Linus is irrelevant
December 13, 2005 2:23 pm gnomeLinus Torvalds’s view of GNOME is irrelevant. I can’t believe anyone still listens to the guy when he goes off on one of his rants.
He lost all right to authority when he chose a commercial program made by a guy who doesn’t understand free software to manage the kernel, and then backed him when he turned on a free software developer acting in good faith. Any technical credibility he had went out the window when he claimed that all specs are useless.
It’s sickening to see people pandering to him and trying to calm him down just because he’s Linus. There are easier ways to make our users rock than wasting time on this kind of shit.
December 14th, 2005 at 12:37 am
Word!
December 14th, 2005 at 12:51 am
I could agree that no one is perfect. Yeah, Linus rants are sometimes very hard to read, because he rants rarerly, but with quite strong words.
However, we should not forget that there are people who feels same way. So there is some issues. But of course they are not fixable such way.
By the way, by thread, it seems that Linus just plug this as flame. In first moment, I thought someone pretends to be him.
Nah, forget this one.
December 14th, 2005 at 12:54 am
Linus has created a big platform like Linux/kernel
irrelevant ?
i don’t think so maybe most gnome developers are irrelevant…
December 14th, 2005 at 12:54 am
The truth hurts, doesn’t it?
BTW, what open source operating system did you create? Saying Linus is irrelevent is just an indication of your lack of integrity.
December 14th, 2005 at 1:07 am
just because linus created linux (which is my favourite os) doesnt mean that we all have to praise him like a god.
i love gnome desktop, and i accept that some people dont.. what linus did was typical from a troll… i guess that Dave means by “irrelevant”… let not waste time with useless flamewars…
stick with kde… who cares…
December 14th, 2005 at 1:08 am
That’s right, a user makes a comment that the functionality of Gnome is getting in the way of his using Linux and you feel he is irrelevant? Do you actually think that you know what is right for everyone? I’m no fan of KDE but some of the choice s the Gnome developers have made in the past have driven me up the wall, especially spatial Nautilus and not having an easy menu editor like WindowMaker has!
December 14th, 2005 at 1:13 am
Even though Linus did not post his views in a polite way, an important parts of the message are right on.
1) Removing all functionality leaves nothing
2) The Intersection of all Majorities is
the empty set (or in real life: small at best)
Although I might not agree with his views, I cannot see how anyone could not agree with above two points.
December 14th, 2005 at 1:15 am
You are a lamer!
December 14th, 2005 at 1:15 am
Nunya: and guess what there are lot of people who _love_ Nautilus spatial 🙂
So answer is – there is hard decisions to make and some of these decisions won’t make people happy. So there is a lesson.
I agree with nuno – Linus trolled. It was wrong. I agree with points but the way he did it was unpolite un untypical for him. Just all.
For desktop – just stick with apps witch suits you, god lord 🙂
December 14th, 2005 at 1:22 am
People here aren’t complaining about Linus’s idea about Gnome, we are complaining about the way he is expressing them.
Since he cover a kind of “leadership” position he should try to avoid calling other Free Software developer “F—ing Idiots”.
December 14th, 2005 at 1:26 am
Whereas Linus may have been more polite, i understand what it says. For Desktop users Gnome is fine and you don’t need to expose PPD options. BTW most inkjet printers ( for desktop usage ) doesn’t provide PPD files.
However as a workstation in a profesionnal environment, you need the PPD options. Indeed in enterprise most of the time, you will be using PostScript Laser printers, and theses printers work out of the box because they understand PostScript, but also because they are exposing theirs options thanks to a common format : PPD ( http://www.linuxprinting.org/ppd-doc.html ). Thanks to the PPD files and theirs options you can :
– switch the printer to “low quality mode” to preserve toner if you’re just going to printers hundreds papers that don’t need high quality
– select the input slot/tray to use ( each tray may have different type of paper, different quality of paper, etc … or you may want to use the bypass to put bristol paper which can’t be put in the tray )
– select the output slot
– specify if you want to automatically staple the paper
– store the print in the printer Hard-disk and make the print happen later
– manually set the paper type because you know that the printer may incorrectly detect the paper
– select a different printer color profil in order to have sharper or brighter or whateveryouwant prints
– and so on …
It means that you can use the advanced options for which you pay for a 5000$ ( or more ) printer !
