__/ [ Roger Grossenbacher ] on Thursday 23 March 2006 09:26 \__
> Commenting on this:
>
>> Anybody that switches to Linux simply because Vista will be delayed a
>> few months will be jumping at the chance to switch back when they see
>> Vista - it is absolutely awesome.
>>
>> When they actually *use* it, they will be hooked. It's that good.
>
> Roy S. Schestowitz wrote:
>
> You are missing the point. Not many people will be using Vista. They
> will buy a Windows XP computer /before/ Christmas.
>
> By that time, XGL, KDE Solid, QT4, Firefox 2 and many other advances
> will have made Vista look like yesterday's technology.
>
>
> Very intriguing comment Roy.
>
> I read your input regularly and find it always interesting and balanced.
>
> Not knowing what exactly you refer to here this time, could you just
> elaborate a little more on what precisely these new items will offer to
> make Vista (aka SP-3???)look they way you predict in such a short time?
>
> Thanks in advance for enlightening me a little bit here.
>
> R.
I am both humbled and flattered to have you ask that. There is a plethora of
projects and features which are presently lined up like connonballs for
implementation. Many of them (e.g. Firefox 2 which is now in public alpha)
are already "work in progress". Not only are they worked on intensively by
large international teams (locales benefit from this), but they are also not
developed in geographical/electronic isolation, thanks to the Internet. The
various 'camps' (e.g. GNOME, KDE and others) are beginning to unite and
agree on coherent strategy, which will unite the strengths of all sides. So
what features are we talking about specifically? I can only mention a few
subsets of these since Open Source is taking a huge leap (partly owing to
unemployment in the sector).
Interestingly enough, not only was Gates slow to understand and adapt to the
Internet before eliminating Netscape, ICQ (not Google though), but also the
Internet issued his company's death knell. It brought together and connected
people who shared code over the wire and intercepted bugs very effectively.
I am highly involved in WordPress, so I get a sense for the impact of the
Web on FOSS every day.
I might as well point out the fact that Linux, unlike Windows, benefits from
fragmentation to teams and parallel-yet-joint efforts, which produce the
best from everything. Microsoft cannot offer this development model and if
one team fails, there is a chronological fallback, such as the January 2007
extension, most latterly.
XGL is only one among at least >2 implementations (not necessarily forks or
separate projects) which enhance the looks and interaction in Linux and push
it to new levels. The extent to which this improves levels of productivity
remains subjective, but it will appeal to a certain crowd. Rest assured.
KDE Solid is intended to provide a reliable and abstract connectivity with
hardware. There is nothing flawed with that at the moment. I can plug in USB
devices like Flash memory or an external item at present and have an icon
pop up in my desktop. However, Solid is yet to show the world some
innovation and stunning user friendliness. I once read about it in depth. If
you search the Web on this term, you will find even more information.
QT4 will bring greater power to both developers and end users. Let us leave
GTK aside for a while (see subsequent paragraph on 'snippage'). QT4 will
also have something called Plasma, which you can look up if you wish. It
pushes interactivity and look-and-feel to new levels.
As regards Firefox 2: Internet Explorer 7 has reached feature freeze a few
days ago, or so it seems <
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2006/03/21/mixed-impressions/ >. IE7
intends to imitate Firefox 0.9.x/1.0.x, which was its milestone set around
December 2004, when Gates kicked off the project. IE7, even if implemented
properly, has already got serious security flaws (see PK's latest post in
this NG), which is not surprising. Moreover, it will never have hundreds of
plug-ins like Mozilla Firefox. At the moment, I use nearly 20 Firefox
extensions that I cannot surf the Web without. Thus, IE7 is not even a
remote possibility. It seems like an old-generation browser. Mind you, I am
still using Firefox 1.0.4.
There are many more 'bullets' I could list, but the above was intended to be
a spontaneous sample that supports an argument.
With kind regards,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Error, no keyboard - press F1 to continue"
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
2:45pm up 15 days 7:22, 8 users, load average: 0.31, 0.55, 0.86
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