RealPlayer Interview with Miguel

Hot on the heel of his recent interview with the BBC, Miguel is in a RealPlayer inteview, talking about how Gnome is helping Linux grow up in the desktop market. Check out the full interview at NMTV. And if you need RealPlayer, check out our recent story about RealPlayer for Linux.

Re:While were on the subject of GNOME

[Skratch]

Thats funny, because I was told elsewhere that as GNOME becomes more and more complete, it will be more stable but still use the same amount of resources. And I wouldn't know where to even begin... why would a stupid little panel app take up 33% of my 127MB swap space, not to mention most of my 32MB of memory? All the other GNOME apps aren't such hogs, and KDE's panel doesn't even come close... Not to mention my Wharf in AfterStep, while being huge, takes up even less resources that both...

Yes, undisputed

[Great_Jehovah]

Even though the form your response looks like a "dispute" of the statements I reported, you don't actually end up disputing them.

X) I can't understand what "Gnome uses C bindings" means.

OK then, I'll deconstruct it for you: "Bindings" is a term used by programmers to refer to the information needed by a program called "the linker" to make it so an application can call functions and access data in an external collection of code and data called a "library". "C bindings" then, are bindings which designed for use with programs written in a programming language called "C".

Y) It is as out as GNOME was a couple of months ago: beta state

Which is to say "not out yet".

Z) 3) Gnome uses CORBA

This is true

Hooray!

Accessing the video

[Great_Jehovah]

I forgot to mention that I discovered some hoops you have to jump through to watch. First you have to login (user/pass = cypherpunk/cypherpunk worked for me). Then there's getting the funky javascript link to work. Here's the URL I had to hack together to make it work at 128K [silicon.com].

Re:idiot

[mill]

I am already subscribed. I fail to see where the claims are coming from.

It is not my job to find the reason behind your statements, that is your job. To ask me to build credibility for your claims is ridiculous. It is also close to impossible since I am to refute what I have then just argumented to be a valid argument.

Idiot? You sure got me there.

/mill

The video location

[Kev Vance]

You can get it at http://www.silicon.com/html/2_ desktop200599sl.rm.ram [silicon.com]

At least, I think that's it. I got the new version of RealAudio, but when I go to play stuff, it just makes a lot of noise. Only when I have the volume setting down to the lowest notch do I get something vaguely resembling speech (still quite staticky). Anyone else have this problem?

Cool.

[Gary Franczyk]

He is a pretty smart kid.
Now that I have my new G2 realplayer, I can view the interview no problem! Cool!

Re:The video location

[tomita]

make sure you have rw permission on your /dev/mixer.

Re:Accessing the video

[Tack]

Or if you're stuck with a 28.8 like me, this [silicon.com] is the low-bandwidth version of the interview.

Jason.

Undisputed?

[Roberto]

1) QT is C++ centric while Gnome uses more language neutral C bindings

I can't understand what "Gnome uses C bindings" means. Anyway: Miguel has said (I don't know if he did it in this interview, but he did in the BBC one) that KDE "forces you to use C++", which is blatantly false.

2) the open source QT isn't out yet

It is as out as GNOME was a couple of months ago: beta state. You can get it at www.troll.no.

Also in the BBC interview he said "KDE is not totally free yet". If you go to the kde-gnome list archives you will see him saying "KDE is free".
I suppose he changed his mind.

3) Gnome uses CORBA

This is true. GNOME 1.0 doesn't use it for anything where CORBA is *needed* but it does use it (for panel applets).

Vanity Fair and Arrogant Egomaniacs

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me who thinks that quite some people in the Free Software area are more promoting themselves than Open Source?
Linus always tried not to raise his profile over what was neccessary, buth newer figures are less shy about that.

I was a bit uneasy about the way Eric Raymond celebrated himself, but at least he has done a considerable amount of work both as developer and author.
And, he created the IT buzzword of(at least) the year.

