What's Missing from Free Software? 141
dan.hunt asks: "Klaus Knopper was interviewed here and the interviewer, technobeast, asked: 'If you were asking the questions, what would be the 1st one you would ask?' Klaus answered in part 'What are you missing in the available Free Software, and how would you like to change that?'"
Packaging and Installation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Packaging and Installation (Score:3, Informative)
!@!@@!"$$!$!$!@!$@!$@!$@
Source distribution is optional, as long as you distribute it for cost if requested. Theres tons of OSS which is one downloadable file. Mozilla, for example, or even rpm's and debs.
Re:Packaging and Installation (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Packaging and Installation (Score:2)
Re:Packaging and Installation (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the biggest reasons why Windows tends to fail for misterious reasons is exactly due to consistent lack of packaging. Some programs throw DLLs in the system directory. Some will write them to their own. Some will forget to increment the usage counter, and some to decrement it. Some braindead installers will overwrite files without checking the version. Others will leave with a mix where the errors of the program appear in
Re:Packaging and Installation (Score:1)
Re:Packaging and Installation (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Packaging and Installation (Score:3, Interesting)
this was moderated as Insightful? Funny at the most if it was cynical humour
Check the link, but in short, any software which is licensed in such a way that
What are you missing... (Score:2, Interesting)
In Mozilla.. not much is missing.
In Open Office.. Microsoft Office is missing.
Re:What are you missing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Documentation is where Linux applications often fall down. Granted, it's not always that good on Windows either, but there is generally an expectation among Windows users that it should be there.
Re:What are you missing... (Score:3, Insightful)
And then, there's this new export to PDF/Shockwave feature that's a kickass thing to have, especially in academic environments (the corporate world,
suggestion (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:suggestion (Score:3, Interesting)
look at KNOPPIX/knoppix-cheatcodes.txt (or hit F2 when it boots). fluxbox, icewm, twm, and windowmaker come to mind.
besides he's asking about free software, not the knoppix distribution...
KDE is not a Window Manager (Score:2, Informative)
Re:KDE is not a Window Manager (Score:1)
niche applications (Score:4, Interesting)
really I think this is just a function of another, larger phenomenon: with free software there is a great focus on the most common applications but not for niche applications. everyone uses a web browser, office programs, CD recording, audio extraction/encoding/playback, etc. the same is true for server systems: apache, perl, python et al, samba, SQL & friends all fill the voids in a free server system
but until recently, applications that only a few people would find useful have not been available. it's only been recently that linux has become a viable platform for audio production/editing. I think device drivers will follow soon.
it only takes one programmer to write the code and then it can be copied at a marginal cost approaching zero.
Re:niche applications (Score:2)
This is a myth which is a result of the status quo ten years ago. It is no longer true, but it is believed by pundits and the ignorant who have not kept up with recent developments. Nowadays the Linux kernel often gets support for new hardware before commercial OSs since many of the hardware companies employ engineers who are enthusiastic about Linux and knowledgeable enough to write device drivers.
Re:niche applications (Score:1)
yeah, so don't buy anything from SiS! lesson learned.
Re:niche applications (Score:2)
Having said that, on-board chipsets aren't as bad as they used to be. I set up Slackware on my wife's new computer the other week. She's not a geek, but she's cool :-). Who said you can't have Linux on the Desktop?
The box is a Pentium 4 on an MSI mobo with on-board sound. It came
Re:niche applications (Score:1)
> > specific hardware devices under (gnu/)linux
>
> This is a myth which is a result of the status quo ten years ago.
More like five years ago. And the world still contains a lot of
five-year-old hardware.
Re:niche applications (Score:2, Interesting)
Most, not all, open source software is written by people who want to use the software themselves. Not because somebody told them to. Hence only programs will be available for wich someone has an intrest and a skill in programming.
Only rarely does someone write code in his own time for someone else (the braille drivers for linux come to mind, at least I presume the co
What is missing? Honest labelling (Score:2, Offtopic)
Consider the soundstream-to-MP3 program that is labelled free but is really ridiculously crippled in the free version (record 15 seconds!) and has "pay $49 to upgrade now" banners all over the place.