Under Windows when you install theses kind of PostScript printers with a PPD file, in the print dialog, when you go in the properties, there’s a new tab that allow you to easily change and modify theses advanced settings.
The same for OpenOffice ( which even provide it’s own set of PPD files ) and for KDE in the driver settings tab : http://printing.kde.org/screenshots/
http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdebase/kdeprint/cups-and-ppd.html#id…
CUPS also allow to configure these settings ( system wide in this case ) during printer installation.
Printerdrake allow to do this also (system wide ) during printer installation :
http://doc.mandrivalinux.com/MandrakeLinux/101/en/Starter.html/prin…
This is not possible with Gnome, and not so far away for most Gnome application you couldn’t even select the printer from a list. I’d even opened a bug report about this concerning galeon and epiphany some times ago. See :
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=126304
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=120924
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=141241
December 14th, 2005 at 2:07 am
Go on, flame and attack on completely unrelated subjects! That may not help going forward, but it sure feels good, doesn’t it?
December 14th, 2005 at 2:47 am
I try to treat all frustrated users with respect.
I hope no one was pandering because of who the mail was coming from and all users can benefit from developers taking the time to calmly respond to hundredth angry user as politely as the first.
Today’s disgruntled user could be tomorrow’s passionate developer.
December 14th, 2005 at 3:19 am
Regardless of whether Linus is or is not qualified for making statements about desktop environments, he raises some valid points. Even if he wrote about these issues in a not-so-diplomatic style, these issues exist.
Of course the problem is that Linus started being quoted on planet.gnome.org, OSNews, Slashdot and probably a bunch of other sites. But I do not think that he expected that his messages to the GNOME usability list would be quoted on so many sites. Also, the fact that his statements were quickly mentioned in different places is interesting in itself. It would be easy to dismiss that as a coup from anti-GNOME zealots. But we should not forget that there are also many unhappy GNOME users: they use GNOME but are not happy with the way it works, the way it has evolved, the way their contributions were rejected, etc. Some of these complaints may be valid. Ignoring them will only make them grow bigger and drive more people away from GNOME.
The flamewars on various sites mention the usual suspects: metacity, the GTK+ filechooser, spatial nautilus and the usual strawman argument saying that “GNOME is about removing features in the name of usability”. The first three have to be fixed by better code and better communication to the users about why things are the way they are. The last one is a matter of perception and it will take time until it can be corrected. A lot of time. In the meantime, I will keep on using the broken GTK+ filechooser that has several features that are very nice but not discoverable. 😉
December 14th, 2005 at 4:19 am
Linus’ opinion doesn’t counts because it’s just another opinion not anything else.
I smile when everytime people “remembers” the BK issue: Linus never forced anyone to use BK and people always was able to use patch & diff like always. Amazing
December 14th, 2005 at 5:10 am
It’s really sad that someone in a leadership position as high up as Linus results to starting flamewars and FUD. I rate this on the same level as the Novell bashing article on linuxtoday from Kurt Pfeifle and the ridiculous response to the Microsoft recruiter from Eric Raymond. This kind of lunacy is the reason that OSS isn’t catching on faster.
Open source’s strength is flexibility and breadth of choice. Just because I think KDE sucks does NOT mean that it does. Just because Linus can’t easily bind his right mouse button to an xterm in gnome does NOT mean gnome sucks.
Grow up a little bit Linus and keep on doing what you do best, making an enterprise kernel. Stay out of flamewars please.
