I'm very proud to announce Tomboy 0.14.1, which represents the beginning of our stable support for Tomboy on all major desktop platforms. Here are some of the major changes since the 0.12.x stable versions:
- Tomboy is now fully supported on Windows and Mac OS X
- Printing has been rewritten using the Gtk.Print API, fixing many bugs
- 25% reduction in memory usage and slightly faster startup
- Significant memory savings with very large note collections
- Improvements to HTML Export add-in
- Improvements in note and URL linking
- Many fixes to note synchronization and D-Bus API
- Process now named "tomboy", not "Tomboy"
- No longer writes to disk every 40 seconds
Searching Notes in WindowsAll in all this has been a pretty great cycle for Tomboy. Windows support has been the most-requested Tomboy feature for awhile, and in fact some of my first work on Tomboy three years ago was to make it work at my old Windows-only job. The Windows version has generated interest from a whole new set of users, but most importantly to me, it has gained us several new contributors! Benjamin Podszun, for example, rewrote printing to remove our dependence on the obsolete libgnomeprint, then went on to fix several other bugs and to triage the rest. Since I am not generally a Windows user, it is important to be able to depend on contributors from that world to keep an eye on things.
The Mac port is a little less mature, and we will probably need to get more involved in in the GTK+ implementation on that platform to ensure solid support. Nevertheless, though there are quirks, we are happy to support Tomboy on Mac OS X, too.
Tomboy in your dock (click for full-screen shot)If you are a GNOME Do user, you may currently be enjoying the wonderful Tomboy plugin, which provides instant access to your notes, and convenient creation of new notes.
Instant note access with GNOME DoWith Tomboy 0.14.1 we have striven to create a solid base on which to build the future of Tomboy. Cross-platform support has given us new contributors and a cleaner code base. We have gotten rid of most of our use of obsolete GNOME APIs. We are off to a great start on profiling and making performance enhancements. Note synchronization is stable on all platforms. Now is the time to make Tomboy really shine.
Looking Forward
For Tomboy 0.16.0, we have a few more fun things planned. The community is having the planning meeting tomorrow, so we'll have our official roadmap soon, but some features I'm currently excited to work on are:
- Automatic note synchronization between Tomboy(s), G1, iPhone, and the web.
- Continued improvements to memory usage and overall performance, especially on startup (lots of low-hanging fruit here).
- Figuring out how best to integrate with gnome-shell, which currently has no specific plans for applet support (which means it's a great time for us to figure out how to make applets awesome in GNOME 3.0!).
An old Tomboy Online mockup, stay tuned for news!A Note about Gnote
Some people have started asking about Gnote, Hubert Figuiere's line-for-line port of Tomboy to C++. Our stance on Gnote is that it is counterproductive to maintain identical software in two languages. It will be harmful to the community, especially as these two apps inevitably diverge. It will result in duplication of effort, duplication of bugs, and a lot of wasted time for those who are trying to add value to the user experience.
Tomboy is not going away, and it will continue to be developed on the extremely productive Mono/GTK# language platform. Anyone thinking about distributing Gnote should consider the impact on users and their data. When we develop, we should always be asking ourselves, "is this adding value for our users?"
Tomboy has a vibrant community, a happy relationship with GNOME, and an exciting future. If you'd like to help us out come to tomorrow's planning meeting, join us on our mailing list, or just start hacking!
This post brought to you by the Tomboy Blogposter add-in.
102 comments:
Hello Sandy,
I am happy to see that Windows and OSX support are coming along. As you know, I am a big fan of making sure that our apps work in a cross-platform way to bring more contributors to Tomboy and open source.
With MonoDevelop on OSX Michael Hutchinson has been writing a lot of nice helper routines for OSX that help improve a lot the deep integration in the system.
You might want to talk to him about adding support in Tomboy to support things like "Open with...", starting up Tomboy from the Dock on response to drop events or launching new notes in response to drop events.
Miguel.
@m: Yes, I've been following Michael's work very closely; it's quite encouraging. I definitely intend to put more polish on the Mac version this cycle. As ever, it would be great if interested Mac users could help out, too. :-)
I'd be most happy to have ssh-based synchronisation without having to setup sshfs manually. Any plans to embrace GIO?
Are there any plans to integrate pen support or adding of inline media to tomboy?
@hb: Well, it's not really manual, except making sure you have your keys set up properly. You just open up a Tomboy prefs window and put in URL, path, and user name.
But yeah, GIO support would be nice. Still, the real problem is that most users can't set up their own server, so whether we are FUSE-based or GIO-based, we're not helping enough users. That's why I want to focus on providing an online service first.
Attacking Gnote for causing diversion is pretty lame, considering that every .NET/Mono-based app produces way more friction.
"Anyone thinking about distributing Gnote should consider the impact on users and their data."That doesn't really make sense for an open source app. It's the argument for keeping using MS Word, and is unworthy of any other software.
If the file formats are good and robust, then it would only require willingness to cooperate to keep the formats interchangeable at the very least. Being able to get one's data in and back out again with 100% fidelity is *the* thing a user wants. (It may seem paradoxical, but making it easy to leave again is essential to getting users to stay.)
Wow, attacking Gnote is super lame.
Some people like choice ..
and some people will never rely on an app totally dependent on MS tech.
( The FAT case showed people what MS thinks about FOSS )
So those people don't have a right for choice?
Really really lame, intolerant and short sighted .. you should be ashamed.
Tom,
So how exactly do you feel about OpenGL patents now being owned by Microsoft?
While you are on the subject, how do you feel about COM, a technology used by XUL, Mozilla, Epiphany, Thunderbird, Songbird and OpenOffice?
You might not know this, but COM is a Microsoft invention and it is deeply embedded in the above apps.
I don't understand what the point it with the user's data and Gnote. Gnote does not even go near Tomboy directory (you still have to copy the directory if you want to import your data). Gnote use the same format because as I said before, the whole exercise was to do a straight port.
The day it no longer requires that manual copy will be the day it copy the directory content by itself, leaving the Tomboy directory *untouched*.
.... Gnote is the one thats LAME. Gnote isn't even original code, it about a literal port of Tomboy to another language as there could be, except maybe a Vala port.
It almost makes me wish software patents were actually real and that Tomboy had one to stab Gnote in teh face with.
I love trollin and bike shedding. Can sleep now :)
I just wanted to say that I always install tomboy for few hours to test our translation pre gnome release and then remove it, the same goes for any mono based application. Not to undermine your or any one else effort, but I'm always happy that gnome will be one mono app less, I had that feeling first time heard about tracker and I have it now.
@hub: Users and third-party tools may expect Gnote, which appears to be a drop-in Tomboy replacement, to behave just like it. Users with multiple computers may not realize they are different apps, and expect them to interoperate.
