# From PCWorld: Is Open Source Up to Par? Just Ask the DoD



## Peter1986C (May 24, 2011)

Katherine Noyes (PCWorld) said:
			
		

> Last week provided a significant boost to open source software in the form of survey results suggesting that such technologies have now become a norm in the business world. Now, in what's perhaps an even bigger blow to proprietary vendors, none other than the Department of Defense has weighed in with its own support for open technology.
> 
> Specifically, the DoD last week released a 68-page guide entitled, "Open Technology Development: Lessons Learned and Best Practices for Military Software (PDF)," in which it seeks to "help U.S. government personnel and contractors implement open technology development (OTD) for software within government projects, particularly in defense."



Source:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/228403/is_open_source_up_to_par_just_ask_the_dod.html


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## FordGT90Concept (May 25, 2011)

Russia is in the process of doing something similar.

I think they have a lot to gain if they do it right.  Imagine all systems running the basic, fundamental OS that is only given access to what is needed.  They could take care of all the security holes themselves as well as see a measureable upgrade to efficiency.  It would have substantial startup and upkeep costs but the benefits should save money in the long run.


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## Wile E (May 25, 2011)

They released a guide to open source in a closed source format. lol.


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## entropy13 (May 25, 2011)

Wile E said:


> They released a guide to open source in a closed source format. lol.



There aren't any open-source readers of pdf?


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## Wile E (May 25, 2011)

entropy13 said:


> There aren't any open-source readers of pdf?


That doesn't matter. The pdf format itself is still closed source.


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## FordGT90Concept (May 25, 2011)

The 3rd party PDF readers/writers are often of the reverse-engineered variety.  They came about through necessity.  Most people that know anything about computers would be thrilled if PDF was replaced with an open standard that any document editing program can work with.  Fat chance of that happening though without a major push from many major corporations (Google, Microsoft, and Apple combined, probably).


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## Easy Rhino (May 25, 2011)

Wile E said:


> They released a guide to open source in a closed source format. lol.



ironic but it makes sense. the people they wrote the guide for are using closed source systems and will recognize pdf. best to start slow with them.


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## Peter1986C (May 25, 2011)

Besides that, OOXML (.docx etc) still gives minor problems in LibreOffice and OpenOffice, if the document is made in MS Office 2007 (or in later MS Office versions with compatibility mode enabled). And the open source ODF (.odt etc.) still doesn't work flawlessly in the Windows World, because all MS Office versions before v. 2010 don't read it.
PDF is still the best to use file format if editing by the receiver isn't necessary, because that way the lay-out won't be screwed and everybody can open it. And let's not forget that PDF at least is an ISO standard (AFAIK).


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## FordGT90Concept (May 25, 2011)

It's an "open standard" as of 2008: ISO 32000-1


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## Thatguy (May 27, 2011)

Heres the real problem with opensource, low quality applications.


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## Peter1986C (May 27, 2011)

Thatguy, that is just retarded BS you are saying there. Do you actually realise that a majority of the servers in the world run on Linux? And yes, that is open source software.
Firefox is open source and not a bad program at all.
Rythmbox (not for Windows, sorry) is a very nice OS music player and better IMO than Windpws Media Player.
VLC player let's you play all your vids without having to install a sh*tload of codecs and therefore without risking codec conflicts.
Audacity is an excellent audio editing program that lets you do free what others ask money for.
Clonezilla Is one of the best disk imaging programs available (mainly because of the wide file system support, and because you are free to make as many copies of the bootable cd as you want)

Your statement is making clear that you don't know what you are talking about.


