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GNOME GUI

ABCNews GNOME Acticle 70

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
dumptruck was the first of many to send us this ABC News article on The GNOME Project. Features a picture of Miguel, and a lot of people have noted that there are an abnormal number of mistakes in it.
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ABCNews GNOME Acticle More

ABCNews GNOME Acticle

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  • Michael Martinez is well known! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Michael Martinez is a system administrator
    at the Computer Science Dept, New Mexico Tech.
    He has well established contacts with Miguel de Icaza.

  • ABC (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 08, 1999 @08:27AM (#1899864)
    It's a decent article, no worse really than anything the media produces on other topics. Ever read an article on foreign policy and weeped at historical inaccuracies? Read a political report and cringed at the complete lack of either memory or intelligence on the journalist's part? That's media for you. As for me, I'm happy they pointed out a very important thing -- 1.0 might have sucked, but it took only a month to iron out the most glaring problems, because of the open source nature of the project.

    The key is not in the details, but in the spin.

    AC
  • Actually, in advertising, this is a great way to completely fail to sell product to people :) ad people like David Ogilvy rebelled against that 'great unwashed' concept long ago. Ogilvy, in the '50s or '60s- "The customer is not a dummy. She is your wife."
    Ogilvy made a _lot_ of money treating consumers like intelligent people who can read. In general, if you treat people like a bunch of easily manipulated suckers, any effectiveness you have will be obliterated by a massive backlash effect. In one study (Ogilvy also pioneered actually _researching_ advertising effectiveness), a stupid and annoying advertising campaign that cost millions actually _reduced_ the number of sales of the product that previously wasn't being advertised! That should serve as a warning.
  • I have noticed a conspicuous absence of KDE articles lately...do you think that Rob and Co., are refraining from posting such articles because they dislike KDE, or because they tend to ignite flame-fests, or???

    Anyhow, thanks for the links, Roberto; I will check out those KDE stories.

    --
    Get your fresh, hot kernels right here [kernel.org]!

  • f your system freezes so hard that Ctrl-Alt-Backspace won't fix it, you have kernel or X server problems. I'll guess that your X server died.

    Not quite. I've had this problem with gnome, as well, and the problem actually appears to be that mouse and keyboard input are being ignored. When it happens, I just telnet into my box from another computer and kill the current session. Then everything recovers fine back in the console.

    It's probably just a weird interaction between gnome and X; one's tickling a bug in the other. After it happened the second time, I've been starting up X with decent logging output, hoping I could track the problem down... but it hasn't happened since...
  • I don't get it . . .

    I think the author may have been alluding to chapter four of The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks. This book is a classic; highly recommended, two thumbs up.

    TedC

  • Which is why it was the redhat people not me that were pushing the ability to read KDE menus fromt he gnome panel. Take a close look at the gnome and KDE sites, and try to figure out on which you find more references to the other. After THEN open your mouth.
  • So, now you can post them in a relevent thread, and if any of the moderators think thier worth, they get seen... :-)
  • Oh, gee, now Linux, and those other UniX's finally have a GUI, but it's buggy

    AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGG! I thought we FINALLY had gotten to a point that people would realize that there WAS GUI in UNIX! And it's modular style was nice, because it allows people to run CPU intensive stuff (calculations/server) without haveing the GUI overhead when needed.

    This artical throws me back about 3 years in public opinion, I fear the "non-UNIX community" reading it, becuase it makes it sound like GNOME is the only GUI, and the very first GUI for UNIX.

  • Nah, I've given up on this.
    I'm just venting a bit.

    Did you notice that article says GNOME includes tools for "Java and ActiveX development"????

    Gee, wonder on what RPM those things are.
  • Yeah, I am surprised!

    Congratulations to /. on this apparently working and useful moderation system :-)
  • Well, if there was a way to publish a "letter to the editor" in /., I would have used that.

    Of course, there is not.

