Özgür Yazılımlar Hakkında Makaleler

[GERGE]

Her hafta, çarşamba günü buraya bulduğum, okuduğum, sevdiğim makalelerin linkini (ve kendilerini) koyacağım. Yorum da yazacağım. Siz de yardımcı olursanız güzel bir konumuz olur. Ama yazının kendisini de kopyalamayı ve hakkındaki fikirlerinizi yazmayı unutmayın. Böylece ölü link sorunumuz olmaz ve bulma, okuma, tartışma daha sağlıklı olur.

Burada tartışma yapmayalım ama, sadece makaleler olsun, rahatça ulaşsın insanlar.

Bu konuda tartışabiliriz.

Başlıyorum; herşey siz patilere hizmet için!

1 - Why Mozilla is committed to Gecko as WebKit popularity grows :

Webkit's strengths

In the wake of Google's release of the new WebKit-based Chrome browser, some technology enthusiasts are beginning to wonder if the days are numbered for Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine. Despite the growing popularity of WebKit, those who understand the differences between the two rendering engines and have an appreciation of Gecko's technical strengths, recognize that there is no basis for speculation about the possibility of Mozilla adopting it for future versions of Firefox.

WebKit is an open-source HTML rendering engine that was developed by Apple with code from KDE's KHTML project. As we noted in our Chrome review, WebKit is an extremely lightweight renderer that is often praised for its tight and clean code base, excellent standards-compliance, and small memory footprint. These characteristics have made it a popular choice for browser implementers and numerous other adopters.

WebKit is primarily used in Apple's Safari web browser and on the iPhone, but high-profile third-party users include Adobe, Nokia, and Trolltech. WebKit is also used by a multitude of other lesser-known browsers, including iCab, Omniweb, Shiira, and Epiphany. It's a favorite in the alternative-OS community as well, and is making its way to Haiku, Syllable, and even Amiga. On the Linux desktop, programmers (including myself) are increasingly using it to build rich Internet applications. After evaluating all of the available choices, Google saw WebKit as the obvious choice for both its Android mobile browser and for Chrome on the desktop.

The consensus of the developers who are using WebKit is clear: it's an outstanding rendering engine that lends itself to an extremely diverse assortment of practical uses. It is everywhere, and it is gaining traction at a very impressive rate. That traction is causing some developers to question whether Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine is still relevant.

Why Apple rejected Gecko

Gecko, which originated at Netscape and predates KHTML, is often criticized for its large and infamously complex code base. Gecko has always been extraordinarily powerful, but its richest and most impressive capabilities originally came at a high cost in size, complexity, and memory overhead. The consequence is that Gecko is unsuitable for adoption in many places where its additional functionality is an impediment instead of an asset.

One of the primary reasons for the enormous complexity of the Gecko code base is that it aims to provide much more than just an HTML renderer. Mozilla's early goals were extremely ambitious—the original Mozilla application suite included a browser, a complete mail and newsgroup program, a web design tool, and an IRC client. In addition to rendering HTML, Gecko also provides a versatile XML-based user interface rendering framework called XUL that was used extensively in those applications. XUL is still used today to create the Firefox user interface, and it facilitates that browser's support for extensions, which are regarded by many enthusiasts as one of the most valuable features offered by Firefox.

Another reason for much of the complexity in Gecko is the use of XPCOM, a powerful component system. Although XPCOM brings a lot of really compelling capabilities to Gecko and made the entire engine highly modular, some developers embraced it too enthusiastically and used it in places where it was probably not wise to do so. When Ars interviewed former Mozilla developer Scott Collins back in 2004, he listed the excessive use of XPCOM among Mozilla's top mistakes.

With all of the complexity introduced by XUL and XPCOM, it made sense for Apple to choose something lighter for Safari. Apple wanted to make a browser that could be integrated tightly with Mac OS X. It's also possible that they foresaw the need for a rendering engine that could scale down to a mobile device, a factor that also made KHTML a better solution than Gecko at the time.

When Apple chose to use KHTML for Safari in 2003, Mozilla's Mike Shaver responded with a blog entry acknowledging Gecko's weaknesses. He also astutely predicted that Apple would become an ally in promoting open web standards and that Apple's decision to create its own browser would provide many opportunities for mutual learning and improvement.

"Gecko missed its 'small and lean' target by an area code, and we've been slogging back towards the goal, dragging our profilers and benchmarks behind us, for years. If I had to write a new browser, and I was going to have to touch the layout code in a serious way, I would think about Mozilla alternatives," he wrote back in 2003. "I really really hope that Mozilla will learn from Safari/KHTML, because they've done a lot of great work in about a tenth of the code."

A revamped Gecko puts the fire in Firefox 3

A lot of things have changed since 2003, and the Gecko code base has come a long way. Gecko is still very complex, but many of its historical weaknesses have been addressed by Mozilla's engineering efforts. Gecko received a massive overhaul for Firefox 3, with countless changes that significantly improved the entire browsing experience.

Gecko 1.9 uses the cross-platform Cairo rendering framework. This greatly improved SVG support simplified many aspects of the code base and facilitated some cool features, like support for full-page zooming. The overhaul also included significant refactoring of the reflow algorithm, making it possible for Gecko to pass the Acid 2 test. Mozilla also aggressively reduced memory consumption, coming out ahead of both Safari and Opera.

Usage of XPCOM has been decreased in many places over the years, and its resource overhead was reduced by the new cycle collector. This work will continue as Mozilla purges XPCOM more extensively from Gecko in preparation for Firefox 4 and replaces XPCOM reference counting with real garbage collection. Ongoing development efforts are addressing other Gecko weaknesses, too. For instance, Gecko improvements that landed in the first Firefox 3.1 alpha add support for some CSS 3 features that are implemented in WebKit. There are also lots of performance improvements that make Gecko more competitive. Mozilla's TraceMonkey engine landed in recent nightly builds and will likely be included in 3.1; it massively boosts JavaScript performance.