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## Thatguy (May 27, 2011)

Chevalr1c said:


> Thatguy, that is just retarded BS you are saying there. Do you actually realise that a majority of the servers in the world run on Linux? And yes, that is open source software.
> Firefox is open source and not a bad program at all.
> Rythmbox (not for Windows, sorry) is a very nice OS music player and better IMO than Windpws Media Player.
> VLC player let's you play all your vids without having to install a sh*tload of codecs and therefore without risking codec conflicts.
> ...



   to be honest, its the truth, if you can't bear to hear it, lifes tough. In the ways that open source apps are often low quality 

 Incomplete features, features are often never implemented or fully finished

Bugs, most open source software is very buggy

Compatability breakage, very common in open source becuase instead of adressing my first 2 points, reinvent the wheel instead becuase they can. Not beucase it is needed.


 Server deployment is a so what proposition, server are handing up data most of the time. They aren't being tasked with actually rendering the web page, just dish it up. to be honest MAC OSX andMS have higher quality applications. 

  Certainly there are exceptions to what I am saying, VLC certainly being one of them. but by far alot of the open source software out there is more of a tech demo then a finished product. 

  you might not like it, but most of th ebest software for linux is paid for software.

  Lets talk about audacity for a moment. compare it to ProTools,Cubase or Presonus studio one. 

  I have used audacity, flatly, the ui is horrific., the console is poorly laid out and routing is a fustrating distraction most of the time, not to mention the VST hosting bugs. 

  Windows media players everything under the sun, flawlessly, with minimal exceptions and very very few unsupported codecs. 

  Well thats great for firefox, its heavily funded, unlike most open source software. 

  BTW when did audacity go open source exactly ?

  but lets talk about a practical problem. I recently got submarined "in fact several times" on linux hardware drivers, not to mention the fact that the drivers were not complete, offered hardly minimal features to the device, generally didn't work or cuased system instability. 

  Then you have the linux audio system disaster. there was nothing wrong with opensound at all. It worked fine. Nows theres pulse,alsa etc. Why ? becuase most linux developers are tinkerers, not paid professionals. the high quality programmers go on the mission critical paying jobs. they stick the new guys in the linux pool to get there feet wet. 


  so while it would be nice to sit back and lay acclaim for open source, it just doesn;t have the orginization of discipline to build quality software, for the most part. 

  Hell just look at all the coding style variations on the linux kernel, its messy. 

 Not that the tech itself is bad, it comes up short on implemntation. 

  I'd rather pay for working software, over wasting my time "which is worth $150hrly" dicking around with free software.


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## Easy Rhino (May 27, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> to be honest, its the truth, if you can't bear to hear it, lifes tough. In the ways that open source apps are often low quality
> 
> Incomplete features, features are often never implemented or fully finished
> 
> ...



clearly you are referring to any version of microsoft windows


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## Wile E (May 27, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> to be honest, its the truth, if you can't bear to hear it, lifes tough. In the ways that open source apps are often low quality
> 
> Incomplete features, features are often never implemented or fully finished
> 
> ...



You do realize that those very same problems plague countless paid programs across every platform as well, don't you? I cannot recall the last time my Office, Photoshop, Logic or Reason didn't have some sort of bugs. Pretty sad when you take into account the amount of money we had to spend on the software. 

And, for the record, Windows Media Player is a piece of shit. If it was so compatible, we wouldn't need things like codec packs or alternative players like VLC.

No friend, closed source isn't all that great either. All devs feel satisfied putting out beta quality software labeled as final these days.


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## FordGT90Concept (May 27, 2011)

Wile E said:


> And, for the record, Windows Media Player is a piece of shit.


I concur.  WMP11 was pretty good but WMP12 is a steaming pile of shit with no downgrade option.  I couldn't take all the lock ups, hangs, waiting, and worthless interface and finally switched.

The fact it *still* doesn't support Ogg Vorbis is shameful.


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## Thatguy (Jun 3, 2011)

Wile E said:


> You do realize that those very same problems plague countless paid programs across every platform as well, don't you? I cannot recall the last time my Office, Photoshop, Logic or Reason didn't have some sort of bugs. Pretty sad when you take into account the amount of money we had to spend on the software.
> 
> And, for the record, Windows Media Player is a piece of shit. If it was so compatible, we wouldn't need things like codec packs or alternative players like VLC.
> 
> No friend, closed source isn't all that great either. All devs feel satisfied putting out beta quality software labeled as final these days.



