincing manner). when playing real tennis, one doesn't think about running. our brain handles that "automatically", which is to say without conscious intervention for us. so nintendo made running on the court something the game does. the player just swings their remote around to control the part a human usually thinks about: swinging the racket. this makes for a game where you don't need any real instruction to play it. there is no, "ok, press the arrows to move the guy around, then these other buttons to do different kinds of hits." leaping strikes, overhand volleys and even ball spin are all communicated to the game through natural motions of the hand. brilliant.
the speak in the remote is just as brilliant though: it gives environmental sound "for free". even on a television with built in speakers games take on a "3d" sound environment based on where the players (not the game!) are. so when playing tennis with someone else, when they hit the ball the racket sound comes from their remote, and therefore from where they are standing. the game suddenly sounds more real and sensible. the shared sounds (like the tennis ball bouncing on the court) still come from the shared interface (the t.v.). the remote-as-interface is really quite a fascinating concept.
i already touched on the ergonomics, but this really can't be overstated. even after extended playing my hands don't feel like they've been forced to go through some odd torture. this makes the game playing experience enjoyable and fun.
the fact that you can store your mii character ("who am i? i'm me! er.. mii!" ;) on your remote then take your remote to your friend's place and play with your mii there is just bonus. the four little lights on each remote showing connection status as well as which controller number you are is a really nice touch, too.
so for all the cool things about the wii itself, it is the controller .. er .. remote ... er .. wiimote that makes the system. it changes the games, it changes the game experience, it changes the profile of the people who want to play with it.
making a cheap console by skimping on modern graphics hardware and what not was really risky. making such a different controller took balls and a ton of imagination. and that's probably why it paid off: something new for exactly the people nintendo wanted to sell to (the massses, not gamers).
what's fascinating is that those wiimotes are just covered in buttons, triggers and directional controllers. but they still feel natural. you don't need to be featureless to be easy. the key seems to be to think about things from a human perspective rather than a features perspective.
i love design, and i love to appreciate and pick apart the designs of others. there are things i'd certainly improve about the wii (e.g. there should be an integrated recharger for the wireless wiimotes; some of the sotware UI is a bit clunky in places; the wiimotes could have better hardware for signaling the base station..) but i'm generally in awe at the creativity, daring and success of the design.
lots of lessons to learn there and to apply to our own creative endeavors =)
oh, and yes, i'm back home and back to working under full steam. catching up with communications and catching up with various patches and of course the latest in svn ... i should be back to committing storms of things by tomorrow. and then i can start posting "my latest kde 4.0 hack" stuff in my blog again =)
now, there are lots of brilliant things about the wii: it's internet access and built in apps for things like weather and news; the ever-present wii menu that removes the game as the base interface and turns the system into a general purpose device; the name itself is brilliant with its play on the words "we" (showing how it's something you play with others) and "me" (mii's are your characters that follow you from game to game); the standardized game components (such as the mii characters or the 3D globe); the small, light and innexpensive base unit (at the expense of rather basic graphics by today's standards, but that's way made up for by the affordability and playability which is more important to the target market here, e.g. not hard core gamers) ... but really it's the wiimotes that "do it" for me.
there are four really interest things about these game paddles, aside from the fact that they are wireless (this is an option on other systems to, but brilliant to make it the only option; wires suck) and have rumbling features (standard fare these days):
- there are two pieces, not just one
- they are motion sensitive and that is the central basis for game play in many games
- there is a speaker in the remote
- they are amazingly ergonomic
these things combined make for a completely different game play experience. by splitting the controller into two pieces (and calling it a remote even =) it makes it feel far more natural and allows for better ergonomics, with each piece able to be molded to a hand and allowing people to use all those buttons while still moving the hands independently (a natural motion for people).
the motion sensing attributes make for games that feel natural, are more engaging for non-gamers and are instantly learnably by applying already learned movements. what's really interesting is that when playing, for instance, wii sports tennis all you control is the swinging of the racket. the players on the court move of their own accord (not to mention they don't have arms or legs, just feet and hands that float around their body, though in a most convincing manner). when playing real tennis, one doesn't think about running. our brain handles that "automatically", which is to say without conscious intervention for us. so nintendo made running on the court something the game does. the player just swings their remote around to control the part a human usually thinks about: swinging the racket. this makes for a game where you don't need any real instruction to play it. there is no, "ok, press the arrows to move the guy around, then these other buttons to do different kinds of hits." leaping strikes, overhand volleys and even ball spin are all communicated to the game through natural motions of the hand. brilliant.