As the guy ultimately held responsible for problems with my users' notes, I think this is a justifiable concern, though it's not my biggest one, and it's not like I don't have to deal with similar problems in the case of other third-party tools that consume note files.
@Khaled: Well, Tomboy isn't for everyone, as different users have different note-taking preferences. But I don't understand what that has to do with Mono or Gnote.
GNote is great for us who dont want to run the Mono runtime for various reasons. Whilst it may not be for you please respect that others have different requirements. Your hostility is helpful to noone.
I don't think this hurts the community at all, and actually I think it not only benefits this community somewhat, but it also benefits the greater open source community. There are quite a few desktop environments out there that do not want to implement the Mono bindings for various reasons, whether it is the overhead or the FUD, they all have their reasons. With the port to C++, Hub did many people a great favor by digging into the C# code and porting it. I know I looked at doing it a year or so ago, but did not feel like learning C# or Mono at that time, and really still don't. Seeing as I work on the KDE project, I can now easily utilize Hub's port and create a version for KDE. I would have liked to see maybe a bit more separation of the GUI code and library code, but it is a great start nonetheless, and now others who wanted the features of Tomboy without Mono can now do that.
Great that there will be support on all of the major operating system platforms. Now for the next great frontier... Creating Tomboy apps for your mobile device like Blackberry, iPhone, etc.
Sure would be nice to quickly sync my grocery list to my Blackberry. Or quick reference notes I can view on my device before going into a meeting, etc.
Hi Sandy. Thanks for Tomboy. I'm just a lowly user, but I hope you don't feel to bad by Gnote. Certainly, you have justifiably strong feelings. Gnote is a line for line port to a different language ... right now. Who knows what it may evolve to in 5 years? What if a developer does not know Mono, but does know C++ really wants to help? New ideas can develop and be tested on a new code base. This is the essence of forking. Again, not STARTING that way, but in the future, who knows? Your points are valid, and to be respected, but I think there is room in the world for Gnote. Just as there is room in the world for Mono, Tomboy, and everything else some critics may say.
There are 2 reasons I like GNote:
1. It's faster.
2. It uses the GTK theme I designate in GNOME. Tomboy does not do this. Note that every other Mono-based GTK app does, so this is a Tomboy thing.
Things I like about Tomboy:
1. There's a LaTeX plugin. Unfortunately, one has to download and compile it manually.
2. The monospace plugin. Even if it still doesn't show up in the right-click menu.
However, they are *not* 100% compatible. I made a symlink from .gnote to point to .tomboy and after opening notes in GNote, Tomboy crashes trying to read them, citing an invalid format. So no, GNote isn't creating 100% compatible files.
GNOTE is a troll and you should not feed trolls, GNOTE doesn't care about you, it just wants to kill Tomboy and unlike Tomboy it doesn't have motives to provide you best experience, I don't even think it will stay on active development once it kills Tomboy
@Mackenzie: Thanks for the feedback. What part of Tomboy doesn't match your GTK+ theme? I switch themes all the time, dark and light, and have not had problems. Have you reported a bug? I hate theming bugs in my software, so I'd love to get it fixed!
I'm also curious in what ways Gnote is faster for you.
I just set a target on that monospace bug, thanks for the reminder. Should be a simple fix.
If you file a bug with Hubert, I'm sure he'll fix the problem with Gnote's XML output. I haven't personally done much testing of it.
I screwed up. I meant the GTK theme I designate in KDE. Using KDE 4.2.x, I set a GTK theme, and all GTK apps except Tomboy use it.
Tomboy takes a few seconds to startup (enough to make me think I screwed up in the runbox and then start it again and then...aw crap now there's 2). GNote starts instantly.
@nixternal I'm not against having a new C++ Tomboy client. A Qt client for the KDE folks would be very welcome! I'm sure there are others who feel the same way.
I have no problem with Gnote as an experiment for porting Mono code to C++. But as a released, supported product, it undermines our efforts in the community. The project come with a lot of implied hostility. But I'm the bad guy for being concerned about the big picture.
To clarify, Tomboy instead looks like there's no theme at all. This is the case both when I set GTK apps to use Clearlooks and when I try to use Qt-theme-emulation.
Oh, and thanks for targetting that bug. I came back because I saw the email alert about it.
@Mackenzie Ah, yes, startup time. This should be a bit better in Tomboy 0.14.0 (a lot better if you have a lot of notes), and there are still lots of optimizations to make for the next cycle. A lot of the speed problems were with the addins, which Gnote doesn't support.
I'll have to try out KDE to understand the theming problem; that sounds irritating. Could you file a bug for it?
I don't see Gnote as a problem but as a solution since i don't want all the mono stuff on my system.
If a lot of users don't want Mono, there is a need for something like Gnote i don't see where is the problem.
As far as i'm concerned, i've replaced Tomboy with KeepNote (Python/GTK Windows-Linux-MacOS software) and F-Spot with jBrout on my Ubuntu system, and i don't use GNOME DO either.
Sandy, you are not the bad guy for being concerned about the big picture.
It just seems that you haven`t unstood software freedom completly. You set your code free and you should be happy about everybody who uses your code to give people an option.
Think of Red Hat, they mention CentOS as their zero cost exit strategy.
So IMNSHO you handled the Gnote port (fork) wrong. Instead you should have shown character and be proud of the flattery.
If Gnote provides value to just one person (which it obviously does) then it is a project worth taking.
And btw: I don`t get the effort argument. Hub ported the thing in a few days. So clearly not much effort is lost with a line by lind port.
I am glad he did (so is my 512 mb netbook)
I really love Tomboy. One of the few apps that got saving right. I want my word processor and drawing app to do this too!
Looking forward to the automatic syncing. Keep up the great work!
- Andreas
I DON'T want to install Mono, that's why GNote is perfect for me. That's why it doesn't hurt the community.
Mono does hurt the community (how many flame wars do you need?), so please stop your FUD now.
I have an eee laptop and installing tomboy on it is no option as it is the only mono application I would like to use. The disk space has no room for installing the mono dependencies. That's a major turndown for mono, it only becomes efficient when you use multiple mono applications.
So now I am happily using Gnote! I don't think a hostile attitude is necessary from any side.
I refuse using Mono applications and so there was no handy note taking application availiable for me. Hubert Figuiere solves my problem with Gnote, although I agree that porting Tomboy to Vala would probably have been even better.
BTW, "harmful to the community" is Microsoft-Novell and the "extremely productive Mono/GTK# language platform". I wish Gnome would not allow Mono/GTK# applications to be part of the official desktop suite, because the more useful applications are around (and the usability of Tomboy is great, well done!) the more we get caught in the Mono trap.