But Miguel?
He started a copycat of an already existing project, as he disagreed with the tools (=widget lib) used.
The alternative, helping out Harmony/FreeQT and writing C bindings, was probably not as prestigious...
(And no, the technical differences between Gnome and KDE are not that big besides the C/C++ issue)

He has written a fair amount of code, but not more impressively so than many other free sw developers.

What upsets me most is the way Miguel acts in public:
Saying he is the saviour of the sw world may beOK for RMS, but for Miguel it's just ridiculous.
He makes pejorative remarks about competing projects, lies about the curent status of his programs (e.g. gnumeric is far from complete) just to produce commercial-style hype.
He does not give enoughcredit to other contributors, and acts arbitrarily like a dictator sometimes (without having earned the same legimite position as Linus).
Take the premature Gnome 1.0 release for LinuxExpo: Just about everybodyin the Gnome team was against it for technical reasons, but for the sake of marketing hype Gnome decidede to actively mislead the users.
Consequently, some reviews dismissed Linux as a whole, as the UI was so flawed...

If Miguel can't change his attitude, it wuold be worthwhile for the Gnome team to think about replacing Miguel as a leader.
This would also help KDE-GNOME cooperation immensely.

Re:Diplomatic?

[Phil-14]

Also, I *think* gnumeric is written in python.
Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita

Re:Diplomatic?

[edgy]

Yeah, I had a problem even in this interview, when the girl asked him about KDE, he mentioned that you can program in any language for Gnome, but KDE is only C++.

Aren't there bindings for other languages for KDE as well as Gnome?

Also, merely the fact that there are bindings for other languages doesn't change the fact that Qt is mainly for C++, and GTK is mainly for C. If he was going to mention differences, I think he should just have mentioned that.

Other than that though, this interview was a lot friendlier towards KDE than some of the other stuff I've seen.

Re:Read the Gnome-KDE-list for examples of Miguel

[mill]

List the above claims and show where and when Miguel made them. I won't be trying to second guess your thought chain.

/mill

CORBA is never *needed* ...

[JamesHenstridge]

CORBA is great as a standard IPC mechanism. Rather than writing your own IPC or networking protocol, you can use a nice standard one.

I could just as easily argue that KDE's koffice does not require CORBA. They could have invented a totally new IPC mechanism for communication between components. You could of course argue that it makes sense to use a standard IPC mechanism like CORBA in this instance though (and I would not argue with you).

As you can see, you can say that CORBA is not needed for any IPC tasks.

I could turn things round and say that a new IPC mechanism is NOT needed for use with panel applets, since there is CORBA.

Re:Diplomatic?

[TedC]

Those quotes are taken out of context.

Here they are in context:

I don't think KDE has a future at this point, it's not completely free yet and it's bound to a single programming language in Unix.

Not all FUD comes out of Redmond...

TedC

Re:The video location

[Kev Vance]

Yes, that did it. Silly me, I set the execute bit instead of the write bit :)

Re:Diplomatic?

[Great_Jehovah]

I was only referring to what he said in the interview. Clearly he's got a lot of emotional investment in Gnome so he's not going to say KDE/QT is better than Gnome/GTK. By "diplomatic" I meant he kept his comparison comments to things which are undisputed:

• QT is C++ centric while Gnome uses more language neutral C bindings
• the open source QT isn't out yet
• Gnome uses CORBA

He took a noticeable pause to think before he started off on that topic. Perhaps he has learned from past experience that inflammatory comments on that score are counterproductive. You will grant that this is possible no?

Re:Diplomatic?

[mill]

He said "you are pretty much stuck with C++" not that it was only C++.

The reason this interview seems friendlier is because now you can actually hear exactly what he says instead of getting it interpreted for you by a journalist. You just interpreted it yourself and voila "pretty much" disappeared.

Media is a powerful tool. Unfortunately it is in the hands of journalists.

/mill

Can't use RealPlayer

[Tet]

And if you need RealPlayer, check out our recent story about RealPlayer for Linux.