the speak in the remote is just as brilliant though: it gives environmental sound "for free". even on a television with built in speakers games take on a "3d" sound environment based on where the players (not the game!) are. so when playing tennis with someone else, when they hit the ball the racket sound comes from their remote, and therefore from where they are standing. the game suddenly sounds more real and sensible. the shared sounds (like the tennis ball bouncing on the court) still come from the shared interface (the t.v.). the remote-as-interface is really quite a fascinating concept.
i already touched on the ergonomics, but this really can't be overstated. even after extended playing my hands don't feel like they've been forced to go through some odd torture. this makes the game playing experience enjoyable and fun.
the fact that you can store your mii character ("who am i? i'm me! er.. mii!" ;) on your remote then take your remote to your friend's place and play with your mii there is just bonus. the four little lights on each remote showing connection status as well as which controller number you are is a really nice touch, too.
so for all the cool things about the wii itself, it is the controller .. er .. remote ... er .. wiimote that makes the system. it changes the games, it changes the game experience, it changes the profile of the people who want to play with it.
making a cheap console by skimping on modern graphics hardware and what not was really risky. making such a different controller took balls and a ton of imagination. and that's probably why it paid off: something new for exactly the people nintendo wanted to sell to (the massses, not gamers).
what's fascinating is that those wiimotes are just covered in buttons, triggers and directional controllers. but they still feel natural. you don't need to be featureless to be easy. the key seems to be to think about things from a human perspective rather than a features perspective.
i love design, and i love to appreciate and pick apart the designs of others. there are things i'd certainly improve about the wii (e.g. there should be an integrated recharger for the wireless wiimotes; some of the sotware UI is a bit clunky in places; the wiimotes could have better hardware for signaling the base station..) but i'm generally in awe at the creativity, daring and success of the design.
lots of lessons to learn there and to apply to our own creative endeavors =)
oh, and yes, i'm back home and back to working under full steam. catching up with communications and catching up with various patches and of course the latest in svn ... i should be back to committing storms of things by tomorrow. and then i can start posting "my latest kde 4.0 hack" stuff in my blog again =)
Monday, August 20, 2007
healing
at first it itched and chaffed and i had to apply a good amount of discipline to stick with the plan. "it" and "the plan" referring to taking at least one week with extremely minimal work activity. that meant no coding, bare minimum email, etc. i didn't quite make it, as there was some bits of coding but so little that it doesn't really count (mostly going over patches, looking for minor bugfixes as needed..) and i really didn't type that much text at all (ok, so i did an article for theDot .. ). by the end of the week i was feeling amazingly "whole" again. turns out i was really wearing that rut deep in my head and as i took time to move and breath outside in the forest, next to the bonfire or just in the living room .... i felt a lot more relaxed and ok.
to make sure i kept to the straight and narrow, the universe conspired this weekend to kill my email (on saturday a major ISP back home, telus, manage to screw up the network segment my mail server sits on and then send people home on sunday without getting it fixed) and cancel a business meeting i had in seattle (with linuxmce people). which meant i had no choice but sit through the weekend enjoying myself. =)
i'm feeling a lot more "in tune" with myself and things around me right now. i'll probably take the next few days off as well though i'll be easing back into coding over the week. i leave for home on the 25th, so next week will be a full on, go-crazy, code-up-a-storm, work-like-usual week.
sorry for not having any exciting plasma stuff appearing this week, though others (matt, franchi and robert in particular) have kept the wheels moving. it's a bit annoying that this break occurred at this point in the release cycle for 4.0, but i guess there are no really good times and i needed this. maybe now i'll not come completely apart for a few more years. ;)
to make sure i kept to the straight and narrow, the universe conspired this weekend to kill my email (on saturday a major ISP back home, telus, manage to screw up the network segment my mail server sits on and then send people home on sunday without getting it fixed) and cancel a business meeting i had in seattle (with linuxmce people). which meant i had no choice but sit through the weekend enjoying myself. =)
i'm feeling a lot more "in tune" with myself and things around me right now. i'll probably take the next few days off as well though i'll be easing back into coding over the week. i leave for home on the 25th, so next week will be a full on, go-crazy, code-up-a-storm, work-like-usual week.
