text: Breadcrumb Home Scott Suttell Blog Editor's Choice November 30, 2012 01:30 AM The Wall Street Journal throws praise at this Cleveland glass house Scott Suttell Managing Editor Tweet Share Share Email More Reprints Print Let's make this a Friday round of (relatively) quick hits: If you love looking at fancy houses — and who doesn't? — by all means check out this Wall Street Journal gallery of urban glass houses, which includes a very cool home in Cleveland. "A growing number of city dwellers are building glass houses — just a stone's throw from the street," The Journal says. "Such homes allow in lots of light, but also curious looks from passersby; beware neighbors brandishing telescopes." Two images of the Cleveland home are here and here. This is how The Journal describes it: In the heart of the historic Little Italy neighborhood in Cleveland, Stephen J. Bucchieri of Bucchieri Architects designed himself a townhouse in a neighborhood of streets lined with two- and three-story single-family residences on deep, narrow city lots. This is a new house built on a lot that used to have two houses. Maintaining privacy was the architect's priority in the design, which he did by including an enclosed courtyard between a front and a back part of the house. The front and back have large windows. The architect also sought to offset what he calls the "visual noise of the surroundings" by making the exterior monolithic. The house is four stories, 3,800 square feet, and has three bedrooms and a roof terrace. Drilling companies have become quite adept at using exemptions to keep the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, secret from the public, according to this story from Bloomberg. We're all supposed to be really excited about fracking in Ohio, but nationwide, "companies withheld one out of every five chemicals they used in fracking," Bloomberg reports, based on its review of chemical-disclosure records. For instance, the news service notes that a subsidiary of Nabors Industries Ltd. in July pumped a mixture of chemicals identified only as "EXP- F0173-11" into a half-dozen oil wells in rural Karnes County, Texas. One ingredient in that blend, an unidentified solvent, "can cause damage to the kidney and liver, according to safety information about the product that Michigan state regulators have on file," Bloomberg reports. But a year-old Texas law that requires drillers to disclose chemicals they pump underground during fracking was powerless to compel transparency for EXP- F0173-11. "The solvent and several other ingredients in the product are considered a trade secret by Superior Well Services, the Nabors subsidiary," Bloomberg reports. "That means they're exempt from disclosure." Drilling companies in Texas, the biggest oil- and natural gas-producing state, claimed similar exemptions about 19,000 times this year through August. Forbes.com and Payscale.com compiled compensation data for the 100 largest U.S. metro areas to generate lists of cities where college-educated professionals earn the largest, and smallest paychecks, and the results aren't great for Youngstown-Warren-Boardman. At the top of the list is the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area. Overall median pay for professionals in the California metro is $93,100, though it's accompanied by a similarly high cost of living. Meanwhile, Youngstown-Warren-Boardman ranks as the worst-paying city, as "college-educated employees there only make $45,400, on average," Forbes.com says. "Newer professionals bring in about $36,800 a year; mid-career workers make $60,400, on average." Katie Bardaro, Payscale's lead economist, tells Forbes.com, "This is an industrial metro area that was hit hard in the last few recessions and has been unable to recover." The Columbia Journalism Review weighs in with a long look at what it calls the "resetting" of The Plan Dealer as the newspaper weighs a shift away from daily print publishing. "For now, The PD's newsroom staff can only speculate about what lies ahead, but fear mixed with uncertainty and frustration are predominant sentiments," writes T.C. Brown, who covered government and politics in the Ohio Statehouse Bureau for The PD for more than 17 years. "Many also believe that reducing print editions in favor of digital, which has led to layoffs elsewhere, will seriously impact overall news coverage. A component of the newspaper union's contract barring layoffs expires in January." Harlan Spector, president of The PD's Newspaper Guild Local One, tells Mr. Brown that the digital-platform model PD owner Advance Publications has been promoting is "all about volume and is click-driven." The result: news as a constant stream of bits and pieces designed to attract viewers. "What happens under that model is that the stories that get the most clicks are sex, crime and sports," Mr. Spector says. "That's a real shift of emphasis where housing and education and other things fall. And then you cut staff and lose coverage and then what? You have to wonder how much serious journalism will get done." At Grantland.com, the excellent baseball writer Jonah Keri makes a case for former Cleveland Indians center fielder Kenny Lofton as a Hall of Famer. "Lofton is one of four modern-era players with 1,500 or more runs scored who's not in the Hall. … He ranks 15th all time with 622 steals, swiping those bags at an excellent success rate a shade under 80 percent," Mr. Keri writes. "He hit .299/.372/.423 lifetime, and played fantastic defense at a premium position in center field." He concludes, "Lofton slots in nicely among the best center fielders of all time, just a shade below Duke Snider and above the likes of Richie Ashburn and Andre Dawson. He has no chance in hell of induction any time soon. But he's got my vote." Are you OK with a little more sports? (SportsBiz blogger Joel Hammond is on the way out, so he probably won't mind.) This ranking of NBA rookies has the Cleveland Cavaliers' Dion Waiters at No. 5. Even so, SheridanHoops.com is a bit lukewarm on the young shooting guard from Syracuse. "Already a streaky shooter with little conscience, (Waiters') attempts are way up and his percentage is down since Kyrie Irving went out five games ago," according to the post. "But his scoring and assists are up as he has taken on more playmaking responsibility. Not quite sure if that's a good thing." You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio. RECOMMENDED FOR YOU Some companies move to shield executives' compensation from the pandemic's economic fallout RECOMMENDED FOR YOU Some companies move to shield executives' compensation from the pandemic's economic fallout WSJ introduces its readers to an important Cleveland real estate project Know some new grads looking for work? Steer them to Cleveland Sponsored Content: Alternative assets and private markets Sign up for newsletters Breaking News Download Sample Daily Report Download Sample Weekly Report Download Sample Morning Roundup Download Sample Coronavirus Update Download Sample EMAIL ADDRESS Please enter a valid email address. Please enter your email address. Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe. View the discussion thread.


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Stanczyk's dziadkowie (grandparents) came from Biechow and Pacanow parishes. Each of those two parishes had a few others villages that made up the parish. It is my fondest dream that I should return to these ancestral towns and see the churches, cemeteries, libraries, Urzad Stanu Ciwilego (USC which are roughly equivalent to a County Clerk's Office in the USA). Not to mention visit a couple of archives too.
My grandfather, Jozef Eliasz (aka Elijasz) and his father Jozef and his father Marcin were from Pacanow. Other families from Pacanow parish, like the Wlecialowskich who married into the Eliasz family and who also came to America and lived across the road from my grandmother Valeria's farm. My grandfather Jozef help build Ciotka Rosie's farmhouse (really a barn) with her husband Adam Gawlikowski. Ciotka Rosie (nee Wlecialowski) had a mother named Katarzyna Eliasz, who was my grandfather's aunt. There was also Kedzierski family that my grandfather's older brother, Jan Eliasz married into and some Kedzierskis also came to America. Funny, Stanczyk even found a friend, amongst the professional genealogists, the multi-talented Ceil Wendt Jensen whose Zdziepko ancestors came from Pacanow and settled in the Detroit area. So in a way the Polish diaspora from the parish of Pacanow reformed in Detroit (and Toledo, and Buffalo, and I am sure other Great Lake states).