  At least office2007 works and does what I want, it prints,collates,presents and just works. Granted I was very happy with office2000. Not to mention that even today right now, openoffice cannot compete with office2000 in basic useable features or speed. 

  Look I want opensource to succeed. Theres alot of really out of the box thinkers, but the problem is that they don't know when to stop thinking out of the box and to start putting that knowledge into it. Sure theres lot of brilliant coders in the open source world, just get them to fix a bug. 

  there are tickets in the linux kernel that are 5+ years old. With no fix in site either. 

 the only reason linux looks safe, is becuase it isn't a target yet. Mac is finding this out right now. 

  So your not going to sell me on quality on the average, and while there are a few OS's and some apps out there that really are very good, the bulk of them are shit and pretending they aren't is a logically falacy.


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## Wile E (Jun 3, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> At least office2007 works and does what I want, it prints,collates,presents and just works. Granted I was very happy with office2000. Not to mention that even today right now, openoffice cannot compete with office2000 in basic useable features or speed.
> 
> Look I want opensource to succeed. Theres alot of really out of the box thinkers, but the problem is that they don't know when to stop thinking out of the box and to start putting that knowledge into it. Sure theres lot of brilliant coders in the open source world, just get them to fix a bug.
> 
> ...


Pretending that closed source is better on the average is also a logical fallacy. I'm just saying that door swings both ways.


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## Peter1986C (Jun 3, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> At least office2007 works and does what I want, it prints,collates,presents and just works. Granted I was very happy with office2000. Not to mention that even today right now, openoffice cannot compete with office2000 in basic useable features or speed.



Office 2010 doesn't even have decent PDF export (yes, it's readable but the document looks like it's too compressed) and reverse-order printing (thus letting page 1 end on the top of the pile instead of the bottom).
And office 2000? Come on, don't you remember it crashing more than ocassionally on furthermore perfectly stable computers? Garbage if one is having lots of work to do...
And no way that PDF export was there with office 2000, so that's already one tool more for OpenOffice.

On a sidenote, OpenOffice as a project has been struggling with crappy corporate politics for quite a while, being like a American Football ball being tossed all over the place by some folks I wouldn't dare to mess with (i.e. some big players on the IT market). Hence the fact that some folks said "Screw you Oracle" (the latter having bought Sun) and forked the project. So while MS could almost sit back & relax (relatively speaking) OpenOffice/LibreOffice were in the middle of a storm.

And btw, Linux servers are likely to be under attack so they _are_ a target. And you should try to understand that security relates to more than just the kernel, the security in  Linux goes a bit further than UAC (which basically is the same old "R U sure?" thing).


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## Frick (Jun 3, 2011)

@Thatguy: When comparing Audacity to those programs you're comparing Gimp to Photoshop in a sense. You should not do that.


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## Mr McC (Jun 3, 2011)

entropy13 said:


> There aren't any open-source readers of pdf?



http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html


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## Wile E (Jun 4, 2011)

Chevalr1c said:


> Office 2010 doesn't even have decent PDF export (yes, it's readable but the document looks like it's too compressed) and reverse-order printing (thus letting page 1 end on the top of the pile instead of the bottom).
> And office 2000? Come on, don't you remember it crashing more than ocassionally on furthermore perfectly stable computers? Garbage if one is having lots of work to do...
> And no way that PDF export was there with office 2000, so that's already one tool more for OpenOffice.
> 
> ...


While that may be, you do realize that Windows 7 thus far has been the hardest to hack in all the hacking contests thus far.

UAC is less about user security and more about forcing devs to use proper user space credentials in their apps, making them more secure, and thus the entire platform more secure.


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## Peter1986C (Jun 4, 2011)

Mr McC said:


> http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html



An other example is Okular, a reader used in KDE installations.