sorry for not having any exciting plasma stuff appearing this week, though others (matt, franchi and robert in particular) have kept the wheels moving. it's a bit annoying that this break occurred at this point in the release cycle for 4.0, but i guess there are no really good times and i needed this. maybe now i'll not come completely apart for a few more years. ;)
Sunday, August 12, 2007
in a forest
i arrived yesterday in seattle with p. i met up with my sister j. and her family at the airport. although we talk at least weekly if not daily, i haven't seen her in person in three or four years. she is the person i'm closest to in my family, and as i don't have a particularly close family this makes our relationship even more precious to me. there have been times we haven't gotten along in the (distant) past and we don't agree on all things (thankfully, how boring would that be? =). that doesn't change that we're each other's closest blood relatives, not counting our children of course (she has four, one of whom is already an adult and living on her own, one that is soon to graduate from school and two who are around p's age).
we drove out to their house yesterday, and on that drive i discovered that they live out in the forest. we drove through a small town outside of seattle and then through an even more rural area for a few minutes before turning off onto a dirt road that snakes between the trees.
it's so quiet here. they have a nice rancher with four bedrooms, a couple of baths and a a set of large common rooms.
last night, my first night here, i kept having these very involved dreams about various things in my life. it's like my springs inside were starting to uncoil and relax, and in doing so they moved the machinery in my mind round and round all night. i woke up three times. i feel pretty rested, all the same. i think the next two weeks will be quite good for me as well as p. it'll be great to reconnect with my sis again, too.
i'll only be working half days while i'm out here, and probably even less on the two weekends i'm here. i have my list of things that i must get done (finish the background drawing code for plasma (which is shaping up to be pretty neat, i think), finish off a riff of michael olbrich's patch for sync'ing/sharing/defining timers per-source in engines, do up a linuxMCE article for theDot with some news related to the release and some product availability, writing a follow up blog on tracker/strigi after reading some more on the topic ...). i have given myself the permission not to do more than half days, though. which feels ... very liberating.
(p.s. to t.: there are few things in this world as nice as hearing your voice, even when it's a whisper on the 'net during my travels. thank you; hugs 'n love.)
we drove out to their house yesterday, and on that drive i discovered that they live out in the forest. we drove through a small town outside of seattle and then through an even more rural area for a few minutes before turning off onto a dirt road that snakes between the trees.
it's so quiet here. they have a nice rancher with four bedrooms, a couple of baths and a a set of large common rooms.
last night, my first night here, i kept having these very involved dreams about various things in my life. it's like my springs inside were starting to uncoil and relax, and in doing so they moved the machinery in my mind round and round all night. i woke up three times. i feel pretty rested, all the same. i think the next two weeks will be quite good for me as well as p. it'll be great to reconnect with my sis again, too.
i'll only be working half days while i'm out here, and probably even less on the two weekends i'm here. i have my list of things that i must get done (finish the background drawing code for plasma (which is shaping up to be pretty neat, i think), finish off a riff of michael olbrich's patch for sync'ing/sharing/defining timers per-source in engines, do up a linuxMCE article for theDot with some news related to the release and some product availability, writing a follow up blog on tracker/strigi after reading some more on the topic ...). i have given myself the permission not to do more than half days, though. which feels ... very liberating.
(p.s. to t.: there are few things in this world as nice as hearing your voice, even when it's a whisper on the 'net during my travels. thank you; hugs 'n love.)
Thursday, August 09, 2007
touchdown in toronto
sitting in toronto pearson airport catching up on email and what not. my last blog entry got a huge number of replies while i was eating / sleeping / flying. i'll be home later today at which point i plan on getting some much needed sleep, and then i'll try to get to replying to some of them (and the backlog of email i'm now sitting on).