From a technical perspective, Gecko is now very solid and no longer lags behind WebKit. A testament to the rate at which Gecko has been improving is its newfound viability in the mobile space, where it was practically considered a nonstarter not too long ago. Mozilla clearly has the resources, developer expertise, and community support to take Gecko anywhere that WebKit can go.

Why Gecko gets love from third-party adopters

It's also worth noting that some of Gecko's unique and seemingly idiosyncratic features are becoming useful to third-party adopters. There are a growing number of applications being built on top of the Mozilla platform that leverage XUL with impressive results. A few examples are the Songbird music player, the Miro video player, and ActiveState's Komodo IDE. Firefox 3 itself can be used as a XUL application runtime, which means that third-party developers can build rich Internet applications with XUL and JavaScript and deploy them with ease on computers with Firefox 3. Similarly, we are beginning to see sophisticated XUL applications deployed entirely as Firefox extensions. One example is Pencil, a diagramming and GUI prototyping tool that recently won the Extend Firefox 3 contest.

Some of the most prominent WebKit adopters are also investing considerable resources into Gecko and Firefox. Nokia, for instance, is funding the development of a Firefox Qt port and Adobe is collaborating with Mozilla to develop Tamarin, a new JavaScript engine that uses code from Flash's ActionScript virtual machine.

Gecko is clearly capable of achieving parity with WebKit in power, performance, and low memory consumption, while still providing unique and highly advantageous features that can't be found in other rendering engines or easily added to WebKit. Despite the belief of some critics that WebKit is categorically better, there is no technical basis for arguing that Firefox should drop Gecko.

Mozilla explains why WebKit isn't the future of Firefox

We asked Mike Shaver, who is now Mozilla's VP of engineering, to comment on how he views the Gecko/WebKit dichotomy today and why he believes Gecko is still important.

"I have a lot of respect for the WebKit guys, and for the work they've done," he told us in an e-mail. "The web is better because they're around and pushing hard, and Mozilla itself is better from the competitive push as well as cooperation ranging from new web standards to plugin interfaces to the nerdiest of implementation discussions."

Although he respects the technical achievements of WebKit, he believes that the WebKit development model and fragmentation in the WebKit ecosystem would create serious challenges that make it unsuitable for Firefox.

"We're getting a ton of value out of a unified engine for all our projects, from desktop to device and xulrunner to Thunderbird. If you look at the WebKit landscape right now, you see a lot of different projects there and it's not clear how or if they'll converge," he wrote. "We'd obviously need to hack WebKit pretty hard to adapt it to our needs, and it's not likely that adding another fast-moving variant to that mix would be helpful to anyone, least of all WebKit! We learned about fork maintenance and integration the hard way (and had to learn it a couple of times, to be honest), so that's not trouble that we want to borrow."

The WebKit governance model and Apple's general lack of transparency are also issues that would negatively impact Mozilla if Firefox adopted WebKit.

"I think we would have a hard time maintaining our momentum and depth of community empowerment in the WebKit setting. The level of visibility around patches and review is a lot higher in our world, as one example, and we don't have bugs disappearing into an Apple-only bug system," he told us. "For us to come into WebKit's world and insist on that additional transparency would be unfair and counterproductive, but to live without it wouldn't be an option for Mozilla. Our system works for us, and their system works for them (and is in many ways less noisy), but I don't think that any one system could work very well for both of us."

Conclusion

My hope is that this detailed examination of Gecko's strengths, and the effort that Mozilla has invested in overcoming its weaknesses, will help illuminate the continuing relevance of Gecko in the Mozilla ecosystem and finally put to rest dubious speculation about the possibility of WebKit adoption for Firefox.

The technical advantages of Gecko are evident when viewed objectively, and the amount of effort that would be required to make WebKit fit into the Firefox stack would far outweigh the technical benefits. As we have noted in the past, there are also reasons why the choice and diversity inherent in having multiple competing implementations is valuable, too.

There are many things the Gecko and WebKit developer communities can learn from each other, but replacing Gecko would not serve any justifiable purpose. In closing, I'll leave you with one more thought from Mike Shaver:

"We follow WebKit as closely as anyone in the world, and we cast as critical an eye towards our technology stack as anyone in the world," he told us. "But a brain transplant is neither practical nor likely to be useful."

Katıldığımı söylemeliyim yazara. WebKit bence de güzel, Epiphany ile derleyip denemiştim bir ara epey ama FF3 çıktıktan sonra Gecko'nun eksik yanı kalmamıştı.

Chrome işleri değiştirdi ama. Bağımsız sekmeleri ve benzerlerinden çok ilerde modern güç yönetimi ile takdirimi kazandı. Linux versiyonu çıktığında eğer Qt bağımlılığı olmazsa (ki neden olsun ki, Google bu) Firefox'dan göç etmeyi ciddi ciddi düşünüyorum. Sidebar'ımı biraz ararım ama sorun olmaz. Gerçi Firefox'da aynı özellikleri sunduğunda (ve emin olun, sunar) hiç düşünmeden geri dönerim şu anki hala göre.

Zaten Gecko'nun 3. parti yazılımcıya ve amatöre sunduğu destek hiç bir yerde yok ve internetin şu anki haline gelmesinde oynadığı rol göz ardı edilemez.

2 - Mombuntu - Ubuntu For Your Mom!

You might be wondering why I am suggesting an Linux distro for your mom. Well Linux is no longer the stronghold of geeks. Distros like Ubuntu have made using Linux as simple as using Windows. Here are reasons why Ubuntu will be perfect for your mom, who's needs are basic.

The reasons are:

1. Ubuntu is one of the easiest OS to master: Your mom will be soon at ease with the new environment.

2. Security: With Windows there is always the constant threat of viruses, Trojans and malware. This coupled with the fact that online transaction is a daily necessity, if users are not careful hackers may get access to sensitive information like bank passwords. With Linux there is almost '0' threat of any virus related problem.

3. Simplicity: As a Windows user I used to always roll my eyes when ever Mac users used to quack about 'Mac's simplicity' as one of its virtues. However since using Ubuntu I now crave for the same clean and simple desktop on Windows.

4. Hardware: Ubuntu can run nice with as little as 256 MB worth RAM. Also after installing drivers for video cards Compiz makes Ubuntu 100 times cooler than Vista.