Ok guys, you are missing the point.
I wouldn't see a bad thing to create another notes application, independently of language, technology, idea or fear. Sandy has never mentioned it's, in general, a bad idea to have another app like tomboy.
And if you want to take pieces of code from Tomboy to implement something else, well, it's your choice: this is what free software is all about. Has ever Sandy mentioned that it's a bad idea to take our code and re-use it in different project? No.
The problem that Sandy is talking about, is, specifically, about the fact that Hubert is -as far as I can see, in a very personal fashion- taking our C# do a _plain_ port of it to C. This is important because the users could be confused between Tomboy and Gnote.
Also, you are confusing an opinion with FUD - I can, for example, say that I consider LAME to port Tomboy C# to C - LAME, but I'm never saying something false, which FUD actually stands for. It's only an opinion, and it's an opinion supported by the idea of taking an entire application from a high lever language, with all the advantages of it, to a low level language, losing all the advantages of it, and also with the chance of losing the cooperation with a plenty and fully alive community.
And it's also LAME because there still are some guys afraid and paranoid about MS, that, I'm pretty sure, have *never* read anything deeply about patents or *anything* they are claiming about. It's just like a trend of fundamentalists trying to stay in tune in a set of ideas and refusing to hear and be opened.
Don't see the bad about GNote. Instead of seeing something "hurting the community", think about the people that would like to use Tomboy, but don't want all the Mono machinery behind it. The users that were using Tomboy will still use it, as they didn't care about that. And GNote will catch the users that didn't want to use Tomboy even if they liked the app.
So it's a win-win for freedom and choice. Don't be afraid of that.
liberforce: Then let's port f-spot to C. Oh, and banshee too, why not? Gnome do also. The C# compiler, what the heck.
It's just that I don't see the point of 'avoiding the Mono machinery'. You could even argue that if you are planning the application, not when the application has been developed.
You are also missing the point behind the code being repeated, just with the effort and ideas.
And it's *clear* that some users will be using Tomboy, and others gnote. That's quite clear. The issue is the tech viability, and not the 'correctness', or, in other words: the tech results and impact (even with the 'doble win' of freedom).
@TomboyDevs: Just listen to Jonos recent Flossweekly interview and you will understand why your feeling of "entitlement" is bad.
A straight port from C# to C++ has a lot of advantages.(I can see them right here, right now on my netbook.)
So stop attacking Hubert and show some character and understanding for what free software is about (also read Aaron Toponce post)
Being granted the freedom to do something doesn't mean you need to be a dick about it. Therein lies the rub.
Ugh.
Please support other software, even if it's a line for line port, that tries to read your format.
Elsewise, you really must argue that Linux for the desktop should give up. After all, all it does is try to emulate a bunch of operating systems while introducing incompatibilities, unrealistic expectations, and kernel panics.
@Carlos: Opinion as it may be. I think it's fair for others to voice their opinion, some may feel that Sandy's comment is so false that it qualifies as FUD (be true or not).
@et al. That's not the argument however, that we should be looking at with this comment. I believe that choice (right or wrong) is what we all need to stand for. Sandy is asking for less choice to save confusion and to allow scarce resources to stay focused.
Those are noble goals, but they are not the primary goals of FOSS. Freedom, choice, and open code are the goals. In the end, the users will dictate what is used and what is not. We must be willing to accept that our program that we spent countless hours on is no longer of use or too many core developers have jumped ship or what have you.
Sandy's view on software is clearly the same view that is held in software development shops and let me be clear on this, There is nothing wrong with that view. However, one must accept that there is going to be a ton of confusion in a bazaar style of software development.
I know this eats at some people's soul because it can be the most madding part of FOSS when all you want is your product (Tomboy, GNOME, Gnote, Linux, Firefox, etc...) to beat the competition/be on the same level with the big boys/be widely accepted and not looked at as some college kid's experiment gone wrong/etc...
But this is what FOSS is all about, choice and freedom, the cost of which can be unnerving at times and at other times can be the most rewarding.
I think Sandy should applaud Gnote not censure it for fear that it may take away from the Tomboy project. Sandy's comment makes us all look less FOSS and more business.
The more we promote the idea of business software, the more people will reject us as a whole (see any argument where someone brings up GIMP = Photoshop.) We aren't those people, we're something totally different and we need to think different if we really want to be accepted
I see it as this...
We may offer constancy or we may not, but we will always offer you the ability to leave us at the drop of a hat and come back whenever you want. We may not have polish to our programs but we will always give you the ability to add any polish you so deem at your leisure. We may not be well documented but we will always let you see what we have done and we won't stop you from doing what you want to do. We may not be the best at what we write, but we will always be the best that you and me will allow us to be.
A pure clone of a FOSS project by another FOSS project doesn't really bring additional choice for end users. There's a difference between choice and fragmentation.
It's always impressive to see the Mono hater's FUD-spreading wherever they can -- but I guess the Tomboy crew is used to nonsense aggression anyways, and developed a thick skin. Keep on rocking, guys!
Lame words on Gnote. I've yet to see a single original app on C# really.
@Just O Bare
Very well said.
People should welcome new code (Hub will probably find bugs in Tomboy while porting, so it can be win win)
Spreading FUD, negativity and calling people dicks is not helpful.
Encourage people to use your work and applaud them for doing so. That is the way free software will spread.
And again: Gnote offers advantages: less dependencies, faster startup and lower memory requirements _now_.
For _a lot of_ people that is enough to see it as providing value.(Especially on low spec machines.)
Microsoft has only granted immunity to Novell users/clients, and Mono's GPL does not cover Mono’s Windows compatibility stack - of which TomBoy uses extensively. There is a lot to be wary of from MS when using Mono’s Windows compatibility stack, and IMHO thus lots to be wary of from TomBoy.
uhhh... TomBoy makes extensive use of Mono's Windows compatibility stack? Since when, exactly?
It uses Gtk#, not Windows.Forms.
Talk about FUD... geez.
I personally don't care that Hub ported GNote to C++, but what bothers me is that he purposely licensed GNote in such a way that TomBoy couldn't port back any fixes he makes to GNote back to TomBoy.
That seems pretty anti-community to me.
In my opinion, is a bad idea, tech-wise. But anyway, as someone said the other day: let's beat them tech, not by philosophy.
As part of that, Tomboy, just as other c# apps, will take advantage of a runtime, et all. Or, in other words, we can continue flaming and mentioning the *tech* advantages of gnote/port to C *and* do never contribute to any project (and thus the lack of experience that makes people think it's a good idea, tech-wise).
@Carlos That's a great way to look at it. Let's not get too entrenched in philosophy. We all have different points of view and that's what make us so great. We can have these different points of view and continue to develop. Let's not measure software on our points of view nor on our fears, instead we should measure software based on it's technical merit and appreciate that we are free to have so much choice.