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
on some aspects of the future
ryan's recent blog entry about the future of gnome being exciting has been making the rounds. it's always good to see free software projects finding their feet.
interestingly, several of the items desrt brought up are actually free software desktop generic. x.org is obviously one of those items. here are some others:
it's very nice to see the free software desktop world sharing so many things in common, helping make all our software nicer.
several other items on ryan's list look familiar to me, e.g. gbus which sounds like a start getting gtk+ apps a bit closer to the kind of sweet, sweet happiness that is QtDBus we've enjoyed for a while now.
other items are concerning. like vala. a whole new language? wowzers. i understand the problems they are trying to solve, it just seems like a rather inefficient way to address it. there are so many other languages out there ...
tracker also digs at me. i'm glad we have xesam now so at the desktop level we can pretend to ignore these things but ... really .. how many indexers do we need? realize that each indexer means re-writing file support plugins, redesigning the common bits internal to each and then trying to sort out the resulting mess. ubuntu gnome will apparently ship in the future with tracker, ubuntu kde will ship with strigi. try explaining to the user base why there are two different indexing systems. i'm all for personal experimentation; i'm all for innovation; i'm all for creating free software where it doesn't exist. i don't get the purpose of having strigi and tracker. beagle and strigi? sure, they are different beasts in various technological metrics. i do wish kde and gnome would share strigi as a solution, however. we could work on it together to the benefit of all. there is a reason, after all, that strigi has no desktop dependencies.
i'm not, btw, suggesting the tracker developers should stop what they are doing. it's not my place to tell others what to work on. i am of the opinion that projects such as gnome and kde ought to be aware of the ramifications of their technology choices. kde has been increasingly mindful of this, and you can see it from decibel to phonon to dbus to ...
if tracker gets proper xesam support then we can, at the desktop level, ignore it somewhat. but i don't think this is doing our user base a great favour.
i wish the gnome project the best as they push forward with their vision. i hope we continue to find ways to explore our individual directions while supporting, or at least not creating unnecessary interference, with each other's individual and our shared directions.
interestingly, several of the items desrt brought up are actually free software desktop generic. x.org is obviously one of those items. here are some others:
- webkit: started in kde, added to by numerous companies since, it's awesome to see it making its way into so many places in the world including gnome
- policykit: we've already evaluated it for replacing the current "administration mode" buttons in control panels and work is underway to make that transition happen smoothly.
- telepathy: a spec that we're using in decibel
it's very nice to see the free software desktop world sharing so many things in common, helping make all our software nicer.
several other items on ryan's list look familiar to me, e.g. gbus which sounds like a start getting gtk+ apps a bit closer to the kind of sweet, sweet happiness that is QtDBus we've enjoyed for a while now.
other items are concerning. like vala. a whole new language? wowzers. i understand the problems they are trying to solve, it just seems like a rather inefficient way to address it. there are so many other languages out there ...
tracker also digs at me. i'm glad we have xesam now so at the desktop level we can pretend to ignore these things but ... really .. how many indexers do we need? realize that each indexer means re-writing file support plugins, redesigning the common bits internal to each and then trying to sort out the resulting mess. ubuntu gnome will apparently ship in the future with tracker, ubuntu kde will ship with strigi. try explaining to the user base why there are two different indexing systems. i'm all for personal experimentation; i'm all for innovation; i'm all for creating free software where it doesn't exist. i don't get the purpose of having strigi and tracker. beagle and strigi? sure, they are different beasts in various technological metrics. i do wish kde and gnome would share strigi as a solution, however. we could work on it together to the benefit of all. there is a reason, after all, that strigi has no desktop dependencies.
i'm not, btw, suggesting the tracker developers should stop what they are doing. it's not my place to tell others what to work on. i am of the opinion that projects such as gnome and kde ought to be aware of the ramifications of their technology choices. kde has been increasingly mindful of this, and you can see it from decibel to phonon to dbus to ...
if tracker gets proper xesam support then we can, at the desktop level, ignore it somewhat. but i don't think this is doing our user base a great favour.
i wish the gnome project the best as they push forward with their vision. i hope we continue to find ways to explore our individual directions while supporting, or at least not creating unnecessary interference, with each other's individual and our shared directions.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
board meeting day 1
i arrived without event last night in darmstadt right in time to fall asleep at the hotel. after a very refreshing 7 hours of repose i met up with the other kde e.v. board members for breakfast before heading to the offices to get down to business.
we're taking an afternoon break at the moment, and so far it's been very productive. we've managed to actually get a bit ahead of schedule on the agenda and should be finished by a respectable hour (17:00 or so) for the day. then it'll be on to day 2.