Stanczyk wants to visit Pacanow's church (Sw. Marcin / St. Martin) as a pilgrimage. The picture, near the top of this column, is the church as my grandfather would have known it (circa 1918). I wonder if my grandfather and his family helped in one of the many rebuilds or expansions of the church. My grandfather, Jozef, was a carpenter and he built a steeple on Corpus Christi Church in Detroit.
This church whose cross has been a source for pilgrims to worship due to its uniqueness dating back to the middle ages, has one more chapter. During World War II, something miraculous happened in that church. It was partially destroyed, all but the section that had the agonizing Jesus upon this sacred cross. The Russian soldiers were going to finish their godless work and tear it down. When they attempted to pull the cross down, they were blinded multiple times, until they ran away (these Bolshevik atheists) and witnesses heard them scream that the God in Pacanow is very strong. Imagine that miraculous event in my family's ancestral church!
I am hopeful to see this church which has recently been recognized by the Vatican as a minor Basilica. It is a beautiful icon and has some church relics around it.

subset: commoncrawl


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Independent financial advisors and broker-dealers are radically shifting their thinking and practices related to technology, and it's about time, experts say. This transformation is being discussed in depth at the TechLeaders 2013 conference, on tap in the greater Dallas area Thursday and Friday.
"As an industry, we approach these issues as islands, and this has worked well enough for the past 20 years," said David Fetter, CEO of Quadron Data Solutions. "But this is no longer effective, and all [our technology islands] are under attack.
"For broker-dealers, pressure on margins, from advisors and investors (and their high expectations) and regulators are intense. We have problems in the industry, and, fortunately, now we have solutions," Fetter said.
The latest data collected by TechLeaders, in cooperation with Beacon Strategies and Investment Advisor magazine, says there has been a 117% shift toward looking at third-party providers. "There's now a pronounced look being taken at third-party providers and more confidence" in utilizing these resources, said Chip Kispert, editorial director of TechLeaders and managing partner of Beacon Strategies.
"Most folks have gone to the dark side from the traditional … view of investing [only] in ourselves when it comes to technology," said Marshall Levin, a managing partner with Beacon.
In addition to data management issues, the industry is being hit by a number of challenges on the communications front as social media becomes more important, others say.
"There's more and more pressure," said Blane Warrene, senior vice president of customer communications for RegEd. "Demands in the shift world of communications are creating an intense amount of force on how to differentiate yourself online and compete with those down the street, who are all using a variety of platforms."
For instance, says Warrene, advisors need Google+ accounts to "be fully tapped into the social media scene, and your compliance department may say no to this move."
Tech companies at the event, which attracts about 150 attendees, hope to convince independent advisors and broker-dealer representatives that they can help.
"We have three goals in staging this event," said Peter Montoya, executive producer of TechLeaders, in his opening remarks. "This gives firms the chance to launch the latest broker-dealer technology with instant onsite reactions, to be a forum for thought leadership … and to give users the chance to speak directly with developers for an immediate feedback loop."
Paul Peterson, president of Emerald Connect, described the importance of search engine optimization (or SEO) when managing websites for advisors. "You pay $20 a month to Google and Yahoo, and that means ad placement and better search results," said Peterson. "About 95% of the time, you will come up in one of the top three spots." While more tools and options are being made available to IBDs and independent reps, the pace of change is expected to be relentless. "It's just like what we see in the publishing world," said Warrene. Rather than the media telling people what the news is, "Now people are telling the media what's up, and the media is following them."
Likewise with investors, "The smart folks are doing much more research online before going to an advisor and the broker-dealer," he noted.
"We don't have the same tools in the hands of advisors to connect and communicate with them, and this is a real challenge for advisors," concluded the RegEd executive.
That seems to explain why the latest TechLeaders survey found that 42% of IBDs surveyed say they are deploying a social media infrastructure, up from 33% last year. Plus, 25% are in the process of getting ready for such deployment, up from 22% in 2012.


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Steven Bradbury's career as an Olympic speed skater was driven by determination and most importantly a will to succeed. With the same passion he showed on the ice, Steven has continued his success as a guest speaker in Sydney.
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Steven has learned success strategies through experience in business and sport. Like he has done for many others, as a guest speaker in Sydney, he is ready to deliver lasting results and a never give up attitude to your team.
Please click the button above to load the video
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We were looking for a speaker who could engage a group of people who had encountered the most difficult period in the their working life. Steve Bradbury not only engaged the group, but was able to communicate a number of key messages that lifted the feel of the entire conference. His messages were extremely strong and could be easily assimilated to the audiences personal situation. The feedback from Steve's presentation has been overwhelming, we would recommend Steve to any business who is looking to re-energize and engage. PETER ORNSBY – NATIONAL MANGER DISTRIBUTION – RETIREINVEST
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Guest Speaker, Meet The Speaker, Last Man Standing – Channel9


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KDE Icon Chatter
As MacOS X, and arguably, GNOME, have shown, many people love photorealistic icons despite the theoretical trade-offs with usability. So if you've ever wondered about the philosophy behind KDE's default icons, you might want to read Torsten Rahn's recent article on the matter. Tackat explains how KDE's default icons are a compromise between good usability and beauty, using a mock up of traffic signs to illustrate his points. To conclude, Tackat proposes a slightly different approach for KDE 3.1: Add more photorealistic design to the application icons, while sticking to 2D for toolbars and mimetypes. But wait, there's more. In related news, Kristof Borrey has announced the release of iKons 0.5.5. More importantly, Kristof is now working on getting iKons 0.6 in shape for inclusion in KDE3. For other icon activity, check out everaldo et al on the kde-artists list. I should also point you to the growing number of KDE icon themes on KDE-Look.org.
I agree i think the current icon set needs modernized without becomeing a total mac or windows rip off. iKons are not pretty enough for me though. They to greyish and don't have enough color.
By Craig at Sat, 2002/01/26 - 6:00am
I like KDE's icons
I like that the current KDE icons are not photo-realistic. They are what they are supposed to be: icons, not photos.
If you want to see what the 'enemy' :) is doing, here's a link to what will become the Gnome 2 default icons. They, too, have moved away from photorealism:
By Jon at Sat, 2002/01/26 - 6:00am
Icons, life and stuff :-)
Howdy from the "other camp" :)
I pretty much agree that having photorealistic icons is bad for usability - unless they are very big. They work pretty okay on MacOSX because the icons are just huge. It works well for the desktop/panel/application icons on GNOME too, though I wouldnt call the style "photorealistic". I think it is more like "cartoony" or "airbrushed" (I use the Bezier tool in Gimp much like airbrush artists do with real world tools). But whatever people want to call it..