I like tomboy because us GPLV3 and is fast.
Hub continue with work !
Thanks for gnote!
Thanks. This is the first version that works for me on Windows.
Soory ,a mistake
I was trying to say is :
"I like gnote because is gplv3 and is faaast"!
@valdi:
"Lame words on Gnote. I've yet to see a single original app on C# really."
So lets just ignore the fact that tomboy is best-in-class as of today and assume it really is an unoriginal application. Then, what does that make gnote? A feature-lacking, buggier port of an un-original application?
Is that a fair assessment?
As someone who works with C++, I like the idea of Gnote, for a variety of reasons.
I find the reasons not to port it rather hollow considering the history of free software.
Gnome came about because KDE was considered to be the Mono of its time and developers wanted an alternative that wouldnt be dependent on the then non-free Qt widget toolkit. Do as I say, not as I do?
And as much as it irked many developers who felt betrayed, people dont use Konqueror browser’s KHTML software library, its all about Webkit now even though. Im sure somewhere there are developers fuming over this whole sordid affair but most of us have moved on.
Gnote is part of a long line of similiar attempts, many which surpassed/replaced their originators so I think that's more the problem here. Instead of being happy that their work will be used in some other form, we hear the sour grapes of 'this will hurt our project' so you can still use it under the GPL but we dont want you to.
Its never worked that way with the GPL which is why Red Hat couldnt do a thing about Oracle.
I dont hold much hope for KDE/Gnome collaboration when there is so much pettiness and fanboisma about apps/DE's and the possibility that another free software project might gain an upper hand.
i always remove all the mono programs and mono from ubuntu
"I dont hold much hope for KDE/Gnome collaboration when there is so much pettiness and fanboisma about apps/DE's"
I couldn't agree more. The whole reason for gnote is fanboism and pettiness. Hub decided he didn't like mono and so is doing a line for line port to another language.
I just wish he was as obsessed about actually improving gnome as he is about rewriting the world. I wish all the language fanboys out there would just refocus their energy into making gnome better. The way to make gnome better is *not* to rewrite everything every 2 months, but to contribute to and improve existing projects where applicable.
Obviously hub thinks that Tomboy is great, otherwise he would be writing a note app from scratch rather than doing a line for line port. So if it's that great, why not just contribute to it and help fix any issues?
so GPLv3 is anti-community? WTF?
@Anonymous: In this context, GPLv3 prevents cooperation between Tomboy and Gnote from being a two-way street. Gnote can continue to port Tomboy's LGPL (or MIT/X11 as the case may be) code, but any potential GPL'd improvements cannot be brought back to Tomboy.
This sort of thing is what makes Gnote feel like a fairly hostile fork.
The disk space argument is odd, since depending on the distro, Gnote either costs you a few megabytes or saves you no more than 20. If this is not the situation on your distro, then you should report a bug in their packaging.
@everyone posting replies:
I foresee that mono lovers are going to make a case of this FUD hating thing. Someone will says that X program is not a good one, and if that program is written in Gtk# everyone will start assuming that the person is FUD hating.
"Oh, you're just saying that because you're just hating on Mono because of FUD."
@Tomboy developers:
No, really, there's nothing wrong with Mono; Gnote starts faster, period. You can add all the conditions you want as to why that's not a true statement.
Fact remains that Tomboy uses more CPU cycles, you can say that cycles are irrelevant. Irrelevant as they may be Tomboy still uses more of them. There is no getting around it.
What everyone in Tomboy development needs to do is get over it. You use a runtime, show people what advantage you can get from that. Stop, using excuses like "saving 5MB of RAM is pointless." It's an excuse and it makes it look like you all have no clue how to make Tomboy any better, than it currently is.
Tomboy will always use more resources because it depends on Mono. Now stop allowing people to focus on that point and make up some reason why Mono is a benefit for users.
Advocate your point that provides benefit to end users like the first part of Sandy's post. It showed why Tomboy was a good piece of software. Stop trying to defend your position. Someone says that Gnote runs faster, don't say "well it's not noticeable./You just FUD hating." The only thing you do with that is insult the user. Instead point out, "We'll yes but with that extra layer we can provide system extendability and can be deployed on multiple architectures and notes are interchangeable between systems."
As far as fragmentation, causing confusion, all those other things that come when people start duplicating your work... Really, did you expect anything less? Come on, be honest, Open source projects are notorious for covering the same ground over and over again. Did you all really think that this would not happen to your project as well? Most forks start out as a mirror copy of the project they fork. The guy is at version 0.1.2. Hell if he's still a mirror copy at 0.2 then actually say something, but please he just started the damn thing. Granted he released the source pretty early but give it time and it will diverge and be it's own thing, bloody hell.
Mental note: Don't piss off C# programmers.
"is this adding value for our users?"
Short Answer:
YES. Most definately. (If "I" in "our users")
Long Answer:
http://ramenboy.blogspot.com/
If it weren't for Tomboy I wouldn't have to install this Mono/.NET crap. I had not heard of GNote so I'm glad I do now. Will install it immediately and uninstall Tomboy.
Great place to learn about Mono replacements! jBrout and Gnote look very cool. I had just given up on notetaking and use Picasa for photos. Now, if I can just get Amarok to do my bidding.
Mono is a cancer on Gnome desktop and needs to be excised. MS is _very_ FOSS hostile and uses patent intimidation and FUD, mixed with traps like .NET and OOXML.
Let's see, all you can do is take the following words: microsoft, patents, fud and mono , mix them up, and make idiotic statements about everything....
Microsoft claims that the linux kernel and even GNOME violates a lot of it's patents, so does that mean that you have to go on and fork both of them?
You see, you don't even know what you are talking about in the first place.
Porting a working high level application into a low level application is the most idiotic reason to fork a project, it should be the other way around.
I know, that a GNOME based app not having a "G" in it's name is a really bad thing in the GNOME world, and not using libraries that have a "G" in their name is a bad thing too too.
But you see, normal people do not care about this, you grandma won't know if it's written in C# or in assemlby.
Normal people care about functionality and performance.
If speed matters so much why not write it in Assemlby?
The problem is most of you don't understand anything, because most of you are not programmers, you just read slashdot and other news sites and replicate pieces of those information in bad context.
So in the end the best you can do is stop bitching, the choice is up to you, but stop flaming developers that develop applications that make your life easier.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with neither GNOME or Mono, Novell or some terrorist organization, but this senseless and pointless bitching annoys the hell out of developers, just in case you haven't noticed.
It sounds like the Tomboy developers are afraid of competition from GNote.
Thanks for your work on Tomboy.
