Leopard vs. Beryl and Project Looking Glass
I dunno how many of you have seen the videos about Beryl and Project Looking glass but they're pretty sweet.
Question now is, with Beryl and Project Looking Glass out there showing how scalable an OS desktop could be, will Apple have something like this in store for Leopard?
Many question how "productive" would it be but it's all in how you use it. What may be productive to some, is not to others.
Beryl - http://www.beryl-project.org/
Project Looking Glass - http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/
Question now is, with Beryl and Project Looking Glass out there showing how scalable an OS desktop could be, will Apple have something like this in store for Leopard?
Many question how "productive" would it be but it's all in how you use it. What may be productive to some, is not to others.
Beryl - http://www.beryl-project.org/
Project Looking Glass - http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/
Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqcyAhWzqSo
Anyone notice the two Mac OS X features?
What it misses is a unified installer application (e.g installing a driver graphically instead of fiddling with a console) but besides that I was pleasantly surprised with e.g Ubuntu.
What it misses is a unified installer application (e.g installing a driver graphically instead of fiddling with a console) but besides that I was pleasantly surprised with e.g Ubuntu.
With that being said, would you by chance know if this could be installed on Mac OS X if they were to recompile and create the right installer?
Not one useful effect, just eye candy. Things like Spaces, Exposé, Minimizing genie effect communicate what the OS is doing.
Actually the application switcher is very useful. If I have multiple documents open in multiple applications it would be nice to quickly browse which document I want to go to rather than having to sort through them once I get to the designated application.....if I did not want to rely on Exposé for this feature (sometimes the doument previews are to small if you have a lot of them).
Another reason I find these Desktops to be worth while is they really give the Desktop metaphor a whole new meaning. As it stands now, the Desktop in Windows and Mac OS X are not very three dimentional like a real desktop.
With that being said, would you by chance know if this could be installed on Mac OS X if they were to recompile and create the right installer?
Hmmm I *think* it would be very hard to install on MacOSX because how the window manager works (not being X) and the fact you have Apple's own hardware accelerated desktop going on. I would not try it :-)
Not one useful effect, just eye candy. Things like Spaces, Exposé, Minimizing genie effect communicate what the OS is doing.
Yeah, I've seen both of those projects before and I didn't think they had anything new over OS X. The unique effects seem pretty useless to me - the wobble would annoy me very quickly. The one thing that I though was nice was when they dragged the window down like a page to see what was behind it but I'd rarely use it. The effects that are clearly copied from OS X are not implemented nearly so well. The Expose thing doesn't seem to order the windows intuitively.
Here is one very nice video of Beryl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqcyAhWzqSo
Awful.
Not one useful effect, just eye candy. Things like Spaces, Exposé, Minimizing genie effect communicate what the OS is doing.
Well, Beryl does most of those things, sort of.
So what do we really have here. A 0.2.0 Beryl release that acts like pre-beta software and does stuff basically 4-5 years old. Giving another couple years for a 1.0 release, often ambitious for true open source software, Vista/Beryl will finally catch up to Leopard/Panther!!! Kind of. Mostly.
As for Looking Glass, that's a problem looking for a solution. More geek eye-candy with no real purpose today beyond use as a research platform.
So what do we really have here. A 0.2.0 Beryl release that acts like pre-beta software and does stuff basically 4-5 years old. Giving another couple years for a 1.0 release, often ambitious for true open source software, Vista/Beryl will finally catch up to Leopard/Panther!!! Kind of. Mostly.
I've gotta think that Leopards "top secret" features are related to some new eye-candy. After all, if they didn't want Microsoft to "start their copiers" then what else could it be? After all, isn't functionality the most basic part of what an OS is?
While creative and interesting, aside from the parts copied from OS X, most of it is useless. What benefit would a window that flaps when I move it from side to side have?
When Mac OS X first came out and all the Windows geeks saw the eye candy their jaws dropped. That would serve the purpose
Keep that in mind before you start slamming projects. This is why mac os is so craptacular in terms of getting small thing working.. sure everything just works for a $$$ or shareware nagware..
Get off your high horse already and learn that quite a bit of what you use on MAC OS!! came from people who had the same thoughts as beryl... Go tearing through OSX and learn how much was "taken" from Open Source. Go get a clue and dont spout crap. Sure apple made a nice user interface but just about everything else was "stolen" under the hood if you want to get into a real war about it.
