[geeks] CD Database

Charles Shannon Hendrix shannon at widomaker.com
Thu Apr 26 14:15:31 CDT 2007


Wed, 25 Apr 2007 @ 22:43 -0400, Phil Stracchino said:

> Micah R Ledbetter wrote:
> > This doesn't actually help you, but I just ran across this bit of  
> > relevance:
> > http://www.jwz.org/doc/cddb.html
> 
> http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html is a good rant too.  I have long
> refused to use Gnome if I can possibly avoid it because it's so bloated
> and so broken, because it is apparently coded by cocaine-addicted
> ferrets obsessed with being a better Windows than Windows ... except on
> Linux.  Bugs aren't fixed so much as obsoleted and replaced, the API is
> a moving target, it has a dependency graph instead of a dependency tree,
> and trying to compile it (or any subset) of it from scratch on a system
> on which a recent version is not already installed is as likely to fail
> as work.  (Not to mention the documentation is all but nonexistent, and
> what documentation you *can* find is as likely as not to be obsolete.)

That would pretty much by my summary as well.

Gnome has a lot of potential, but they ruin it by being so bloody stupid
in how they go about almost everything.

The metadata system is a mess, with files in different places, and most
are very easily corrupted.

What's the standard response of a Gnome developer when you file a bug
report on metadata corruption?

	Just erase all of your configuration and start over.  I do it all
	the time.

If you push on that and other buts, then they say:

	It's free software.  We are under no obligation to fix anything.
	Fix it yourself.

Ignoring the fallacy of the first part, the second idea, fixing it
yourself, is impossible. When you try, they reject your fixes. They
don't discipline the project enough for even the best fixes to last for
very long.

The first part: it is *NOT* free.  All so-called "free" software was
paid for by someone, and it is very likely the users who paid a good
part of it.  This myth really ticks me off.  The only way in which it is
free is that you don't pay for it directly.

Even if it were totally free, "fix it yourself" isn't a valid answer,
because Gnome and other open projects are heavily promoted as viable end
user systems.  Gnome alone costs the world millions of dollars annually.

It's pretty arrogant for the people participating to claim they don't
have to do anything for the end users.

If nothing else, how about a little personal pride?






-- 
shannon          | Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. -- Unknown



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