5. Games: Your mom doesn't play Crysis, does she? However she definitely plays minesweeper and other such games. Ubuntu has many such small games and many more games can be downloaded for free.

Here are steps to make your mom's transition to Ubuntu as painless as possible and create Mombuntu in the process.

1. Create icons on the desktop with titles like "Internet" (for the web browser), "Word" (for Open Office), "E-mail", etc. Install Envy, it is a one click approach to install drivers for Graphics card from nVidia and ATI. Bless the guy who made Envy.

2. Install VLC. VLC is the worlds best video player. It can play any damn file format you throw at it, it even plays .iso files. .iso is the file which nero burns on CDs.

3. Ubuntu by default doesn't play proprietary video, audio formats like MP3, Avi, and pretty much every format you are used to, I don't know why but that's the way it is. To get the necessary codecs to play these type of file formats browse to one of your MP3 songs and try playing it with Rhythmbox or Totem. A new box will come up telling you that the required codecs are not available and that it can search the internet for them. Click yes. After some time you will find three codec packs. Tick mark all and wait for the installer to do its work. Now Ubuntu will play any kind of media you throw at it.

4. Mail Notifier: Install mail notifier for you Ubuntu. If you use Gmail I'd highly recommend you to use CheckGmail it is the best mail notifier on any OS. Its even better than the official Gmail notifier for Windows (Use Synaptic to install it. System-> Administration-> Synaptic). You can setup Evolution to check your mail too.

5. Set up all messenger accounts in Pidgin. Its the best chat app. Pidgin houses all chat programs like MSN messenger, Gtalk, Yahoo and ICQ under one roof. Remove the top panel if your mom has been using accustomed to Windows. Set the application menu in the lower panel.

6. Now Open Office is a nice alternative to MS Office however the default format is .odf so if your mom tries sending some document to some one on a Windows PC, the guy at other end won't be able to read them. So rather than explaining your mom the difference between .doc and .odf do this: Open Open Office, next click on 'Tools' and then click on 'Options'. Next click on Load/Save options and then change the default setting to .doc.

You might want to install Abiword it is a light weight alternative to Open Office. Don't forget to change the default file format to .doc.

7. Install Wine and add those Windows apps which are indispensable.

8. Make Ubuntu auto login by doing this:

System -> Administration -> Login Screen Setup ->Security Tab and then check mark on the 'Enable Automatic Login' box.

9. Get her an account at Ubuntu Forums and tell her to email you or post a thread on the site. Adding few geeks as friend will speed things up. Add them as friend and get their email address. Add them in contacts with 'Ubuntu Help' as the name. Make her send her problems to that email address :-P

10. Keep automatic system updates on.

That's it you have created your own Mombuntu. A perfect gift for Mother's day!

Lol! Kesinlikle katılmıyorum ben buna. Ne kadar uğraşırsak uğraşalım annelerimiz Windows isteyecektir.

3 - On Ubuntu, its derivatives and trademark enforcements:

Judging by the discussion taking place in this publication's comments area, many DistroWatch readers find the growing number of *buntus, or distribution derived from -- and named after -- Ubuntu, rather ridiculous. Some even think that it's happening at the detriment of the entire open source movement. After all, wouldn't it be better if these "developers" helped squashing bugs in the parent distribution instead of recreating it with a slightly modified package list and a different desktop theme? And yet, every time a new *buntu variant appears, there is plenty of interest. Take Ubuntulite, a distribution added to DistroWatch last week. It has been near the top of most search-for distributions for weeks and once mentioned in DistroWatch Weekly, it promptly received over 1,500 clicks during the first 24 hours of its listing!

Whatever your opinion about the growing number of *buntus, one thing is becoming clear: it is quite possible that we have now seen the end of their relentless supply. The reason? The trademark lawyers at Canonical have started asserting the law by warning several projects which call themselves "*buntu" and which do not comply with Canonical's trademark guidelines. By co-incidence, one of them was Ubuntulite, an innocent looking distribution that seemed no different from dozens of other *buntus* that had been created over the past few years (other than being more useful than most). Here is the excerpt from the email, as published on the Ubuntulite web site under the title of A message from Canonical: Change your name:

"In terms of our trademark policy you cannot use the Ubuntu, Kubuntu or Edubuntu logos in combination with other marks or logos. With your project you are using our Kubuntu logo together with your project name Ubuntulite and this is a breach of our trademark. Your project name, Ubuntulite, is also not compliant with our trademark policy. We do encourage people to make custom versions of Ubuntu, and we have established the "remix" concept and terminology to allow use of the trademark if the changes are minimal or include only software from the Ubuntu repositories. It is of course fine to host repositories and distribute the software - the issue is that you are attaching the brand, quality and assurance messages of the Ubuntu marks to something which is not Ubuntu."

This is a fairly new development as historically Canonical has not been known to enforce their trademarks in this way. In fact, in the project's early days, creating an Ubuntu derivative was not only tolerated, chances were that the new project would later become an official Ubuntu sub-project (such were the cases with Kubuntu and Xubuntu, and more recently, also Mythbuntu and Ubuntu Studio). However, the number of *buntus was still growing fast and DistroWatch now also lists projects with names like Fluxbuntu, nUbuntu, Ubuntu Christian Edition and Ubuntu Muslim Edition, while our waiting list has distributions such as Elbuntu, Minibuntu, UbuntuiES, Estobuntu, Zebuntu, Ubuntu Rescue Mix or Bubuntu. Just last week, a new distribution called Boxbuntu was also submitted to DistroWatch. Of the above (and to the best of our knowledge), only Ubuntu Christian Edition has been granted permission by Canonical to use the word "Ubuntu" in their product name. The fact that Canonical has become more strict in enforcing their trademarks will likely mean fewer *buntus in the future. It won't necessarily stop the flood of new Ubuntu-based distributions, but they will probably arrive "disguised" under a seemingly unrelated name and with a logo not resembling any Ubuntu graphic.

