From owner-freebsd-chat Sun May 27 22:39: 3 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mb1i0.ns.pitt.edu (mb1i0.ns.pitt.edu [136.142.186.35]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6EBFE37B422 for ; Sun, 27 May 2001 22:39:00 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from pfg1+@pitt.edu) Received: from pitt.edu ("port 1882"@[136.142.22.139]) by pitt.edu (PMDF V5.2-32 #41462) with ESMTP id <01K42VTXBK2000009E@mb1i0.ns.pitt.edu> for freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG; Mon, 28 May 2001 01:38:59 EST Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 01:46:04 -0400 From: "Pedro F. Giffuni" Subject: Re: The desktop apathy To: Rahul Siddharthan Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Message-id: <3B11E61C.95D0BA0D@pitt.edu> Organization: University of Pittsburgh MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win98; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: en,pdf,es-CO References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010527082742.049003f0@localhost> <20010527172838.A11174@lpt.ens.fr> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > ... > > I do, however, doubt very much that anyone will develop a BSD-licensed > desktop environment. The BSD license is geared to some things, and > not to some other things, and I think it is attractive for a program > like bzip2 (where the aim is to establish a standard), but > fundamentally unattractive for a desktop environment or a word > processor. Any such effort will be GPL (or similarly restrictive > license) or out-and-out commercial. > I do think you have a point here. Staroffice has practically all the functionally of MS office (haven't checked the spreadsheet though) and the license is restricted. However, even if the applications are MS-compatible there seems to be something missing. Technically speaking there is little the kernel can do to improve the situation, so making any distinction between Linux and FreeBSD is pointless. The problem might require having someone redesign X with an Object Oriented approach. But the experience with Beos (whom I recall opensourced their UI) shows the problem is nontechnical. I think Jordan's article holds the key to this situation. Apple might be the David that is required to take the desktop out from Microsoft's field and hopefully also will take us to a better league. FWIW, I also think Apple has a good chance now that MS is screwing up with their .net strategy. Pedro. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message