See also: last week's Back page page.

Linux links of the week

Even hard-core Linux users often end up booting up that other operating system when it comes time to manage their finances. The GnuCash project is working on changing that. They recently put out a new release, and the feature set appears to be getting to the point where it is a truly useable system. Yet another longstanding Linux software gap is closing.

Section Editor: Jon Corbet

Letters to the editor

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 15:22:29 -0700
From: Anand Srivastava <anand@nmi.stpn.soft.net>
To: aerogems@netins.net, letters@lwn.net
Subject: Re: Where's The Creativity? 

Hi,

I don't get it why does everybody think that point and click or rather
storm in a room and open a drawer and search into files for a particular
program is faster than just typing the name of the program to run, and
let the system find the file for you. I don't say roaming into a room
won't be cool. It will be but it will be only that, cool. It won't be
efficient. Everything is good in moderation, over do it and you loose
the benefits. Similarly. GUIs are cool, immersive VR is great, but the
command line is necessary. Enlightenment is cool, but it doesn't take
away your freedom to use the command line.

If you want immersive VR, you will have to wait, till the time
developers have machines that can do those things and there are 3D
libraries that are comprehensive enough to do these development fast
enough and they are free. I guess that will take anywhere from 2 to 5
years. Incidently I don't even know a use for this kind of a UI. Care to
enlighten me on some probable uses where the other ones won't be faster.

In the meantime you can just use E.

You have some problems thinking of finding new ideas in Linux Community.
If you say linux community, you have already put yourself into a small
spectrum which tries to be compatible with POSIX. Why not ask for the
Open Source community, you will find many new ideas. Why, the internet
was an open source idea. Unix was also an open source idea, in that it
wasn't sponsored by any company, and was developed by the developers for
their personal itch. Heard of HURD that is also an open source idea.
There are many more, ever used Emacs.

You know what I think is the perfect UI. It will be one when the
computer would know what I am talking about. It will listen to my spoken
words, and do things accordingly. If I say, "I want to buy a PC.", It
will know that I mean a personal computer. And then it will ask me what
brand, it will already know my priorities. But it will ask me if I want
anything special. It will not assume what is good for me but allow me to
give it directions and also cross check if necessary. It won't do
everything itself, it will connect to the net and go to a site that
contains information about all kinds of computers, or it may do a search
on one of the search engines. Then using these information it will find
the best PC for me and tell me about it. It will do all this within
seconds. Then I can approve of it. If I don't like its idea of what is
good it will allow me to take the matters into my own hands, and it will
provide me a browser, with which I can go to the sites and do the search
myself. I will use the intelligent interface if it is correct most of
the time, otherwise there is no use. I want efficiency, not cool UIs. I
would much prefer my voice operated computer which will be also my watch
which, but that will only be useful if it is correct most of the time. I
don't want an MS OS which gets broken and then you have to reboot and
hope that it executes the correctly the next time and you need to lug
the whole crate of RAM with it. This thing will take time but it will be
the ultimate.

-anand

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 18:33:16 -0600
From: Jeffery Cann <jccann@home.com>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: All is well in Linux Land...

I remember a month or two ago when Metrowerks announce a partnership
with Red Hat (NASDAQ:RHAT).  There was significant outcry from the
Community.

It was great to see the following announcement on this week's LWN:

	Metrowerks, Inc. and SuSE, Inc. announced their partnership to provide
	CodeWarrior software development tools for the SuSE Linux operating
	system. 

I guess RHAT really won't take over the world quite yet!  (BTW - I am a
Slackware user).


Food for thought...

Jeffery Cann
jccann@home.com

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 18:03:48 -0400
From: Derek Glidden <dglidden@illusionary.com>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: Re: Lotus Notes on Linux


In the 7/15 edition of LWN, there's a letter from Tom Adeltstein about
Notes client on Linux in which he mentions regarding the Notes client
running on Linux, "... One of our consultants has a Lotus Notes client
running on Linux and we'll post the how-to very soon. ... Also, several
references within IBM internal forums exist discussing Lotus Notes
running on Linux desktops ..."

Well, that's all very well and good for the people with the know-how to
Do It Yourself, but unless Lotus changes their stance, they are not
going to be _offering for sale_, nor are they going to be _officially
supporting_ Lotus Notes running as a client on Linux platforms and there
is an important distinction between "being able to" and "supported" in
the world that Lotus Notes lives in.

Lotus Notes is not GNOME.  (No offense to the GNOME guys...)  Big
companies run Lotus Notes; big multinational companies with big IT
departments filled with corporately-trained MIS people who don't want to
have to dig around on the 'net to find HOWTOs and install new versions
of system libraries and modify startup scripts.  Even if installation of
Notes-client-on-Linux is no more difficult than downloading a file and
clicking an icon, the first time the IT department gets an "I'm sorry,
we don't support that" response, guess what's going to happen?  That
Notes-client-on-Linux install is going to get wiped out and replaced
with Notes-client-on-Windows because that's a supported platform that
won't get an "I'm sorry, we don't support that" from the Lotus call
center.  

In the Big Giant Corporate World, "Corporate Standard" is the only way
to go, and unless you can show official support so the IT department has
someone to call when your workstation craps out, your platform has a
Snowball's Chance in Hell of getting into the list of "Corporate
Standard" platforms.

Sure, you'll find a few smart cookies who have their own little Linux
desktop going and have bothered to read the HOWTOs off the 'Net and get
Notes installed in client-mode on their desktop and if it breaks,
they'll fix it themselves, but that's a very far cry from Lotus selling
it as a shrinkwrap package and offering official support for it.

Take as a case study Oracle's support for Linux.  For years before
Oracle announced official support for their database server running
natively on Linux, it was possible (although quite a chore) to get the
SCO UNIX version of Oracle to run on Linux through the iBCS emulation
layer, but you just really didn't hear of too many people doing it and
you certainly didn't hear of Big Business doing it.  When Oracle
announced the availability of Oracle 8 natively built for Linux, the
10,000 Beta CDs they offered were claimed in a matter of hours and,
while it didn't exactly take the corporate world by storm, you did hear
a lot of press about larger companies willing to try it out.  It's not
that it couldn't be made to work before the official offering, but if
you're running an "Enterprise" class application like Oracle or Notes,
the money guys want to be able to buy a support contract and the money
guys usually have the final word in the sorts of environments that run
Oracle or Notes.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
With Microsoft products, failure is not           Derek Glidden
an option - it's a standard component.      http://3dlinux.org/
Choose your life.  Choose your            http://www.tbcpc.org/
future.  Choose Linux.              http://www.illusionary.com/