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## Thatguy (Jun 13, 2011)

Frick said:


> @Thatguy: When comparing Audacity to those programs you're comparing Gimp to Photoshop in a sense. You should not do that.



   oh horseshit, thats what audacity is competing with. Its a very valid comparison. I would gladly PAY for audacity IF it was a better quality application.



Chevalr1c said:


> Office 2010 doesn't even have decent PDF export (yes, it's readable but the document looks like it's too compressed) and reverse-order printing (thus letting page 1 end on the top of the pile instead of the bottom).
> And office 2000? Come on, don't you remember it crashing more than ocassionally on furthermore perfectly stable computers? Garbage if one is having lots of work to do...
> And no way that PDF export was there with office 2000, so that's already one tool more for OpenOffice.




   I have never crashed office 2000. Not once. Who cares about PDF exporting ? Seriously ?Abode PDF creator works fine in this sense. Openoffice is a mess. 



Chevalr1c said:


> On a sidenote, OpenOffice as a project has been struggling with crappy corporate politics for quite a while, being like a American Football ball being tossed all over the place by some folks I wouldn't dare to mess with (i.e. some big players on the IT market). Hence the fact that some folks said "Screw you Oracle" (the latter having bought Sun) and forked the project. So while MS could almost sit back & relax (relatively speaking) OpenOffice/LibreOffice were in the middle of a storm.



  Yes the solution is always to fork, never mind the fact that after relentlessly bitching about microsoft and the ODF, it turns out that the problem was Openoffice and not MSoffice. the politics are the developers. 



Chevalr1c said:


> And btw, Linux servers are likely to be under attack so they _are_ a target. And you should try to understand that security relates to more than just the kernel, the security in  Linux goes a bit further than UAC (which basically is the same old "R U sure?" thing).




   Linux and its permission scheme are actually really fucking annoying. first off, its really not that secure. Its like a warm blanket. It makes you feel better but its not the best way to secure the computer. I really don't give a crap about servers either. I am a desktop/workstation user.


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## Frick (Jun 13, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> oh horseshit, thats what audacity is competing with. Its a very valid comparison. I would gladly PAY for audacity IF it was a better quality application.



I've used Ableton Live and Audacity and I think that Ableton have the better program of the two actually.


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## Peter1986C (Jun 13, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> Who cares about PDF exporting ? Seriously ?Abode PDF creator works fine in this sense.



Some would care. For example because everyone can read PDF files on his or her pc, without the need for an office suite (MS Office viewer is not available for every platform). 

For companies it can be a cost saver, and I have heard once from someone doing PDF exports at his job, that exporting multi-tab spreadsheets into PDF still goes the most flawlessly with OpenOffice, not with the Adobe software. Guess what the company he works for did? Exactly, ditch the Adobe license for most people, except the very few employees that might still need it.



Thatguy said:


> Yes the solution is always to fork, never mind the fact that after relentlessly bitching about microsoft and the ODF, it turns out that the problem was Openoffice and not MSoffice. the politics are the developers.



Actually a lot of major Linux distros ditched OpenOffice and install LibreOffice by default: 

http://techie-buzz.com/foss/mandriva-2011-beta-libreoffice.html
http://lawyerist.com/openoffice-org-libreoffice/


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## Thatguy (Jun 14, 2011)

Chevalr1c said:


> Some would care. For example because everyone can read PDF files on his or her pc, without the need for an office suite (MS Office viewer is not available for every platform).




   blah blah blah 




Chevalr1c said:


> For companies it can be a cost saver, and I have heard once from someone doing PDF exports at his job, that exporting multi-tab spreadsheets into PDF still goes the most flawlessly with OpenOffice, not with the Adobe software. Guess what the company he works for did? Exactly, ditch the Adobe license for most people, except the very few employees that might still need it.



  So people should work for free as in beer ? I don't care if software is free. I don't care if its open source. I just want it to work. As for cost, well beer isn;t free either. I do like having the document formats being open source however. Thats one thing that should be mandatory. Its my data. 


