On 28/03/07, Chung Hang Christopher Chan <chrisfz at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > "fat unstable GNOME" -- you realise that Sun chose
> > GNOME as the
> > desktop a long time ago for Solaris? I also think
> > that your
> > description of GNOME is rather unfair, and rather
> > inaccurate.
>
> Please tell that to those who have problems with
> software using gtk libraries among which is memory
> usage. firefox on nexenta is not exactly stable.

Then file bugs on it. Honestly, I have used GNOME desktops for years
all day for development, and I very rarely have run into any problem
as severe as I had vague complaints about. Also, I sincerely doubt
there are any memory usage problems with Gtk in general, I suspect it
is more likely in the application you are using.

> > You seem to not like GNOME very much or the most
> > capable open source
> > browser we have available for the platform. It might
> > be better if you
> > proposed alternatives.
>
> maybe it was too much sticking the whole GNOME. the
> real problem is the gtk library. Unfortunately that
> means everything else shares the problem. This is not
> just on nexenta, it is also a problem on Linux
> distro's and I have felt this way since RH9. If you
> feel that is unfair then i guess you must also feel
> that Linus Torvalds is unfair with his gripes with
> GNOME then.

No, the real problem is not the Gtk library. If you have specific
proof of a problem in Gtk, please file a bug or share the technical
details. Linus Torvalds gripes about GNOME have not been about memory
usage at all, rather customisation, window managers, and input
methods.

> The best alternative is to have alternatives. I am not
> going to say KDE, WindowMaker or whatever.

There are many alternatives available already if users want them.

> > > is a real pity that firefox and thunderbird use
> > gtk. I
> > > am not saying everything gnome is bad but the
> > > underlying gtk stuff is something that I have not
> > had
> > > a very nice experience with. Of course, the
> > nexenta
> > > choice of deb packaging is very nice.
> >
> > What else would they use?
>
> qt.

Qt's licensing remains an outstanding issue. Trolltech's licensing
page claims you can use it under the QPL with any Open Source license
approved by the OSI, but their licensing page has a few
contradictions.

I refuse to use a windowing library that forces my software to be GPL.
Gtk doesn't do that. My choice of license should be mine and not that
of the library I am using.

> > > I'd want sun cc compiled packages and stable sun
> > > libraries with gcc and glibc stuff available
> > separately.
> >
> > That's what we have right now at last check.
>
> Which is fine. My first open solaris installation is
> nexenta which for your information is gcc compiled
> although with sun libraries.
>
> That is not very far from gcc + glibc solaris. I'd
> rather Ian Murdock NOT take Solaris down that road.

Well, you're certainly welcome to that view. I don't see Sun taking
the route of Nexenta, although I don't think there's anything wrong
with it. Every distribution meets the needs of different folks.

-- 
"Less is only more where more is no good." --Frank Lloyd Wright

Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
binarycrusader at gmail.com - http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/

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