Linux-Advocacy Digest #397, Volume #25 Sat, 26 Feb 00 00:13:05 EST
Contents:
Re: Binary compatibility: what kind of crack are they smoking? (Christopher Browne)
Re: Binary compatibility: what kind of crack are they smoking? (Christopher Browne)
Re: which OS is best? (Steve Mading)
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? ("Jeffrey B. Siegal")
Re: which OS is best? (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? (Christopher Browne)
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Binary compatibility: what kind of crack are they smoking? (Albert Ulmer)
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? ("Jeffrey B. Siegal")
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? ("Jeffrey B. Siegal")
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? ("Jeffrey B. Siegal")
Re: Microsoft migrates Hotmail to W2K (Arthur)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: Binary compatibility: what kind of crack are they smoking?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 03:44:46 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Mario Klebsch would nsay:
>Albert Ulmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>>Mario Klebsch wrote:
>>> Well, that probably would be Debian GNU/Linux, and there is RatHad,
>>> SUSE, Caldera,... They all claim to be Linux, but in fact are
>>> different OSes.
>
>>Nonsense, they all cater the diverse needs of various users. In my view
>>that's the main point about the whole open source movement: CHOICE! It
>>is good to be different!
>
>But not the ABI! A common ABI is required to have binary
>distributions. One can argue about them, and I always prefer a source
>duistribution, but binary distributions are there and they are making
>trouble, unnessesary trouble, if there would be a well defined ABI.
The problem is that the only ABI that there is a reasonable
*convention* for is C, and that's only "convention," not "standard."
The nearest thing to an ABI is the ELF binary format, and it only
covers some pieces of what would be needed in an ABI.
There is no standard ABI for other languages unless you go all the way
to building components using CORBA, and *that* pretty much mandates
that each component be a full-fledged executable of some sort.
For instance, there is *NO* common ABI for C++, and not on any
platform. [That is one place where a recent Q&A on Slashdot with
Bjarne Stroustrup saw him getting "defensive."]
This is almost certainly why:
a) There's not a whole lot of C++ apps deployed as part of Linux
distributions;
b) C++ applications tend to appear "bloated." In the absence of an
ABI, in order to run apps outside of the *precise* environment in
which they were compiled, you have to statically link in what
libraries can't be guaranteed to be ubiquitous. [Which may amount
to "all of them."]
On the other hand,
c) The only way to *safely* get *efficient* C++ applications into
place is to compile them in the system in which they are to run.
That's certainly an argument in favor of "open source."
--
"Now, if someone proposed using people who spam comp.sys.* groups with
political screeds in place of lab rats for drug testing, I'd
wholeheartedly concur". -- John C. Randolph
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Binary compatibility: what kind of crack are they smoking?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 03:45:07 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Mario Klebsch would say:
>Albert Ulmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>>Mario Klebsch wrote:
>>> >If your talking about an operating system,
>>> >you should be calling it GNU/Linux, like i.e. Debian does.
>>
>>> Well, that probably would be Debian GNU/Linux, and there is RatHad,
>>> SUSE, Caldera,... They all claim to be Linux, but in fact are
>>> different OSes.
>
>>Nonsense, they all cater the diverse needs of various users. In my view
>>that's the main point about the whole open source movement: CHOICE! It
>>is good to be different!
>
>The absence of the ABI destroys the choice. If you are not running
>RedHat or SUSE Linux, you really are in trouble, today. However, the
>degree of trouble varies from distribution to distribution.
No, the absence of ABI discourages the widespread deployment of
applications in binary form, and encourages the notion of recompiling
applications from source for particular targets.
>From an FSF standpoint, that is actually a *GOOD* thing, as it
represents both:
- Discouragement of the use of proprietary, no source,
applications, and
- Encouragement to recompile applications *from* source, thus
encouraging proliferation of understanding of the sources.
The position of both Debian and the Many BSDs is that it is necessary
to have, as the basis, source code, which can then be redeployed as
needed.
Thus, it is far more accurate to say:
"If you are *using binary RPMs,* and are not running Red Hat Linux or
SuSE Linux, you're in trouble today."
>If we want to keep the choice, we'd better create a well defined ABI
>yesterday!
The Linux kernel shows off the dilemna fairly nicely: If you create a
well-defined ABI, this:
a) Encourages the production of proprietary device drivers
b) Encourages people to depend on the ABI, which prevents people from
making improvements to the kernel that might break the "permanent
ABI."
--
"I'm not sure it is of as much general concern as, say, coke-machines."
