Visual effects, to varying degrees are often negated from being a key component of usability. I can, for the most part, concede that to be the case. While well-designed effects can improve productivity by providing visual cues to what is going on, many only provide minimal benefits. Icons are not such a case, and that's why I think the Tango Project is more important than it might first seem.
Just over a year ago, I wrote an article, “Why GNOME's Got it Right,” which outlined why I thought the GNOME Project was clearly the Free Software desktop project with the best vision of the future. KDE's Appeal Project, which has been brewing for some time now, looks to a different set of issues that need solving and has some very smart minds at work on solving those problems. In a few words, KDE's got some of “that vision thing” too.
Trusted Computing is generally associated with Microsoft, and, as of a short time ago, now Apple as well. On the other hand, little time is spent on the idea of integrating Trusted Platform Module support deep into GNU/Linux and other Free Software desktops. Maybe it is time for that to change.
In a series of articles (part I, part II) during the month of July, OfB's Timothy R. Butler explained why he felt that KDE needed to move beyond the Qt toolkit it uses as a foundation. In that series, he asserted that the licensing of Qt is becoming a stumbling block to the desktop's adoption. Eric Laffoon, the project lead for KDE's Kdewebdev module, takes exception to Butler's arguments and makes the case for his view on the issue of Qt, below.
EXCLUSIVE. Earlier reports circulating around the Internet concerning Apple's inclusion of a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip in Intel-based Macs were incorrect, OfB was informed. News of the inclusion of the chip, based on the technology formerly known as Palladium, had spread across the Internet as wildfire in recent days and many news outlets, including Open for Business, had published commentary on the dramatic revelation of the technology's inclusion.
Word came out earlier this week that Apple's Mac OS X on Intel developer kits depend on TCPA, still often known by its old name, Palladium. While Odysseus is long since dead, it is easy to see why Apple may be fearful of piracy as it moves to the x86 platform. The question is: exactly how does this impact the end user? That is not exactly clear just yet.
Over the last few weeks I have addressed licensing and usability issues with GNU/Linux desktops. One of the points raised against my arguments had to do with the need for companies providing Free Software to make money, namely, the need for Trolltech to make money. It is with the greatest irony that I now find myself discussing one of the new features in KDE 3.5 (although not exclusive to KDE) intended squarely at preventing some from receiving their dues.
Last week I promised to demonstrate why I am not a GNOME zealot simply looking to try to give KDE a hard time. In actuality, I don't use GNOME much at all, these days. Or KDE. I do keep up with them, but my actual desktop home is elsewhere. “Hey, Clippit! Stop staring at me.”
I knew when I mentioned something negative about the GNU Project's General Public License (GPL), in my column last week, I would inevitably be accused of arguing the GPL was a bad license. I knew this would happen despite my qualification to the argument that I had released code under the GPL myself. What did not fit into that piece shall now be dealt with: is the GPL a bad license?
It started out as a simple project: with the prospect that I'd be away from my desktop computer for a few weeks, I wanted to beef up my laptop's meager 256 megs of RAM. Having purchased my 12” PowerBook one release cycle before Apple boosted the RAM to the 512 megs it really should have had to begin with, it was long past time I embarked on opening up the case and upgrading. One thing was stopping me: I couldn't open it.