While we haven't seen any lawsuits brought by a Linux company or organisation against any project allegedly breaking the trademark law, many distributions do enforce their trademarks by sending letters similar to the one quoted above. Red Hat is the most famous example of this; some readers will remember that they used to threaten online CD shops with lawsuits unless they stopped calling their freely downloadable Red Hat Linux CDs as "Red Hat Linux" (although it was fine to sell these CDs under a different name). Other big or small Linux companies, such as Novell or Mandriva, are likely to crack down on any trademark abuse, while some non-profit community projects, such as Debian GNU/Linux, are also known to enforce their trademarks. And Slackware's Patrick Volkerding has sent out quite a few emails of his own; as an example he asked the developer of Slax (formerly Slackware Live) to change its name, but even those who use a variation of the word "slack" in their product name could expect an email from "da man" sooner or later.

* * * * *
Interestingly, the trademark laws can sometimes bite the big distributions themselves. Last Sunday, a heated debate hit the Ubuntu mailing list and the Launchpad bug reporting facility. Apparently, Mozilla Foundation has updated their trademark policy, requiring every user to explicitly accept the licence agreement before using their products. This was seen as a usability drawback by Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth and many of the project's developers. Phoronix has published a good summary of the events under the title Battle Brews Over Firefox In Ubuntu 8.10, with a full quote from the Ubuntu founder and other links that discuss the situation.

This brings memories of a similar debate that took place on the debian-devel mailing list not long ago. With Mozilla Corporation imposing guidelines and licenses increasingly incompatible with Debian's own policies, the distribution came up with a typically open-source solution. Since all Mozilla products are provided in the form of freely available source code, one can simply compile the code, rename the resulting binary - and voilà, a new product is born. Since October 2006, Debian no longer includes Firefox, Thunderbird or SeaMonkey in their distribution, but instead ships Iceweasel (a Debian edition of Firefox), Icedove (Thunderbird) and Iceape (SeaMonkey). While most Debian derivatives accepted this situation and switched to Iceweasel, Ubuntu had, at the time, struck a deal with Mozilla that was acceptable to both parties, thus continuing to provide Firefox in Ubuntu under its proper name. This, however, might now change. As a matter of fact, the Ubuntu development repositories now contain a package called abrowser, an unbranded edition of Firefox.

It will be interesting to see how other distributions handle this tricky issue. Luckily, it seems that the open source world provides a greater number of acceptable solutions to these types of controversies than any closed-source or proprietary software product ever could.

Adım başı *buntu işini ben de sevmiyorum. Oturup kendi versiyonunu yapacağına asıl sisteme yardım etsene. Her LFS sistemi kuran, her Slackware sistemi kuran, her Arch sistemi kuran kendi masaüstünü dağıtım diye dağıtıyor mu?

Yok, ben illa da yapacağım diyorsan Ubuntu Studio gibi amacı olan, Ubuntu repolarına eklenebilinecek birşey yap!

Zaten kendi paket sistemi olmayan dağıtımın dağıtım olabileceğine inanmıyorum ben. Ubuntu bile benim gözümde gerçek bir dağıtım değil, sadece bir tür Debian.

4 - Linux: has the horse bolted?

Richard Stallman wants to popularise the term GNU/Linux instead of using the currently popular term Linux. He correctly states that the term Linux, besides being thoroughly inaccurate, totally fails to introduce new users to the legal and philosophical concepts that underlie the basis of the GNU/Linux OS; but is it feasible to make such a change at this late stage?

Some weeks ago, trolling through prospective articles for Free Software Daily, I encountered a blog, describing the evolution of “Linux”. It was aimed at Newbies. The blog correctly described Linus Torvalds as the creator of the Linux kernel and a few more recent developments, but that was it. No mention was made that Richard Stallman actually created much of what is now called “Linux”, no mention of the GPL, or how it works, no mention of the copyleft legal concept and no mention of other responsibilities placed on users and developers.

All of Richard Stallman’s worst fears confirmed in one blog.

This pattern of inaccurate, or missing, information about the basic provenance of the GNU/Linux legal and software environment, is continually repeated in blogs and in the mainstream media.

Stallman’s fears are easily confirmed, yet I fear that the “Linux” horse has already bolted.
The Problem

Back at the beginning of the century, when I first saw people using GNU/Linux, they either called the OS, Linux, or else the name of the distribution they were using. A few years later, I started using GNU/Linux myself, but I only knew the OS as “Linux” till I started writing here. For the first couple of years, I knew a bit about Linus Torvalds and something called the Linux kernel, but almost nothing about Richard Stallman. He seemed to have connection with something called GNU, which I thought was just another Linux distribution. I was a typical Microsoft refugee who had learned almost nothing about computers after a decade of using Microsoft.

This is the problem that Stallman is now facing: sheer ignorance on an increasingly massive scale. I say increasingly, because more and more people are hearing about, and using, GNU/Linux, without having any better understanding of it than I did, years ago.

The second stage of the problem involves linguistics and usage.

I only did a year of linguistics, but I’m sure that if Richard Stallman asks linguistics students, at the next university he visits, which of the two terms, GNU/Linux, or just Linux, is most likely to survive, they will say “Linux” with hardly any hesitation.

My understanding is that language always devolves towards simpler forms rather than more complex ones.

Try writing both words and Linux is easier to write than GNU/Linux. Try saying them and Linux just rolls off your tongue, whereas GNU/Linux is much harder to say.

Consider all the publications with Linux in the title. Can we get all those to substitute GNU/Linux for Linux? Can we get Linux World to become GNU/Linux World? We might, but I won’t try to hold my breathe while I’m waiting. If we can’t, then the term “Linux” is getting forced further into the public thinking pattern.

Can we get mainstream journalists to start using the term GNU/Linux? Almost certainly not! Most of them will feel pretty smart if they are even familiar with the word Linux. They’d insist that the public don’t know the term GNU/Linux and it would only confuse them to use it at this stage, which is pretty true. But if we don’t, then the term Linux is getting forced further into the public thought processes.

A possible solution

I don’t really have one. I often use the words “Free Software Community” which I hope gives the new user the idea that there is a lot more involved than just the word Linux, but it’s not a perfect solution by any means.