  • Some articles /. didn't consider worthy: (Score:4)

    by Roberto ( 1777 ) on Saturday May 08, 1999 @12:39PM (#1899876) Homepage
    These are from the last 4 days or so.

    http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/99/may/0503/side 1b.htm

    http://www.varbusiness.com/news/breakingnews.asp ?ArticleID=4578

    http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/news/0,4538,2252 911,00.html

    Now, let's wait and see how many seconds it takes for this post to go -1
  • As I read this article, it has actually jumped up to 4.
  • I was wondering when we would see a linux-specific article on abcnews.com. All I really found when looking there were articles about "open source" and such. This article is good, with some errors. My question is, what is Miguel looking at in those pictures? :)
  • I don't agree. Although the article was fairly complementary I could see some newcomer thinking the following:

    1) So GUI's on Linux are a new thing. I'd better stick with an OS that has had a GUI for longer as there's no way the GUI can be stable.

    2) If GNOME has just been released and it is the first, then there must be no alternative (i.e. it could be bad publicity for KDE)

    3) So Linux is the only UNIX with a GUI? (the article gave the impression that GNOME was only for Linux and other UNIXes were command line only)

    Accuracy in an article is important - particularly when the errors are this blatant.
    --
  • But don't email him and say he's an idiot, however, as it won't do the cause any good. Keep the arguments to the facts only, point out his errors, and if you think the article still had a few good points then mention them as well.


    --
  • So if they meant no GUI like MacOS or Windows, why did they say until GNOME, the command line was the only answer. Even if some of the older Window managers didn't have very useful functionality it still provided a GUI alternative to the command line.

    BTW I do know KDE and GNOME are not window managers.
    --
  • Rob doesn't post all articles and so some articles that people consider worthy don't make it onto slashdot. This could be becasue there was so many submissions that they had to leave some out, it wasn't considered appropriate or you've given the subject a bad title so Rob deletes it without checking it.

    Remember they get loads of submissions and if they don't seem interesting immediately it's easily lost in the crap that some people probably submit.
    --

  • I can't believe they pay people to write this (Score:3)

    by linuxci ( 3530 ) on Saturday May 08, 1999 @08:47AM (#1899883)
    When you think about the innacuracies of this article you wonder why these people are actually paid to write them. I've been using Linux since 1996 and the X-Window system (the GUI) has been around since I started using Linux and X dates back into the eighties. OK when I started the window managers were quite poor compared to the ones you can have today such as WindowMaker, but at the time FVWM served my needs it certainly provided a graphical user interface.

    They're not the only ones to make such as mistake. I remember an article in a british newspaper a while ago that was reviewing Linux and said 'at the moment Linux doesn't have a graphical user interface, but don't worry as RedHat are working on GNOME'.

    If by GUI they really mean desktop environment you have KDE which predates GNOME and a few other desktop environments are also around (free and commercial).

    I don't think slashdot should link to these articles as the site is getting more hits which means they can get more from advertising revenues and the author will get praised for bringing in loads of revenue and keeping their advertisers happy. It obvious that these people don't care about accuracy thay just want people to visit their site, although now you've visited the site you can all send a reasonable non-offensive email stating clearly the innacuracies. Don't send emails that are offensive such as 'you are an idiot' as that will do us no good.

    The only problem is I can't find the authors email address, can you?
    --
  • Windows and MacOS have the GUI integrated into the kernel

    At least in Windows NT, most of the GUI still appears to run in userland, even in 4.0, even though the low-level GDI stuff was shoved into the kernel in 4.0.

  • I'm not sure I would agree. This comment was offtopic and basically a troll. Not worth marking down, but certainly not worth a 4 either.

    Otherwise the moderation works well.
  • I agree that the article has some inaccuracies so big you can drive a truck trough them, however it is nice to get some PR for a linux project. I belive they didn't let Miguel see the article before it was published. I'm certain he would ave been glad to go over it and correct the mistakes.