Which is of no use whatsoever to those of us on non-Intel platforms. Has someone got this in a sensible format somewhere?

Also at CNN

[overlord]

Check also, that Miguel appears at the CNN, yesterday night. Also he is at "CNN en espaniol"
as leadership of the nest milenium.

Overlord

Re:Diplomatic?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not true. Many of the apps in gnome-admin, gnome-network, and gnome-games are written in different languages.
For example, Aisleriot, our customisable solitaire engine, is mainly written in Guile (scheme), gulp, our printer utility, is mainly written in Objective C, and AbiWord, our word processor, is written mainly in C++.
Obviously, things in gnome-core are written in straight C, for the same reason that things in gnome-libs are.

Re:Diplomatic?

[Anonymous Coward]

And most of KSpread is written in python and most of KSirc in perl...

Re:Geez, you really are a idiot...

[mill]

So? Where did he claim he was the saviour of free software? Where did he lie about the current status of his own software? Where doesn't he give enough credit to other contributors and act like a dictator?

Did he answer all those claims with "I have been told I have gone to far and they are right?". I don't think so. Reading the posts on the gnome-kde list I find only one that has those words.

The "legacy" GUI was a joke I used for the first time in my Gnumeric talk at LinuxExpo. Boy, you keep a close eye on my actions. Whoever provides you with information about every move I make should include in the mail "<miguel-was-giggling> legacy </miguel-was-giggling>".

Now, that being said, my close friends (specially Raph) said that I went a bit too far with my jokes in my talk. So I will cut on those jokes in the future. They are right, I went over-board, and this will not happen again.

So when you called me an idiot before I really wasn't one, eh? Any more ad honimem attacks when you are at it?

/mill

While were on the subject of GNOME

[Skratch]

Now, I'm not posting this to start a flame war about which Desktop Environment/Window Manager is better, but I do have something to say about GNOME.

Ever since I upgraded to RedHat 6, I decided I'd install GNOME, thinking it would be further along than it was when it was relesed with RH 5.2. Boy was that a mistake, GNOME hogs resources as much as Windows 95 does and it crashes even more often than that. Now, I know GNOME is actually a set of tools and blah blah blah, but I'm talking about the whole Panel interface, It craps out on me on a regular basis, both on my box at home and on my box a work. I've tried to compare how it adds up to KDE on both my machines. On my computer at work (Pentium 233, 32MB RAM, 127MB Swap), it crawls along at the pace that Win95 does on my the other box in my cubicle (A Pentium 100 for crying out loud! Also with 32MB RAM mind you). And more than that, GNOME uses 33% of my 127MB swap file! Don't get me wrong, I think GNOME is hella-slick, and I use it on my computer at home, since its a PII 450, with 128MB RAM and I got 127MB Swap, there's plenty of resources to spare. Now KDE runs A LOT smoother on my 233 at work, almost no slowdown, if any. For some reason though, I don't particularly care for KDE, and GNOME is just such crap, that I revert to using my dearly loved AfterStep. I do use the GNOME programs in AfterStep, and it works just fine.

But my comment is this: I thought the whole reason things were OpenSource was so that we could get away from badly written programs that hog lots of resources (Win 95, for example), and that's exactly what GNOME is. Why are RedHat software and so many others pumping all this manpower and time and money into such a huge pile of crap?

It just sucks so much, cause if GNOME worked properly, and ran smoothly, without hogging resources it would be the most awesome thing.

Sorry if I'm bringing up a subject that's been discussed before, but I haven't really read to much about this particular subject, I'm just talking from my experience. A good tip for someone who doesn't like KDE and doesn't have 128MB RAM would be just to use your favorite GNUstep window manager using the various programs that come with KDE and GNOME, that seems to work best with me..

Miguel gives good interview

[Great_Jehovah]

I'm impressed. He's knowledgeable, articulate and diplomatic.