Nevermind the nay-sayers that bash on Mono. If MS tries to extinguish FOSS, they will not be more or less successful because of Mono.
The quality of applications will determine if Mono has a place on the Linux desktop. So far, Gnome Do and Tomboy is proving it a very valuable part. (F-spot, not so much, in my opinion.)
I have to add, the irony of some anon critical of Mono, and then using Picasa to work with photos!
Seriously, I use that myself, but using an application that runs in Wine is in any way better than using Mono? Wine?!? Oh, gee...
As a normal 'joe user' I've heard a lot of FUD about Mono. What's more, from deeply entrenched windows developers I hear a lot of animosity against .NET.
From what I gather mono==.NET (more or less).
So now I'm thinking .NET is bad. Mono is mirroring .NET so by extension Mono is bad.
Anyway, I'd like to know why is Mono so great that it's worth all this fighting.
I must admit I don't use Tomboy or DO - have tried them both but didn't see any advantage to what I'm using.
How to remove mono from Ubuntu.
@Anonymous When you say something like "I've heard a lot of FUD", it's a safe bet that there is a lot of irrational bias on all sides of any topic. I've been paid to write code with .NET and with Mono for a few years now, so here's my (biased, but hopefully rational) response:
The only negative thing I ever heard about .NET from a Windows enthusiast was a long time ago, when Microsoft used the term to mean too many things, and the .NET platform was fairly unadvanced. Since .NET 2.0 (Visual Studio 2005 to most Windows devs), I've not heard any sort of animosity from Windows developers. If you do any moderate googling, or check out popular programming sites like Stack Overflow, you'll see that .NET is enormously popular. There is tons of market research data out there that proves it, too.
And if you read the Mono website or the wikipedia page, you'll understand that Mono is an open source implementation of the .NET platform. The stated benefits are basically:
1) Give Linux developers access to the extremely productive .NET platform.
2) Ability for developers with .NET apps to easily migrate to Linux. For example, a company might use ASP.NET on their huge website, and save money by using Linux servers instead of Windows servers. Or a company with a bunch of internal apps written in .NET (very common), might find it too expensive to rewrite those apps, but with Mono they can afford to migrate their office workers to Linux.
The arguments against Mono are usually either:
1. Patents, Microsoft, oh no. You can read a good response to this non-threat here: http://www.jprl.com/Blog/archive/development/mono/2009/Jan-19.html
2. Performance complaints. I won't go into these, because in the case of the apps I work on, it's generally just not a problem. For example, most performance issues in Tomboy are bugs in Tomboy, not Mono. But it's cool that if improvements happen to Mono, all Mono apps benefit instantly.
Hopefully this is a good launching point for you to do your own research on the topic. I'm not terribly interested in arguing with anybody about it. :-)
@AIM
"Microsoft claims that the linux kernel and even GNOME violates a lot of it's patents, so does that mean that you have to go on and fork both of them?"It's not about patent violation, it is about litigation. That's an entirely complex topic so it's best left elsewhere to discuss. You are free to email me about it if you'd like (I'm sure you can find my email somewhere fairly easy but I just don't feel good about posting the address here).
Short end of it (which really leaves out a lot of detail) is that patent violation is empty if there is no possibility of litigation.
"Porting a working high level application into a low level application is the most idiotic reason to fork a project, it should be the other way around."That's a pretty new school attitude towards programming. Nothing wrong with the statement, just saying it has not always been this way, and some would say that you are wrong in this respect. However, to each their own.
"Normal people care about functionality and performance.
If speed matters so much why not write it in Assemlby?"Who exactly are you asking this to? The users? Aren't they the ones whose demands you should be listening to? Of course, this kind of hyperbole is tossed around everywhere and fails on getting any more of my attention.
"The problem is most of you don't understand anything, because most of you are not programmers, you just read slashdot and other news sites and replicate pieces of those information in bad context."I am a programmer, have been since the 80's when a dinosaur with a floppy disk tied to its neck was our definition of SneakerNet.
First, I too read Slashdot and I am disgusted by the amount of gasoline they provide for flames. So, I can agree with you there that Slashdot doesn't help the situation (in fact hurts at times.)
However, I do indeed understand the situation with regards towards GNote & Tomboy. This is something that has happened, is happening, will always happen in Open Source projects, arguments aside for either case, this is nothing new.
Secondly, The fact that Tomboy uses a library that some people dislike is just putting a new hat on an old doll (or however the saying goes.) think QT and KDE
Finally, you think Tomboy developers are getting flamed? HA! Head on over to the vim message board and look up any thread started by an emacs user. In fact this kind of flaming is so old that it's a joke on most sites ("Oh you two are just going on about it like a vi and emacs user.") I'm sure this is nothing new to you either.
"So in the end the best you can do is stop bitching, the choice is up to you, but stop flaming developers that develop applications that make your life easier."Really? I think the flaming is showing a lack of open dialog about the problem perceived by the community. Besides, asking that is like asking fish to breath air. Not saying that they couldn't; but would they be fish anymore?
Everyone is so quick to point to the tree in the forest issue when it comes to Mono which just dismisses the complaint rather than addresses it.
I believe it's the fact that Mono and the people who work with it lack the dialog that other projects have with regards to software patents.
AIM in the end you do bring about a good point and maybe there is something to be done about it. People lack a solid understanding of all of the facts. Yes there is a lot of FUD with Mono, but is all of it unfounded?
* If it all is unfounded, then why/who continues to perpetuate it and what can be done to mitigate it?
* If some of it is well founded, why not start some sort of dialog to address the concerns?
That's not saying that you personally should do this. I think we as a community should address the point head-on and stop making excuses and defenses as each issue comes up. I know time is a resource, but failing to devote some of that resource to issue control is going to cause more problems.
Our local LUG has meetings about this kind of thing once a month and I always leave refreshed after discussing some of the major issues at hand. I'm not sure everyone would have this kind of reaction but I think it would be a start.
I don't think people's aversion to Mono is going to go away overnight, and placing band-aids on each issue that comes up isn't going to placate users either. It's just going to get people stirred up. That's what I see from this whole thing is that their is an extremely large void when it comes to allowing people to air what's on their mind in a reasonable fashion, so they just come to any olde forum (like this one) and start popping caps all over the place. In the end more anxiety is created with no clear path of release.
As rash as I think your comment is, I believe that it does serve a lot of good as well. I don't want to diminish the value I place in your reply. I think that when people are ranting there is some greater issue at hand that is causing them to do such.
I feel we as a community are failing to address that and I really don't think that this blog's comment section is the greatest of places to address it.
The topic is well beyond just us here and one day the community will start to come to reason and understanding with regards to the Mono project and the associated projects that use it's libraries.