    As to e-mailing the author- appearantly ABC does not publisize authors' e-mails, however they have a feedback form here [go.com]. Be sure to put "http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews /gnome990507.html" in the URL field so that they know what you are talking about. Please, do not write them messages like "you l@m3rs are so stupid", since such messages won't promote the cause and and might discourage them from writing more articles about Linux, if not write about "the many bad people who use Linux". Maybe someone with some time and knowledge on his/her hands could offer to advise on Linux-related issues, and correct such mistakes before they are published. Again, please go there only if you intend to send some quality feedback.

    The Tomer
  • I once sent a mini-flame to an author online, because his story on Linux "infighting" revolved arount Gnome, KDE and problems that still exist even in the new Qt license. The author didn't even MENTION the Harmony Project...

    He pleasantly replied he did include Harmony in the first revision, but his editor got crosseyed aver all the acronyms and sent it back with a note to make it more simple (not necessarily "shorter"). So Harmony ended up on the cutting-room floor.

    Good articles can be short, clear and quick to the point. But editors are not going to approve something they don't understand. It's the classic case of manager's being where they are without fully knowing how to do their underling's job duties... we see this everywhere. There just isn't enough technical education at the lower grades, som unless you are taking computer degrees or electives a lot of people finish school never hearing of UNIX.
  • Does anyone know about how well GNOME works in Solaris?

    I compiled GNOME on my Ultra 5 at work (Solaris 2.7) and it runs reasonably well. It feels about twice as slow as my PII at home, but the functionality is there, at least.

    Jason.
  • People should read a little more carefully. It said no GUI like Windows or the MacOS. When I think of those GUIs I think not of the lower level GUI stuff that corresponds to the X server, but the highest level stuff. The point that KDE predates GNOME, and that a few others also exist is a valid point though.
  • A lot of things are better than olwm or olvwm. Fvwm was better than either. CDE is low, it's ugly, it's a memory hog, it offers little additional functionality, ect, ect. I'd like KDE to become more available on Sparcs I use, but until my local sysadmins do, it'll be fvwm for me on those machines.
  • If he's a system admin how can he make comments like that. Typical Windows user in my opinion.
    Sounds like intentional fud to me, consider the publication and source.
  • I'm absolutely mystified by Martinez's article. In case you haven't notice, he sometimes posts comments here at /. Even if he is only a casual peruser of this site, he should know that the GUI is not brand new, there is something called KDE, and that bazaars doesn't equate to cathedral building.

    I tend to enjoy most of Martinez's articles at abcnews.com. Hell, he even once had a short sidebar that tried to explain the difference between a cracker and a hacker! A recent article also pointed out the flaws in the Mindcraft tests. But this last article, while well-meaning (I think), does have some irritating flaws.

    Everytime I try to be a peacemaker I end up getting partially flamed. But here goes. Martinez has in the past (and probably still does) visit this site. I really believe that he means well when it comes to Linux. So while polite, succicint corrections to him are required, don't just flame him.

  • CDE is such a crummy GUI that I would much rather be stuck with CLI.

    Which brings me to the point, I'm actually running KDE on Solaris, and it runs... well... relatively smoothly. At least it's not CDE.

    Does anyone know about how well GNOME works in Solaris?

  • Last I checked, I didn't see many system calls to open a window. So the author is technically correct. Windows and MacOS have the GUI integrated into the kernel while on the UNIX front the GUI is still in user space (even if it does run with lots of privilages). When Windows was running on top of DOS one wouldn't claim that suddenly DOS was a GUI. Of course, the author of the article does make it sound like before GNOME there was no way to have a graphical interface on UNIX machines.
  • Well, I wasn't all that suprised about this article. I've been reading stuff like that for years.