Re:What is missing? Honest labelling (Score:2, Insightful)
What is missing much of the time is honest labelling. At download.com, much of what is called "free" or "freeware" is really crippleware.
That is a valid point, but it is however not open source software you are refering to. The post was talking about the "Open source community" and if you search Freshmeat [freshmeat.net] instead of Download.com you will find a quite different result. Let's not confuse OSS with the crippled spyware you find at Download.com.
Focus, not features or programs (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider a sampling of successful and focused OSS projects: Perl, Python, Ruby, Linux, Apache, GCC, GNU file/text tools. What is it about themthat makes them successful? They focus on a single audience. Perl, Python, Ruby, and GCC focus on developers, and serve them well. Apache focuses on web serving (and, in its subprojects, web development), and does it well. The GNU utilities focus on the Unix user, and provides the expected interface well. Linux focuses on providing OS support for a wide variety of hardware (I am speaking solely of the kernel and its modules here), and does it well.
Now consider some less focused, yet still popular, OSS projects: GNOME, KDE, Mozilla. They try to be all things to all people. This is, indeed, one of Microsoft's (many) failings: for example, Windows attempts to be a home, workstation, and server OS using the same interface, and Word attempts to provide word processing for Grandma as well as document creation for technical authors and collaborative document management for corporate teams and everything in between. They are mediocre for all of their supposed purposes.
Mozilla is a bloated pig because it can be used for so many different things. (I happen to use much of the bloat, but that doesn't justify its lack of focus.) This is why it is being broken up into separate tools, and rightly so.
Ultimately, compelling software is compelling not because of how many people can find a use for it, but how well it serves some particular audience. This is the inverse of the "right tool for the job" platitude: make your tool the right one for some job, not a tolerable one for several jobs.
I will point out what I believe is (much of) the proximate cause of this tendency to lack focus. The mantra "release early, release often" encourages a lack of focus; once a community of users springs up (which is vital for a successful OSS project) they begin pushing and pulling the developers to support this feature or that. One hopes that some of the users will actually contribute code, which means that features that stray from the focus of the tool may be harder not to include than to include. If the developers do not keep a firm grasp of their focus, it will stray.
This is not to say one should not "release early, release often," but that one must maintain focus in the midst of users and contributors who have their own goals. I applaud the mutt team for keeping it a MUA, and nothing more. Sure, I'd like to see NNTP support, but there are perfectly good newsreading tools out there and, instead, mutt development can focus on being the best MUA it can be. I applaud Linus for rejecting innumerable patches when they don't fit his focus for the kernel. Project leads must discipline themselves if they wish to produce compelling software.
Re:Focus, not features or programs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Focus, not features or programs (Score:2)
I didn't say that Microsoft had failed. I said that lack of focus is one of its failings. The distinction is important. Windows isn't a failed product, it is a poor product. The same is true of Word. I will mention that, in contrast, Excel is neither a failed nor a poor product; I claim it is because it has a strong
Re:Focus, not features or programs (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't think these examples really support your point. GNOME has been targeting a different audience than KDE since their 2.0 release by uncluttering and simplifying their desktop even to the point of alienating many old-school GNOME aficionados who had the (first) impression GNOME had been "dumbed down".
And as for Mozilla, remember it was based on a bloated and unfocused piece o
Re:Focus, not features or programs (Score:2)
You are about right, it comes with: Browser, HTML Editor, EMAIL, NNTP, Chat. However, soon we'll see these apps packaged individually. I think you'll also start to see more apps using the "mozilla as a platform" technologies.
My Wish List (Score:2)
Additionally, I think we could start to expect apps to build in scripting using parrot. If javascript can be implemented in parrot, then Mozilla could easily adopt it and life would get very sweet.
Mozilla is my number #2 ite
Re:My Wish List (Score:3, Informative)
This is a very bad idea. And I say that as someone who uses XML daily, and is generally very fond of it.
A telling example: XML-based configuration files have made my working with XML quite a lot harder. As you might know, XML systems - and SGML systems before them - can use so-called "catalogs" that map public identifiers or URIs to local files, so that when you reference the offic
Re:My Wish List (Score:2)
Well, if existing unix command line tools don't deal with it well, then obviously we need some new command line tools. XML is not going away, so this is a good idea regardless.
