From the Desktop: F Stands for FVWM2 and Free Market

By: Brian Proffitt
Tuesday, November 7, 2000 07:42:40 AM EST
URL: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/2601/1/

Read My Lips

Do not, by any means, ever accuse me of shirking my constitutional right to vote, but thank God this election is just about finished.

I am surely not the only person in this country sick of the presidential elections, which have been going on, in some fashion or another, since 1998. Never have I anticipated the end of an election as much as this time, because when the polls close at 6 p.m. on Nov. 8, I will no longer have to be inundated with political ads, sound bites, and "truth squads"--at least until 2002.

There is, of course, a Linux-related point to all of this complaining. A strange parallel to the political process came up this week. It has to do with a phenomenon pretty much all people feel when they freely elect someone to office: the nagging sense of letdown after the elected official gets in and actually starts working.

For most of us in democratic nations, we know that the words "campaign" and "promise" never really mean anything when used in the same sentence. Yet we absorb them all, developing a sense of good will towards whichever candidate delivers the promises we most want to hear. But no one really tabulates the promises made and then comes back a year or so later and says "Yo, you said you'd fix the X issue with Y taxes/tax cuts." Which is really too bad.

Linux users, now there's a whole different breed. Even the most casual Linux users follow the development of their operating system with much more vigor than does the Windows crowd. Because of this heightened state of, dare I say, enlightenment, Linux users as a whole know far more about the inner workings of their operating system of choice than 'most any other computer user.

One of the results of this behavior is that Linux users are better informed and able to make better choices about what to put on their computers. Another result is that Linux users are better capable of spotting inconsistencies between what is said by Linux software makers and what is actually delivered.

And woe betide the manufacturer that doesn't live up to its promises. Sometimes, though, what is perceived as wrong is actually not wrong at all--and the vehemence of Linux users can quickly change from the flaming sword of justice into the flaming scythe of doom.

Enter, then, the latest player in the Linux passion play: MandrakeSoft and the newly released Linux-Mandrake 7.2.

I Did Not Inhale

When Linux-Mandrake was released for download last week, it contained, among other things, a full final version of KDE 2.0. Love it or hate it, this desktop environment is one of the most eagerly awaited applications of recent days.

What many folks did not know was this: a few days earlier, MandrakeSoft had released boxed sets of the Complete and PowerPack Deluxe versions of the software to be sold in the Wal-Mart retail chain. This boxed set was different in a few ways from the download version that was to come, too. The most important one being that KDE 2.0 in the box was actually KDE 1.99, or Release Candidate 1.

Now, to be very, very clear: at no time did MandrakeSoft or their distributors Macmillan Software ever say on the boxes of these products that KDE 2 final was inside. On the Deluxe box, it just says "KDE 2.0 Beta." There is no mention of KDE at all on the Complete version.

Yet, upon discovering the disparity, take a guess what the Linux-Mandrake users did. If you said something with the word "ballistic" in it, you win!

Here's why this happened. Wal-Mart, in its usual high-handed way, dictated to the execs at Macmillan that unless the product got on the shelves at their stores by October 31, the Mandrake penguin would not see the inside of a Wal-Mart store until January 15. So, weeks ago, everyone involved with Linux-Mandrake decided to make 20,000 copies of L-M 7.2 for sale in this retail channel, and a few others. And, since KDE 2 was not released as a final version yet, there was no way it could be included within this early run off.

It should be noted, by the way, that the MandrakeSoft programmers, many of whom work on KDE, did a pretty good job of tightening up the rather unstable RC1 of KDE 2.0 into something that was certainly ready for an official release. No, it's not KDE 2.0, but it's a near thing.

For the record, I understand and agree with what MandrakeSoft had to do. Watching the process of getting my books published, I understand the sometimes capricious whims of retail outlets. I wish it did not have to happen, but I also wish Bill Gates would suddenly denounce Windows and go find inner peace at a Washington monastery, so you see how far wishes can get you.

The Mandrake community was not so forgiving. They thought MandrakeSoft and Macmillan were trying to pull a fast one and had misrepresented the release sent out to the early retail outlets. And, boy, did they let MandrakeSoft and Macmillan have it. Given the emotional content of the e-mails that were fired off at these two companies, it was clear that betrayal was the major emotion being felt.

Did these companies misrepresent L-M 7.2? I don't think so. But they came very, very close. In the press release that went out about the release of L-M, it said quite clearly:

"Linux-Mandrake 7.2 exemplifies this commitment by providing a comprehensive suite of graphical interfaces including KDE 2.0 (*): the new version of the well-known graphical environment."

Oh, and that little asterisk? It was for a little footnote waaaaay down at the bottom of the release:

"(*) If not included in your product, the final version of KDE 2.0 is available through MandrakeUpdate."