Anyway, the "big" icons on Gnome have a 3D perspective look. I decided to not go with "isometric" perspective (45 degree angles everywhere, a good example is BeOS) because I wanted to make them more natural looking, but Tackat has been doing a very nice job using isometric angles for KDE icons. I guess it is a matter of personal preference and style. Isometric definitely gives you less jaggy edges if you do 1bit transparency versions of icons.
Now, to the "KDE influence", noooooooo! :o) Seriously though, the current GNOME toolbar icons have a 3D perspective, but I have realized the same usability issues with them, the 24x24 pixel grid is just not enough for perspective tricks, the resolution is way too low. Even when we now have full transparency support for toolbars thanks to Gtk2. It would just look too blurry. Thus we made the decision to go with flat "face-on" perspective (which MacOSX also uses for toolbar icons by the way) - it makes it a lot easier to do clean, understandable icons.
For the style, I bet every designer takes influence from others. I like Tackat's work, although I personally prefer a bit less bright color palette. But I guess the biggest influence for the lighter colors has been from using Macos, mostly MacOS 9.x (for printwork, I need Illustrator to do that, and Mac is the way to go with those apps) - Apple uses a very light and "happy" color scheme which I like. And it looks like WinXP is also going to the same direction. Beos was like that too. I was never too fond of making my desktop look like Quake anyway .. :-)
In any case, judging from the feedback I and Jimmac got from the icons, looks like we are going to the right direction.
By the way, I found a nice link to WinXP icon style guide, they suggest people do icons first with a vector drawing app and then convert to bitmaps from that. The page also gives the winxp color palette, which is a lot like the one I did for GNOME, though it has more blue colors.
Sometimes I wonder how much influence Microsoft takes from us.. I think I see some Gnome and KDE influence on WinXP ;-)
Best wishes,
By tigert at Fri, 2002/02/01 - 6:00am
SVG versus bitmap
To me, the technical underpinnings of the icon system need more attention. Bitmaps only make sense when you have limited range of display resolutions, but this is no longer true. A handheld might have resolution of 50dpi while a nice display can have up to 140dpi. The range is too large for bitmaps to work.
I'd prefer to see icons implemented as SVG. This is how MacOS X works. There has been some work to add more SVG icons to GNOME. An initial screenshot from many months ago is here: http://jimmac.musichall.cz/screenshots/gorilla4.png
Would anyone else like to see scalable icons in KDE?
By Jeffrey Baker at Sat, 2002/01/26 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
I agree. Gnome icons are indeed beautiful.
By JK at Sat, 2002/01/26 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
The problem with using vector graphics, is that you have no control over how things look when you scale down.
Notice that the screenshot you posted had rather large icons. How good do you think they would look, if scaled down to 32x32, or 16x16?
The advantage of having multiple bitmaps, is that the artist can hand correct the smaller icons to still look good and be recognisable
By Stuart Herring at Sat, 2002/01/26 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
This is not true. An SVG can be created to add detail as it is scaled up, and remove detail as it is scaled down. It is very powerful, and can even be used to do things such as zoom into a fractal.
By Jeffrey Baker at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
But does any image editor support those features? -_-
By Stof at Mon, 2002/04/29 - 5:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
No, but things like Adobe Illustrator manipulate SVG.
By GE at Mon, 2002/11/25 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
I would like to!
By Iuri Fiedoruk at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
> 16*16, ...icons is getting in desuse in KDE already.
16x16's still see frequent use on 800x600 remote X terminals. This type setup is more common than an owner of a single-user install might think--offices, schools and even homes of resourceful users where one newer box runs KDE and old hardware provides seats. Think LTSP: http://www.ltsp.org or City of Largo.
By Paul Ahlquist at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
So.. in this case, why not simply using a option to user choose between bitmaps and svg?
By Iuri Fiedoruk at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
Sure, just make SVGs for all the KDE icons, and code in that option, and that would be great! :-)
By Carbon at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
If SVG icons are used (let's hope they finally are) the method should be similar to the one used with some scalable fonts, that is: include bitmap "snapshots" for some concrete resolutions, for example for 16x16 and maybe for 32x32, when the SVG icon might look bad. This does NOT mean including snapshots for all icons at a particular resolution, it just means that if the author thinks the icon will be used at 16x16 and will look bad, he should include a bitmap version for that resolution.
If not, anyway, we are now using 16x16 and 32x32 icons. What's the deal with leaving the 16x16 icons and replacing the rest with SVG?
By Salva at Mon, 2002/01/28 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
I always create two panels, each at size TINY.
This causes me to use 16x16 icons, and that's the way I always do it on my 1024x768, because this way I still have plenty room left to place my apps.
By Richard Stellin... at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
Most icons you see in KDE are displayed by the application menus and especially by the Kicker menu. These icons are displayed at 16x16.
So how do you get your idea of 16x16 getting "in desuse in KDE already"?
BTW: I haven't seen too many screenshots showing svg-icons at 22x22 - perhaps you could post a URL :-) ?
Re: SVG versus bitmap
Good question, I tryied finding it again but couldn't (maybe I dreamned?) :)
By Iuri Fiedoruk at Tue, 2002/01/29 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
How fast processor is needed to render such icons ? Some apps need to display a few dozen icons at start, so they must be rendered and stored as pixmaps somewhere.
By Rumcajs at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
i fear it will be slooow..
i don't know a lot about the topic so excuse me if i'm talking nonsense.
By ik at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
The question isn't how fast does your processor need to be, but rather how good is your programmer? MacOS X uses SVG icons and it runs interactively on really stupid and slow CPUs like the 300MHz PowerPC 750. You don't need bug iron, you need smart programming.
By Jeffrey Baker at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
Are you good enough, then, I take it?
More signficantly, though, IMHO, SVG is a ridiculously complicated standard, which is an overkill
By Sad Eagle at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
:: how often do you want to see an icon larger then 48x48?
When displays start leaping ahead to resolutions expressed in hundreds of DPI. Memory is now cheap, even video memory, and the CRT is being discarded. I have no doubt that a major factor that will hold back exponential leaps in resolution is pixel based systems. Right now, write a new widget set and window decoration, and most things in KDE will scale - except icons.
Having said that, I'll kick in my 2 Eurocents to the thread. Bitmaps display quickly. They should be the default. Extending the icon system to *support* SVG is a good thing for those who want to install icon packs that use vector icons (read: people with multi-gigahertz machines). That also moves a final step towards being able to discard pixel units as resolution (note that it is not the final step in actually doing it, just the last system that comes to mind that needs to be fundimentally reworked).