the meeting minutes are being written using collaborative software so we can all edit it at the same time and we'll be sharing the results of the meeting with the community once the meeting concludes and we proof read the minutes. i expect to allow a week or so for that to be done given that we're all going to be traveling back home directly afterwards and then its the weekend.
the meeting has meant that i haven't had any hacking time (obviously =) though i have managed to review the patches that came in and respond to mails on panel-devel ...
we're taking an afternoon break at the moment, and so far it's been very productive. we've managed to actually get a bit ahead of schedule on the agenda and should be finished by a respectable hour (17:00 or so) for the day. then it'll be on to day 2.
the meeting minutes are being written using collaborative software so we can all edit it at the same time and we'll be sharing the results of the meeting with the community once the meeting concludes and we proof read the minutes. i expect to allow a week or so for that to be done given that we're all going to be traveling back home directly afterwards and then its the weekend.
the meeting has meant that i haven't had any hacking time (obviously =) though i have managed to review the patches that came in and respond to mails on panel-devel ...
Monday, August 06, 2007
how i know people are using beta1
i've received two bug reports on plasma today. one has already been fixed (in Qt) and the other was already on the plasma tasks list for 4.0. but it did cause me to create a plasma product on bugs.kde.org.
somehow having bug reports makes plasma seem more ... officially real.
and with that, here's my unrealistic goal: keep the bug count to 0 during 4.0 and ensuring that all wishlist items are prioritized with target release versions or closed if they won't be implemented. i know how people hate the latter, but i think it's more fair to them than simply ignoring them. i promise to post reasons for all such closures and will only close after the reporter has a chance to reply.
generally, i just want to avoid the mess of reports that kicker became =)
somehow having bug reports makes plasma seem more ... officially real.
and with that, here's my unrealistic goal: keep the bug count to 0 during 4.0 and ensuring that all wishlist items are prioritized with target release versions or closed if they won't be implemented. i know how people hate the latter, but i think it's more fair to them than simply ignoring them. i promise to post reasons for all such closures and will only close after the reporter has a chance to reply.
generally, i just want to avoid the mess of reports that kicker became =)
today's plasma update
in the last few days we've added the ability to save and restore applet layouts, associating of applets with mimetypes (so you can drag content to the desktop and have it represented by an appropriate applet), layout improvements, the start of layer-based effects for things like shadows/blur, more progress on the scripting front (including the appearance of ruby bindings in addition to the qtscript ones and further integration of libplasma into superkaramba/python), taskbar strides and much more. a whole bunch of interesting if not overly splashy stuff that needs to happen to make it actually usable.
krunner started to get search engine integration using xesam (well, a reasonable facsimile of it given that it isn't a completed spec yet) with strigi as the current reference implementation and the new krunner interface is approaching completion.
the control box, panels, menu, systray are on the hit list of things to kill off the list.
today, some more plasma work at the tt offices until early afternoon and then i head to darmstadt for the board meeting. right now, i need to shower, pack and tidy up the apartment a bit. 90 minutes is plenty of time for that, right?
krunner started to get search engine integration using xesam (well, a reasonable facsimile of it given that it isn't a completed spec yet) with strigi as the current reference implementation and the new krunner interface is approaching completion.
the control box, panels, menu, systray are on the hit list of things to kill off the list.
today, some more plasma work at the tt offices until early afternoon and then i head to darmstadt for the board meeting. right now, i need to shower, pack and tidy up the apartment a bit. 90 minutes is plenty of time for that, right?
don't blame us
the role of the package creator (e.g. linux distributors) is truly huge when it comes to the public perception of free/open source software. take kde as an example: it has achieved a (imho rather undeserved) reputation for being one of those desktop environments that is "modern ergo heavy and slow". this is really not so much a property of kde itself as it is the operating systems that integrate it.
that is why this review of vector linux, where they ran kde on a pIII 866Mhz machine with 256mb of ram, noted:
indeed. the #1 reason i switched to suse back in the day was how much faster it was on the desktop compared to red hat and mandrake (yes, this was before the "iva"ization). their stock packages were fast and solid; at least as good as the kde i built from source and in some places perhaps even a bit better. it was impressive and proved that, yes, it could be done.
so when people look at kde and moan about resource consumption, don't blame the upstream project so much as those who put it together with their operating system. that isn't to say we aren't also bringing some Hefty Grade Features(tm) from time to time that do indeed require some extra muscle, but in general ... we're a lot more svelt than our reputation might suggest.
that is why this review of vector linux, where they ran kde on a pIII 866Mhz machine with 256mb of ram, noted:
"This is our first encounter with VectorLinux and before we tried it the idea of reviewing Kde distributions was associated to powerful machines but, after analyzing the requirements for this distribution, we decided to try it with the minimum and we must say that we are surprised to see that Kde is able to travel at lightspeed.