Re:Focus, not features or programs (Score:2)
There is an user-maintained NNTP patch for mutt. I used to use it, and it was quite good... It's linked to from somewhere on mutt.org, but I don't remember where.
It's obvious. (Score:4, Insightful)
But the whole nature of free/open software is that everyone wants to do things their way (myself included), so it's something that's impossible to fix.
A sense of Aesthetics. (Score:5, Interesting)
(Which really isn't all that surprising since both of them tend to look down on each other as worthless parasites.)
I'm sorry, it looks good enough for programmers, but it doesn't look good. And there's a difference, especially if you want the masses to adopt it.
Re:A sense of Aesthetics. (Score:2)
However, in art, people don't _want_ other people modifying their art/music - and most of them hate the very thought of it.
It's this difference that can cause problems.
Re:A sense of Aesthetics. (Score:1)
"... are you talking about apps on linux for photoshop monkeys? (as a programmer I of course think all those involved in graphical design are the lice in the pelt of the human race) "
Re:A sense of Aesthetics. (Score:2)
Re:A sense of Aesthetics. (Score:2, Interesting)
Answer: X
Reply: Then add it yourself, scumbag!
Ah, sweet loveable Slashdot. What would I do without you?
Re:A sense of Aesthetics. (Score:1)
I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:3, Interesting)
win98-style internet connection sharing is a simple matter under linux. I never could get it to work under windows.
my roommates' windows 2000 boxes are configured to login to my box, and bring the connection up or down automatically. my ppp connection is routed out my network card with a standard iptables routing chain. the whole system is controlled by a pair of shell scripts. one keeps track of who wants the connection, and when none are left, i
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
Linux is great.
The routing subsystem's been redone three times in the last three stable releases, the VM subsystem two in the last two, the sound subsystem simply has three different driver architectures coexisting (I'm ignoring OSS/Linux, since it's commercial).
I mean, Linux folks don't let the grass grow under their feet, but *damn*, it can be hard to keep up from an administrative perspective.
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:3, Insightful)
Try it and get sued. Not much you can do here, Adobe and Microsoft own most Word(tm)s.
# A way to do everything graphically (yes I know that we have unmatched power on the command line but doing things graphically works for everyone)
It dosn't work for people without powerful enough machines to push a good gui. However, this point is moot anyway, as you really can do everything from a gui now.
# Internet Connection
well.... (Score:3, Insightful)
2. No, doing things graphically doesn't work for everyone. If people understand what they are doing, they can do most of the stuff that requires a console (which isn't that much, anyways) on the console; if they don't understand that, they probably won't be helped all that much
Re:well.... (Score:2)
1. Entourage is a word that means something last I checked in the dictionary. The metaphor is easy to understand for users of the software (provided they know the real meaning of the word). As for Outlook I can understand the metaphor and Excel is the only one without a metaphor but it is short and easy to remember.
2. Maybe you prefer typing complicated commands. 99% of people prefer clicking on start > find > "myfilename" rather than type > find . "myfilename"
3. thanks
Re:well.... (Score:1)
Sorry, i was in a really bad mood. Don't really know why, i doubt it had anything to do with your post. I feel honestly sorry for that, i'm a very nice guy usually
1, Okay, english isn't my first language (and neither is french), so i didn't actually know what entourage meant. Obviously, even if the name is actually descriptive (and even after a quick look at dictionary.com, i don't find the term "outlook" to be descriptive of a groupware/e-mail program, much less "outlook express" f
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:1)
Linux has had this for a long, LONG time. Some distros even have
a GUI setup tool for it.
> NTFS write support
Very much agreed. With WinXP basically taking over Win98's OEM
market share, this will be absolutely *vital* a year from now.
It's already a very noteworthy lack of feature.
It's being worked on, BTW, but it's highly alpha and definitely
not ready for real users yet.
> Installation without a CD or a Floppy
The biggest thing needed is a major hardware vendor to adop
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
> and settings,
I must disagree here for three reasons. First, most users
don't want to know about the filesystem; they want to open
the program they used to create the document and pick the
document off an MRU list or maybe hit File->Open and pick
it from the default folder (on *nix, hopefully that's ~/).