By Evan "JabberWok... at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
But why not use the .svg icons to -batch generate- bitmap icons
Personally, I think .svg is the way to go with icons. I know little about
By John Allsup at Tue, 2002/01/29 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
On a 400dpi display, a 48x48 icon would be practically invisible. You'll have a 400dpi display in fewer than 5 years. All modern computer display systems have OVERWHELMINGLY rejected bitmapped fonts in favor of scalable vector fonts. TrueType fonts, the popular flavor, are vector glyph descriptions each of which comes with a little program that runs inside of a virtual machine. Why not do the same for icons?
Think SVG icons would be slow? You already draw tens of thousands of scalable vectors all over your screen all the time.
By Jeffrey Baker at Mon, 2002/01/28 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
> You'll have a 400dpi display in fewer than 5 years.
I already thought this 5 years ago. While working on KDE 2 I did some research concerning this topic on expos like CeBit. Judging from that I'm quite sure that you'll be wrong for the next 5 years, too.
I don't whink that we will have resolutions like 3200x2400 in common use any time soon: think of all those myriads of webpages out there: each one would have to be redesigned (or displayed with magnified bitmaps).
And yes: drawing svg-icons would be quite slow as you need lots of shades, alphablending, etc. Don't get me even started to talk about the limitations you run into once you try to paint some very close parallel lines!
MacOSX does not use vector icons!
MacOSX *does not* use vector icons! It *does not* use SVG icons. I don't know where this rumor started but it's absolutely not true. MacOSX icons contain normal bitmap graphics for the icons in 3 sizes, then uses scaling to make it the proper size (kindof like KDE, except all the images are in one file ;-). One of the sizes is 128x128, so it can scale down to whatever size it needs. I don't know if Gnome started the rumor but it's not true, because it's a dumb idea.
Vector graphics for icons is a horrible idea. You can't "paint" them, you have to draw it all as graphics primitives. Not only do you then have to parse a graphics control language for all the icons, but then you end up with icons that all look like Windows Meta Files. "Painted" icons are much higher quality, not to mention can be created in any drawing application.
By Mosfet at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: MacOSX does not use vector icons!
I ment that the rasterized versions could be stored somewhere on the disk, so all frequently used icons would be always ready to display as pixmaps. If there would be no pixmap version or SVG file would have the later modification time, the pixmap should be (re)generated. However I think that it is a huge work and no advantages over the ordinary method.
By Rumcajs at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: MacOSX does not use vector icons!
What about tools like autodraw (iirc) that attempt to convert bitmaps to vectors? That way, the icon's don't look significantly different, but it's easier to do things like smooth scaling, isn't it?
By Carbon at Mon, 2002/01/28 - 6:00am
Re: MacOSX does not use vector icons!
It would be impossible to get the same quality as you can with a painted icon. How do you describe something like a photograph or photorealistic image as vectors? You can't, (well, actually you can but the result would be much worse than scaling because each pixel would be a vector point ;-) As you figured, it's not only far easier to do smoothscaling but also this provides much better results. Like I said, with vectors you end up with images like Windows Meta Files, not Photoshop ;-) Whoever spread the rumor that MacOSX uses vector icons was *wrong*. It's nonsense.
By Mosfet at Mon, 2002/01/28 - 6:00am
Re: MacOSX does not use vector icons!
Hmm, isn't there any vector conversion tools that convert bitamps using higher levels of abstraction though? Things that attempt to discern high-level things like gradients and lines and curves within a bitmap, to produce a vector that was truer to the original bitmap? I'm not volunteering to do such a thing, nor attempting to say that such a thing would be a good idea, but merely asking if such a thing has been implemented or is being implemented, or is even plausible?
Also, I never said MacOS X uses vector icons. However, there are a lot of things that MacOS X doesn't do that KDE/UNIX does (such as Open Source the GUI :-)
By Carbon at Tue, 2002/01/29 - 6:00am
Re: MacOSX does not use vector icons!
You can make good looking vector icons, just look what Jakub did with the Scalable Gorilla - and he just started to do vector stuff not that long ago.
Of course it is a lot more work, and the tools are different, but it is certainly possible. The style will naturally look a bit different, but if you end up with bad clipart then you have a bad artist :-)
I agree with you though, that it makes no sense to render the stuff on screen as vectors, one really renders to a bitmap and caches that. It gets really slow otherwise too.
By tigert at Fri, 2002/02/01 - 6:00am
Re: MacOSX does not use vector icons!
I can't say about MacOSX because I'm clueless.
Alas, there's something else: when you draw icons, or do any graphics,
Things change if you think of it as modifying an infinite-resolution image.
I would say that the fact that SVG doesn't support most of this theoretical
So, while most posters here are right that SVG is useless, it doesn't mean that
Cheers, Kuba
By Kuba Ober at Mon, 2002/02/04 - 6:00am
Re: MacOSX does not use vector icons!
1. Vector Icons are much easier to make. Anyone doing a lot of graphics knows that for drawing, you need a vector app.
make them in vactor, raster them for usage. That's the way.
Vector Graphics are great, but unuseful for icons.
By jack at Wed, 2003/01/22 - 6:00am
Re: MacOSX does not use vector icons!
Vector graphics for Icons can in fact be painted, just as well as a bitmap or raster images can. As long as the rendering engine supports gradients, all sorts of FX can be implemented. Vectors can be automatically traced out of Bitmaps which use patches of color(not necessarily on a per pixel basis) to render photographic images. The added advantage of vector? Independent resolution at any size. Make it big and it stays sharp, make it small and it's still clear.
By Calactyte at Thu, 2004/03/18 - 6:00am
I don't know why you spread this nonsense here but just to keep things correct:
Mac OS X does _NOT_ use SVG-icons.
There are nice articles on arstechnica available like this one
which discuss how Mac OS X works in regard to icons. If you read throught them you might realize that the technique used in Mac OS is comparable to the one that KDE is using (in fact KDE even does it in a superior way).
Concerning Gnome: They don't use SVG's yet either. Unfortunately the SVG's done by Jimmac are not available for download yet - they exist on screenshots only.
Re: Nonsense!!!
The theme works (the screenshots are not mockups that is, but real ones) - but it is a bit slower. It is of course slower to render a vector illustration than it is to load a bitmap. It is not that bad in reality though since Nautilus is caching the stuff, so it is not getting rendered all the time.
But yea, at least I find it easier to draw bitmap icons since I havent done vectors much yet. The SVG is neat if you want to scale icons large though. I used to have this one huge trashcan on the desktop a while ago. An artist gets a lot of scratch paper you know :-)
By tigert at Fri, 2002/02/01 - 6:00am
Re: SVG versus bitmap
What about complete SVG background ??
By Samdchire at Mon, 2005/05/30 - 5:00am
Talk about missing the point...
KDE's icons are ugly as shit. If people think this doesn't directly impact KDE's usability, well, they should just keep on using KDE. No need to drag OS X and GNOME into things.