Chevalr1c said:


> Actually a lot of major Linux distros ditched OpenOffice and install LibreOffice by default:
> 
> http://techie-buzz.com/foss/mandriva-2011-beta-libreoffice.html
> http://lawyerist.com/openoffice-org-libreoffice/



   OpenOffice Libreoffice, same god damned thing isn't it ? except libreoffice is a fork of openoffice, though I forget when specifically this occured. You can't give me a copy of openoffice and libre office won't do my books.


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## Fourstaff (Jun 14, 2011)

I am ashamed to admit that after getting an Office students pack I have been almost exclusively using Microsoft Windows rather than LibreOffice. That said though, I think its a personal preference thing, and I would be just as comfortable using LibreOffice if I didn't buy the Office. 

I understand both sides of the argument, because I am actually using Gimp over Adobe Photoshop (mainly because I can't afford the £150+ license fee, and the 7/14/whatever day trial was not long enough for me to acclimatise). That and Chrome over IE9, and trying to use Mozilla Thunderbird to play nice (it doesn't, I probably need to spend more time to actually attempt it properly). 

I like PDF, I use LaTeX for it.


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## Thatguy (Jun 14, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> I am ashamed to admit that after getting an Office students pack I have been almost exclusively using Microsoft Windows rather than LibreOffice. That said though, I think its a personal preference thing, and I would be just as comfortable using LibreOffice if I didn't buy the Office.
> 
> I understand both sides of the argument, because I am actually using Gimp over Adobe Photoshop (mainly because I can't afford the £150+ license fee, and the 7/14/whatever day trial was not long enough for me to acclimatise). That and Chrome over IE9, and trying to use Mozilla Thunderbird to play nice (it doesn't, I probably need to spend more time to actually attempt it properly).
> 
> I like PDF, I use LaTeX for it.



Actually pegasus mails works nice and is free. One of the better pieces of freeware out there.Gimp has to many problems and to difficult a workflow for most professionals and they are acting like fixing the multwindow view is some sort of monumental task, that tells me the application is full of spaghetti code workarounds. Rediculous.


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## Fourstaff (Jun 14, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> Actually pegasus mails works nice and is free. One of the better pieces of freeware out there.Gimp has to many problems and to difficult a workflow for most professionals and they are acting like fixing the multwindow view is some sort of monumental task, that tells me the application is full of spaghetti code workarounds. Rediculous.



Gimp might have its problems, but its obviously not enough for me to consider getting a Photoshop for my occasional image manipulation.


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## Frick (Jun 14, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> Gimp might have its problems, but its obviously not enough for me to consider getting a Photoshop for my occasional image manipulation.



Which is the core of the entire discussion imo, at least at a consumer level.


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## Thatguy (Jun 14, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> Gimp might have its problems, but its obviously not enough for me to consider getting a Photoshop for my occasional image manipulation.



would be nice if you could get wonderbrush from the beos/zeta for windows and linux. But sadly the author is not porting that program to anything but the haiku os which is a beos clone. I find it VERY easy to use, it has real 32b color depth etc. Not as many features as gimp but for the bulk of folks just retouching a photo etc or doing some art work, its very very good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUqPyGvrLwY


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## Peter1986C (Jun 14, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> blah blah blah



If you can't give mature comments to something, than better don't comment it.



Thatguy said:


> So people should work for free as in beer ? I don't care if software is free. I don't care if its open source. I just want it to work. As for cost, well beer isn;t free either.



I never said that someone must work unpaid. You're bending my words dude. I was mentioning cost savings on software, not on people. 
And in fact companies often pay for open source software, only less because they pay a certain amount ("flat rate") instead of paying per install.



Thatguy said:


> OpenOffice Libreoffice, same god damned thing isn't it ? except libreoffice is a fork of openoffice, though I forget when specifically this occured.



The fork occured soon after Oracle purchased Sun. Oracle was rumoured to be planning to quit the OpenOffice project (or whatever), hence the fork. And if you had read what I've linked to, you would have known how things have ended up to.



