Subject: FVWM: Like RATS

From: [email-masked] (Michael Tankenson)
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 11:31:28 -0700 (PDT)

> From: Stig <[email-masked]>
> Without trying to sound like too much of an unduly judgemental grump...
> 
> This is a tale of
>     Dissatisfaction ...
> 	Industry ...
> 	    Shock ...
> 		Horror ...
> 		    Despair ...
> 			Discovery ...
> and HOPE.

As if the FVWM developers needed it, I would just like to chime in and say
from a users perspective, FVWM is the finest window manager I have ever
used, and I would like to thank Rob Nation, Chuck Hines, and the entire
FVWM 'development' community for creating this great software.

The Mars Pathfinder project here at JPL has been using fvwm 2.0.43 for over
a year with *no* problems whatsoever.  We are using FVWM in both
development and operations, and have it deployed on 50+ workstations.  We
have configured FvwmButtons so that our Mission Controllers can do their
job in the most effective way.

The code may not be elegant, and may even need some redesign, but it works
for us.

-- 
Michael Tankenson
@ The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, 230-235
Pasadena, CA.  91109, Phone: (818) 393-1024, Fax (818) 393-1227
Internet: [email-masked]
--
Visit the official FVWM web page at <URL:http://www.hpc.uh.edu/fvwm/>.
To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm" in the body of a
message to [email-masked].
To report problems, send mail to [email-masked].

---

From: Richard Lister <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 15:06:36 -0400

On Sun, 6 Jul 1997 11:31:28 -0700 (PDT)
[email-masked] (Michael Tankenson) 
> development and operations, and have it deployed on 50+ workstations.  We

Now there's an endorsement ...

  Fvwm! The official Window Manager of the Mars Pathfinder Mission!

Maybe we could get some T-shirts made up. <grin>

> job in the most effective way.

I just got this mental picture of an FvwmButtons with a swallowed xclock
and four buttons, labelled Forward, Backward, Left and Right. So that's
how they control the robot! :-)

Ric

Richard J Lister, Georgetown Institute for Cognitive and Computational Sciences
Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC.
Phone: 202-687 2878
Email: [email-masked] 
Web: http://www.giccs.georgetown.edu/
--
Visit the official FVWM web page at <URL:http://www.hpc.uh.edu/fvwm/>.
To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm" in the body of a
message to [email-masked].
To report problems, send mail to [email-masked].

---

From: Barney Gaumer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 17:37:33 -0500

Barney Gaumer wrote:
> Michael Tankenson wrote:

I am a new FVWM user and new to Linux for that matter.  To make it short
and sweet, if you're not willing to write a new/better window manager,
you should not complain about FVWM.

It took me two weeks in my spare time to intall Linux and setup FVWM
with a cool background and  buttons and a pager, but it was well worth
it.  I think that FVWM is great and I run it on a i486DX2/50 with 20 mb
RAM, it runs well.  I dont feel that I'm "retro-computing".  Infact I
have a iP/200 with 48 mb RAM & MS Win95 that doesn't get used now
because I'd rather use FVWM.

As I see it there are three choices: 
1. write a new windows manager that is beeter than FVWM.
2. Learn new ways to optimize FVWM and post them to [email-masked] to
benefit all FVWM users.
3. Keep complaining and waist our time and yours.

This would be the perspective of a "newbie", I hope it helps.

---

From: eyal elad <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 01:45:16 +0300 (IDT)

Good morning,

> you should not complain about FVWM.

Yes, a very nice attitude. And I am sure that a universe with no
complaints is the universe where bugless software exists. Probably being
created from thin air, mind you.

 _
(_  /  _    /          ( E-mail pigeons nest in binary trees )
(__/__(/\_(/	http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~elad

---

From: Billy Mullins <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 23:24:13 -0400 (EDT)

> This would be the perspective of a "newbie", I hope it helps.

humm..... Well I use fvwm on about 4 different systems...
My own Linux at home... and three University local networks, and
I as just thinking if you really aren't using that ip/200 with 48mb ram
maybe you'll sell it for a reasonable under the purchase price cost. ;)
Then I can wipe the HD and put a loaded down version of the newest version
of Linux on it.  Then I can sell my P100 with 16Mb RAM for a very
reasonable under the purchase price cost.  Actally, no that's ok, because
by the time I could sell it both of our machines would be going obsolete.

