Advogato: Personal info for ottawaDave

ottawaDave is currently certified at Journeyer level.

Name: Dave Edwards
Member since: 2001-07-04 15:27:34
Last Login: N/A

Homepage: http://dle.ascendant.ca

Notes:

I am:

a developer in project OPAG,the Ottawa Python Authors Group
a contributor to project OCLUG, the Ottawa Canada Linux Users Group
a writer, organizer, cheerleader: see Free Software Leaders Stand Together for an example
a volunteer with the Linux Documentation Project and its Review project .

Projects

Developer on OPAG
Developer on Evangelism
Documenter on The Universe
Lead Developer on BOSS
Contributor on OCLUG
Lead Developer on Open Source Weekend

Recent blog entries by ottawaDave

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22 Dec 2003 (updated 22 Dec 2003 at 19:34 UTC) »

[thomasvs: Yes, I should have added to my raw notes that I understood how unlikely/impossible (for reasons technical and otherwise) the notion was. However, I still wanted to raise the idea, for whatever good it might do.]

Watching the Gnome/KDE fuss rage on the UserLinux project reminded me of my belief that having these two independant projects is not an advantage for Linux or open source software in general. I also remembered that I wrote some notes on this subject a few months ago, in preparation for an article I wanted to write on the subject. That never got done, and I have little time for it now.

Now that the topic is hot, I thought that I'd put my notes here on Advogato and that that might spark some discussion of the problem. They are very brief, unformed, inconclusive -- just notes, in other words. I hope they will soon be expanded on.

-----------------------------------------------

Why The Independant Existence of Gnome & KDE is Bad For Linux
=============================================================

 
 
 * Gnome and KDE, to all intents and purposes, do the very same thing
    * this provides not choice, but the /appearance/ of choice
    * this kind of choice is not a help, but a hindrance, overall
        * like a babel of tongues
    * for choice, users have the standalone window managers
        * IceWM
        * Windowmaker
        * Evolution
        * Xfce
        * [Black|Flux|Open]box
        * many more

 
 
 * massive duplication of effort
    * duplication of
        * office suites
            * KDE -- Koffice
            * Gnome -- Gnome Office
        * feature-full graphical email clients
            * KDE -- Kmail
            * Gnome -- Evolution
        * desktop/file manager
            * KDE -- konqueror
            * Gnome -- Nautilus
        * component-sharing system
            * KDE -- kparts
            * Gnome -- Bonobo
    * that effort could be spent elsewhere
    * this is also duplication of functionality that probably confuses new
      users

 
 
     http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6476&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

 
 
 * inconsistent end-user experience
    * often very inconsistent look-n-feel

 
 
 * "The competition is healthy." 
    * We don't need competition in the realm of the FLOSS desktop. 
      We need more cooperation -- there's plenty of real competition out there.
    * The clash of loyalties creates a lot of unnecessary waste.
      Waste of time, energy, good will, etc.

16 Dec 2002 »

BOSS and the Open Source Weekend (OSW) now has a full list of sponsors, speakers, panelists, and events.

11 Nov 2002 (updated 12 Jan 2003 at 17:15 UTC) »

BOSS, the Business of Open Source Software conference, will be held on January 26th, 2003. It will be part of a larger event called the Open Source Weekend. There will soon be a URL for that.

BOSS now has a channel on irc.freenode.net: #osw.

7 Nov 2002 »

The BOSS page has been updated with a little info about what to expect in the coming BOSS.

On a completely different subject, does anyone know why advogato's server often takes so long to respond or (sometimes) times out altogether?

19 Jun 2002 »

All of the below is obviously very out-of-date.
I will bring it in sync with the rest of spacetime very soon.

14 older entries...

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