Folder names only matter to power users. Secondly, putting
spaces in pathnames breaks all sorts of things. If you want
to call the directorie
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
Sorry, but Outlook Express means something? Apart from bugs and viruses, that is :-). OK, what about PowerPoint then?
And last time I looked, Windows XP didn't fit on a floppy, either. And I've set up Linux of a variety of flavours on many machines over the last 10 years, and I have never once done it by swapping HDDs. I can't think of anything more ridiculous. The install from CD is as easy as Windows if you try something like Mandrake or RedHat (ea
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:4, Insightful)
You have two competing products. One is called, say, Infoseek, while the other is called, say, Google. Infoseek's name is pretty intutive; obviously, it's a place where you go to seek information. The other, Google, is a nerdy pun on the mathematical name for a multiple of 10 that has 100 zeroes in it.
Even if you don't consider the relative merits of the product per se, I'm sure you know which brand-name is more popular.
That said, your general point is well-taken; yes, OSS/Software Libre needs some marketing, but no, good marketing need not always equate to instantaneous comprehensibility.
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
Doubt they thought of that when making the name (it was the pun you said it was on Googol), but it made me smile to see a different way of looking at it. ;-)
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:3, Informative)
2. Unless you consider the registry editor "graphical" I don't think you can do everything in Windows "graphically". But we do need the a solution that is superior to the typical Windows gui. One HUGE advantage of text files is that they can have comments and you can easily cut & paste items to duplicate
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
I knew there would be an idiot who would defend the arcane
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
You are the idiot for thinking that anybody who suggests anything different than the Microsoft line is not being imaginative.
And I will stan
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
I actually kind of like the idea of systems being able to read other systems but not write them. Instead of trying to think of everything I need to copy to the NT disk before I reboot, I can instead go there and then copy what I want from Linux. And neither system can trash the other's disks, the worst that can happen is that they will retrie
Re:I have a few ideas of things missing in OSS... (Score:2)
The solution to this can be found in Mac OS X and also in your post:
"A way to do everything graphically (yes I know that we have unmatched power on the command line but doing things graphically works for everyone)"
The graphical file managers should not be able to see /etc, /var, /pub and so on. You can only get to those on OS X when you're poking around in the console.
CAD (Score:2)
Re:CAD (Score:2)
It's proprietary (and expensive), though.
Re:CAD (Score:2)
MS Interchangeability (Score:4, Interesting)
Dear Santa,
We need a robust WINE implementation that permits any shrink-wrapped software bought at BestBuy to be run on any Linux box.
We need OpenOffice to fully support all the heavily-used Microsoft file formats.
We need user-interfaces that can be made to look enough like Microsoft application interfaces that retraining costs are minimized.
In short, we need to address the recurring issues that come up when you ask knowledgeable IT managers,
P.S. I need a high-quality recent-standard-conforming SVG implementation in Mozilla Firebird.
Re:MS Interchangeability (Score:1)
From my experience, OpenOffice supports those formats way better than even the version of MS Office they were written with.
I've had MS Office files that couldn't be opened by the same Office installation that wrote them. Opened them with OpenOffice, saved them as MS Office there, they shrank in size and were readable again.
Re:MS Interchangeability (Score:2)
Re:MS Interchangeability (Score:1)
The better implementation of Win32 is Microsoft Windows. It permits any shrink-wrapped software bought at BestBuy to be run.
Again, Microsoft Office fully support all the heavily-used Microsoft file formats.
Finally, the Microsoft Windows user-interfaces look enough like Microsoft application interfaces so retraining costs is minimized.
In short: Why people won't consider running Linux more in their enterprises? Because there is Windows for the desktop and t
2 main reasons why Linux isn't my main desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
- Good UI. For the love of all widgets, *please* take a UI course, before bestowing us with your gift. KDE is looking *real* sweet, but there's 9,000+ other programs that look like crap, and guess what, they aren't as usable as the majority of Windows/Mac programs. Guess there is a lot to be said for a standard.