It will take time and I'm pretty sure we will have set backs along the way. For now, I think we're all just blowing this whole thing out of proportion. Honestly, I think we can all just get over it, however, I'm not going to start telling people that they need to do this or that. I think that the Mono project and related projects will come up with some means of addressing concerns when *they* are ready to address them. (Unless of course they openly ask for a dialog.)
Thank you
"The topic is well beyond just us here and one day the community will start to come to reason and understanding with regards to the Mono project and the associated projects that use it's libraries.There are in fact those in Microsoft that think reserving the right to sue over Mono patents is actually not insane. I think a sniff of this would lead to a lot of invalidated patents ... in general, I look forward to in re Bilski finally slaying the idiocy of software patents in the US :-)
Mono is used because developers really like .NET and Mono, because they're easy to develop with.
GNote in C++ is faster. If GNote and Tomboy can work together to preserve file formats, that'll be the biggest win for the users, who are after all the people we do all this for. Let a thousand flowers bloom with fully interchangeable data.
I'm actually quite surprised they went for a C++ translation - if Mono patent danger was the issue, I'm surprised they didn't just do a line-by-line translation to Java. Which is both free software and in no patent danger.
@David
Java's alright. C++ I think is a better choice. I know Gnome has Java bindings but I'm not too sure how they preform. I've used Gtkmm and it seems to be a pretty good API.
Java does sound like the most logical but I guess since the guy who wrote GNote was just looking to keep from getting bored, C++ represents a pretty good challenge.
Gtkmm isn't as well traversed as say the Gtk library, but still mature. Java adds a runtime so you can play your get out easy card a lot. Python and C# is what it seems like everyone uses now-a-days (and the fact that it wouldn't be a port if he kept it in C#.) All the other bindings are maybe a tad overkill.
But that's just me.
I'm actually quite surprised they went for a C++ translation - if Mono patent danger was the issue, I'm surprised they didn't just do a line-by-line translation to Java. Which is both free software and in no patent danger.http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041003041632172
Java is still actively infringing on patents being aggressively protected.
But if it's not Microsoft patents, it's okay!
@Just O Bare:I believe it's the fact that Mono and the people who work with it lack the dialog that other projects have with regards to software patents.See, and I believe that the exact opposite is true. While many Mono developers actually reserached the patent situation, others just ignore it, or replicate hate websites.
If it all is unfounded, then why/who continues to perpetuate it and what can be done to mitigate it?The anti-ms Fanboys (or rather: Hateboys, as they are not directed towareds something, but against something) continue to spread the FUD.
See, it's not possible to prove a non-violation. Every single time I heard the claim of patent violations, I asked for a concrete example of a patent endangering Mono, or an attack-scenario for Mono-based applications. Sure, there are patents that are violated by FOSS, but not any more in Mono than in any other framework. Actually, it's the other way around: Mono has more patent protection than other frameworks because of the RAND licensing.
I never, ever, heard a response to that question. So, how do you defend against such injust claims?
But in the end, that's the whole point of FUD: FUDders don't need any reason, or arguments. Just load your shitgun and throw enough mud, and something will stick.
@David Gerard: translation to Java. Which is both free software and in no patent danger.The patent danger of Java is much bigger as with Mono. Sun actually withdrew Java from becomming an ECMA standard, as it was once planned. The fact that it's licensed GPLv2 (mind the 2!) doesn't help much. If anything is a patent bomb pending to explode, then it's surely not .NET, but Java. But hey, as directhex said, it's not Microsoft, so it's not so popular for Fanboyism.
@sandy
Thanks for the informative answer. I suddenly remembered where my own skeptical views on .NET came from and they may very well be old but at the time they were, time and again, confirmed by those windows developers I know.
I had this laptop with an ATI graphics card and the CATALYST driver. The driver interface needed .NET to function this implementation turned out to enormously slow down my machine. When I uninstalled .NET it went back to reasonable speed but I couldn't, of course, change driver settings anymore.
My thoughts about Mono has been, that it somehow sits there and sucks out resources, though I have never actually experienced that it does.
Similarly on windows it's probably not a problem with .NET but rather with sloppy programming of various apps that use .NET. Perhaps Mono will invite similar sloppyness on Linux?
Anyway I removed Mono, not for the sake of removing Mono but because i wanted to remove apps I never use and they all seem to depend on Mono and consequently being removed too.
So my uniformed negative impression of Mono stems from an experience with something related to .NET.
@hb
"I never, ever, heard a response to that question. So, how do you defend against such injust claims?"I'm not here to defend either side. Honestly, whether Mono violates a patent or not is a non-issue.
Also, it's unjust, not injust.
You know I was going to put up this huge post, but I think I'll just say it as this.
"The General Assembly of Ecma shall not approve recommendations of Standards which are covered by patents when such patents will not be licensed by their owners on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis."There again, I really don't care either way. I'm an anti-Apple/pro-Slackware fanboy*, you guys and your MS vs Linux stuff is quite entertaining.
Really both (MS and Linux) step on each others toes. It's like an odd couple relationship gone wrong.
If MS sues and we don't have Mono anymore, we can always rewrite the stuff, it's not like the end of the world.
Also, do you even know what RAND stands for?! I do not think you do. I could have read your comment wrong, so let me know.
I think, you think, that a RAND license allows you to freely implement a standard. It does not allow you to do such a thing. Why you would use it as an argument is what I'm confused about so maybe you can clear the air.
Also, I won't even cover how ridiculous you just sounded about the Java thing.
*I like Ubuntu as well. It's a nice distro and I like to keep a copy to see the thing they put on Dells and HPs.
@Just O Bare: Also, do you even know what RAND stands for?! I do not think you do.I do. But probably you don't, if you didn't understand the statement. The whole point of RAND licensing is braking patent nets, and provide a solid ground for re-implementations.
Also, I won't even cover how ridiculous you just sounded about the Java thing.Good that you didn't cover it. It seems you have nothing to add anyways. You could have explained the "ridiculous" anyways, since it sounds offensive.
Maybe you want to deny that Sun has patents? Or maybe you're refering to GPLv2 for Java? Maybe you don't know what GPLv2 says about patents. Tip: It says 5 differnt things to 5 different people. "Solid ground" looks differently to me.
Guys, can we cool it with the mono debate in here? I really don't think this is the best venue for a productive discussion on it.
In retrospect, saying anything negative about Gnote was bound to lead to this tangential stuff, so I apologize for indirectly wasting everybody's time.
@hb
I agree, we should find a better place for this discussion. Any suggestions?
"The whole point of RAND licensing is braking patent nets, and provide a solid ground for re-implementations."I see. This in turn does not mean a free ride to an implementation. It means that MS will give you a chance to license the right to make an implementation. With a RAND you are free to decline but must cease the implementation.