December 14th, 2005 at 5:13 am
Saw your comments on Planet Gnome. I can’t believe how arrogant you sound in your reply to his comments. Linus provided the project with valid criticism and you reply by oversimplifying his argument and brushing it off as irrelevant.
Please don’t brush off criticism so lightly. There are tons of valid points made.
December 14th, 2005 at 5:58 am
You’re the one acting like this “just because he’s Linus”. After all, he just said what I and lot’s of others think about Gnome: Gnome thinks that their users don’t deserve powerfull tools and options because they doesn’t know how to deal than more than a couple of buttons/options/whatever.
December 14th, 2005 at 7:11 am
The comments Linus made strike me as being a bit premature and out out of place.(to say the least) 😉 The original post from Till was looking for a solution to the lack of a unified control over PPD in “(KDE, GNOME, …) and document-producing applications (OOo, Scribus, Koffice, Firefox, …)”. I do not perceive his(Tills) post as being an attack. So the question here is will the usability team or others work together to provide a solution to this perceived issue? The action or lack thereof will serve as the answer to the heated accusations made after Tills post. So lets see what happens after “March, April or so.” In the meantime lets get on with it! 😀
December 14th, 2005 at 7:44 am
Oh boy…
I’m downloading KDE as we speak, after all I am Linus’s bitch. And I don’t have a brain of my own…
Linus has demonstrated over the years he’s getting either A) really immature B) is trying to destroy what he created C) is drunk everytime he makes a comment or D)all of the above. And all of a sudden he is saying to switch to kde…
I’m not saying his comment is irrelevant, after all he is intilited to his own opinion. But wtf post such words as “Switch to KDE, just tell everyone to switch to KDE” What is wrong with him…
December 14th, 2005 at 9:03 am
Another thing about Linus’ use of words. Read a bit of the lkml, people over there do not have an habit of massaging words to be politically correct or non-offensive. They usually go straight to the point, including calling shit, “shit”. This is why points about having a “thick skin” are written all over the FAQs. Sure, that can look strange when seen in our more “civilized” mailing-lists.
December 14th, 2005 at 10:03 am
I do think that there are some issues with the development of gnome. Not because the developers do what they want thinking that the user is stupid but more like changing things that worked a release before. I know that one of the thing needed to progress is the change, but radical changes make software look like “unstable”. Want an example? Nautilus…
Yet, what Linus (if he was… at all) said was quite rude. One thing that harms free software projects are fightings like this one. I think, he, being who he is, should act in a more mature way. He is one of the biggest symbols (because of what he did… the kernel) and that becomes with a great responsability. He should think this.
So, to finish this quickly I think:
-You can use KDE… or gnome, it doesn’t matter. I love gnome, I do only install’s of ubuntu (therefore, gnome) but I am not agains KDE. KDE is free software, KDE is cool. Is usable, it is just another alternative. We should not see other free software projects as foes but as friends. If you take as a basis that most of the developers behind those projects do not get paid directly than I dont see why we should think other projects are so bad. Im saying this because suddenly if someone says use KDE than everyone that likes gnome start yelling and complaining.
-You should never refer to other project users or developers as idiots. I mean, guys there is something called respect. And of course this goes for Linus (in the case he said that, cause you know, it could be a troll) because he did use really gross words. There are ways to say things and critizice. Im not against “fuck” but when you say publicly things like this than they tend to appear like you really hate the other party. You have thousands looking at what you write.
And btw, thanks to all gnome devs an linux kernel as well. You guys do a great job. Even, when I dont use it, KDE is such a great project.