By Anonymous Gerbil at Sat, 2002/01/26 - 6:00am
GNOME vs KDE
That's true, I find GNOME ugly as hell and the Icons not just ugly but completely unusable. I never know WHAT I am clicking on when I click on a GNOME icon.
GNOME icons has zero customizatability like KDE icons. Everybody misses this point. KDE is so flexible, it doesn't matter what the icons look like, you can change anything.
The fact that KDE icons are so well designed and clean doesn't enter into it.
By Anonymous Grebil at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: Talk about missing the point...
Gnome icons (indeed all GTK+ icons) will be customisable from 2.0+
By SteveHomer at Wed, 2002/02/06 - 6:00am
By JK at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: slick
Some are kind of cool but the home icon is to dark.
By Craig at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: slick
instead of moaning, get off you lazy arse and create some damn icons. Add some colour to the 'home' icon, make other changes you see fit and release it to the world as a new icon set. KDE has too many moaners and not enough contributers.
By Natra at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: slick
> instead of moaning, get off you lazy arse
have a look at control center -> font installer -> about
BTW constructive criticism is good thing and this is what Craig did. IMHO you over-reacted a bit...
By Marco Krohn at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: slick
Umm.... I wrote the font installer, but it wasn't me who posted the previous comment. I have *no* complaints with the KDE icons...
By Craig (Drummond) at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: slick
They rock ! Good work.
By Milifying at Mon, 2002/01/28 - 6:00am
did you notice ..
everaldo ... Look in kde-artists mailing list ... Those icons look really cool imo
-- Fab
By Fab at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: did you notice ..
Nice, I missed that. Is there a web-page for the everaldo icons? Oh well, I just added a pointer to kde-artists.
By Navindra Umanee at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: did you notice ..
They are not everaldo's icons. Some of icons are MacOSX icons, some of them are KDE default icons, some of them are iKons folders.
By kiki at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am
Re: did you notice ..
Yes, but what he did is magic! :) Take the KMail icon for example. I've never really been very fond of the original KMail icon, but with some everaldo magic it suddenly looks very attractive. No need to create an entirely new KMail icon now. People will still recognize it (doesn't need to "learn" a new icon) but is still treated with a fresh new look. Lovely.
By matt at Sun, 2002/01/27 - 6:00am


text:
Toda Bhatt
Toda Bhatt, a Brahman bard of Sultanpur Lodhi, was a pious Sikh of the time of Guru Arjan. His name is included among the Guru's devotees in Mani Singh, Sikhan di Bhagat Mala.
World Gurudwaras will strive to be most comprehensive directory of Historical Gurudwaras and Non Historical Gurudwaras around the world.The etymology of the term 'gurdwara' is from the words 'Gur (ਗੁਰ)' (a reference to the Sikh Gurus) and 'Dwara (ਦੁਆਰਾ)' (gateway in Gurmukhi), together meaning 'the gateway through which the Guru could be reached'. Thereafter, all Sikh places of worship came to be known as gurdwaras.
SearchGurbani brings to you a unique and comprehensive approach to explore and experience the word of God. It has the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Amrit Kirtan Gutka, Bhai Gurdaas Vaaran, Sri Dasam Granth Sahib and Kabit Bhai Gurdas. You can explore these scriptures page by page, by chapter index or search for a keyword. The Reference section includes Mahankosh, Guru Granth Kosh,and exegesis like Faridkot Teeka, Guru Granth Darpan and lot more.Visit SearchGurbani
Encyclopedias encapsulate accurate information in a given area of knowledge and have indispensable in an age which the volume and rapidity of social change are making inaccessible much that outside one's immediate domain of concentration.At the time when Sikhism is attracting world wide notice, an online reference work embracing all essential facets of this vibrant faithis a singular contribution to the world of knowledge.Visit TheSikhEncyclopedia


text:
Only Flexfit offers the patented poly-weave spandex sweatband for the perfect fit. A silver contrast underbill completes its casual look.
Every order is custom printed and personalized to your needs direct from our production facility in Detroit, MI. Items are typically completed within 5 business days and then require additional shipping time to reach your location.


text:
Same-day delivery in the United States is an elusive beast. Almost every online retailer wants to do it, but many are scratching their heads as to how.
When is comes to getting into the realm of same-day shipping it's not about building a warehouse in every state or waiting to see what Amazon does. According to Shutl CEO and founder Tom Allason, it's all about focusing on your brick-and-mortar store.
Getting into the same-day delivery game is not about trying to ship a sweater in a New York City warehouse to a customer in Seattle in one day. Retailers need to focus on "expanding your brick-and-mortar footprint" and bring the store to the customer's home in a logistical way, Allason said.
Same-day delivery can happen for most retailers but there is a catch. "It is attainable but for only a portion of their customers," Allason said. And those customers, he said, need to live 10 to 15 miles away from a retailer's traditional brick-and-mortar store.
Why? In order to become a goliath in your own right with same-day delivery you need to start using your traditional storefront as an expanded version of your warehouse and that is where companies like Shutl comes in. While they are not exactly shippers in the industry, Shutl is a software company that uses retailer's ecommerce platform and connects them with local same-day carriers.
So how can U.S. retailers begin to think about localized same-day shipping? Allason shared these three tips for retailers looking to get into the game:
The first order of business for retailers is to never think about closing your traditional brick-and-mortar store. "This is exactly what Amazon wants," Allason said. If you begin closing your traditional brick and mortar stores, he said, you're basically shutting down your localized warehouses.
Make sure you have solid visibility of the products in stock both online and in store. "A majority of retailers do not have visibility of stock in store," Allason said, which can slow down the ship-from-store process. In order for retailers to perfect same-day delivery, they need to have the right ecommerce platforms that can easily and quickly identify what is in stock online and what is in stock in your store.
Retailers need to offer incentives to store associates. Your employees at brick-and-mortar stores need to receive motivations to move product outside of the store and be compensated just as your ecommerce personnel will be.
If a retailer is ready to move ahead with same-day delivery, Allason said, the process from start to finish could take as quick as three months "if it's a top priority within the company." The challenge in moving forward, he said, was that same-day delivery "touches every part of a retailers business" from ecommerce technology, in the warehouse, supply chains, logistics, marketing, and in store technology and staff.
Although Shutl has yet to make any deliveries in the United States, the United Kingdom based Shutl will be launching soon in Chicago, New York City and San Francisco according to Allason, with the first same-day delivery expected to go live within the next 30 days.
Shutl's site also states that there will be additional same-day delivery launches in the near future including Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, Washington, Montreal, Toronto, and Tampa.


text:
No More Google Reader: "Google announced that Google Reader will be discontinued on July 1st. It's a sad news, but it was inevitable. Google Reader has always been 'on the chopping block' because it never got enough traction.