I just get frustrated to no end when people attack Linux or BSD without understanding. Go attack microsoft they need it unless you think they are too powerful and will crush you and point out every flaw in your argument.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
Come on guys there is no need for mud flinging. Sure there may be copying but your missing one vital clue... ITS FREE!!! FREE FREE!!! we dont have to pay to use it.
Keep that in mind before you start slamming projects. This is why mac os is so craptacular in terms of getting small thing working.. sure everything just works for a $$$ or shareware nagware..
Get off your high horse already and learn that quite a bit of what you use on MAC OS!! came from people who had the same thoughts as beryl... Go tearing through OSX and learn how much was "taken" from Open Source. Go get a clue and dont spout crap. Sure apple made a nice user interface but just about everything else was "stolen" under the hood if you want to get into a real war about it.
I just get frustrated to no end when people attack Linux or BSD without understanding. Go attack microsoft they need it unless you think they are too powerful and will crush you and point out every flaw in your argument.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
I think you have it backwards.
Historically open source software is a poor way to innovate new capabilities or technologies.
Historically open source software has proven very strong at delivering freely available, robust software, with a pedigree of reliability, on those projects that have a critical mass of users with a long term interest. This is the strength of the OS movement and where the BSDs and the Linuxes come from.
Then there is a third branch where a particular vendor has a vested interest, the Apaches are big here. Still open source, but mostly developed by professionals that accept assistance from the field. Darwin hasn't made that grade quite yet, WebKit may have.
All that to say that when a particular project is criticized it is criticized on it's own merits or lack therof, not an indictment of open source in general. And that defending a craptacular toy in the name of it being open source is doing a disservice to all the good open source software out there.
Go tearing through OSX and learn how much was "taken" from Open Source. Go get a clue and dont spout crap. Sure apple made a nice user interface but just about everything else was "stolen" under the hood if you want to get into a real war about it.
There's a big difference between licensing and stealing. Apple licensed everything legally and remember that most of OS X comes from NextStep (the company they bought) and they improved it considerably. Even though Linux has been around for decades, OS X is the only unix-based system that people can really use as a desktop OS without major problems. These projects above have seen what Apple are doing and are merely trying to catch up to it and aren't offering any improvement nor are they licensing it from them.
I just get frustrated to no end when people attack Linux or BSD without understanding.
Nobody attacked Linux or BSD, they just said that these projects don't really offer anything more than what's in OS X. On the other hand OS X offers more than what is in Linux or BSD.
There's a big difference between licensing and stealing. Apple licensed everything legally and remember that most of OS X comes from NextStep (the company they bought) and they improved it considerably. Even though Linux has been around for decades, OS X is the only unix-based system that people can really use as a desktop OS without major problems. These projects above have seen what Apple are doing and are merely trying to catch up to it and aren't offering any improvement nor are they licensing it from them.
Nobody attacked Linux or BSD, they just said that these projects don't really offer anything more than what's in OS X. On the other hand OS X offers more than what is in Linux or BSD.
I was not saying apple did anything illegal. I am just saying that without Linux and without BSD.. OSX would have far far less support than what to does. Good example is Cups that is used for OSX printing.
I would have to say that OSX offers me less than Linux really. I can get far more done on linux and its not bloated. I can trim out what I dont need and leave in what I do need. I can recompile everything I want even though I use a binary distro grab the packages source and recompile as I see fit.
Seriously man OSX is nice but drumming it up to be what everybody here claims is insane. And if anything you should be Praising Linux as its the only thing that has a chance to displace Microsoft. Steve Jobs wont allow OSX on beige boxes it will never take hold. Do the research at how many more installations of Linux there are over OSX and you will see a different picture entirely.
Anyway I was not trying to be mean. I do enjoy OSX I just wish it was a bit more open to tinker with.. I really dont like Aqua its too uncontrolable.
All that to say that when a particular project is criticized it is criticized on it's own merits or lack therof, not an indictment of open source in general. And that defending a craptacular toy in the name of it being open source is doing a disservice to all the good open source software out there.
Indeed it was forked from novell so its obviously crap..
And as for darwin being open source I consider that to be just a stunt to say OMG we are open source. Yeah...