December 14th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
Linus is a jackass, when he started development of Linux he was saying things like this:
“I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.” (1991)
“I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves ‘why?’. Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I’ve already got minix.” (1991)
Then he started saying comments like this:
“Your job is being a professor and researcher: That’s one hell of a good excuse for some of the brain-damages of Minix.” (1992)
“The main reason there are no raw devices [in Linux] is that I personally think that raw devices are a stupid idea.” (17 Oct 1996)
“See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too ;-)” (1996)
“Portability is for people who cannot write new programs.” (1992)
“If you still don’t like it, that’s ok: that’s why I’m boss. I simply know better than you do.” (1996)
“In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won’t end up like the Hurd people.” (2001)
“Really, I’m not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.” (2003)
“A lot of people still like Solaris, but I’m in active competition with them, and so I hope they die.” (February 1, 2005)
“I’m always right. This time I’m just even more right than usual.” (July 14, 2005)
“Gnome seems to be developed by interface nazis.” (December 2005)
The guys is a clear jackass and a sneaky bastard.
Linus seemingly is so dam stupid that he doesn’t realize the licence QT is under. Or that GNOME meets US legal accessiblity requirements while KDE doesn’t. GNOME has Mono, KDE doesn’t. etc.
December 14th, 2005 at 4:24 pm
Want to see something cool, compared Linus Torvalds comments to Steve Ballmer, they have a lot in common.
December 14th, 2005 at 4:51 pm
Does Dave Neary read responses to his blog?
During the post-GNOME-1.x purisimplification drive the elite group of GNOME developers became infamous for their unwillingness to listen to user feedback. It’s been a long road for many GNOME users but I believe most of us somehow survived the purges and hopefully the end of the tunnel is getting closer.
Now, I don’t know how Dave Neary is unaware of this, but Mr Linus is (in)famous for being intentionally provocative to raise the profile of an issue he feels strongly about. The rudeness isn’t personal but strictly a tool to achieve a result (which it obviously did). A lot of GNOME users have been saying similar things, but the GNOME forums aren’t famous for interaction between developers and users. It’s been more like “my way or highway”.
Apart from occasional livecd exposure to KDE, I’ve been using GNOME since the last millenium and really welcome Linus’ profile-raising of the over-dumbification (?) issue that still embodies the GNOME development ideology.
Everybody agrees that finding the perfect defaults for every action is wonderful, but it needn’t have to happen at the expense of also having more advanced options available. IMHO a lot of momentum was lost during the post-GNOME-2.x period simply because many ex-developers were stereotypical Linux users themselves and they couldn’t feel motivated to be developing a desktop aiming at the feature-restricted corporate environment which didn’t reflect their own needs, or those of the existing userbase. The ivory-tower development model didn’t help either.
I can see many of the GNOME elite now being a little more open to evaluating the roadmap and just perhaps the new GNOME board will try to see what can be done to reinvigorate the platform also for users and developers who feel that the current focus is somewhat too restricting.
Dave’s retort “Linus is irrelevant” is unfortunately very typical of the way the GNOME elite brushed aside ordinary users’ ideas, concerns and complaints in the past. But at least Linus got through with his message.
December 14th, 2005 at 6:13 pm
misGnomer: yes I do.
December 14th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Honest question: If Linus is irrelevant, why are you talking about him and his comments? And if Linus and his comments are “irrelevant”, does that mean that comments from regular users are “irrelevant” as well? Um, isn’t that exactly what Linus said? That GNOME doesn’t listen to it’s users?
Yes, he’s an opinionated person and he’s not afraid to express his opinions. Is he “irrelevant” just because he says something you disagree with?
“He lost all right to authority…”, no he didn’t. In case you didn’t notice, he’s still the final authority in developement of the kernel. So how exactly did he “lose all authority”?
Feel free to disagree with him. Hell, you can also ignore his comments if you want to (although I’m not sure that is that beneficial to the project in the long run. You can’t ignore people comments justbecause you happen to disagree with them). But saying that he’s “irrelevant” is pretty stupid thing to do. If Linus and his comments are “irrelevant”, then other users and their comments are “irrelevant” as well. Is this a case of “we have a grand plan that is too complex to explain to regular users. You just have to trust us”? I think that open source projects (GNOME and KDE included) should listen to the users, even when those users say something you do not want to hear.