    What indeed surprises me are the reactions of most of the commentators here.
    'Minor Mistakes'? Beg your pardon? Besides of the many factual errors which may have been prevented by really doing some research before writing (aren't journalists required to do so?), the actual FUD comes - as usual - at the end:

    "The March release of GNOME 1.0 for general download displayed the best and worst aspects of open-source development: while thousands of people downloaded the program, they found many more bugs and issues than the GNOME team had anticipated."
    Well, GNOME so-called '1.0' was buggy, but not as a result of its OS nature. I don't really want to do start that desktop war over again, but KDE's later betas were a lot more stable (besides: no, I am not using KDE...).

    The author's 'compliment' is indeed pure FUD : OS is depicted as an unprofessional bunch of part-time hackers, that doesn't even know the difference between a beta and a final version.
    Do you really agree to this? Are you so possessed by being covered in 'big' media that you are willing to take such abuses? Excusing a journalist who obviously hasn't done his job right and wrote an article indeed full of 'bugs and issues' (and who surely won't write a fix)?

    I am not.

    belbo

  • I think this article is good enough. the person doesn't have their facts completely straight, but they had enough to at inform (at least a little) someone who has never heard of GNOME.

    a couple people said that it implied UNIX had no GUI, but what the article meant is that there's no little icon you can click on to see your hard drive, which is more or less true.

    Only problems i see with this is that it seemed to imply (at the end) that 1.0 was the first release-- i've never used GNOME, only KDE, but it seems to me that GNOME was pretty common a loong time before 1.0 came out. abc didn't seem to realize that OSS works on a steady stream of updates, not large occational ceremonious releases. 1.0 was just another update, i thought.

    Also, i want to know why KDE wasn't mentioned in the article. Even if KDE isn't as good as GNOME, it at least deserves a slight mention. GNOME isn't the only project of its type.
  • There's a free software timeline that you can see by clicking on Miguel's photo. Anyone that reads through that will come away with a pretty darn good idea of what this is all about.

    It starts with RMS starting GNU, and has some other landmarks, and ends with GNOME. Well done, I think.

  • I guess it's good...sort of (Score:3)

    by Mojojojo ( 15516 ) on Saturday May 08, 1999 @09:51AM (#1899898)
    Noone sees the abstract layers in Linux and Unix, ie, X, window manager, desktop manager (GNOME). So basically the highest, most visible one in the chain gets the notice, not X. That's okay I guess, but if we are to distinguish ourselves from OS's where the gui is ingrained into the kernel and everything else (which of course isn't good), we need to tout the fact that when GNOME fucks up...as it does a lot, you can normally get back to X or the command prompt and restart it, not the machine. Gnome however, has caused my system multiple times to freeze altogether, not ctrl-alt-backspace or ctrl-alt-f1-f6 which sucks, and I'm not using it until it's more stable. However, they're missing the point. Gnome is really still in development and never should've had the 1.0 version tag. However, it is very very good, despite it's still being in development. I think when it is stable it will rival all others.

    The problem with all the open source software is that not all groups apply the same scrutiny that Linus and the Kernel guys do. they have no corporate timeline, and don't rush things, they wait until it's solid, and I think pressure from RedHat to get it done in time for RH6.0 pushed Gnome out the door too early. Enlightenment too, they wisely haven't chosen to give it a 1.0 version, and it's not ready. they've got a lot of really good stuff in there, but some of it noone really gives a shit about. I think that the development teams on these two should solidify their code so it's really stable, and then get some convergence on writing GTK apps, and get a really nice development environment with easy libraries, and then it will be easy for people to port apps from M$. Java and (I hate to say it) Visual C++ with MFC have a lot of functionality built into their languages. They have simplified functions for a number of things. Linux development would boom if developmers didn't have to find the code that they wanted out of 30 different GNU programs, if they had those same things they needed as stock functions we'd be set, and apps would be all over the place.
  • as I am not a member of the press I cannot confirm or deny your accusation. However, it is the duty of the press to check facts before they report them. If someone is reporting on Linux or GNOME and are ignorant of KDE's existence they should reconsider their field of endeavour.
  • I heard Gnome has "portability problems". Considering you need about 3,000 other libraries to be installed before you can compile GNOME, I haven't bothered.