Re:2 main reasons why Linux isn't my main desktop (Score:1)
For example until recentl
Re:2 main reasons why Linux isn't my main desktop (Score:2)
Even if it's a bad one?
There are other desktop environments than KDE out there, and I presume you don't need me to bang drums to advertise them. But I thought I used a large-ish number of programs (molecular modelling, math applications, programming, wp, web browsing, email, graphics manipulation, spreadsheets, cd burning mainly) but nowhere near 9000, even including all the programs running that don't need a UI. I can't really say the differences in interface
Re:2 main reasons why Linux isn't my main desktop (Score:1)
Wow I guess you haven't looked at either in a long time. The latest versions WinZip and Photoshop both go out of their way to emulate XP-style widgets. This includes skinning and visual feedback on mouse-overs.
YES! Examples! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2 main reasons why Linux isn't my main desktop (Score:1)
Take a look at FreeBSD. It ships with a huge amount of documentation (which is actually well written). It also has a very nice package system which lets you install binaries (when you are in a hurry) or from source in a consistent manner, resolving dependency chains for you. Being able to build from source without breaking your packages is very useful if you need to customise something. For example, I enabled GTK2 support on my build of gvim, so it integrates nice
Re:2 main reasons why Linux isn't my main desktop (Score:2)
1. There are more standards in Open Software than MS will ever have. Perhaps you meant consistency.
2. If you spend much time working with various versions of MS OS's and app's you'll soon realize that MS is not very consistent either. I've known lots of folks over the years who have had to use Star Office/Open Office or even Word Perfect, to edit old MS Word docs that the new version of Word wouldn't edit.
3. Even if it were true that MS was consistent
Easily found support. (Score:2)
I hate benig on both the giving and receiving end of bad support. I hate hearing "It doesn't work." to saying, "Ok, this app is broken in such a way, how do i get around it or fix it?" and not knowhign where to go.
I still remember having an ncr scsi card (ncr875
Re:Easily found support. (Score:2)
Real, always-there, truly competent tech support costs far more than an end user is willing to pay for.
Re:Easily found support. (Score:2)
What I'd like to see (Score:1)
HW detection and autoconfig (Score:2)
Documentation (Score:2)
Re:Documentation (Score:1)
> inaccurate or insufficient documentation.
Agreed. Most Open Source documentation is unusable because it is either unclear, incomplete, incorrect, or out-of-date. But the second part of the question is: "How would you like to change that?" So here are some thoughts from a documentation volunteer on the front-lines...
First of all, name some famous Open Source programmers. Now name some famous documentation writers who aren't also famous programmers. See how hard that was? Documentation volunteers des
Re:Documentation (Score:2)
Speed (Score:5, Insightful)
However, large corporations can crank out huge software projects that are high quality such as Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Office, Studio MX, etc. Perhaps part of it is also because their programmers don't have to worry about having enough money to eat and pay their rent. If only there were a realistic open source model that's good for the programmer, this would work better. Sure, you can charge tech support, but how many programmers really want to do that anyway?
Re:Speed (Score:2)
Let's examine this for a second. You think that OSS applikcations take longer to code. Closed source applications, however, are quicker.
Re:Speed (Score:1)
Just for shits and giggles, have you ever thought that your wonderful attitude is one of the reasons 'stuff' is missing from open source software? Perhaps -just perhaps- this is the type of thing that drives people away?
Here's an idea. Instead of putting people in their place and 'telling them how it is' when they ask for these far-out thin
Accounting Software (Score:2)
Rethinking some fundamentals? (Score:3, Interesting)
Everytime I download and attempt to compile something from the source, I get this nagging feeling that there has to be a better way. However, the short-comings of the build systems used could be just a sign that Open Source software still has quite a bit of growing left, and, perhaps more accurately, open source is lacking in configuration management tools, in general. Configuration management is a very complex issue, I admit, considering that package management, too, is still highly volatile and broken (even commercial UNIX could improve in this regard).
Whatever future tools are invented to deal with these problems, I beg that all developers strive to attack fundamental problems rather than use band-aids. Too often, it seems, a well-intentioned developer creates a general tool that appears to solve a problem, but, fundamentally, it only creates more complexity, a higher learning burden, and, ultimately, more well-intentioned tools designed to deal with the earlier well-intentioned tools.