What’s needed is some alternative copyleft-style solutions.

We need to raise public awareness that the term, “Linux”, involves a complete package of solutions to most (all?) of their Microsoft woes. The package includes one of a number of possible software solutions, based on the Linux kernel of Linus Torvalds and the GNU software packages developed by Richard Stallman. That it includes its own unique legal protection system, also developed by Richard Stallman. That it also brings a very large international network of users with it, and that it’s, mostly, entirely free.

Maybe, the GPL should be modified so it insists that all distributions include a page, prepared by the FSF, to appear on the desktop of all new installations. It would briefly outline all the details of GNU/Linux development and communal aims and responsibilities. Then, not so many new users would remain as ignorant as I was, for so long.

Such a page could link to FSF, and other informative sites, to give a newbie a very quick grounding in the whole Free Software Community environment.

Could this work?

Bence yazarım önerisi güzel. İşe yarayabilir, ama siz ne düşünürsün bilmiyorum?

[riglous]

Sondan basa dooru gidicem. Bir sonraki molamda 3. makaleyi okurum. En son "4 - Linux: has the horse bolted?" hakkinda:
Richard Amca kendi kendine etti. Herkes dedi ona, insanoglu cig sut emmistir, dediler, cabuk unutur, saygi duymaz, yapma etme dediler, dinletemediler. Kendi yarattigi terimlerin kullanimini zorunlu kilacakti. Linux diye degil GNU diye pazarlayacakti. Soyle ki insanlarin kesinlikle Richard Stallman'a garezi olmadigini aklimizdan cikarmamamiz gerekiyor. Yani GNU/Linux'un kullanilmamasinin sebebi kin degil, akillarda yer etmemis olmasi. Bunun nedeni olarakta Occam'in jileti der ki iki parcali isim olmasi. Mercedes-Benz'e kimse MB demez, Mercedes der.

Mal sahibi hicbir zaman musterisinin bilgi sahibi olmasini bekleyemez, beklememeli. Beklerse boyle olur. Bircok urunde de misal paketlerde, kullaniciyi tavlayacak seyler buyuk ve on plana yazilir. Soyle anlatayim, ben router alacaktim, kablonet'le uyumlu olsun diye. Bir firmaya gittim, ne yapmak istedigimi anlattim. Biz arastiralim, yarin arayin dediler. Bu firma kafadan kaybetti, cunku benim kafamdaki intiba=bu adamlar benim ne istedigimi bilmiyolar, bulduklari seyin calisip calismayacagi da garanti degil. Bunun karsisinda Vatan Bilgisayar ne yapmis; hicbir ozelligini belirtme gayreti sarfetmeden, 4 port'lu wireless kablonet icin router diye bir urun cikarmis. Haliyle ben gittim bunu aldim...

Kisacasi burdaki sorun, insanlarin bilgisizliginden cok pazarlama sorunu. Cunku ayni konu UNIX icin de gecerli. Hepsinin temeli olmasina ragmen bu gun "Linux" kullanicilarinin bundan haberi yok, cunku Linus Amca Linux/UNIX dememis. Linux olarak lanse etmis, insanlarin aklinda bu sekilde kalmis. Eger Richard Stallman GNU/Linux yerine Ginux gibi bir isim koysaydi emin olun kimse Linux demezdi.

[riglous]

3.de sira... ama bunun pek de tartisilacak bir yani yok.
Yalniz komik olan, Ubuntu benzerlerinin artmasindan yakiniyor. Mozilla ise bunun artmasinin yolunu aciyor. Enteresan. Bence fazla kasiniyorlar. Zira 8.10'a Google'in Chrome'u yetisirse, ben o zaman gorurum Mozilla'yi.

Her degisikligi yeni bir distro gibi sunmak mantiksiz elbet. WoW ilk ciktiginda her kullanici kendi talent tree'sini en iyi diye nitelendirip kendi adini veriyordu. Kimisinda sadece bir iki sey farkediyordu ama isim isimdir. Eger birey kendi yaptigi seye ismini koymak isterse buna kimse karisamaz, distro'yum derse, oyledir. Yok degilsin kimse diyemez yani. Kullanan insanlar o kisinin ne kadar "lame" oldugunu dusunurler ve bununla kalir. Ote yandan Ubuntu'nun isminin kullanilmasi gercekten kabul edilebilir bir sey degil. Zira nUbuntu'yu gordugumde yeni Ubuntu mu cikti diye ben de dusunmustum, gidip kontrol etmistim sitesinden. Fazlasiyla kandirmaca oluyor.

Yalniz sunu dusunmek lazim, bu insanlarin bazilari Ubuntu'nun populerligini kullanmaktan ziyade, yaptiklari iste Ubuntu'ya kredi vermek icin isimlerini benzer yapiyorlar (Tamamen iyi niyetten :P). Bunlara bir cozum bulunursa cok daha mantikli olur. Soyle ki adam kendi distro'suna "n" der, yanina (yandan yemis Ubuntu) diye not duser. Boylece cok daha mantikli olur.

Son olarak da Ubuntu'nun destek vermek ve bunyesine eklemek yerine neden boyle bir "savasa" gittigini anlamayan yazarimiz halt etmis. Bu isin geldigi boyut, scam'ler kadar kotu. Yani yapilan isler iyi niyetli oldugu surece destek gorur elbet ama bu cikan *buntu'larin hepsi de iyi niyetli degil ve bunu ayirt etmek pek de mumkun degil. Hepsinin de destek almasi pek kolay degil.

[GERGE]

Çarşamba demiştim, biliyorum, ama unuttum. Özür dilerim. Başlıyorum:

1 - GNOME 2.24 released, mobile development platform emerges

The open source GNOME desktop environment got a big boost today with the release of version 2.24. The latest version brings some new applications and a wide range of improvements for developers and end users. This is also the first version of GNOME to be released with an accompanying mobile development platform based on the desktop technologies.

GNOME is a software ecosystem that includes development frameworks, a comprehensive collection of desktop applications, and a complete user environment for Linux-based computing. GNOME 2.24 will be included in the upcoming releases of Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, and many other distributions.

