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Programming Comdex IT Technology

Send an Open Source Project to COMDEX 144

Posted by CowboyNeal from the narrowing-it-down dept.
chromatic writes "O'Reilly & Associates is working with COMDEX to create an Open Source Innovation Area. We've nominated 21 important, interesting, and useful applications. Here's your chance to vote on the six most deserving applications. Steve Mallet has more details in his weblog." There's lots of good choices for applications on the list as well. Chances are that you've used one of them at least once.
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Send an Open Source Project to COMDEX More

Send an Open Source Project to COMDEX

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  • With apps I use every day like OpenOffice.org, Gaim, SquirrelMail - and those that save me loads of time, phpMyAdmin and TightVNC it's such a hard choice!!

    Now if only PHP-Nuke [phpnuke.org] was on the list - it's what has revolutionalised my life as a webmaster!!

  • "Sorry..." (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doomrat ( 615771 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @09:36AM (#7247910) Homepage

    "We're sorry, you need to be logged in to vote for this contest."

    Thank you for telling me that after I'd carefully chosen my votes. "To keep track we ask that you please log in to your O'Reilly Network account." wasn't a fair warning, you made it sound optional.

  • Where's Mozilla [mozilla.org]
    • Yeah, and where is LimeWire? Sure it doesn't have the numbers like Kazaa, but if you check out their technology they've got some fairly sophisticated protocols and a pretty large open-source support community....

    • Heck yeah! Where IS Mozilla. It's by far the easiest-to-understand argument for open source.

      Better overall email and browsing than ANY closed source product. Exhibit as Firebird/Thunderbird on Mac, PC and Linux side-by-side for maximum effect. Demonstrate the click-a-link skins and extensions (for gestures!), tabbed browsing (multi-page homepages), integrated searching, mouse-free navigation, bayesian spam filtering, quirks-mode for all of IE's layout bugs, -- heck even some CSS3 already.

      The only clo

      • The only closed-source thing it still needs is the CodeWeavers QuickTime plug-in, sadly (AFAIK -- I'd be happy to find I'm wrong on

        mplayer and Xine both have Mozilla plug-ins supporting most Internet audio/video. They're not quite as slick as Crossover, and they don't do Shockwave or other Windows plugins, but they can be quite handy.

    • I was looking for Mozilla and VLC [videolan.org]. But I guess it is pretty hard to limit the voting to 20 projects.

    • Re:Mozilla (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 ) *

      With that argument, then... Where is Linux? Where is Apache? Some open source applications should be so known that showing them there would be a waste of space.

      If I would to choose just by popularity on that list, I would show KDE, gimp and OpenOffice, they are not new and are fairly known, but are between the more known open source applications of that list and won a lot of times awards like in LinuxJournal.

      But, in the other hand, I would like to give some light to not so known applications to a wider

  • Who is your audience? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 18, 2003 @09:40AM (#7247929)
    If you're dealing with an office worker, OpenOffice and Evolution are good candidates. Home users would like to see XMMS, mplayer, GAIM, and SpamAssassin. Admins would be interested in Tight VNC and SpamAssassin. The creative types would want GIMP and Audacity.

    As for the desktop, it might be a good idea to stick with one for all your demonstration boxes (all KDE or all GNOME) but of course mention that alternatives exist.

  • Slashdot poll (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mukund ( 163654 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @09:42AM (#7247938) Homepage
    It would be nice if Slashdot ran this poll. Internet polls like this are not so useful I suppose, but still it would be cool to see how various projects rank out. The three leaders could be the chosen ones.

    My choices in the O'Reilly list are Subversion, OpenOffice.org and SpamAssassin. None of these projects have known patent issues or issues with 3rd parties such as MSN, AOL, Yahoo (the related projects such as mplayer and GAIM do an *excellent* job however).

    • I wanted Slashdot to run the poll as the O'Reilly one needs an account there. On hindsight, the Slashdot poll would just allow for vote on one project only, whereas I would really like to vote for over 3 projects in the O'Reilly poll. Good set of software projects there.
    • Subversion? But why isn't Tom Lord's Arch nominated? It's IMHO a MUCH better designed revision control system. It allows for wholly new development styles!
  • In my previous life in marketing, I was an exhibitor in many Comdex shows. We stopped attending because so many of the 'customers' were job seekers...

  • sourceforge (Score:4, Insightful)

    by seriv ( 698799 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @09:46AM (#7247956)
    I know it is not a software package (I know the scripts can be downloaded, but let me gat to what I am getting at), but the site provides a home to many of these projects i feel that COMDEX needs to add it as an honorary member of the list.
    -Seriv
    • Except that Sourceforge keeps their code secret. You should use savannah.gnu.org instead, which was born because SF closed their source.

      Google around for more info.
  • I thought Slashdotters always say that open source doesn't innovate? All I hear all day from Slashdotters is how open source should stop copying Microsoft and start innovating. And how we suddenly get a story that implies open source *does* innovate?
    You Slashbots really have a double standard.
    I'm sure I'll get moderated down to this but that only shows what kind of an anti-open source zealot place Slashdot has become.
    • No, Slashdotters say "OMG! Microsieve is gay!".
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Wait a minute... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Minna Kirai ( 624281 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:07PM (#7248739)
        I don't think anyone is arguing that in general open source software doesn't innovate

        Um no, that's a very common refrain.