Somewhere, this cycle of naive optimism regarding fix-all tools needs to stop. If a programmer finds that an aberration like a configure script is needed, for example, I suggest the programmer go back to the source code itself and strip out the cause. The program is probably better for it, and we should be brave enough to say "tough doodie" to people that whine about having to actually improve something.
If we continue to let open source decompose into a mess of broken tools, then it is, clearly, no better than anything Microsoft has produced. And, to be honest, when I see the hard-coded path names in GNOME configure files and libtool files, the first thing that comes to my mind is, "Windows Registry" (I hope that offends a lot of people, because it should).
Re:Rethinking some fundamentals? (Score:2)
GNU make is better quality-wise, but still (IMHO) far more complex than is necessary.
Re:Rethinking some fundamentals? (Score:2)
GNU make is better quality-wise, but still (IMHO) far more complex than is necessary.
One thing that really bugs me about autoconf and similar tools is that they increase the distance between the developer and the build process and add a murky "black box" type layer that is hard to understand and control. It is easy to argue by default th
More flexibility! (Score:2)
What I'd like to see is a push to bring some of the benefits that Gnome and KDE have brought software into the console application world. I frequently am stuck using a windows computer, and the only access to my machine is over a slow ssh link. Being able to check
Re:More flexibility! (Score:1)
Specifically, I would like to see a Word Perfect 5.1 port or clone for linux. Screw a front end to the whole of Open Office. I want something that can fit on a floppy linux.
One a port of WP 5.1 was done, but you can't find it anywhere. It was part of a "Professional" edition of one of the Corel Linuxes. There are also instructions on the web on how to get the SCO Unix WP 5.1 working on Linux. But what we really need is a Free version.
If there were a possibility of buy
Polish and consistency (Score:3, Interesting)
COnsistency also suffers when a variety of developers are working on one project. For all the downsides of closed-source, a profit-making company generally has one vision for software, and makes its programmers stick to that. This does generally lead to a level of consistency often unmatched in open-source.
My Top 4. (Score:1)
Visio (Score:2)
Re:Visio (Score:1)
DTP, Font portability, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, fonts are a problem. Great progress has been made here (TTF support for X, etc.), but I want a good way to manage my fonts such that my fonts in X are available to TeX and vice versa. I shouldn't have to do 50 steps to install a font for LaTeX and not have it available in OO.
LaTeX, being essentially a markup language, needs to be reformulated in XML (with Unicode encoding) and brought into the 21st century. It appears that XHTML 2 is becoming very LaTeX-ish (markup represents soley the structure of the documents), and styling is done via stylesheets kinda like LaTeX packages. If both were XML-based, translation would be a breeze, and we would have a nice convergence of print and online publication, something that has been very shitty to this point.
I would also like to see categorized font browsing in applications; I want to go to choose a font, choose sans-serif, then choose Helvetica from a list of 20 faces, not having to find it in a list of 200.
Just my $0.02.
That's EASY! (Score:2)
Oh, and it'd be great if it were free...
OLAP (Score:1)
Other than that: a full Exchange and Outlook alternative. This is parcially there, but is really a "sum of parts" implementation, not one cohesive unit.
What Free Software needs: Core Business Software (Score:2)
1.) businesses are the largest source of potential income for Open Source developers / consultants.
2.) businesses typically don't care about how you arrive at a solution but rather: does it do the job properly and is the price right?
3.) businesses buy computers and operating environments (commodity software) to run their core business software (CRM, ERP, groupware, accounting, etc.)
So, if we want to see Free Software expand, there needs to be a focus on meeting t
color managment (Score:2)
It should work better than windows, maybe even as well as Mac.
Feel free to tell me how stupid I am to not know about solution X, just do so in some detail.
Cut and paste that worked between arbitrary applications would be nice as well
Self-contained app installs (Score:3, Insightful)
This should be a universal thing across all distributions. Or, there should be one distribution with all the niceties of Windows. It's just too fragmented and finicky to go anywhere.
tax software (Score:2)