The idea that it's a patent buster is fine with me. I doubt that's looking at it from all angels but on the surface your argument that it does break up patents is fair.
Thanks for clearing that up.
"Good that you didn't cover it. It seems you have nothing to add anyways. You could have explained the "ridiculous" anyways, since it sounds offensive."No it's not offensive. If it came off that way then I apologize. There isn't any reason why I would need to get nasty about it.
"Maybe you want to deny that Sun has patents? Or maybe you're refering to GPLv2 for Java? Maybe you don't know what GPLv2 says about patents. Tip: It says 5 differnt things to 5 different people. "Solid ground" looks differently to me."No, denying that Sun had patents. Those would belong to Oracle now.
I'm guessing you are referring to Section 7 of the GPLv2. Now if you'd like we can add Classpath Exception.
---Hold the phone---
This is gaining zero traction. Look, it really doesn't matter.
I think you and I can agree that the whole issue causes fragmentation of ideas in the community.
That is my chief concern. It's not about what language or who's patents are used. We are about a community and people are really divided over this issue.
It's really not a big issue because together we can overcome what may or may not ever happen.
If you support Mono that's fine. I think Mono is a great piece of software and I use Tomboy on my home PC. It's a rich API, provides a runtime that many people are familiar with, and lowers the curve for entry into programming.
If you don't support Mono that's fine. There are people out there that do support it and if we find out that the people who supported Mono made a mistake, then the people who supported Mono will need the community's support to help port some code. We can agree to disagree, if someone feels a need to port something, then by all means port it.
If in the end everything turns out fine, then we have a really polished API that is widely used.
If not then we make like the KDE team and start from square one.
I personally am sorry for sounding like I was going on the attack. It's very difficult to show that you are trying to approach something serious via text, when the topic being discussed is so hotly debated everywhere.
I don't mean to attack your intelligence and by doing so the community as a whole looses.
However, I think we have destroyed Sandy's comment area. :-)
@Sandy: No, GPLv3 doesn't prevent you from using code from Gnote. You can merge LGPLv2.1 and GPLv3 code just fine, just like the Gnote author did.
But, of course, if you're allergic to the anti-patent provisions in GPLv3, including GPLv3 code in your project might not fit well in your agenda. This is perfectly understandable, of course, but it doesn't imply a license upgrade is "hostile" or "anti-community". It is simply a means for the community to protect itself from predators like Microsoft and Novell.
@Anonymous I think you need to read up a bit on how licensing works. You cannot simply relicense somebody's GPL code as LGPL. This has nothing to do with patents; like any other rational software developer I am appalled at the current state of software patents.
I'm also not crazy about the name-calling. This whole "conversation" has been very disappointing in that way.
I'm curious. Since the two are different languages what level of complexity is added if you did try to port updates. (since merge is an issue and license issue aside.)
Strictly speaking, how difficult is it to port gtkmm to gtk#?
I'm good at C++, not so much for C#. However, I've used gtkmm less than I have the C GTK+, and I've used Gtk# even less than gtkmm.
To me, it seems pretty straight forward. However, I understand the time involved in that kind of port. So I'm asking this less as a Gnote vs Tomboy thing and more of a C++ to C# thing.
@Just O Bare
The fact that a line-by-line port can be achieved in a few weeks is an answer, I think. You could also just look at the code. :-)
As the two code-bases evolve, it will become increasingly time-consuming to share fixes back and forth, but that's normal with forks and long-term branches.
I have nothing agianst either Gnote to Tomboy (both good).
But, my company will not let Mono on the work machines due to the close ties to MS (yes, the lawyers looked at it).
Internal communications went around after the TomTom lawsuit warning people not to use Mono as this just firms up their suspicions.
Patent threats is the issue here, not apps/languages.
Maybe Kango's lawyers are just incompetent.
If they are concerned about patents owned by Microsoft and want to make sure they do not infringe, they should start removing the following pieces of patented code:
* The kernel's vfat (obvious)
* OpenOffice/KOffice/GnomeOffice (office patents)
* Firefox/Thunderbird (COM patents)
* Samba (god knows how many patents)
* OpenGL APIs (Microsoft bought all of these patents from SGI).
* Anything that depends on OpenGL.
Or if they are that worried about patents, they could have become Novell customers.
Troll or incompetence?
I say both.
@Anonymous (the one above)
With comments like that it makes me wonder the same about you.
In the original post:
"It will be harmful to the community, especially as these two apps inevitably diverge. It will result in duplication of effort, duplication of bugs, and a lot of wasted time for those who are trying to add value to the user experience."
This is the sort of irony Alanis could only dream of singing about.
Beyond that though, it illustrates perfectly how petty, how misguided, how utterly out-of-step mono-supporters are with the very spirit and foundations of free and open source software.
I don't see an issue with the divergence. I think that it's just the natural course of software evolution to diverge -- if Unix didn't diverge, we wouldn't have Linux! Better things come out of divergence and evolution. Besides, I don't want to add support for another GUI to my machine, I think it would be a waste of space so I'm inclined to stick with something that's written for Gtk. If you're worried about losing users, it's not Gnote that's to blame -- it's the move to Mono. I think the best course of action is to focus on how to make Tomboy better so that users want to download it or stick with it if its already on their machine. I tried Tomboy and really didn't like it -- I ended up losing data and was unhappy with quite a few of the features/functionalities. I'm now using another application instead. It wasn't Gnote that I switched to, though.
I love Tomboy and have been using it for years. It has much metadata about my life in it. I even wrote the first 30 pages of my book in it, before eventually moving to OpenOffice.
Gnote is a total waste of time. Sure you can fork in free software, but that doesn't make it a good idea. It is better to work together in the same codebase.
There were a number of rude and ignorant comments by (anonymous) trolls here, but that is just the world of today -- filled with crass idiots, even in the supposedly enlightened free software community. If the free software community was so smart, they would have defeated Microsoft years ago.
Just keep plugging away and leave him in the dust. He'll never be able to keep up and he's a fool for not knowing that before he started. He'll learn.
This could even serve as a "teaching moment" for the community as others will learn it is better to work in C#.
@KeithCu,
There has indeed been a lot of back and forth. Personally Id love to see GNote go somewhere else, add features that aren't planned for TomBoy, or stick to no features, sorta how GEdit equates with Minimum Profit.
At any rate it's his time, let him use it the way he wants to use it. Its not killing anyone. I really don't understand why it is such a big deal? If TomBoy is all that and a bag of chips wouldn't everyone use it anyway?
Secondly, purely off topic, I'm not a fan of C# (the language, not all this crap about runtimes and such.) C# is an okay language but I don't like some of the aspects like LINQ, but at any rate it's really up to whoever. I prefer Python for GTK, it just seems easier but that's just my two cents.