        Look at Linux, Apache, OpenOffice, KDE, Mozilla...
        for each of them, there is a pre-existing closed-source project that it can be called a "clone" of.

        In fact, when RMS was initially starting [gnu.org] the "Free Software" movement, he explicitally declared they would clone Unix:

        1. Individual programmers can contribute by writing a compatible duplicate of some Unix utility and giving it to me. For most projects, such part-time distributed work would be very hard to coordinate; the independently-written parts would not work together. But for the particular task of replacing Unix, this problem is absent. Most interface specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility. If each contribution works with the rest of Unix, it will probably work with the rest of GNU.

        That seminal message suggests that cloning an existing program will be vastly easier than making a new one, because since there's little original thinking involved, the communication needs between distributed developers are much, much smaller.

        • Re:Wait a minute... (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          And, oh my god, the thing Apache cloned is a clone of something else. Of course Apache, OpenOffice, and Mozilla are clones. You need to view websites, edit documents, and serve websites regardless of the operating system.

          So, not every project is an innovation. If they were, we'd only have one of any type of application, and no matter how much it sucked we'd be stuck with it. I'd rather see competition. We might be "duplicating effort", but low and behold the power of capitalism is competition. Commun
          • I think that the distinction on innovation isn't relevant to a design model.

            OpenSource is not only a design model, but a business model. It's a business model that says "Money isn't highly important to me". In a capitalist economy, most people's actions are guided by profit, forming a disincentive to release useful innovations under Open Source.

            Some recent programs I'd term highly innovative, and which were either successful themselves, or spawned major fields:
            ICQ, Quake, RealAudio, Fraunhofer MP3, Mac

        • I think it was a fair statement, too.

          At first, Mozilla really was an imperfect clone at best. When I first started using it, it wasn't really an alternative to IE. I was just doing it out of sheer bloody mindedness.

          Now, though, it has added enough of IE's features that it is an alternative. And it has added enough features that it isn't a clone anymore.

          Basic functionality comes first -- and that's all IE ever really had. So of course it started life as a clone at one point.

    • All I hear all day from Slashdotters is how open source should stop copying Microsoft and start innovating.
      I think open source and Microsoft should stop copying the Mac UI.
      • I agree. Every OS should have a totally different way of showing programs (none of this "windows" crap) using the mouse and keyboard, and not copy any features at all from each other.

        Dumb ass.
        • I'm just annoyed that everybody claims KDE and GNOME are copying Windows, when all three are copying the Macintosh. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that.
      • I think open source and Microsoft should stop copying the Mac UI.

        Yeah! I hate how Microsoft only sells one-button mice. And that huge "Dock" takes up too much space at the bottom of the Windows XP screen. You can't even put windows under there!

        And don't even get me started on why you must to drag a CD-R into the Recycle Bin to burn it...
        • I think open source and Microsoft should stop copying the Mac UI.
          Yeah! I hate how Microsoft only sells one-button mice.
          I never said anything about mice. You can plug a three-button mouse into a Mac and select text merely by highlighting it, then use the middle button to paste it. Does the Windows UI support that?
          • You can plug a three-button mouse into a Mac and select text merely by highlighting it, then use the middle button to paste it. Does the Windows UI support that?

            No, it does not. Which is another great example of how Microsoft(tm) is not copying the Mac UI! (If anything, Apple copied that one from "Open Source")

            Prehaps they copied it once, but Apple's UI developments in the past 4 years haven't made their way into Windows(r).
  • I nominate SCO's corporate policy: on the basis of dubious reasoning, lay claim to the work of thousands of Open Source programmers, while simultaneously ensuring that if your claims are accepted, you'll kill the Golden Goose in the act of getting your hands on it!

    I'm sure we'll all miss SCO (soon), even if you weren't a fan of their thievery there's no denying their contribution to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
  • IMHO Gimp and Mplayer are most important projects on list.
    GNOME and KDE are something everyone is talking about, but not really using (you think you use GNOME or KDE? what except *libs or *wm? do you know how large are these projects?). You can say many good things about OpenOffice, but it's similiar to MS Office: huge and slow. BTW Where is Mozilla? Evolution is MS Outlook replacement. Well... MS Office, MSIE, MS Outlook, where the hell is any innovation?
    No Blender. No games/emulators. No LyX. No X-Chat.
  • Having to deal with all flavors of streaming media in my job, no player impresses me more than Mplayer. Is there any media format that Mplayer will not play? It is exactly what I want and nothing else from a media player.

    That said, I'm just impressed with this short list. All of these are good options. This really shows how far Linux on the desktop has come. So much so I'm running Linux on my work-issued laptop in a Windows environment now. Many thanks to all the developers who have made this possible.

  • That's what it tells me to do.
    But..
    I don't have any...

    Excuse me while I go to my room and cry a bit..

