Red Hat Desktop Integration

[Derek Neighbors]

Kyle Faber said:
>>  If Red Hat wants to
>> standardize a Linux desktop, they might as well call themselves MS
>> Linux.

Let me predicate my following response with saying I whole heartedly
disagree with the above statement.  AS LONG AS RED HAT makes their
standard "free".  Which best I know is the case.

> few  days.  The main complaint in that thread was that because Microsoft
>  "invented" their own standards and didn't go with someone else's, they

I believe the issue was Microsoft "did" agree to follow standards just
they never followed through on it, or tweaked it slightly to as to be
incompatiable with others.

I see what Red Hat as doing is agreeing to standards but moving them in
directions that are not only free but compatiable.  As soon as they start
to break these two things the value becomes suspect and questionable.  I
think that some people feel one or the other is in jeopardy of violation
and why some of the GNU\Linux crowd does not like this move.  However, a
good majority think its a good thing.

> were  bad.  Now Red Hat wants to standardize a desktop, help everyone
> work well  together, and the first in line to bash our "commercial"
> leader is ...  *ominous drum roll* the linux community itself.

If you were bitten by a snake in the past you would be leary of snakes. 
So  dont fault those that have fought long and hard against 'commerical'
snakes for fearing snakes even though people claim them to be the non
venomous variety.

> 	Standards are not bad.  Closed standards are an oxymoron.  The thing

I can NOT agree with this statement in any way shape or form.  .doc is a
PERFECT example of closed standard.  It is the 'standard' because everyone
uses is, but is surely isnt 'open'.  Currently people have reverse
engineered to support it, and now of course that is also illegal.

> they  can cram into that little $60 box, don't support the distribution.

Many people wont.  Many people will, ultimately the free market decides.

> 	The knee-jerk reaction to hating Microsoft is lame at best, and
> damaging at
> the worst.  The majority of people in this country (and yes I am being
> US-centric here, because its the only culture I can speak for)  want
> their  computer to just WORK!  If they wanted it to be hard, they would

The problem is windows doesnt just work.  Having to reboot hourly and
having to reinstall the operating system annually and being forced to
upgrade for obnoxious dollar values while rending working programs
worthless isnt just 'working'.

> go down to  the basement bin and fish out Redhat 2.0 and no one would
> ever upgrade except  with code they wrote themselves.  WRONG!  People
> hate having to reboot all  the time, but they hate even more not being
> able to get ANYTHING done between  those reboots, even more
> frustratingly if those reboots are weeks apart.

I think its more than just reboots.  I have a friend who purchased a cdrom
and installed NERO software on windows.  It stopped working, then the
drive did.  He called the drive company for support who told him to call
nero who told him to call microsoft, who asked for $100 to talk on the
phone.  So he returned the drive and tried another with similar problems. 
So he 'pirated' yes bootlegged EasyCD Creator from a friend to avoid nero,
which did work, but mysteriously made other applications on his PC start
behave eradicatlly.  He finally gave up and is now going to reinstall
windows.  "so much for just working"

> 	OpenOffice is great for this, but how many times have we heard about
> the
> "waste of time supporting .Doc format."  If you are the new kid on the
> block  you have to learn the rules to all the other kid's games or they
> will kick  your ass and call you a dork.  .doc is how they play baseball
> on this block,  ladies and gentlemen.

Its a proposition of freedom.  No one says there is NO value in supporting
.doc, but being CHAINED by the .doc format is detrimental.  We really need
to break free into an open and free format.  This is similar to the mp3 vs
ogg debate.  Finally .ogg has been vindicated some since the patent holder
to mp3 might finally start really being restrictive.

.doc might be how they play baseball, but if you have to give all your
lunch money to bill to be able to use the bat to play in the game, isnt
getting your butt kicked and being a called a dork, and aligning with
'better' friends to start your own game a better proposition?

> 	Evolution is great for this.  Search your email logs or slashdot for
> "Ximian
> Connector is ANTI-OPENSOURCE!!!"  Exchange is how they play Hopscotch on
> this  block, better learn the rules.

It is ANTI OPENSOURCE.  No one is mad that Evolution supports exchange,
they are mad that Ximian has broken its COMMITTMENTS to writing free
software.

> 	Samba is great for this.  How many gigabytes of bandwidth have been
> wasted on
> "Why are you using Samba, just switch to Linux and use NFS, its works
> better."  Samba is how you play hide-and-seek here, folks.

Again this is the try to avoid lockin.  People making these arguments are
trying to unchain you.

> 	Learn all the rules, play all their games.  Then, after you know all
> the
> games they play, you can raise you hand and say "since I am such a good
> person, and I know all the rules to your games, let me introduce you to
> my  new game.  Do I rock or what?"  Then when they all believe that you
> can make  up great new games, you tell them about how all their games
> suck and you have  them wrapped around your little finger.

I agree that being able to play their games is important, but not at the
cost of losing to the fact that their games are stacked and they cheat and
as long as we use 'their' rules we will always lose.

> 	Unfortunately, I will get blasted as a MS supporter and Linux hater
> because
> making everyone think that your games are the coolest is "such a M$
> thing to  do", I might as well call myself "Kyle Gates"

Microsoft is not the enemy, just one of the strongest solidiers in its
army.  The enemy is proprietary software and data formats.  I agree that
the M$ helps no one.  In fact, there used to be a saying....

BSD users love Unix.
Linux users just hate Microsoft.

Its a shame that sometimes people are more in love with hating M$ than
valuing the freedoms GNU/Linux gives them.
>
> </rant>
>
> Kyle Faber
>
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