One of the most significant improvements in GNOME 2.24 is the addition of Empathy, a new multiprotocol instant messaging client based on the Telepathy framework. Empathy, which was originally proposed for inclusion in GNOME 2.22, supports basic multimedia chat capabilities and offers extremely tight desktop integration. Third-party developers can leverage some of the underlying components of Empathy to provide sophisticated communication capabilities in their own software applications. GNOME 2.24 also includes the long-awaited release of Ekiga 3.0, a SIP client that is designed for audio and video conferencing.

A minor but highly anticipated feature that has finally landed in GNOME 2.24 is support for tabbed browsing in GNOME's Nautilus file manager. Readers responded with considerable enthusiasm when we took an early look at the Nautilus multiview branch several months ago. Nautilus also gained a new compact list view and some improvements to filename autocompletion.

There are also many minor improvements throughout the entire GNOME stack. GNOME 2.24 includes a new screen resolution utility that takes advantage of XRandR, a new audio theme system based on the FreeDesktop.org theme specification, screen reading improvements, a new time-tracking panel applet, and many other enhancements.

GNOME 2.24 introduces the first release of the GNOME Mobile development platform. GNOME technologies are increasingly being adopted by companies that are building Linux-based mobile operating systems. We have looked at several of these recently, including OpenMoko, the ACCESS Linux Platform, and Maemo. The new GNOME Mobile platform will provide a preintegrated stack that can be used by device makers to build compatible environments that can be targeted by third-party application developers.

Now that GNOME 2.24 is released, the developers will begin working on GNOME 2.26. Preparations are also underway for the big transition to GNOME 3.0, which is tentatively planned for the GNOME 2.30 timeframe. Some features that are expected to land in GNOME 2.26 include support for configuring universal keyboard shortcuts, a new volume control utility that potentially leverages PulseAudio, and tighter PolicyKit integration.

The GNOME 2.24 source code is available for download from the official FTP location. The release is already being integrated into major Linux distributions, including Ubuntu 8.10, which is scheduled for release next month. Users who want to try it now will be able to download the official LiveCD. Here at Ars, we conduct all of our GNOME prerelease testing with the Foresight-based GNOME Developer Kit, which can be downloaded from rPath.


Further reading

* GNOME 2.24: official release notes

Ben daha çok PulseAudio entegrasyonu için bekliyordum. Bir kaç kozmetik şey ve yeni ekran çözünürlüğü dışında pek bir yenilik yok. Yine de Nautilus'da tablar güzel olmuş. Kullanmaya alıştıktıktan sonra bırakabileceğimi sanmıyorum. Zaten alemlerin en iyi dosya manejeri olan Nautilus daha da iyi olmuş. Windows'un Explorer'ı iyice ger kaldı KDE'nin Dolphin'inin kullanımını da bir türlü sevemedim.

2 - On-line applications "just work"; why worry about the freedom of the licence?

An increasing number of computer users are turning to online applications instead of ones on their desktop. It started with webmail and has moved to productivity/office tools. With the emergence of online applications that have no desktop equivalent, and mobile devices that are browsers in your pocket, things are looking up. But what about free software? If the software we are using is not run on the computer on our desk/lap/hand what does the licence matter? For some time now I’ve been reading predictions where the browser will be the computer. Does this future have space for free software?

Licence unimportant?

For an online application, the licence terms shift from what you can do with the software more towards what the provider can do with your data. Google recently got in trouble with the licence for its Chrome browser. It had inadvertently included standard terms from its online application licence. Specifically those that said that Google could do pretty much what they liked with any your data used through the service.

So where does freedom and copyleft fit into this model? The four freedoms seem generally to be disregarded for the user of an online application. You must use the software within the limitations set by the application provider; you do not get the source code, so you can’t study, modify, improve or redistribute it. But does it really matter? Is the licence important if it doesn’t apply to the source code — after all a number of free software advocates have Googlemail addresses? Even if the software had a free licence, would it make any difference? You can’t — after all — force the provider to apply any patches you submit and you’ve no way of telling that that code you downloaded was exactly the code used on the main site.

So I ask again: if we’re all heading towards a world where the browser is the computer will the licencing matter for much longer?

Of course this is Free Software Magazine so you’d be expecting me to say “yes” — there , I’ve done it. But how can it matter given the circumstances above? I happen to believe it matters even more, in a couple of ways.

Trust & innovation

Firstly let’s talk about trust. How much do you trust Google or any other online service provider? One of the reasons given for GPL freedom 1 (the freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs) is to look for security holes, back doors and “phoning-home” features. True it’s mostly so we can study the code, learn from it and see how it works but by nature that means the code author/publisher will be found out if there are any less-than-forthright practices within it. Are online applications suddenly trustworthy? I say: no more than ones I install with apt-get.

In addition software innovation thrives in environment where coders can learn from each other. When the code is not kept secret the advancement and improvement of the software increases exponentially. Look at the free desktop environments around — I think it’s hard for anyone to argue they are of a standard lower than proprietary alternatives. If anything, they are at the leading edge in terms of features and quality. Have the leaps and advancements of the past few years been solely down to competition or has access to each other’s code helped? I can’t find any evidence either way, but something tells me that the KDE people study the GNOME code and vice versa. They may choose different ways to do things but in terms of getting it done — sharing things works.

The same can and should apply to online applications - particularly because with an online application the software is no longer a commodity to be sold. Services are the commodities, as Tony Mobily says in his piece on the history of computing:

“The business model (and therefore the revenue source) will depend on the application, but one thing is sure: there is money to be made.”

When you have to make money on what you are doing not what you have done the game changes. It’s no longer who has the biggest feature list that counts: it’s who can keep the site running and secure, attend to user queries and ensure the services scales well that will matter. Marketing will play it’s part as always, so will establishing an early lead. People will often go with names they’ve heard of or that their friends recommend. But, the focus is now on service and not software provision so the old names everybody knew are pushed out by new ones. The new household names don’t sell software they sell services (Facebook, Myspace, Google etc.). Even where the users don’t pay for the service, the advertisers do and if the service is poor — the users will leave and so will the advertisers. If the users lose trust in the provider, they’ll leave — and so will the revenue. Freeing the code we’re all using would go a long way to keeping that trust. Part of that trust will be down to compatibility. As others have said, standards will become more important. If the users can’t get their data out they will be more reluctant to put it in and they will tell others.