  • Hey! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @10:26AM (#7248115)


    I can't find the Cowboy Neal option!

  • These are all great applications. But why do any of them want to go to COMDEX? COMDEX tends to show off cool new technology like PDAs, video game hardware, and anything flashy. The fanboys won't care about a great email client. I like the idea of these projects getting exposure, but this may not be the best place.
  • GAIM: we need a killer,compatible IM with all features

    MPLAYER: we need a media player that plays everything

    OpenOffice.org: we need a document viewer that views and does everything.

    See a trend in my choices? Repeat after me:

    I-N-T-E-R-O-P-E-R-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y
  • GNU Enterprise [gnuenterprise.org] is both a toolkit (think SAP) and a shelter for related programs such as my current favorite DCL [sourceforge.net] (call tracking and trouble ticket system), or the more widely known Bayonne telecommunications application server [gnu.org].

    Some of the projects are highly usable now as they are, though the core tools are available to create your own customized company-wide applications.

  • I voted for Evolution, the Gimp, and OpenOffice. I picked them for the marketing potential. These three products have mass-market potential, and COMDEX is a good way to get them in front of people who would otherwise perhaps never know there are alternatives to Exchange/Outlook and MSOffice.

    • Re:My votes and why (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Remember though, you have to vote every day, or it won't even matter.

      What a retarded process.

  • Mplayer? (Score:3, Informative)

    by FullCircle ( 643323 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @12:02PM (#7248466)
    Oh, great, let's send a legally questionable program to COMDEX and get it in the spotlight. MS , Real, Intel and Apple won't care that we ignore the EULA's and strip out dll's from their applications in order to make it work.

    Maybe do a dual booth with Mplayer and DeCSS just to really make certain two of our most important desktop apps get removed.

    Great thinking guys...
    • One thing is for sure however, Mplayer is something that should succeed. In addition, it seems as if you might not be as informed as the developers in the legalities of the game.

  • ReactOS (Score:1)

    by myg ( 705374 )
    Probably one of the most interesting Open Source projects is ReactOS [reactos.com]. As much as the Slashdot crowd dislikes Microsoft, the Win32 API has a tremendous amount of applications behind it.

    The chance for us to demonstrate such a direct competition to Microsoft at COMDEX would be well worth leaving leaving another project behind.

  • I'm choosing projects that are cross platform, such as Gimp, OpenOffice, and tightVNC.

    As important as it may be to move away from Windows, it is just as important to support it and show people what open source can do for them now with no long term investment.

    You can't replace the OS until all the Apps are in place and equivilant, and it'll be so much easier to convert people if they are already using popular opensource/free software on their current platform.

    When the next round of office upgrades c
  • Gee, I vote, they get an account. Lets run this poll on Slashdot instead!

  • Where is Samba? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by AELinuxGuy ( 588522 )
    I'd agree with all of the apps on this list as being very worthy of nomination, but I am shocked that Samba is not there.

  • keep on looking (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hpavc ( 129350 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:21PM (#7248781)
    i would take gnuCash off that list and put something like Compiere. gnuCash is nice and all but at comdex it would look silly. it would be like taking Amanda there.

    same with Xmms, 'wow it looks like just winamplinux has a winamp clone, how cute.'

    MoinMoin? twiki blows this project away, you lost me on this nomination.

    spamassassin? wont mcafee already have spamassassin there in the form of spamkiller? but seriously ... maybe you could toss that into my qmail mix below somehow.

    how about showing off snort? or swan interopering with some real world hardware

    how about setting up five little machines running qmail and blast a million delivered mail messages between the machines per hour and have a big led bank sign as a counter? then add and import thousands of users dynamically using ldap.
  • Isn't it among the most innovative open source applications of recent times?
  • Wouldn't be very much on-topic, per se, but it could be really funny... [straightdope.com]

    • I know I'm also offtopic, but that was one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Thank you for pointing that out.

      Now, to try to venture into the realm of on-topic: A blimp might cause problems in a trade show booth. The show managers are kind of relentless about what gets put where, floating things, etc. I was at one trade show where a customer, located at a "T" intersection on an aisle, used a light projector with custom lenses to project their logo down the aisle carpet. Show management came b

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • 99.5% of Linux apps are blatant rip-offs from Windows/MacOS. What innovation are we talking about here?
  • It's the most mature content management system that I have ever come across, built on top of the mature zope application server. I am dismayed at how few people actually know of this project or have used it.

    I am in the plone mailing list and I am reading about 50,000 user installations and larger. I have been using it to create a cognitive map of everything I read and it's an incredible tool. In the context of a knowlege base or knowledge sharing in academia or in a company, it makes it easy to decide who

  • I nominate FreeBSD [freebsd.org] and OpenBSD [openbsd.org].
  • While the desktop makes for better demos, the real strong players are still the enterprise options. These are the tools which will get noticed by CIO-types. I'm talking about apache, samba, sendmail/postfix/exim, jboss, etc.

    Then send them to David Wheeler's report on quantitative data [dwheeler.com] which shows the strength of open source projects.

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