    And why is CDE a crummy interface? (other than it's a memory hog) I feel it's much better than Open Look, but Window Maker is better still (and it's only supposed to be a window manager!)
  • There were many glaring historical inaccuracies in the article -- that is indisputable.

    There were also many technical inaccuracies, and this is indisputable as well.

    So what? This article was not written for techies; considering its length, I think it packed as much useful info as possible in a form that is accessible to lay[wo]men.

    The point is not in what ways it is wrong, but in what ways it is right -- and it is right in that it tells the general population about GNOME as one of the major alternatives in Linux user interface; it also tells them about what 'free' means in this context, and a bit about how bazaar development works. True, it could tell more and it could be more accurate -- but accuracy would entail both greater length and many details which a common non-techie would have trouble digesting in one sitting.

    The glass is half-full, folks. I think this was a case of good PR, and a good article.

    --

  • In context, the article served well. (Score:4)

    by kingsqueak ( 18917 ) on Saturday May 08, 1999 @02:29PM (#1899902)
    As a few others have stated, one has to keep in mind that these articles are written for the layperson that may have an eye on what the latest 'spin' is in this 'new linux thing' (direct quote heard recently from a friend with a rather large tech stock portfolio when he heard me mention the OS on my laptop). Ever try to explain what linux, X, and the difference between a desktop environment and a basic GUI is to an everyday Mac or Windows user? Most people just have a hollow stare, even when they really want to understand.

    The point made about the authors' lack of knowledge as pertaining to current linux development can possibly be due to the fact that anyone with a real thorough working knowledge is most likely working in the computer field and not a columnist. What we (linuxers) may need is some sort of a centralized press consortium to release more accurate announcements at a central location. Possibly yet another mailing list where the releases can be hashed out for detail and accuracy before their public release. If such a group were formed, wouldn't it be wise to have representatives of the 'major' projects such as KDE, GNOME, X-Free, and the kernel developers as examples?

    Due to the fact that most of the development is done on such a large scale with so many participants, the logistics of disseminating accurate updates are a bit complex. I think that some sort of centralized information source would be a great asset and fix many of these articles. I don't mean a help page for active linuxers with details that will go over the heads of the mainstream computer public, there's a ton of those. What we may need is a laypersons guide to linux. Quite frankly wording descriptions will be an interesting task.

    Realize that when someone such as Caldera or Redhat makes a press statement that they indeed have a business interest at stake, and rightly and fairly so, the same for the GNOME or KDE developers, although they don't have profit in mind of course. Anyone representing these groups will obviously only include pertinent information to their efforts. What is needed is a sort of neutral ground, community based information source for the general public.

    I appologize if this is a bit of a ramble, be glad I'm not a columnist ;-). Oh yeah, my e-mail and domain are no longer active.
  • The photo of Miguel that ABCnews used, was shot by Hans Schou ( chlor@inet.uni2.dk [mailto]), allthough they have just annotated it "www.gphoto.org" in the article.

    They probably found it in this gallery [gphoto.org] that I posted at www.gphoto.org [gphoto.org],
    as an example gallery.

    Mr. Schou used a Olympus Camedia C-1400L digital camera.

  • Please give counter-examples of "lies" and "false facts" given to the press by Miguel de Icaza.

    I fail to see a single reason for why Miguel would lie.

    He's a Free Software Foundation volunteer working on GNOME. Besides, he holds a system administrator job at UNAM in Mexico.

    So before you claim that someone in our community has lied to the press, please check out what he or they would actually gain from it, before you post as Anonymous Coward.

    In this case, Miguel would not gain anything, since he's not receiving money from either of the distribution companies, AFAIK.

    So I think you owe Miguel an apology. His email address is miguel@NOSPAM.gnu.org [mailto].