Everything started with a feed parser built by Chris Wetherell that turned into a feed reader, helped by Ben Darnell, Laurence Gonsalves, and Mihai Parparita. The product was launched in 2005 as a Google Labs project and it was significantly improved one year later, when the Google Reader team launched a completely new version. Over the years, Google Reader integrated with iGoogle, added social features and handled feed serving for all Google products. Back in 2007, Google Reader crawled 8 million feeds and 70% of the traffic was from Firefox users.
In 2011, Google removed Reader's social features and replaced them with a Google +1 button. It was the beginning of the end for Reader, who lost all the engineers from the original team. Google Reader is in maintenance mode ever since then.
While feeds are no longer important for many users and browsers start to drop support for reading feeds, social networks make newsfeeds popular and mobile apps like Flipboard simplify reading the news. Feeds are now a behind-the-scenes technology and full-fledged feed readers seem outdated.
'We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We're sad too. There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we're pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience,' says Google's Alan Green.
It's hard to find a replacement for Google Reader, since Google Reader was the most popular feed reader and the competition couldn't keep up with it. You can still find some web-based feed readers, but none of them is as good as Google Reader. Congratulations to everyone who worked on the Reader team and thanks to all the people who subscribed to this blog in Google Reader.
Here's Google Reader's team from 2007:
(Via Google Operating System.)


text:
CN suspends feasibility study of proposed rail line in Quebec/Labrador iron ore rangeWritten by Jenifer Nunez, assistant editor
Canadian National (CN) is suspending the feasibility study for the construction of its proposed rail line and terminal handling facility to serve the Quebec/Labrador iron ore range.
The feasibility study was initiated last August by CN and its partner La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (the "Caisse"), along with a group of six mining companies. The study has been progressing steadily over the past several months. However, the current market realities have resulted in anticipated delays with mine development projects in and around the Labrador Trough. A joint review of the project together with the mining companies indicates that mine construction schedules and diverging needs for each specific individual project will make it difficult to obtain the critical volumes of iron ore necessary to support the building of new rail and terminal infrastructure by CN.
The decision by some miners in the region not to join the group of mining companies supporting the CN infrastructure project is also a factor in the much-lower-than-projected iron ore volumes that are now expected to be shipped in the foreseeable future, CN said.
Luc Jobin, executive vice-president and chief financial officer of CN, said, "We have invested considerable effort and resources towards the feasibility study, but in light of the circumstances, CN has concluded that it is not advisable to continue with the feasibility study at this time."


text:
At LastPass, we're always thinking of ways to better protect users and offer security options that allow users more fine-grained control over the protection of their stored data. That's why we've added two new security options now available to LastPass users in the account settings dialog, which can be opened from the LastPass vault: the ability to restrict logins to selected countries and to disable access from TOR.
Restrict Login to Select Countries
This option is pretty straightforward – you can check one or more countries from which you wish to allow access to your LastPass account. When selected, you can only login to your account from an IP address that originates from the countries you permitted.
The setting is not checked by default, but we do recommend using it as another layer of protection. You can later adjust it if you'll be traveling and need to access LastPass abroad.
Disallow Logins from TOR
If you're not familiar with TOR, it was originally developed for protecting US government communications but is now used for a variety of purposes, by normal people, the military, activists, and others for secure, anonymous use of the web.
Because TOR has been associated with hackers who employ it to stay anonymous, and since the majority of LastPass users don't have a reason to use TOR, you can now disallow logins from TOR. We recommend checking this option if you never use TOR. The setting is not selected by default, but if you haven't logged in to LastPass via TOR over the last 30 days, you'll see the option will then be checked in the settings dialog.
Enabling and Disabling the New Settings
All LastPass users will now see the new security options in the settings dialog, accessible from the LastPass vault when you're logged in.
If you're in a pinch and need to disable either setting, you will see an error message when logging in that points you to a URL where you can follow the steps to disable the setting(s) by using email. Remember, if you've enabled a security email address for your LastPass account, the disable emails will be sent there instead of your account email address.
Multifactor Authentication Is Still Highly Recommended for Added Security
Using multifactor authentication with your LastPass account? You're already well-protected from potential threats that these settings are meant to protect you from, but it's worth enabling the settings for the added protection.
If you're not using multifactor authentication, we highly recommend looking into the available options. There are both free and Premium multifactor authentication options that help you better protect your stored data by requiring that a second piece of data be submitted when logging in to your account.
We continue to look for ways to better protect LastPass users. As always, your security and privacy are our number one priorities.
The LastPass Team


text:
Qt Everywhere: 4.5 To Be Relicensed As LGPL
Nokia has announced that starting with version 4.5, Qt will be available under the LGPL 2.1. From the announcement,
This exciting change, made with consultation of the
Kai Öistämö, Executive Vice President of Devices at Nokia expands,
The change in licensing for Qt is happening under the mantra "Qt
Nokia will also be opening up the development of Qt. A clear path for the
The simple fact behind this is that Nokia is less reliant on the
While kdelibs has always been available under the LGPL, this marks the first
Meanwhile, Nokia reiterates their commitment to a commercially viable and,
All-in-all today's news means tremendous things for Free and Open Source software. The
Sweet! I was unsure about what the long term implications of Nokia buying Trolltech would be at the time when it was first announced, but this is certainly a very positive outcome!
By Nikolaj Hald Nielsen at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: Sweet!
There is available FAQ what this change really means for developers/companies:
By patpi at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: Sweet!
Yes, this is is the optimal license solution! A very open toolkit that allows open and closed applications. I been waiting/hoping for this for years. Now (soon) there is no reason not to use Qt :-) This killed any interest I had in learning gtk...
By I'm off to learn Qt at Thu, 2009/01/15 - 6:00am
Great news!
Thanks a lot Nokia!
I'm very excited about this news, Qt is such a great toolkit that everyone should use it :-)
By Thorben at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: Great news!
Awesome news! I always understood the reason for Qt's previous licencing policies and never imagined this day would come. Congratulations to Nokia and Qt Software for their investment in the Free Software community.
By Paul Eggleton at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
This is big. This is big. Dude! (!!)
By Jakob Petsovits at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
This is really huge announcement. It is hard to predict real impact of this decision at the moment but effects of licensing under LGPL and GPL3 will be HUGE for all KDE. I think this really has a great chance to "lead to a veritable explosion of Qt and KDE adoption."
now KDE has everything important:
next step really could be world domination. Now only lets convince downstream to use KDE technology as base for desktop development. Everywhere, as base for desktop oriented distributions - I'm looking at you Canonical - , as base for netbooks, as base for enterprises (KDE PIM everywhere ;] ) , etc
I think those news are great ones!
By patpi at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: THIS IS HUGE!