By the way is there a web page for the Path Finder Mission? I'd like to
use my FVWM window manager and a web client to see how it's doin'.

			Later...
			Billy M.

---

From: "Richard A. Guay" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:24:58 +0000

> The code may not be elegant, and may even need some redesign, but it works

I would also like to sound my support for Fvwm 2.0.45.  I have been 
using it here at ASIC International since Fvwm 2.0.33 and have loved 
it.  It is MUCH beter to olvwm and not as color space hungry as the 
other window managers that everyone else is praising (we only run on 
Sparc Stations with 8-bit graphics here).

To those who only complain, why don't you help in cleaning it up 
instead of  begroaning it!  If you are so dissaticfied, then leave!  
You do not have to try to get everyone else mad about fvwm.  That 
only causes people not to try to work with it and fix it up.  If you 
refuse to be helpful, then just be quite!

Richard A. Guay
Network Administrator and ASIC Design Engineer
ASIC International Inc.
[email-masked]
http://www.asicint.com

---

From: Santeri Paavolainen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 17:38:13 +0300 (EET DST)

> refuse to be helpful, then just be quite!

Oh, this is so contributing way to respond to critique. 

Mmm, let me think of the options:

 - Let's pretend there's nothing wrong with FVWM.

or

 - Let's accept the fact that FVWM is quality-wise not something you
   want to show to students (to put it mildly).

and then what we could do next, in respective order:

 - See how people jump the ship and bail to emerging window managers
   (that have a clean code base)

or

 - Do something about it.

We can either have denial, and start another wm war, or admittance,
critique and progress. Can you guess which camp the "respond hostilely
to all critic" belongs to?

(I know I am overly sarcastic.)

--
[email-masked]                    I have become death, destroyer of the worlds.

---

From: "Richard A. Guay" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:59:01 +0000

> (I know I am overly sarcastic.)

Sorry, but I was not trying to respond hostilely to all critics, just 
whiners that never contribute but just whine all the day long!

I love critics, but to be a true critic one has to suggest a plan of 
action that will help resolve the issue.  If they do not plan to 
help, then they are just whiners!

If you want to help, great!  I would love to, but I have to work for 
a living and do not have  the time (or probably the expertise).  I 
have contributed one small module that I do not know if anyone is 
using (there seems to be no positive feedback on this list, just 
whiners!).

Sorry.  A of the posts caught me in a bad mood after listening to 
people just whining all the time at work!  It is never productive to 
whine!  Please, offer suggestion to get things working.  Like 
instead of one maintainer, split the tasks up like the Debian group 
does among many maintainers.  Many maintainers of different parts of 
the code might make it harder to organize everything, but it might 
keep one person from getting worked to death!

Richard A. Guay

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 11:35:24 -0400

> whiners that never contribute but just whine all the day long!

Not everyone can contribute.  Their opinions are still important.

> help, then they are just whiners!

Most critics rarely contribute and many/most can't.  That may actually
make their observations more valuable.

That doesn't mean some (potential) contributors should be silent of
course.

---

From: Christopher Wolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 11:26:41 -0500 (CDT)

>make their observations more valuable.

Just because you can see the problem doesn't mean you can solve it.
The first step to a solution is recognizing a problem.  (And informing
appropriate people?  Of course, if these people then just whine .... )

-W

---

From: Stig <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:24:42 -0700

Richard A. Guay wrote:
> instead of  begroaning it!

I spent probably 8 hours roving around in the code making improvements.

Then realized that I was dealing with things that were all conceptually
simple and more trouble to fix within the existing framework than to replace.

The code is very fragile and mostly unmaintainable.  Period.

Several people have responded emotionally: "But I like fvwm."
Fine.  I mostly like it too.

But probably four others (some in direct email) have responded more directly
to my comments about the code and it's cruftiness: "I totally agree with you." 

    "Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow."
        -- Frederick P. Brooks, Jr, _The Mythical Man-Month_

> If you are so dissaticfied, then leave!  