I never said he was killing anyone.
My comments about Gnote was that the programmer was foolish for wasting his time. But it is actually worse than that: he is fanning the religious flames, and creating confusion in the community. And if other people to join his "cause", it is not just his time that becomes wasted.
It is silliness like this which is why free software hasn't defeated MS. He has the right to do what he wants, but we have the right to point that it is a mistake.
Python is good too. I think all user-mode code should be written in C# or Python. Then we'd really see progress happen a lot faster!
Also, the many discussions that have taken place have wasted the time of other people. It isn't just his time that is being wasted.
@KeitKuh
Rubbish, read http://lwn.net/Articles/331187/
Tom,
If you go to the trouble to post a comment, can you have the courtesy to make it clear what your point is?
If there are problems with Tomboy, they can be fixed much more easily than re-writing from scratch.
And the rest of my points about his fanning flames, creating confusion, and wasting time of many people in these discussions still stands.
So in conclusion: Gnote has hurt, rather than helped, the free software community.
My last two cents.
I've been always thinking this but I guess it's a safe bet now to say it.
To me I see the issue at hand like the one that faces GNOME and KDE (and XFCE and so on.)
Yeah we'd have a really kick ass desktop everyone would just drop GNOME and go work on KDE.
I just don't see it happening. In fact I think it is one of the better defining points of free software. I don't know about anyone else but I never got on this boat because I was wanting to kick MS butt. I just like the software that is made and I like that I can write my own and others can help me write it too.
I think some have over reacted to the Mono Project. Mono is no different than the ideas that brought forth GNOME to begin with. GNOME was based on the ideas of OLE/COM from Microsoft. When MS came out with .NET, I knew it was just a matter of time before GNOME made their own clone of it. I'm sure the "next big thing" that comes from MS, GNOME will be there to copy it as well. I really don't see why everyone is getting so worked up about it?
I agree totally with the pro-Mono people (just on a different level.) Really it's no big deal about Mono. Get over it. If MS did take action we can always switch over to one of the other half dozen projects out there.
That's why I think the diversity helps us all. It makes it impossible for there to big one big target to hit for anyone.
The Gnome versus KDE issue is a separate discussion. Note, they share a lot of underlying code: text drawing routines, Cairo, etc. FreeDesktop.org hosts lots of projects shared between both teams.
You may not want to defeat MS, and I hold no animosity either, but the more people who use Linux, the better it gets. So defeating MS does provide benefits to you. So just think about it from this practical perspective.
Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place, but I'm having a hard time finding forums for Tomboy support.
I'm using Tomboy for OS X and I'd like to install the LaTeX plugin. Unfortunately if I follow the instructions for the plugin I end up with the following error when running ./configure:
No package 'tomboy-addins' found
Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you installed software in a non-standard prefix.Is there somewhere with suggestions on how to do this properly on OS X?
Thanks,
F
@Flip: Your best bet for Tomboy support is to visit our mailing list or GNOME bugzilla.
You'll have to tweak the makefiles if you want to build that plugin on OS X. Depending on how it works (I'm not very familiar with it), you may be able to just build it on Linux and copy the DLL into ~/.config/tomboy/addins/ on your Mac.
If you have any trouble, please follow-up on the mailing list or bugzilla.
When people complained about the Mono dependency the "YOU port it outside Mono" defense was used plenty of times.
The problem is, somebody actually found time and will to do it... But now the defense is "this is harmful to users!!"
Of course, the problem is that gnote does bring something new to users and free software friendlies. For once, it is GPLv3, it loads faster, and it actually runs in places where Mono doesn't. Cause as you might find out, Mono is not omnipresent, at least not yet. And yes, it also offers tomboy features to desktops that did not want Mono installed. It is after all some heavy requirement in regards tp legal, storage and CPU power needs.
Is this decision perfect? Maybe not, but this is mostly the result of following multiple suggestions from Mono advocates about how the opposing side should just port apps out of Mono.
LOL. I'm a Conduit developer and let me just say Sandy is very supportive of us. (Where as hub called Conduit "another stupid python hack").
Unfortunately conduit isnt a small dependency and its not a proper part of the platform. It also has an unproven OSX and Windows 'story'. So Tomboy has no real choice right now.
@Jc2K:
Sorry about that. A "friend" of mine was on my system and decided to place a nice comment in my name.
I've delete it as that is nothing near how I feel about Conduit and Tomboy. GNOME or KDE.
Both are fine projects and I believe that if you read the history of this thread you'll find that consistent with how I still feel now.
Again, sorry about the disruption.
Mono software is slow. There will always be the patent cloud over its head. And playing catch-up with microsoft's games with things like mono, moonlight, and wine, will NEVER be in the user's best interests. It will never allow Linux to rightfully surpass Windows. Linux is not Windows. Get over it. Stop trying to accomodate microsoft.
I never used tomboy much because of the performance and its legitimization of proprietary software. Gnote however is profoundly useful, and faster than I could ever imagine. I do hope that Gnote's developers aquire Snowy's code, and fork it for use with Gnote, breaking compatability with tomboy clients, but providing a one way import for tomboy/snowy notes in to gnote.
THAT will long term, be in the best interests of users, and free software in general.
And I'm posting anonymously because I work for Novell.
It was bound to happen. Being slow and big (it's a note-taking app for heaven's sake) should be considered bug #1. Looks like it isn't here.
Someone said that it would be easier to fix Tomboy than to write it from scratch. Bollocks. If performance is what you're trying to fix, we all know that ain't gonna happen with fixing something that's broken by design. Sometimes you got to bite the bullet and do things the right way, even if it means starting from scratch.
So, here's some free advice for the Tomboy devs:
Your software was great when it was first written. People (me included) liked it and used it a lot. Yeah, I've always hated that a note-taking app took so much time to get up and running and had to drag half a repository to get installed, and eat up so much memory, but oh well, right?
Sadly, you've been deprecated. And with your own code too! That's not a bad thing. It's actually the beauty of open source. Sure I'd too love it if it was a patch for tomboy, but it looks like the solution required a change of platform/language.
If you ask me, Gnote can be everything that Tomboy is, and then some. In the end, users will get something that is better, faster and lighter. So why keep developing something that's heading a dead-end? I know you're in love with your software (all devs are), but that just doesn't matter to the users.
I think it would be best to just drop Tomboy and put your efforts in developing/contributing to Gnote. It's that simple.
/ak
$OATH, it's just a note-taking app. tried a bunch of them and went back to pen and paper for scribbling. appropriate technology.
and why on earth would anyone want to write software in c-sharp when we have python!? that totally boggles.
Post a Comment