I understand what you mean by "now KDE has everything important". Nevertheless, I want to clarify that KDE had all of the points you mentioned already since Qt was released under the GPL on all platforms. The Kolab Konsortium very successfully earns money by extending Kontact with features needed by their customers since more than 6 years. So the "possibility to use KDE technology also to gain some money if needed" exists since a long time already.
The only thing that is new (and that you most likely meant) is that starting with Qt 4.5 and KDE 4.3. one can develop proprietary, closed source software using Qt and KDE without the need to buy a commercial license for Qt.
By Ingo Klöcker at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: THIS IS HUGE!
The real benefit for Linux users is that, as others have said, now competition can be solely on technical merits.
That means that integrators no longer have "We can't develop our closed-source corporate offerings in it cost-effectively" as a justification for dismissing Qt and KDE desktops in favor of GTK+ and GNOME/Xfce desktops.
By Stephan at Sat, 2009/01/17 - 6:00am
Re: THIS IS HUGE!
The LGPL makes a bigger impact in the commercial/proprietary scene, and not as much for KDE. That's because Qt was already Free Software (GPLv3+exceptions). The biggest impact for us, I think, is that it will silence those few critics that claimed GPL+exceptions was not free enough. Now Qt can be compared to GTK+ and other toolkits on the basis of technical merit, instead of mere licensing.
Here's a good overview of the situation: http://www.ics.com/files/docs/Qt_LGPL.pdf
But will this mean Nokia will reduce the number of developers working on QT in the hope there will be other people coming up to work on for free?
A "commitment" from upper management on anything is usually not worth the pixels showing it on the screen...
I hope it will turn out fine...
By Norbert at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
I don't think you realise just how profitable Nokia is - they probably spend more on lunches for executives than they do on Qt :)
Re: But...
We are actually working actively to hire more developers here at Qt Software.
By Aron Kozak at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
Just out of interest - do you know if Nokia is planning to sponsor some more developers to work on KDE itself? It's a great advert for Qt and, considering how far it's come on a shoestring budget, and addition of even 3 or 4 full-time developers could give a huge return on investment.
Re: But...
"It's a great advert for Qt"
NO - Since KDE4 it is exactly the opposite.
By KDETroll at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
Then all the more reason for Nokia/Qt to spend some money making it better :).
By slacker at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
We in Qt Software beg to differ: http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2008/12/04/how-kde-4-is-blocking-qt-45/
We respect your opinion, but ours is that KDE 4 is a great showcase. So, we will act accordingly.
By Thiago Macieira at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
"So, we will act accordingly."
I'm tempted to interpret this as a "yes" to my original question ;)
Re: But...
No, Nokia will *increase* the number of Qt developers:
Nokia realizes that a good software platform is key to the success of the telephones and Qt is their choice of platform.
Qt Creator is another initiative Nokia has taken to make it easy for developers to start developing for the Nokia platform. The goal is that software created like that will run on Windows, Linux, Mac *and* Nokia phones.
By Jos at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
I hope they really realize that. There are so many mobilephones that are great. Great if you look at the hardware but if you look at the software many suck so hard that you wonder how they made it to the market.
A good foundation one can reuse and thus improve and something that would be really used would change a lot.
Imo most people do not want to only look at a phone but also use it, I hope that Nokia will improve the "use" part with this move. :)
By mat69 at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
Actually, the situation hasn't really changed for commercial (paying) developers. Although it opens up options for them as well, the commercial Qt license says you cannot use the open source (LGPL or GPL) version of Qt to start developing a commercial program, and then switch to the commercial license.
So that means commercial developers still *need* to pay for a commercial license if they don't want to be "stuck" with the LGPL or GPL licenses for their programs.
By HelloWorld at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
True, but on the other hand, there's not much to be "stuck" about with the LGPL. It offers most freedoms that even proprietary developers would require, you just can't modify Qt itself without releasing those changes into the wild.
But that's about the only thing where you're "stuck" with the LGPL, there's now little reason to buy a license unless you need the commercial support services. I would be interested in the reasons that you consider important enough so that developers "still *need*" to buy a license.
By Jakob Petsovits at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
It depends. LGPL got restrictions
When creating a device that will include LGPL and proprietary components, you need to ensure that you comply with the following restrictions in the LGPL:
-- Modifications made to the library itself must be licensed under the terms of the LGPL
-- A proprietary application that is a work that uses the library needs to be dynamically linked with the library in order to avoid becoming a combined work that results in a licensing incompatibility
-- Users need to be aware that an executable might be a combined work with the library unless a suitable shared library mechanism is used (i.e., one that, at runtime, uses a copy of the library already present on the users computer system (rather than copying library functions into the executable), or one that will operate properly with a modified version of the library (if the user installs one as long as the modified version is interface compatible with the version that the original was made with).
By Knut Yrvin at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: It depends. LGPL got restrictions
Yes, this license incompatibility is a serious issue. IMHO, the FSF has a point, but in some cases they are shooting themselves in both feet, and it is hurting Linux.
Clearly, the nVidia drivers are illegal under any type of GPL and there are issues with printers where there are proprietary parts of the driver that can not be LGPLd or GPLd. Then there is the ZFS which Linux can't use in Kernel space.
Basically, I can see why linking to non-free software should be forbidden in general, but why should the LGPL and GPL forbid linking to other libraries which are free and open -- free and open software being any software where you can get the source code for free.
Then there need to be exceptions. How should the FSF licenses handle things like the Epson printer drivers. They are free and you can download the source code, but it comes with binary libraries. If the binary code is available free, that isn't as free as if you could get the source code (it isn't open), but free is free and the FSF license being pickey about minor points is not advancing the cause of FOSS. There should be exceptions in the LGPL & GPL for other types of free software. Whether or not the software is free (as in beer), is more important than the details of the license. That is my $0.02.
By JRT at Fri, 2009/01/16 - 6:00am
Re: It depends. LGPL got restrictions
Even without being as much a zealot as RMS, I can still understand the problem with that. There's no guarantee that code will remain ABI compatible as systems march onward. Windows provides that guarantee to some extent, but a big part of Linux's architectural strength comes from an assumption that old APIs and ABIs can be phased out and new ones phased in.
GPLing the kernel, for example, ensures that anything legally distributed as a part of it will have source code that can be adapted to new hardware platforms or to satisfy new requirements. The kernel's API is probably one of the least stable APIs on a linux system, but even more typical stuff changes. For example, the ABI for libstdc++ changed a couple of years ago and now, only a handful of apps require the old version of libstdc++ to be installed.
By Stephan at Sat, 2009/01/17 - 6:00am
Re: It depends. LGPL got restrictions
I don't see your point. Obviously it wouldn't apply to software that was open but not GPL since the source code would be freely available. This is the main issue is whether the GPL should forbid linking to other types of open software.
There are serious issues with the ABI of the nVidia Kernel drivers and having a GPL Kernel doesn't solve them.