One last thing on this subject: does a model where it’s service and not software that brings in the revenue sound familiar? It should do — most of the successful free software providers operate on a similar model. Canonical (the people behind Ubuntu) mostly give their software away but they charge for professional support services. Sun offer support services not only for the paid-for StarOffice but also for it’s free cousin OpenOffice.org. When the software is free, the service is what counts and then all those marketing claims will have to live up to something — or else!

The browser and the computer

So this “the browser is the computer” thing: what’s that about then? If the browser is to become the interface through which we access everything — and it already has in some quarters — what will this browser run on? So far I’ve not seen anybody suggest that the browser would run on anything other than an operating system of some kind. Even mobile browsers run on cut-down OSs. Android is much more than a browser, and the fact that it is free makes a big difference. Remember when the PC won because IBM allowed people to clone it? If a mobile provider needs software and one set has a licence fee but both are of equal standard: which one will they go for? Ask T-Mobile if you’re not sure — they’ve chosen Android and I suspect it’s for more reasons than price alone.

So whatever shape and size they are, the devices of the future will need an OS and if the online applications require a browser and that’s all — why would a device manufacturer not want to use software which they could adapt, tweak and tailor for their users? A question was asked to a popular UK computing magazine recently. The magazine had run a feature on niche computing and had omitted GNU/Linux from the whole thing. “Why?” was the question that was asked. The answer? “Linux needs to become a reason for buying and not just a way of saving money.”. They’re right as well — free software needs to be more than a cheap option. The problem is that it already is much more than that: you know it and so do I. The ones who don’t know it yet are a majority of computer users and those providing their computing experience. With online applications, the licence does matter more than the cost. Imagine if an online provider had to get a software company to make changes for them: nothing would get done. In the online application world: everybody runs their own code and most of it will be built using and run on free software.

Free software: computing platform of the future — today

So here’s the thing: I predict a greater shift to online applications by more people. No surprise there; but I also predict we’ll be accessing these applications via a wider range of devices. Again nothing new there, but I wanted to say it. Finally I predict that more of these will be using free software. The days of proprietary software houses were numbered when GNU started to gain traction. GNU/Linux, Apache, Firefox, OpenOffice.org have all showed what can be done with free software. Google has added weight to this with Android and Chrome. On-line application providers operate under much tighter margins than traditional software providers. They need more than cheap software to run on, they need software that gives them the freedom to provide us with the services we demand.

So far from just having room for free software, the future could very well depend upon it.

Katılıyorum. Ekleyecek pek birşeyim de yok aslında.

3 - Mac Fans Disappointed in GTK+ Port

Those wanting to run Linux apps on their Mac desktops now have reason to rejoice — sort of. The GTK+ software development framework has been ported to Mac OS X, so it’s now possible to install and run GTK+ applications on your Mac. But there are some hang-ups. Your apps will look out of place, won’t use standard OS X tools and play havoc with system-wide tools like Expose or the Dock.

GTK+ is cross-platform toolkit for application development. It’s most heavily used in the GNOME environment on LINUX, but it will run elsewhere, including OS X. If there’s a GTK+ app (like GIMP, shown above) that you’ve been missing on OS X, this is probably your best bet. So far though, judging by the over 200 comments on this Reddit thread, the reaction from the Mac community seems to be overwhelmingly negative. Which is too bad since the GTK+ team has put a lot of effort into the port.

The problem is that while the underlying framework works well enough to provide base functionality, the experience of using it on a Mac is dreadful. Even very basic platform interface elements have not been ported — menus are attached to the window rather than the typical toolbar along the top of the screen. We aren’t going to argue about which is the better UI paradigm, but a true port should at least use the conventions of the platform.

Of course the GTK+ team is aware of these shortcomings and is working on addressing them in future releases. For the time being though, GTK+ on a Mac is probably best suited for Linux fans who find themselves stuck working on a Mac.

Windows'da da bir garip görünüyorlar zaten. En azından Qt'den daha iyi ama.

4 - Judge: Microsoft documentation unfit for US consumption

Microsoft may have made a big push to settle many of the antitrust actions facing it around the globe, but those efforts have run up against a major stumbling block: the company's inability to document the protocols need to interoperate with its own software. Documentation problems got Microsoft in hot water with the EU, and they're now the only reason it continues to be under court supervision in the aftermath of its antitrust settlement. But, despite having interoperability become a corporate strategy, its documentation efforts came under fire in a court hearing earlier today.

In the wake of antitrust actions, documentation of Microsoft technologies has become a method of allaying the concerns of legal authorities in both the US and EU. By providing documentation of the APIs and protocols used by its products, Microsoft would not only allow third-party and open-source software to interact better with Windows and other software, but potentially enable them to write replacements, in whole or in part, for Microsoft products. This, in theory, would enable more software companies to compete on equal terms with Redmond.

Unfortunately, the company has consistently had trouble with producing complete and useful documentation. As noted above, the company struggled to satisfy EU authorities that it was complying with the agreement—that was 2006. By 2008, documentation was rearing its ugly head in the US court system. Microsoft's consent decree with the federal and state attorneys general was set to expire, and most of the conditions were allowed to. But Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who is overseeing the consent decree, ruled that Microsoft still hadn't sufficiently documented some protocols, despite those documents having been due in 2003. As a result, the consent decree will remain in place at least until November of 2009.

Today saw Kollar-Kotelly hold the latest hearing on the status of the consent agreements, and a number of reports suggest that there still seem to be problems there (no legal documents arising from the hearing have been filed yet). Although the Dow Jones Newswire seems to think everything is fine, other reports seem to contradict this. Reuters, however, indicates that the Judge was a bit annoyed that Microsoft filed a document that suggested it viewed itself as being in full compliance with the agreement, given that the documentation wasn't ready. Referring to the 2009 date for the lifting of the consent agreement, she said, "That's not going to happen unless these things get done."