I am.  And I'm inviting other developers to come along and put their efforts
into another project that is going somewhere...as opposed to one that hasn't
managed to even assemble the patches sent to the mailing list in SIX MONTHS.

Users should stay with fvwm2 as long as they like.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

> refuse to be helpful, then just be quite!

My advice to programmers that they look at the other window managers as a
starting point for improvement is given with the best of intentions.

Fvwm2 development is for all intents and purposes stopped and dead.

Meanwhile, there is an fvwm2 variant (AfterStep) that seems alive and well.

Also, there are two other promising WM projects (Enlightenment, and
WindowMaker) that have been totally rewritten and that have large and active
user-bases.

Some people have suggested that fvwm 3.0 should be a complete rewrite.
Perhaps so, but it's reckless to embark on such an effort without carefully
looking at the other "complete rewrites" that are actively underway while
fvwm2.0.45 has been the "current" release SINCE JANUARY: dead by definition.

I have been a relatively happy user of fvwm2.  I just don't see the point in
starting to write code for it.

I don't even care if the guy doing Enlightenment is a little cranky and
doesn't bother to watch his spelling.  He's doing very cool work and the E
hackers are ambitious to the point of planning X11 extensions just to
achieve the Quality results (shaped window transparency for see-through
menus and icons) that they demand from their windowing environment...

Probably I've been preaching to the "unconvertable," but I hope that you
[all] can accept this as a wake-up call and not a cop-out.

    Stig

---

From: Stig <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:39:23 -0700

> keep one person from getting worked to death!

Before I actually did much looking at the fvwm2 code I noticed the lack of
progress and I privately suggested basically just this to Chuck about 3
weeks ago.

And I also like what "Eric S. Raymond" <[email-masked]> has written
about the "Cathedral and Bazaar" models of software development.  He's
attributed the success of Linux to the bazaar model.  He has written and
talked about this and you can find TEXT and REAL AUDIO of his talk at

    http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/

I like the way that the Apache group handles this...  Here's a trimmed down
version of ABOUT_APACHE from the apache-1.2.0 distribution....

                     The Apache HTTP Server Project
                         http://www.apache.org/
                               June 1997

The Apache Project is a collaborative software development effort aimed
at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and freely-available
source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server.  The project is
jointly managed by a group of volunteers located around the world, using
the Internet and the Web to communicate, plan, and develop the server and
its related documentation.  These volunteers are known as the Apache Group.
In addition, hundreds of users have contributed ideas, code, and
documentation to the project.  This file is intended to briefly describe
the history of the Apache Group, recognize the many contributors, and
explain how you can join the fun too.

[...]

============================================================================

How to join the Apache Group

There are several levels of contributing.  If you just want to send
in an occasional suggestion/fix, then you can just use the bug reporting
form at <http://www.apache.org/bugdb.cgi>.  You can also subscribe to the
announcements mailing list ([email-masked]) which we use to
broadcast information about new releases, bugfixes, and upcoming events.

If you'd like to become an active member of the Apache Group (the group
of volunteers who vote on changes to the distributed server), then
you need to start by subscribing to the [email-masked] mailing list.
One warning though: traffic is high, 1000 to 1500 messages/month.
To subscribe to the list, send "subscribe new-httpd" in the body of
a message to <[email-masked]>.  We recommend reading the list for
a while before trying to jump in to development.

   NOTE: The developer mailing list ([email-masked]) is not
   a user support forum; it is for people actively working on development
   of the server code and documentation, and for planning future
   directions.  If you have user/configuration questions, send them
   to the USENET newsgroup "comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix".

The Apache Group is a meritocracy -- the more work you have done, the more
you are allowed to do.  The group founders set the original rules, but
they can be changed by vote of the active members.  There is a core group
of people who have logins on our server (hyperreal.com) and access to the
CVS repository.  Everyone has access to the CVS snapshots.  Changes to
the code are proposed on the mailing list and usually voted on by active
members -- three +1 (yes votes) and no -1 (no votes, or vetoes) are needed
to commit a code change during a release cycle; docs are usually committed
first and then changed as needed, with conflicts resolved by majority vote.