I suggested that there be a singular exception that GPL or LGPL code be allowed to be combined with binary libraries. Since there is no alternative in the case of printer drivers, the problems are simply something which we would have to live with. In this case, the problem you mention is very unlikely to occur since the ABI (to either GhostScript or GIMPPrint) is in the GPL part of the code.
By JRT at Sun, 2009/01/18 - 6:00am
Re: But...
PLease explain to me what (as long as I don't want to alter the Qt libs) is the difference to me as a closed-source developer between the LGPL and commercial licences in effect. As I read it I can distribute my code completely closed if I use either of those licenses?
By Curious at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
The difference is a certain amount of money and a good deal of support.
By boudewijn at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
Obviously this is not the place for legal advice. You should read the LGPL or have a lawyer interpret it for you, so you don't expose your business to unnecessary risk.
The LGPL is more liberal than the GPL, sure, but it's still a far cry from "free, free, free". There are still obligations to fulfill, limitations, etc. The most mentioned one is the relinking clause.
In the end, we expect to a certain switch from commercial, closed-source applications to the LGPL, closed-source model. And we expect there to be creation of Qt applications directly into the LGPL/closed-source model (the "shareware / freeware market" that we previously didn't address)
By Thiago Macieira at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
If all you do is dynamically link with Qt, then you can use LGPL Qt for your proprietary projects. But it doesn't apply to static linkage, modifications to the library itself, and some other cases. Also, Qt Extended (Qtopia) remains GPL. I think most embedded developers will stick with the commercial license, as well as a few application developers.
Re: But...
> Also, Qt Extended (Qtopia) remains GPL.
"Nokia today announced that its Qt cross-platform User Interface (UI) and application framework for desktop and embedded platforms will be available under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 license from the release of Qt 4.5, scheduled for March 2009."
By kubunter at Thu, 2009/01/15 - 6:00am
Re: But...
Qt != Qt Extended
Go read the FAQ: "Does the licensing change apply to Qt Extended?
By Brandybuck at Thu, 2009/01/15 - 6:00am
Re: But...
Yeah, well... but who cares about that POS?
By kolla at Sun, 2009/01/18 - 6:00am
iPhone killer
What I've been waiting for is for Nokia to release a killer piece of hardware to showcase Qt and KDE as a fully-featured mobile computing platform.
I keep drooling over the n810 tablet, but it doesn't have enough memory. The n96 is big, clunky, and doesn't have the resolution necessary to run decent apps (not to mention really expensive, and runs Symbian)
If Nokia were to unleash a new smart phone and/or tablet with a high resolution OLED screen and decent memory (like the rumored G2 specs, and the rumored iPhone HD specs) and showcased KDE 4 and Qt running on top of it, I think Nokia could get back in the game.
By T. J. Brumfield at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: iPhone killer
If Nokia wants to get back in the game, they should stop dicking around and deliver phones with operating system that actually works well (as in stable), are easy to set up and use (not that damn inconsistant and confusing menu hell of S60v3), quick and responsive UI, rotate between apps using single tap/key input, dont crash because of third party apps etc. etc.
I dont see KDE4 solving anything here, it's way too bug ridden to be of any use on a phone, and plasma would eat out the battery.
By kolla at Sun, 2009/01/18 - 6:00am
Re: iPhone killer
Yet KDE4 runs on the Nokia n810 with minimal memory.
By T. J. Brumfield at Sun, 2009/01/18 - 6:00am
Re: iPhone killer
"Runs" is being rather charitable, I think: "hobbles" might be more accurate.
By anon at Sun, 2009/01/18 - 6:00am
Re: iPhone killer
Most of KDE wouldn't really be useful on a phone, but Plasma would be. And saying it would drain your battery - hah! If I run powertop on my laptop, I see firefox, firefox and firefox. And I run plasma with lots of applets, compositing kwin and a bunch of KDE apps. Numbers are even better:
when I close firefox, my powerusage drops by 3 watt (acer aspire one)...
I doubt using plasma on mobile devices and things like the N810 would INCREASE poweruse. I actually expect it to go down.
By Jos Poortvliet at Tue, 2009/01/20 - 6:00am
Re: But...
Nokia/Trolltech is busily hiring new engineers. Their goal is "Qt Everywhere", to make it the expected infrastructure for software development. You don't get there with fewer developers. The engineering focus will still be there.
Re: But...
Cool, thanks for all your answers...
By Norbert at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: But...
Hard times? Nokia paid 100 million Euros for Trolltech. Why? So they could give it away? So they could rake in license fees?
I saw the new head of Qt software speak at last years KDE conference and I don't think I could have been more impressed that someone could be honest, intelligent and totally familiar with the business aspects while being sincerely interested in being a good part of the community. However the true test of a buyout is to see how the employees deal with it. On that count I can only say if I wanted to work full time on software I'd be hitting them up.
What is a commitment worth? See for yourself. No sane company says one thing, does another and expects to stay at the top of their industry. Nokia has made it to the top of several industries and as an 100 year plus company they didn't start with cell phones.
As to their reasons for buying Qt. Clearly it fits in their strategy for having the best tools available and for advancing a technology climate where they are riding the crest of the wave and not following the pack. This move is EXTREMELY logical for them.
By Eric Laffoon at Thu, 2009/01/15 - 6:00am
I think this solves the license issues for a Qt-plugin for SWT and wxWidgets. This means we could probably see a few more well integrated applications on the KDE desktop. Yeah!
By kdeFan at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: Great
Oh, wow --- is that THAT why wxWidgets never supported Qt? I see :)
Anyway, yes, this is great news. Not only will it make Qt and KDE more attractive to corporate users, it might boost development for both, encourage more cooperation and code sharing with GNOME, etc. Great stuff.
By Lee at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: Great
There's also that Qt already is a C++ API and much nicer than Wx to boot. It's like wrapping a faberge egg with an old newspaper.
By Roberto Alsina at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: Great
With a LGPL Qt, there's absolutely no reason to use wxWindows that I can think of, other than just refusing to learn something new.
Re: Great
QtCore being GPL was also a problem for system-level libraries, like e.g. libdbus, libz, libpng etc.
This is really great news ! :-)
By Alex at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: Great
libdbus doesn't use Qt due to the license, given that it doesn't even use glib. Its just designed to be a very low-dependency system library.
By Ian Monroe at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: Great
> is that THAT why wxWidgets never supported Qt?
Same for SWT.
A common misconception though, usually comes up when Qt licence changes or is discussed
By Kevin Krammer at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am
Re: Great
"No"? Wow, that answer surely sounds well documented.
I once read in wxWidget's webpage that the reason there could be no Qt version was that it was a way around Trolltech's barrier against proprietary software that used Qt without paying the license, and that as such it could make them incur in Trolltech's legal rage.
Now wxWidgets can have a Qt version with no legal ifs. We'll see if they bother.
By Lobotomik at Wed, 2009/01/14 - 6:00am


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