  • Please help to improve GNOME by submitting bug reports via bugs.gnome.org [gnome.org].

    Don't complain about work that other people do, if you don't want to do what it takes to make GNOME work better.

    You seem to think version numbering is the Truth, and that 1.0 versions always are BugFree(tm).


  • Anyone else noticed how dim an opinion many corporate higher-ups have of their own customer base? This whole editor attitude of "our readers are way too clueless too understand all these truthful details, just simplify it until its in some sort of predigested form so that our stupid readers don't have to think". Advertising also .. advertisers say "hmm, lets see, just how stupid is our target market? Can we use a bunch of cheap overused marketing tactics from Marketing 101? Yes, of course we can! Our consumers are a bunch of easily manipulated suckers".

    I've always sort of believed that if you treat people like morons, they will start behaving like morons. The people deciding what goes into newspapers and onto the TV are treating the viewers as morons. Perhaps people aren't as stupid as they are made out to be. Perhaps people would be more capable of critical thought if they weren't continually treated like drooling idiots. Or perhaps they really are, I don't know. But I'm sick of the media patronizing me.
  • Just an observation which may be right or wrong: I have seen now several articles which get the history totally wrong. They were all about GNOME and Miguel, but I have never read an article about KDE or another Unix desktop environment which was flawed so much. I'll probably blame the new popularity of Linux/Unix for this ``effect.''
  • You didn't include any quote marks, were those intended to be quotes or were you paraphrasing his comments? Can you cite your source for these comments?
  • I Agree, no need to flame 'em over what was probelly a honest mistake. The "No GUI" FUD was out for a long time, so a lot of people who are new to Linux just assume the first GUI they hear of really is the first GUI. At least it's killing the no GUI FUD. BYTW I droped 'em a note before I even started on the Comments.
  • It has been a few years since I've had anything to do with Windows, but I was under the impression that Win9x was still MS-DOS based. The option to boot to the command line has been cleverly hidden.
    But, quite honestly, I really don't know.
  • The open-source movement is a bit like the construction of the great medieval cathedrals of Europe: thousands of anonymous artisans working over time on a grand project whose entirety they may never know.

    So Open Source is like a cathedral? It sounds like someone heard of TCATB essay, but haven't taken the time to read it. It is stupid, because the article is in other ways fine, and it really makes you wonder, what is the process of writing and article in a magazine.

    Where is the professional pride of the trade? Don't they want to marvel, or are they content with doing so-so?

    I don't get it . . .

  • Well, what we know as ActiveX is also called OLE2 and COM/DCOM. According to Miguel de Icaza it is the same kind of object exchange model used in Gnome. But that doesn't mean, that Gnome can exchange objects with Windows. It is just the technology.


  • The article sucked, but at least it was good press. The reporter should have had the intelligence to check out all of the facts before reporting them. Five minutes with any linux book in a bookstore would have ironed out several of the problems. Asking nearly anybody in the Linux community about some of the related facts would have fixed most of the rest. There is no real excuse for such egregious errors. The press screams that "The people have a right to know" which is true, but the people have the right to know the truth, not somebody's half baked, uninformed, misinterpeted version of it.

    Further I found the comparason to a cathederal kind of insulting. "The Cathederal and the Bazaar" expresses the difference nicely.

  • So there are a few inaccuracies...
    You all of course realize that if you bash everyone who decides to post a serious article on Linux because there are a few inaccuracies (especially if you're doing this to a knowledgeable sysadmin who has some connections to Linux/Slashdot) you're very soon going to wind up with no one willing to write anything for fear of having their mailbox flamed.
    Spend you energy pointing out problems, not just bashing the guy outright...
  • First off thx to all the linux GUI programmers out there that created the 10 or 20 other GUIs i used before Gnome was worth anything...
    Guess it just goes to show that everyone at ABC who has ever used unix or linux used it so long ago that they probably would think VGA is something new 2...very amusing article

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