Our primary method of communication is our mailing list. Approximately 40
messages a day flow over the list, and are typically very conversational in
tone. We discuss new features to add, bug fixes, user problems, developments
in the web server community, release dates, etc.  The actual code development
takes place on the developers' local machines, with proposed changes
communicated using a patch (output of a context "diff -c3 oldfile newfile"
command), and committed to the source repository by one of the core
developers using remote CVS.

New members of the Apache Group are added when a frequent contributor is
nominated by one member and unanimously approved by the voting members.
In most cases, this "new" member has been actively contributing to the
group's work for over six months, so it's usually an easy decision.
Anyone on the mailing list can vote on a particular issue, but we only
count those made by active members or people who are known to be experts
on that part of the server.  Vetoes must be accompanied by a convincing
explanation.

The above describes our past and current (as of June 1997) guidelines,
which will probably change over time as the membership of the group
changes and our development/coordination tools improve.

[...]
============================================================================
Roy Fielding, June 1997

If you are interested in other WWW history, see <http://www.webhistory.org/>

---

From: Stig <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 12:08:10 -0700

Richard A. Guay wrote:
> 
> The thing that you fail to realize is that the people who are writing 
> the "new and beter" window managers are Linux only people who could 
> care less about anyone else using something different!  In my 
> opinion, that is not an improvement but a way of splintering efforts 
> to a point that nothing gets accomplished!

They have limited time and don't have access to other hardware.  They tend
to take patches.  There seem to be a bunch of SGI people on the
enlightenment mailing list...  SGI people like cool graphics too.

Your fervor on this issue is uneducated.

> I would love to use Linux with an adaquate vidio card, but I do not 
> control the hardware that I have to use in my job!

Where there's a will, there's a way.

> Most of the people working on the efforts that you have mentioned are
> simple college students with time to burn.

Oh that's _absolute_ BULLSHIT!

An awful lot of top-notch software is written or started "by simple college
students."  I'll bet that most colleges are much better "work environments"
than your office, and please knock it off with the ad hominem attacks.

    "PRODUCTIVITY NON-FACTORS

    "Years Of Experience:  People who had ten years of experience did not
     outperform those with two years of experience.  There was no
     correlation between experience and performance except that those with
     less than six months' experience with the language used in the
     excercise did not do as well as the rest of the sample."

	- Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister,
	  "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams", p47
	  ISBN 0-932633-05-6

> Great!  Let them at it!  But they could be considerate of those locked
> into other hardware platforms.

You have to carry your own weight.  You've "written one module that nobody
even uses" and you're the most vehement supporter of fvwm2?

> So quite trying to destroy Fvwm2 because you have a chip on your shoulder.
> Give constructive critisim and when possible, help out!  Whining because
> things are not progressing as fast as you like is not helpful.  [...]

There isn't a chip on my shoulder and I think that my input is constructive.

> Chuck has done a superb job considering he has to work a 40 hour job to
> maintian his family.

HAS DONE.  Perhaps WILL DO.  But right now he's too busy BooleDozing at his
job.  It's nothing personal and I like Chuck, but fact is fact.

> Maybe support the author financially so that he could work 
> on it more!

Sounds like a fine idea!  Let him who is without hypocrisy send the first
check!  I see an opportunity for you to make a difference.  When Chuck
deposits his check for N-thousand dollars from you, I'll see what I can
scrape together.

(I've been taking a non-commercial approach to life for a while...  Being
 young and intentionally single, I'm entirely happy with this approach.
 It's nice to have sex in the middle of the day in the middle of the week,
 and my cat makes for a more peaceful work environment than the bozo on the
 phone in the next cubicle.  When I'm contracting again, I'll be generous
 again.)

But this is getting entirely too personal, Richard, don't you think?

      Stig

---

From: William Denton <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 15:16:20 -0400 (EDT)

On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, Stig wrote:

: And I also like what "Eric S. Raymond" <[email-masked]> has
: written about the "Cathedral and Bazaar" models of software
: development.  He's attributed the success of Linux to the bazaar
: model.  He has written and talked about this and you can find TEXT
: and REAL AUDIO of his talk at
: 
:     http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/

Interesting essay, and Apache's method (and FreeBSD's) do work very
well.  Lynx was formerly almost solely worked on by Foteos Macrides,
but he's just doing bugfixes and minor improvements now, and for a
while the other developers were at a loss for what to do.  I think
they still may be, I don't read the list too closely any more, but
they were going to go over to CVS, with access to developers who
showed a sincere interest.