Would you say that Linus is “irrelevant” if he had praised GNOME? WOuld you ignore his comments then? But now that he said that he can’t use GNOME, and he uses KDE instead, he’s suddenly “irrelevant” and he can be ignored?
Only hearing what you want to hear, while ignoring things you do not agree with, is not a healthy way to drive the project forward.
Yes, Linus could have worded his comments in a nicer way. But his comments are still valid and he does raise several good points.
December 15th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
If you need work to be DONE right.. you use whatever feet your needs.. even if its comercial.
I’m working on windows right now having been a full time linux user since 96. why? becouse i need programs i don’t have on linux or are not that advanced.. and NO, i won’t code them myself.
December 16th, 2005 at 3:21 am
Torvalds’ opinion on the desktop is irrelevant. He had a chance in the early 90s to take the lead on a desktop operating system, but didn’t. Gnome is independent of the Linux kernel.
From a technical developer standpoint, KDE is way more advanced than Gnome. Gnome has never done enough to discourage writing C gtk+, and encourage gtkmm or some other bindings. And of course we can’t forget the Bonobo disaster. But KDE is tied to Qt and its shit license.
Linux on the desktop will never be mainstream. It’s over folks.
December 16th, 2005 at 9:42 am
Linus doesn’t go off on rants. When there’s nothing more to be said he tells it like it is.
Bitkeeper was used because there was simply no other piece of software available, open source wise, that could do what Linus wanted. Tell me. Would you be complaining if that piece of closed source software was written with GTK and the LGPLed Gnome development tools – something you’re only too happy to encourage?
January 4th, 2006 at 1:15 am
From my observations, Linus doesn’t care about petty, political agendas, OSS vendettas, or the opinions of flaming idiots too wrapped up in their own prejudices to evaluate a situation rationally. In other words, from what I’ve seen, he chooses the best tool for the job at hand and uses it. As long as the use of it doesn’t threaten his work somehow, he doesn’t care who made it or what it’s normally used for — the only thing that matters is how well it serves the needs of his current work.
This is evident in his use of BK — it had the features he wanted, and the speed required to be functionally usable. I recall him posting that there /were/ alternatives, but they were so glacially slow for large codebases that he was better of merging by hand — and from my experience with such things, I can’t entirely disagree with him.
I know many, many stories of people who used to be in love with Gnome, and who got tired of watching the features they depended on get hacked off one by one. This was not just one group of users, nor just one set of features. This was huge, sweeping assortments of features from all different aspects of the Gnome desktop. This means that Gnome has sacrificed its general usefulness for the sake of what a specific group of people thought was the “right” set of features. Therefore, Linus is perfectly justified in saying that the general user will be better served using KDE, because, in spite of its glaring flaws, KDE has become more aligned with what the typical user will need — in more than one eschelon of users.
This does not mean Linus has a vendetta against Gnome. If they change their philosophy and manage to alter the direction Gnome grows in until it’s more generally useful, he’ll go back to being desktop-agnostic — as, if I recall correctly(and I may easily be wrong), he was at one point.
Also, and correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Qt dual licensed? In other words, if Trolltech ever goes to the dark side, can’t the KDE folks just fork from the most recent release and develop it themselves?
January 15th, 2006 at 5:29 am
Yes, QT is dual-licensed, and actually it is GPL and not like LGPL, so being ultra-extremist free software zealots, QT does more to promote free software, so stop spreading FUD about QT license. KDE+QT is as software libre as GNOME+GTK, if not even more.
Everybody has the right to recommend whatever they think is the best option. I recommend KDE for the some reasons as Linus. If you don’t like it, try to fix it but the reality is that GNOME removes and rejects functionality and the perception out there (in the real world, you know) is that it is dumbed down with every release. I know it is just a perception and for example Ubuntu has been doing a lot of work on increasing and exposing the functionality of GNOME. Be happy and don’t blame Linus. It is his way of making mainstream an usually ignored issue.