So Sun claims they will be releasing (portions of) Solaris under an Open Source license. Good for them. However, I predict that they will be unable to release enough of the code under an Open Source license to provide a usable system in the near term. In a few years they might be able to build up a usable system.

What I'm saying is that whatever eventually comes out of OpenSolaris isn't going to be Solaris. And that isn't a bad thing. Although I believe that those developer hours are wasted when they could be spent improving Linux. Linux has vast industry support and is missing a very small number of features found in Solaris. Holding on to their lofty dreams of domination will push them into obsolescence along with Solaris itself.

Linux and GNU are about freedom of choice, vendor independence, and creating the universal operating system. I hope people don't confuse those points with publishing source code and providing unique tools to make developer and administrator lives easier. Open access to source code is vitally important but not if it means you are forever trapped in one vendor's environment.

Wow, I got the most amazing mouse pad today and it is only $15. It is an Allsop Metal Art Mousepad. It is a textured charcoal-colored (Teflon?) mouse pad on a heavy steel base with non-skid rubber on the bottom. If you ever have trouble with your mouse then definitely buy one of these. The surface is sticky for a mechanical mouse and textured for an optical mouse. I'm truly impressed.

I also got a Kensington PilotMouse Optical 3-button to replace an ailing IBM optical mouse. I really would have preferred the 5-button version but I'll take what I can get. It seems pretty nice but I think I'll miss having a thumb button.

Novell has hired Tor Lillqvist to help with porting some of their software to Windows. Tor has always been tremendously knowledgable and helpful and I really hope that works out well for him. He's helped me on more than one occassion when I had questions porting software to Windows.

Novell will be starting a project to port several GNOME applications to Windows including the Beagle desktop search tool and the Novell Evolution Groupware Suite. This, I think, is a great thing. Windows users will be able to migrate from Outlook to a functional equivalent which provides messaging, scheduling, task management support for Microsoft Exchange, Novell Groupwise, IMAP, POP, LDAP, Usenet News, and other protocols. Beagle integrates with Evolution, GAIM Instant Messenger, and other GNOME applications to provide integrated desktop search capabilities.

Comment on SlashDot, "By porting all these commonly used OSS apps to Windows, it helps commoditize the OS itself. This is however a double edged sword. It makes migration to Linux from Windows easier, but also reduces the incentives (excellent Linux-only software) to make the move."

Firstly, Linux is the reason to switch to Linux. You get all these wonderful applications without any of the baggage from other operating systems. It is a fresh start. A clean slate. Linux is a chance to start your computer life, or start it over, without the extra blood pressure and stress of other systems. The OS should be largely irrelevant to the operation of the software running on it and it should certainly seem that way to you. If you are a Windows user and ever think to yourself "Why does Windows do that?" or "Why does the computer always do that when I do this?" then you are being betrayed by Windows. You shouldn't even notice that Windows exists. But the reality is that every time you let down your guard Windows smacks you in the face.

Secondly, I hear the "double edged sword" argument often. Early on, GNU was developed largely on SunOS because that's really all they had. The GNU folks realized that Sun had a fairly nice kernel but many of the user tools were, in my and others opinion, just absolutely horrible. And I think the failings of that OS taught the early GNU developers to strive for something better. You hear a very consistent response when you ask people about using SunOS in the early 90s or even Solaris today. It goes like this, "The very first thing we do when we get a brand new Sun Box is to spend 2 days installing GNU." As a testament to that fact, for several years Sun has been selling all of their systems with GNU, and often also Linux, preinstalled. GNU didn't just clone the UNIX System and its commands. They built completely new tools that worked in entirely new ways. But they never forgot what worked from the old system and they usually made it so the newer, better programs could drop right in place of the old programs.

I guess I'm saying that if you know why Windows, UNIX, a particular application or whatever sucks then you can use that knowledge to avoid the same mistakes. But if you blind yourself completely to the experience then you may become preoccupied with something that others know is a dismal failure. (For example, KDE Control Center truly is a dismal failure not because of bad design but because of the millions of useless settings in it. Sadly, they didn't get the memo because their mailbox is welded shut.) Much wasted time could be spent elsewhere if you learn from others mistakes.

I'd like to illustrate just one of many reasons I love the "spatial" desktop in GNOME (and MacOS for that matter). I have touched on this before in my Modern Desktop Linux and UNIX Systems article. You can't really organize things in a "natural" way with a browser-based desktop like Windows or KDE. It seems artificial and cumbersome to me if every folder is always the same size, same shape, in the same place on the screen, and neatly compartmentalized into ugly little squares.

Generally I want folders to either stay where and how I left them or to show me only the newest items. With a spatial desktop I can have both auto-sorted and manually arranged folders. With a browser-based desktop I would be forced to live largely without the ability to leave things how I left them. Most file browsers regard "manually arranged" as a suggestion and not a divine right. Now, I admit that it does take time to organize things how you want them. I think because of this Windows refugees sometimes don't immediately see the benefit and jump to the conclusion that spatial orientation is like the old "Open Folders in a New Window" mode introduced and abandoned in Windows 95. Some complain about "all those extra windows opening up" when they encounter a spatial desktop for the first time.

I, for one, take comfort in the knowledge that my folders stay the way leave them, auto-sorted or not. I no longer find myself aimlessly clicking through folder after folder trying to find a single file among a sea of tiny nearly identical icons with only very small text labels to guide me. Windows and similar desktops force the user to read through similar looking file lists one after another to hunt for a single file. While GNOME allows my brain to navigate on auto-pilot using only familiar looking landmarks. When I reach my destination I see a landscape that looks exactly like I last left it. I don't have to wonder if I'm in the right place.

GNOME on Linux view of a folder:

Explorer on Windows view of a folder:


As I opened the folder on a Windows system I remembered that Windows relies on cryptic three letter extensions tacked on to the file name to determine the type of file. So Windows doesn't even know that my photos are photos. But I suppose for this demonstration that doesn't much matter since everything is always trapped inside a perfect little 128 pixel square and locked in a prison-like gridwork. When it does manage to recognize a photo Windows provides a tiny thumbnail preview. But the preview only works on writable folders and clutters up those folders with ugly Thumbs.db files.