Re: A better ICQ client for Java

["Robert G. Brown" <bob@xxxxxxx>]

>Quoting travis dockweiler (akira@kalamazoo.net):
>> I'm not sure if any of you knew about it, or care, but there is a text based
>> icq program for linux, i saw it at http://www.freshmeat.org the other day,
>> never tried it myself though.
>I'll be trying it and reporting back. 

The console application being discussed here is available at:
    ftp://micq.ml.org/pub/micq

While the X-Windows client I mentioned earlier is at:

     http://pages.infinit.net/fairoff/licq

Licq for X-windows, micq for the console.  Doesn't that make perfect sense? :)

In any case, it's good to see that more people are reading things from 
freshmeat.

>....BTW, Robert Young's editorial on the
>above site regarding the Linux Standard Distribution is a good read.
Thought provoking stuff. However, I am somewhat suspicious of his motives.

RHS is the market leader in Linux. At that, it's a fairly small company that
would rather cover more ground, vs. porting all their software to a different
libc.  Therefore RHS is bound to come down against too much compatibility if 
they perceive that work will be required on their part to comply, AND if the
issue is something that endagers their position in the market.

I'm fairly sensitive to issues like this; I've been part of a computing
community (APL) that tore itself apart largely by debating whose "standards"
were "better". Instead of compromising or coming up with a plan that allowed 
people to evolve products towards a common base, everyone was adamant that
they had the best mousetrap. If half the passion that was expended on arguments 
inside the community had been channeled towards selling the ideas embodied in 
all the products, the commmunity would have grown and succeeded, but now, that 
community is probably dying out.

Young's statements remind me very much of statements that came out of IBM
and other organizations that funded most APL development. I'd hate to see that
happen to Linux.

>Among other things, he notes that the freedom to choose means the consumer
>must make more of an effort to be informed, as we've discussed here previously.
Young cannot write an article on this topic without including these statements.
If he didn't, or tried to refute this POV, he'd be placing himself OUTSIDE the
open-source community, and he's not ready for that (yet).

I'd say that as this LSB debate continues (and I reccomend all the editorials
in this series) beware of those who do not write favorably about the need to
perform some standardization and consolidation. Another agendas are at work.
I remain suspecious of market leaders, they become defenders of the status
quo very quickly.

>BTOW, right now I recommend the SuSE distribution for anyone deciding to go
>with a commercial distribution. The upcoming release looks like more of a
>Windows-killer than Redhat.
Can you be more specific? We had a presentation on SuSE about 8 weeks ago,
and moving there is double edged, since there are base-level incompatibilities
between the reviewers first install (RH Linux 5.0) and SuSE. This is EXACTLY
the issue that Young's editorial addresses, and IMO its the most serious
problem facing Linux right now. If all the software in the SuSE and RHS 
packages were actually interoperable, that would be powerful magic indeed.

                                                             Regards,
                                                              ---> RGB <---