Corey, I agree with you most definitely as I have just finished reading Kevin Carmony’s post as well concerning the GPLv3 and then went into the forums to read the follow up. I wish I wouldn’t have done so, but I did. WOW! The misinformation that goes around is mind boggling at times.
Howdy,
The Release Team has decided that it is time to close the books on KDE 3.5.
To quote coolo:
“No more features, no more string changes, no more docu changes….
Bug fixes are allowed and after some time we’ll do another maintenance
update 3.5.8 - e.g. in september.”So bugfixes only from now on in the 3.5 branch. If the bugfix requires
a string change, you will need to coordinate that change with the translators.Onwards to KDE 4.0!
-Allen
Man today is a great day! So lets hope that 3.5.8 comes out in time to make its way into Gutsy, and then we can look at KDE 4 in Gutsy+1. To the entire KDE community…AWESOME JOB! This is a great feeling, an amazing feeling. It is kind of sad to see the 3.x series come to an end, as I have been with it the entire time, never missing an update. I feel like a proud papa again 
If you use Plucker and/or the Plucker desktop, please raise your hand…
Plucker seems to be silent on the development scene as of late. The last development thing they did was within the past 6 months and they added a patch which actually raises the version to 1.9. Those of you who use Plucker in Debian and/or Ubuntu may have noticed the desktop edition is a mess. As of right now, the version available for a merge into Gutsy from Debian Sid has the desktop building disabled. This can’t be good, but I really don’t know 100% because I am not an avid Plucker user. But seeing as I have helped maintain in the past, I wanted to see how much work is involved with getting it release ready.
The amount of work is crazy, but guess what….I got it to build the desktop, and while at it, I patched a couple of the issues that were reported in bug reports in Ubuntu. Now the building was insane, because for some reason the patch or the developers decided to use a library called libhttp which hasn’t been developed or worked on since 2001. I don’t know why they didn’t use something like libcurl, but that is them not me, plus the libhttp library is for embedded communications that involve streaming over a socket.
Good news none the less, I am working on getting the libhttp package into Debian right now, I am 75% there, I just have to make a couple of changes and it will/should get sponsored. Once that happens, then I can just sync it into Ubuntu and finish getting Plucker to function correctly. I have been in communications with the Debian maintainer for Plucker and he is interested as well, so hopefully sometime soon we should have a viable Plucker package. And when that is complete, I will hopefully get it backported to those of you using previous stable releases. That’s it for now, sorry for the double posting
…attempting the destruction of freedom.
I am announcing my hypocrisy today. Free speech, something a lot of us take to heart and enjoy the fact we have the freedom. Yes, I am (was) a hypocrite when it comes to free speech…
People in the community have created some outstanding projects, and if I don’t always agree, or you always agree, doesn’t mean it isn’t a great project. We have to remember one thing, and that this project could very well be someones pride and joy. I am going to use an example for this post, Tux500.
Everyone by now probably knows of the project, it was the goal of the Tux500 members to put Tux on a car in the 91st Indianapolis 500. You know what, they succeeded. They not only succeeded, but they looked those of us in the eyes that doubted the endeavor, threw the animosity we created to the side, and put Tux on a car and more importantly, put Tux on TV for everyone to see. So where does free speech fit into this?
First, there was a great majority who tried to silence Ken (helios) of the project, and actually Digg did a great job in doing so. It was the actions of Digg that got me thinking of the entire thing. Today I was talking to a friend who is not in our community, an outsider so-to-speak, about helios and the Tux500 project. I told him that helios was getting flamed everywhere for trying to promote the Tux500 project, and I even told him I got in on it somewhat. I told him I didn’t like the way that helios was doing things and that he seemed angry behind his convictions. Then my buddy slapped me with a taste of reality.
When a person gets behind something they love and cherish so much, and then someone comes in and tries to either persuade the person their idea, goal, or project is a joke, they tend to get defensive. If someone was to come up and tell you that something you put your blood, sweat, and tears into was garbage or such, how would you react?
It was at that point that I got it. I was slapped back into reality. Ken, Bob, and the rest of the Tux500 team setup a project, and within that project they set an amazing goal. A good majority of us, and yes I say us as some of the the community was involved as well, and the paper trail shows it, not only attempted to bash the project, the team members, but some of us even went to the point of having helios banned or silenced from spreading his dream. He has every right to communicate that dream, even if some of the tactics were questionable at best, he has that freedom. And some of us tried to destroy his freedom. For this, and since I as apart of it, I apologize for being involved in an anti-freedom type way. I never asked for helios to be removed or ban (hoping memory serves me correctly), but I suggested that his freedom to speak should be hushed as I felt animosity towards it.