We are very impressed with VectorLinux 5.8 SOHO. Before this, we thought that Kde working at this speed only a dream on machines like our GX50. Also the stability is something that caught our attention, but maybe this particular aspect is a legacy from Slackware."
indeed. the #1 reason i switched to suse back in the day was how much faster it was on the desktop compared to red hat and mandrake (yes, this was before the "iva"ization). their stock packages were fast and solid; at least as good as the kde i built from source and in some places perhaps even a bit better. it was impressive and proved that, yes, it could be done.
so when people look at kde and moan about resource consumption, don't blame the upstream project so much as those who put it together with their operating system. that isn't to say we aren't also bringing some Hefty Grade Features(tm) from time to time that do indeed require some extra muscle, but in general ... we're a lot more svelt than our reputation might suggest.
Friday, August 03, 2007
oslo day 2
yesterday we got all three qgraphicsview issues we had run into in plasms sorted out. 2 are bug fixes that will be in 4.3.1 and one was fixed by changing some event handling code in libplasma. today we sorted out various issues with stylesheets and widgets, though one fix (statusbars having more than just background support) will not be there until 4.4 (i've made a temporary work around until then).
most of kdemultimedia is now sorted out for release issues and i moved kfax to extragear.
did an audio interview with mkretz before left, and will be doing another one today with .. someone. i don't know just who yet =)
didn't do much last night other than eat dinner, have a (as in: singular, one, uno) beer and then turning in for the night. oslo is such a bumpin' city! =/
now i'm working on background painting stuff for plasma.
i'll be posting the audio interviews and a new plasma screencast (i hope, anyways =) when i get back home.
most of kdemultimedia is now sorted out for release issues and i moved kfax to extragear.
did an audio interview with mkretz before left, and will be doing another one today with .. someone. i don't know just who yet =)
didn't do much last night other than eat dinner, have a (as in: singular, one, uno) beer and then turning in for the night. oslo is such a bumpin' city! =/
now i'm working on background painting stuff for plasma.
i'll be posting the audio interviews and a new plasma screencast (i hope, anyways =) when i get back home.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
in oslo
made it to oslo without trouble yesterday, modulo some lateness in the flights (surprise!). had a drink with some of the trolls, including two i hadn't met before, before heading for bed. got up this morning and came into the office at around 8:00 with zack and proceeded to catch up on email, svn up kde and build stuff. matthias kretz is also here still. he leaves this evening, but i hope to catch him for a quick podcast thing.
sat together with andreas "mr. graphics view" hanssen and went through the list of bugs we've uncovered while working on plasma. one (the rubber band redrawing after context menu show) was already fixed in 4.3.1. he's now working on the other two now that he has test cases for them. hopefully they'll get fixed in short order. he also tipped me off to a possible solution for a problem we've run into with zooming: when zoomed out past a certain point we want to paint an iconified version of the item rather than a scaled version of the interface; the idea is that setting ignore transformations on the items when that threshold is passed should fix that nicely. i'll know for sure by later today =)
other meetings are lined up and i'm gathering content for a kde4 update to present later on to the devel team here.
so .. not bad for only being 11:00am.
sat together with andreas "mr. graphics view" hanssen and went through the list of bugs we've uncovered while working on plasma. one (the rubber band redrawing after context menu show) was already fixed in 4.3.1. he's now working on the other two now that he has test cases for them. hopefully they'll get fixed in short order. he also tipped me off to a possible solution for a problem we've run into with zooming: when zoomed out past a certain point we want to paint an iconified version of the item rather than a scaled version of the interface; the idea is that setting ignore transformations on the items when that threshold is passed should fix that nicely. i'll know for sure by later today =)
other meetings are lined up and i'm gathering content for a kde4 update to present later on to the devel team here.
so .. not bad for only being 11:00am.
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