So, the truth was certainly told. But in my opinion, whoever wrote this press release was playing with fire. Imagine thinking that Linux-Mandrake users (or any Linux user) would not feel anything less than outrage at getting strung along like this. Tossing little legal disclaimers out to us is rather insulting. Better that other features of L-M 7.2 get highlighted than making users read the fine print.

When I first came over from the Dark Side, a good friend of mine told me that Linux-Mandrake users were among the most loyal distro-fans in the community. If this is true, then MandrakeSoft and Macmillan are doubly thoughtless for toying with the affections of their loyal customer base.

Unlike the average voter, the Linux community pays a lot of attention to the words and intentions of the movers and shakers. It therefore falls upon those same large influences in the Linux world to take care how they treat their customers. We are not like Microsoft customers who think they have to roll over and accept Redmond's nonsense because there's nowhere else to go.

Linux customers have a vote on which will be their distribution of choice.

Today's Candidate: FVWM

When I first came across FVWM months ago, I was impressed by the sophistication of this window manager. And well I should have been, as FVWM has been around for quite some time on X. It was regarded as one of the heavy hitters until it was overshadowed by the likes of GNOME and KDE.

But FVWM has not gone away. In fact, it is still in active development today and going strong.

FVWM (sometimes referred to as FVWM2, to indicate its current version number of 2.2.4) belongs to the twm family of window managers, as FVWM was originally modeled after that august (and pre-Linux) window manager known both as Tom's window manager and the Tab window manager. In turn, AfterStep and SCWM were derived from FVWM source.

FVWM, according to its proponents, is intended to provide the necessary features without being a resource hog. FVWM certainly lives up to this description.

The central focus of this window manager is basically whatever you choose it to be. If you like the Pager/Taskbar combination, such as the one that was the default in my SuSE setup, then you're good to go. On the other hand, if you want to simply use menus to get your work done, then that's cool, too. FVWM is flexible enough to do what you need it to.

A feature that I liked, for instance, was the ability to right-click the Pager screen and drag the point-of-view across the various virtual desktops, instead of having to click from one desktop to the next.

This is not the only nifty feature. Configuration is done with the .fvwm2rc file, which could reside in your $HOME directory. I say "could" because it tends to vary depending on the distribution. My SuSE platform had it in /var/X11R6/sax/config, so SaX could use it. The syntax of this file is easy enough to figure out, and the window manager has an excellent man page to help step through the trickier settings.

Because of its longevity, FVWM is one of those window managers that has been around enough to acquire some themes, which I found to be simple enough to install. This GUI also has some additional modules that extend its performance.

FVWM's flexibility may be a reflection of the way it's developed. FVWM is one of those lucky open source projects that manages to keep going in an efficient manner without a centralized development leadership.

FVWM is completely a team effort, according to Dan Espen, a developer on the FVWM project. The number of team members fluctuates, but Espen estimated that right now the number of members who are actively doing commits is around eight, with the total number of people with these privileges being 12. Espen also emphasized the others on the team.

"I don't want to downplay the contribution testers, occasional patch contributors, and others make to the project," he said.

If you go to the FVWM Web site, you can see that this is a team that does serious work, but does not always take itself seriously. Just try to find out what the "F" stands for in FVWM, and you'll see what I mean.

Espen describes the development environment for FVWM as enjoyable and rather "fluid." Tasks are not assigned so much as handled on an as-needed basis.

"A lot of what gets done is based on requests or patches coming in from users," Espen explained. "We don't have schedules, assigned tasks or plans."

The logistics of this development team are pretty open as well.

"We have an fvwm@fvwm.org mailing list for questions and requests," Espen stated. "We have an fvwm-workers@fvwm.org mailing list for discussion of development. We have a CVS server which allows of anonymous access by anyone and update by developers with passwords.

"I'd say the process works very well."

This seems to be the case, especially given the fact that as far as Espen is aware, no one from the development team has ever met face to face.

Espen cited one of Eric Raymond's best-known works to describe how the team effort functions today.

"For years FVWM was organized as somewhat of a cathedral-type project. I think we benefited quite a bit from [Raymond's] paper on this subject, and FVWM is better off with is current bazaar organization," Espen said.

This bazaar organization translates into a group where no one individual owns a particular area of development. The members just go after what areas they can.

It seems to be working out pretty well for the global team, as it is on its way to releasing FVWM 2.4, in beta right now. This, Espen explained, is the big goal.

"Compared to FVWM 2.2.4, FVWM 2.4 will bring themes, gradients, ICCCM2 compliance, GNOME compliance, session management, mouse stroke support, better menu support, layers, and much more," Espen said.

Users of FVWM will have a lot to look forward to in the months ahead, as the FVWM team insures that this window manager will not pass into obscurity.

In next week's From The Desktop, I'll take a look at a window manager that shares a lot of things with FVWM--including its name. But is FVWM95 a window manager of the future or a thing of the past?