Thatguy said:


> You can't give me a copy of openoffice and libre office won't do my books.



If it doesn't meet your requirements, this doesn't mean it sucks generally. It only implies it's not suitable for your specific use.



Fourstaff said:


> I am ashamed to admit that after getting an Office students pack I have been almost exclusively using Microsoft Windows rather than LibreOffice. That said though, I think its a personal preference thing, and I would be just as comfortable using LibreOffice if I didn't buy the Office.



In my case it depends, which of the two I use. If I need to exchange documents with Office 2007 users, while those docs still need to be edited then I choose Office 2010, or if read-only files are fine I make the docs in LibreOffice and export them to PDF. Except when needing to use pictures (which is seldomly the case), in that case I use MS Office 2010 too, no matter with who I need to exchange.
If I will exchange with fellow LibreOffice users or if it is for private use, I prefer to use LibreOffice.



Fourstaff said:


> I understand both sides of the argument, because I am actually using Gimp over Adobe Photoshop (mainly because I can't afford the £150+ license fee, and the 7/14/whatever day trial was not long enough for me to acclimatise). That and Chrome over IE9, and trying to use Mozilla Thunderbird to play nice (it doesn't, I probably need to spend more time to actually attempt it properly).



Let's not forget that Portage/APT make it quite easy on Linux installs to add plugins to GIMP; so I guess that even if it is not "the same" as PS it comes very close. Those plugins should be available for the Windows/Mac versions of GIMP, but I guess you need to DL them separately from the www.
In case of Mozilla TB, let me know what you are struggling with, and I may be able to help you out. It's in minor things, often. E.g. when the sending/receiving e-mails has its flaws, a manual set-up me solve the problem (the automagic stuff seems to select wrong ports and such, in certain cases).



Thatguy said:


> Gimp has to many problems and to difficult a workflow for most professionals and they are acting like fixing the multwindow view is some sort of monumental task, that tells me the application is full of spaghetti code workarounds.



"Fixing" is not the right word here, dude. The multiwindow thing has been there with a *purpose*. That GUI design allows the user to spread the program across several virtual desktops and/or monitors.
Because there are people who don't like it, the developers are adding a all-in-one interface to the program without ditching the other (because some would still prefer the old design).
The fact that they wish to offer 2 GUIs at once (offering choice), combined with all the tools etc. makes it hard for them. And possibly the GIMP core development team is rather small, increasing dev time even more.


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## Thatguy (Jun 15, 2011)

Chevalr1c said:


> If you can't give mature comments to something, than better don't comment it.



  dude, you aren't owed a ounce a civility, and genrally given the attitude of linux evngalists, you've yet to earn coutersy from me on the subject manner. 



Chevalr1c said:


> I never said that someone must work unpaid. You're bending my words dude. I was mentioning cost savings on software, not on people.
> And in fact companies often pay for open source software, only less because they pay a certain amount ("flat rate") instead of paying per install.



First off Free software can't ever pay a developer unless it finds a corporate sponsor or some form of ad revenue to fund itself, outside of donations. So yes the paid developer scenario is really problematic, I figured the basic tennant of the statement was fiarly self evident. Obviously not. 



Chevalr1c said:


> The fork occured soon after Oracle purchased Sun. Oracle was rumoured to be planning to quit the OpenOffice project (or whatever), hence the fork. And if you had read what I've linked to, you would have known how things have ended up to.



  I really don'tcare, at this point I will use a paid solution. My time is worth more then screwing around with a poorly written application.



Chevalr1c said:


> If it doesn't meet your requirements, this doesn't mean it sucks generally. It only implies it's not suitable for your specific use.



  considering I don't have much demanding use for a office suite, yeah it sucks. The amount of people using MSoffice vrs Libreoffice is pretty much a testament to this fact. You might not like facts, but they exist regardless of your attempt to spin the conversation.