It took me over a month to realize the reason that helios was portrayed the way he was, is because he was not only defending his freedom to speak, but he was also defending his passion in the pursuit of a goal that was set. Ken, for this I am truly sorry, as I was apart of the evil persons who unintentionally sat out to destroy your freedom, or looked at your passion as a joke.
I will admit that I am nobody special, and I hope I don’t try and act like I am. I am just a member of a community, a free community, of which I love and cherish. Me, being who I am, has stood up, faced my hypocritical ways, and offer my apologies. These apologies go to anyone and any project I may have publically voiced “my opinion” of in a not-so-supporting way. We all have our faults, and seeing as my faults get displayed to the public quite easily, I felt the need to apologize and realize the nobody is perfect and if I disagree again, I won’t do it in a way that attempts to prohibit a freedom. I have been human enough, or as some say, man enough, to realize my fault here and to publically apologize. I know it may not heal the wounds, but it makes me feel a little better while enjoying my stay here with all of you. To Kevin Rose, and the rest of the Diggnation, I hope you realize that silencing the Tux500 project, or helios, was not the right thing to do. Of course your terms state you “RESERVE THE RIGHT” but nowhere does it say you “RESERVE THE RIGHT TO ABUSE” the rights of others.
This post is in reply to the Novell, Heal Thy Self post on Lobby4Linux.com.
First off I would like to say that the note he made to openSUSE is very well respected and I stand behind that same thought. Adversity has made them stronger and for that I am proud to be in the same Linux community!
However, where I have to disagree now is with the comments to Novell concerning them having a hurt bottom line by the Linux community due to the ever-so-famous Novell/Microsoft deal. Lobby4Linux provides an the following answer to “You want to fix that quickly?”
Stop acting like a second string player and be the starter we all know you are. Get some media exposure. I don’t mean another server ad in the Wall Street Journal. I mean television and radio ads. I mean talk to America…not Geek America, the Real America. The ones that watch commercials between Extreme Home Makeover and Desperate Housewives. Do you have a clue how many people Don’t Have A Clue? I mean as to having a choice in how they operate a computer.
Novell and openSUSE are two different entities with two different goals. Novell provides the curb appeal to the the Enterprise while openSUSE provides solutions for the desktop. He states that Novell should talk to “America”, not the “Geek America”, but the “Real America”. Novell doesn’t target real America, and the people whom you claim are watching the commercials between Extreme Home Makeover and Desperate Housewives have a name that Hillary Clinton dubbed in the 90’s, Soccer Moms. Why would Novell send a commercial to Soccer Moms, or rather “Real America” when its main goals are to push the Enterprise Desktop and the Enterprise Server. Can you tell me where that fits in with the average household?
Look, I now work in a hyper-busy tech support business. 70 percent of the calls about computer malfunction are due to spyware and virus antispyware issues. Are you hearing this? They are complaining that the software they bought in order for the software they’ve already purchased isn’t working or is fouling up thier computers.
what kind of crap is that? They are purchasing software so that the software they’ve already bought will work. You have the answer to that problem right in the palm of your hand. Why haven’t you mortgaged the farm to advertise the obvious answer to their problem.
Once again, I don’t think this should target Novell, but more along the lines of the Linux community. We all know that to the average desktop user that spyware and viruses are a big problem. But Novell putting out commercials to “Real America” isn’t going to fix this. The products that Novell creates is not for “Real America” it is for “Enterprise America.” Enterprise America already knows what is available and don’t need the commercials to push it during primetime anymore. That is why you don’t see the IBM and Linux commercials anymore, who was watching them was “Real America” and “Real America” did a huge “WTF?”
It would be great to see more publicity for Linux as a solid desktop replacement, but what Novell is doing with their money is spending it on development purposes in order to create a better product. Red Hat is/has been doing the same, as well as IBM. What Linux needs is some solid grassroots loving, and if you are in the right area, guerrilla marketing stands a chance. Maybe it is time we quit thinking that money should be used for putting Linux on TV, and start thinking about how we can raise money to support those projects in which are pushing for freedom and to make a better product. Oh, and lets not forget the TiVo market which has been gaining popularity, a good percentage of “Real America” can now fast forward through the commercials.
Edit 1: Oh, and let’s not forget that there is a whole other world out there besides America.
Edit 2: Please refer to this Novell Financial chart from Yahoo. Please notice the spike and the increase since November of 2006, the time frame of the Novell/Microsoft deal. The writer at lobby4linux says that this deal hurt their bottom line, yet Novell’s profits and increased margins prove otherwise. Seems like a very uneducated or not well-thought-out post now.