Maybe fvwm should go this route?  I like it a lot, and would rather
not change - and don't program - but it doesn't seem to be progressing
as fast as it might.  Distributing the chores has worked well for
projects with which I've been involved.

Kudos to everyone who's worked on it this far, of course.

Bill
-- 
William Denton | Toronto, Canada | http://www.vex.net/~buff/ | Caveat lector.
  "It is better to incur a mild rebuke than to perform an onerous task."
                                   -- "Uncle" Oswald Hendryks Cornelius

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 07 Jul 1997 14:58:17 -0400

%% Stig <[email-masked]> writes:

  s> I am.  And I'm inviting other developers to come along and put
  s> their efforts into another project that is going somewhere...

I would be glad to hear about alternatives to fvwm2.

However, last I looked Enlightenment was nowhere close to the kind of
thing I want... it's not an alternative "if you like fvwm, check this
out".  It has a completely different set of goals, and almost all of
them are quite incompatible with what I want/need in a window manager.

I need my window manager manage my windows, and that's about it :).
However, the management I want is advanced enough, functionally, to sink
most window managers out there.  Even fvwm2 currently doesn't quite cut
it; when the GSR happens, maybe.

After that I want a little bit of nice-to-look-at, but I've got an 8-bit
video card on my Sun workstation (and I want to keep the same setup at
work and home, for ease-of-use) and I've only got 28M of RAM on the
equivalent of a pentium-75 at home; between them I just don't have the
resources for all the "angry fruit salad" Enlightenment's display seems
to have.  Who has time for all that stuff?  Graphically, I just need a
clean, tidy, easy to navigate virtual desktop that's there when I need
it, and otherwise stays out of the way.

That's not to say that I think fvwm2 shouldn't have first-class graphic
support for those who want it... I just don't want to see that become
its _only_ mode of operation.

  s> Fvwm2 development is for all intents and purposes stopped and dead.

This, I'd have to unfortunately agree with.

I'm sure everyone is appreciative of Chuck's efforts, but lets face it,
fvwm2 needs a coordinator who's got more free time than he's had in the
last couple of years if it wants to survive.  I remember well over 18
months ago the "last beta before 2.1" was out; now it seems that every
new patchlevel is the "last beta before 2.1".  I'm not optimistic about
_ever_ seeing 2.1 at this rate, much less the major changes that are
planned after it's released.

Believe me, I sympathize totally with Chuck.  I wanted to get a new
version of GNU make out before the end of May, and here it is July and I
still haven't made the second pretest yet!  I know exactly how
frustrating this is, when you have obligations which aren't part of your
"real" work, and you just can't seem to get to them.  I'm no better at
juggling this, and I certainly don't have the bandwidth myself.

Nevertheless, Stig's point here is very important and if we're fair and
honest with ourselves I don't think it can be dismissed lightly.

IMO one of the major things keeping more dynamic development back is the
lack of regular, timely updates.  People don't have incentive to keep
updating and making things better if no one sees the enhancements.

  s> Meanwhile, there is an fvwm2 variant (AfterStep) that seems alive
  s> and well.

AfterStep is intriguing, and I've considered grabbing that and taking a
look.  However, it is documented to have some annoying limitations
(because it seems to want to be as faithful to NextStep as possible,
which can be restrictive) that make me wary so far.

  s> Also, there are two other promising WM projects (Enlightenment, and
  s> WindowMaker) that have been totally rewritten and that have large
  s> and active user-bases.

Already discussed Enlightenment above; haven't heard of WindowMaker
before.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Paul D. Smith <[email-masked]>         Network Management Development
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     These are my opinions--Bay Networks takes no responsibility for them.
--
Visit the official FVWM web page at <URL:http://www.hpc.uh.edu/fvwm/>.
To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm" in the body of a
message to [email-masked].
To report problems, send mail to [email-masked].