Chevalr1c said:


> In my case it depends, which of the two I use. If I need to exchange documents with Office 2007 users, while those docs still need to be edited then I choose Office 2010, or if read-only files are fine I make the docs in LibreOffice and export them to PDF. Except when needing to use pictures (which is seldomly the case), in that case I use MS Office 2010 too, no matter with who I need to exchange.
> If I will exchange with fellow LibreOffice users or if it is for private use, I prefer to use LibreOffice.



 Ever use Gobe 3.0???. Might wanna try it. Shame its dead though. Great application that made document editing a snap. Want a picture in between two paragraphs, its super easy. Wanna combine spreadsheets,text,pictures,art and do all of it in one program including drawing, yep no problem. 




Chevalr1c said:


> Let's not forget that Portage/APT make it quite easy on Linux installs to add plugins to GIMP; so I guess that even if it is not "the same" as PS it comes very close. Those plugins should be available for the Windows/Mac versions of GIMP, but I guess you need to DL them separately from the www.



   I just can't stand the ui, its like having a labotomy and everything is so difficult to find. The workflow is horrific. 



Chevalr1c said:


> In case of Mozilla TB, let me know what you are struggling with, and I may be able to help you out. It's in minor things, often. E.g. when the sending/receiving e-mails has its flaws, a manual set-up me solve the problem (the automagic stuff seems to select wrong ports and such, in certain cases).



  I am totally fine with pegasus mail, it works great for my needs. 



Chevalr1c said:


> "Fixing" is not the right word here, dude. The multiwindow thing has been there with a *purpose*. That GUI design allows the user to spread the program across several virtual desktops and/or monitors.
> Because there are people who don't like it, the developers are adding a all-in-one interface to the program without ditching the other (because some would still prefer the old design).
> The fact that they wish to offer 2 GUIs at once (offering choice), combined with all the tools etc. makes it hard for them. And possibly the GIMP core development team is rather small, increasing dev time even more.




      the GUI decision was a bad thing and likely done to make the program more modular, Who the fuck uses x11 to work on a art project arcoss multiple computers ? What a stupid useage scenario. Its just poorly design, counter intuative, and clumsy. It works poorly on every type of OS I have tried it on. Its just a total Pain in the ass to use and its got color problems as well. After all this time the fact that GIMP is in the shape its in and 2 guys can write a program like wonderbrush in what appears to be the span of about 1 year and its easily more useably functional and has alot of capability, tells me the guys at gimp are just not capable of developing good software. 

  the best thing to do with gimp now, is just rewrite it completely and toss the old design in the can. Likely would be better as a QT app anyways. Far more portable.


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## streetfighter 2 (Jun 15, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> The amount of people using MSoffice vrs Libreoffice is pretty much a testament to this fact. You might not like facts, but they exist regardless of your attempt to spin the conversation.


Argumentum ad populum


Easy Rhino said:


> logical fallacies are a hell of a drug.


I'm fond of both Thatguy and Chevalr1c so I don't want them to think I'm being an arse.  I may have overstepped my bounds a bit but I felt as if Thatguy's jab at Chevalr1c was unjustified.  Furthermore being a person infatuated with "facts", it makes me sad whenever I see the word used to describe something that is clearly arbitrary.

Oh and for the record:
MS Office sucks.
LibreOffice sucks.
OpenOffice sucks.
Being in an actual office sucks.
Open source rules.

That is all.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 15, 2011)

streetfighter 2 said:


> Argumentum ad populum



logical fallacies are a hell of a drug.


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## Peter1986C (Jun 15, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> dude, you aren't owed a ounce a civility, and genrally given the attitude of linux evngalists, you've yet to earn coutersy from me on the subject manner.







Thatguy said:


> First off Free software can't ever pay a developer unless it finds a corporate sponsor or some form of ad revenue to fund itself, outside of donations. So yes the paid developer scenario is really problematic, I figured the basic tennant of the statement was fiarly self evident. Obviously not.