Meanwhile, CNet has quotes from the New York's Attorney General's office that suggest they are getting antsy. After complaining that Microsoft appears to act as if it's doing everyone a favor by complying with its legal obligations, Jay Hines is quoted as saying, "What we have today is the [technical committee] and its staff spoon-feeding the world's biggest PC company. Something about that just isn't right."

Given that this is the last sword hanging over its metaphorical head in the US, it's not clear why Microsoft isn't bending over backwards to make it go away. Most developers find Microsoft's API documentation to be pretty good, so it's clear that the company can produce similar documents when it is determined to.

5 - IBM takes a stand against bad standards

Bad standards and standard wars are an all too common part of modern information technology. Now, IBM has announced that it's not going to put up with them anymore. And, yes, Microsoft, IBM is looking at you.

In a statement, Ari Fishkind, public affairs manager for IBM Research's Development and Intellectual Property section, says that "IBM is announcing a new corporate policy governing its participation in the technology standards community. As members of that community, we are formalizing a commitment to behave in a progressive and transparent way as we promote open, high quality standards."

Fishkind says IBM will be judging "how consistent the behavior of standards development organizations are with these ideals will help determine our membership in these groups." Specifically, IBM complained that "the traditional standards community runs the risk of alienating developing countries" and is giving them the "perception that they are being marginalized or ignored outright, and that rules are being changed on the fly."

In addition, Fishkind says, "Intellectual property has also become an issue with the standards process, and needs to become more predictable. Of late, some commercial vendors have encouraged the industry's adoption of their technology for standards, and then have gone on to make patent infringement and royalty claims.

"IBM's new standards policy champions the needs of developing nations and the open source community, and places emphasis on intellectual property fairness, consistency, transparency, and standards quality."

Fishkind says, "This is a deliberative and thoughtful process, and one that we've not entered into lightly. So, it wouldn't be prudent to pre-judge the outcome. Most organizations have nothing to worry about, and in fact there are some very well-run organizations, like the W3C."

But, Fishkind continues, "OOXML (a.k.a. Office Open XML, Microsoft's new document standard) is a recent but striking example of inconsistencies in the standards process that need to be reformed. In the OOXML matter, it's a given that the format was deficient (so much so that it's not being implemented by its own creators) ... but the real problem was not in the document format, per se -- it was the fissures that it exposed: lack of transparency, acceptance of standards of mediocre or poor quality, lack of system to rate quality, a deep division between the more established community members and those in the developing world, etc."

OOXML was passed by the ISO as a standard in March 2008 despite numerous alleged voting irregularities and accusations that Microsoft had pressured some national standard groups into voting for OOXML. IBM had long been an outspoken Open Document Format (ODF) advocate and an OOXML critic. For several years, the battle between OpenOffice.org's ODF supporters and Microsoft raged through the standards community. Now, IBM is saying that it won't support support standard organizations that allow the kind of shenanigans that went on during OOXML's march to approval.

This isn't just IBM having a case of sour grapes. Andrew Updegrove, a partner with Boston law firm Gesmer Updegrove and the editor of ConsortiumInfo.org, a well-known standards news site, says, "The development and adoption of the new IBM policy clearly follows as a direct result of the very public battle over the adoption of Microsoft's OOXML document format specification. That process saw widespread allegations of abuse in national standards bodies around the world, as well as calls for reform of the ISO/IEC rules under which the process was conducted."

This move has the full-hearted support of Pamela Jones, the editor of intellectual property law news site Groklaw. Jones says, "When such obvious problems are revealed as we saw in the OOXML saga, it would be a crying shame if no one did anything about it. ISO/IEC made it clear that improvement is not to be expected from within. I commend IBM for its stand. It restores my faith that not everyone and everything is corrupt these days."

Updegrove hopes that IBM sticks with its plans. "I think that IBM is very serious about this, and will follow through, in the sense that it will stick by these principles, and have a lot to say about them. I expect that IBM will also actively support pursuing some of the recommendations, given sufficient interest among other stakeholders. I wouldn't hazard a guess about whether it would drop out of any organizations, or if so, which ones. But I expect that new organizations, as they are formed, should pay attention to these principles, not just because they might want IBM as a member, but because they make sense."

Looking ahead, Updegrove says, "The IBM policy details a set of principles that are intended to regulate its participation in standards development, as well as a list of action items that will direct its efforts in seeking the reform of that process. IBM's goals in that pursuit will be to seek greater transparency, openness, and inclusiveness, and also to facilitate the integration of open standards with other important technology developments, such as the implementation of open source software.

"The next step in that process is an invitation-only meeting that will be held under the auspices of Yale University in late November." There, IBM and others will hammer out "a call for greater government regulation of standards activities and the formation of new global organizations to avoid patent ambushes and to raise the bar in standards development. Clearly, these are ambitious and controversial recommendations. But they have also been carefully considered by experts in the field, and tailored to the real needs of the marketplace."

As to what this will mean to ISO and other standards organizations, Updegrove says, "It's worth remembering that companies don't join ISO, IEC, or ISO/IEC JTC 1 -- that's what National Bodies do. IBM is active, however, in many of the working groups and standards development organizations (like INCITS) in which ISO/IEC standards work gets done that may eventually be voted on by the National Bodies. But a huge amount of the IT standards work doesn't get done in those working groups at all, but in consortia."

So, "whether or not ISO/IEC decide to reform their rules will have a big impact on whether they become even less relevant to ISO/IEC standards than they are now. To date, there have not been that many Fast Track (like OOXML) or PAS (like ODF) submissions to ISO/IEC. Given that those processes are now in such disrepute, the numbers of submissions can be expected to decline -- perhaps dramatically -- if ISO/IEC don't clean up their acts," Updegrove says.

Updegrove, who helped formulate IBM's current position, is looking forward to moving these ideas into a real policy that will gain widespread support for true standard reform. However, Updegrove concludes, "At the end of the day, the real test for the IBM initiative will be whether others climb on the bandwagon. I'm hoping they will."