The term "Free software" does *not* refer to the price. So what you say about the financial stuff is not always the case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization
Yes, some projects primarily live of things like sponsorship and this can be problematic but others are doing well, while getting paid by their clients (in form of yearly contracts for a wholesale solution of software and support, AFAIK). Think of the revenue Red Hat is making.... http://www.redhat.com/about/news/prarchive/2010/Q4FY10.html



Thatguy said:


> Ever use Gobe 3.0???. Might wanna try it. Shame its dead though. Great application that made document editing a snap. Want a picture in between two paragraphs, its super easy. Wanna combine spreadsheets,text,pictures,art and do all of it in one program including drawing, yep no problem.



My only reason for not using LibreOffice for documents that need to contain images, is that LibreOffice screws the images quality wise. There are no further problems with it for me, except the latter and the interoperability with e.g. MS Office.



Thatguy said:


> Chevalr1c said:
> 
> 
> > In case of Mozilla TB, let me know what you are struggling with, and I may be able to help you out. It's in minor things, often. E.g. when the sending/receiving e-mails has its flaws, a manual set-up me solve the problem (the automagic stuff seems to select wrong ports and such, in certain cases).
> ...



As you could have seen, I did reply to something Fourstaff said. It seemed he had some issues with TB he would like to overcome, so I offered my help to him. I was not talking to you at that moment.



Thatguy said:


> the GUI decision was a bad thing and likely done to make the program more modular, Who the fuck uses x11 to work on a art project arcoss multiple computers ? What a stupid useage scenario. Its just poorly design, counter intuative, and clumsy. It works poorly on every type of OS I have tried it on. Its just a total Pain in the ass to use and its got color problems as well. After all this time the fact that GIMP is in the shape its in and 2 guys can write a program like wonderbrush in what appears to be the span of about 1 year and its easily more useably functional and has alot of capability, tells me the guys at gimp are just not capable of developing good software.
> the best thing to do with gimp now, is just rewrite it completely and toss the old design in the can. Likely would be better as a QT app anyways. Far more portable.



Using QT would indeed be a good idea, instead of the GTK toolkit they use now. 
But how come "across multiple computers"? As you probably know, both multimonitor and the multiple virtual desktop setups are usage scenarios with only *one* ("1") computer.
And in fact I like the way GIMP works, I am used to it now and would probably find PS a pain in the ass because it's design is different to what I am used to.



Man, this thread seems to go on and on forever, basically in the same silly way as the "Fahrenheit or Celsius" topic.
And we are of course far off topic now, because the OP discussed a decision of the US DoD, not the quality of applications.


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## Thatguy (Jun 28, 2011)

Chevalr1c said:


> Man, this thread seems to go on and on forever, basically in the same silly way as the "Fahrenheit or Celsius" topic.
> And we are of course far off topic now, because the OP discussed a decision of the US DoD, not the quality of applications.



   I have almost ZERO intention of fixing bugs in software and so do most users, Freedom doesn't mean shit. I want FREEDOM and RESPECT of my data. It is afterall MY data. 

  I don't give a shit how you want to measure tempature, I can easily off the top of my head convert between F or C. you know what the differences is between 104.4c and 220F. Nothing. Its still fthe same tempature. Get it ?

  Typically open source software is crap. some isn't it. I'd like to see a much more diverse less windows and linux specific OS market. Maybe 10-20 os's all have small fractional amounts of market share, it'd be good for everybody. 

  But to claim GIMP is a good program ? BTW I can multimonitor just fine in PS. But multimonitor photo editing is at best a edge useage case. the GUI is aweful. 

 YES gimp should become a QT program, it'll give it more portability.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 28, 2011)

blah blah shit blah.


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## Thatguy (Jul 13, 2011)

Easy Rhino said:


> blah blah shit blah.



Easy Rhino, I get it. Weak republican in name only.


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## DannibusX (Jul 13, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> Easy Rhino, I get it. Weak republican in name only.



Don't be that guy.


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## Easy Rhino (Jul 14, 2011)

he's just mad because nobody took him serious on the internet.


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