-- Marvin Minsky (out of context), on the subject of death.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/linuxkernel.html>
------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.flame.macintosh
Subject: Re: which OS is best?
Date: 26 Feb 2000 03:49:31 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: On Sat, 19 Feb 2000 19:35:59 GMT, JEDIDIAH wrote:
:> NO they aren't. They are exploiting artificial scarcity
:> that can only exist in the presence of government
:> interference.
: There is no scarcity, artificial or otherwise. There is merely the
: right of the inventor to receive due compensation for their work.
Unisys didn't invent GIF. It was a Compuserve thing. Unisys has
the current rights to it due to the wonderful world of coporate
takeovers. The "inventor" is not getting the compensation.
--
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven L. Mading at BioMagResBank (BMRB). UW-Madison
Programmer/Analyst/(acting SysAdmin) mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
B1108C, Biochem Addition / 433 Babcock Dr / Madison, WI 53706-1544
------------------------------
From: "Jeffrey B. Siegal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 19:51:57 -0800
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> >That said, there are some examples which were primarily if not entirely
> >developed by a single company, such as Ghostscript. The bulk of gcc
>
> Aladdin make their money through traditional licensing.
Perhaps. I actually suspect they get a lot of money in porting fees
>
> >development of late has been done by Cygnus.
>
> As do Cygnus [make their money through traditional licensing]
> The point is, how can/should software be funded ?
Software doesn't necessarily need to get "funded." It needs to get
developed. In reality most funding for software development (approximately
90%) is done in-house our on a custom basis and would be largely unaffected by
free software (except to the extent that free software reduces costs and
improves productivity). The prepackaged software industry is a relatively
small and relatively insignificant anomoly.
In-house and custom software appears boring and uninteresting compared to the
flash of prepackaged software. After all, would you rather be Microsoft, or
some drone working within the bowels of Citigroup? But custom software really
does matter more to the economy. Improving the productivity of in-house
programmers in the financial industry by 10% probably makes more difference to
the economy than doubling it at Microsoft.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.flame.macintosh
Subject: Re: which OS is best?
Date: 26 Feb 2000 04:04:10 GMT
On 26 Feb 2000 03:49:31 GMT, Steve Mading wrote:
>In comp.os.linux.advocacy Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>: On Sat, 19 Feb 2000 19:35:59 GMT, JEDIDIAH wrote:
>
>:> NO they aren't. They are exploiting artificial scarcity
>:> that can only exist in the presence of government
>:> interference.
>
>: There is no scarcity, artificial or otherwise. There is merely the
>: right of the inventor to receive due compensation for their work.
>
>Unisys didn't invent GIF. It was a Compuserve thing. Unisys has
>the current rights to it due to the wonderful world of coporate
>takeovers. The "inventor" is not getting the compensation.
Compuserve hold a *patent*, not a *copyright* on the GIF algorithm. Jedi
and I were debating copyrights.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 04:05:04 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Jeffrey B. Siegal would say:
>Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
>> >That said, there are some examples which were primarily if not entirely
>> >developed by a single company, such as Ghostscript. The bulk of gcc
>>
>> Aladdin make their money through traditional licensing.
>
>Perhaps. I actually suspect they get a lot of money in porting fees
Interviews have indicated that they get a lot of their money from
licensing Ghostscript for use embedded in printers. So if you find a
PS printer that doesn't report that it is actually using an interpreter
licensed from Adobe (which *is* fairly common), then that printer may
actually be running Ghostscript.
In those sorts of applications, the vendors need permission to distribute
the "binaries" as embedded in ROM, and can't go with the GPLed version.
The need for porting assistance is likely a secondary consideration...
>> >development of late has been done by Cygnus.
>>
>> As do Cygnus [make their money through traditional licensing]
>
>> The point is, how can/should software be funded ?
>
>Software doesn't necessarily need to get "funded." It needs to get
>developed. In reality most funding for software development (approximately
>90%) is done in-house our on a custom basis and would be largely unaffected by
>free software (except to the extent that free software reduces costs and
>improves productivity). The prepackaged software industry is a relatively
>small and relatively insignificant anomoly.
>
>In-house and custom software appears boring and uninteresting compared to the
>flash of prepackaged software. After all, would you rather be Microsoft, or
>some drone working within the bowels of Citigroup? But custom software really
>does matter more to the economy. Improving the productivity of in-house
>programmers in the financial industry by 10% probably makes more difference to
>the economy than doubling it at Microsoft.
The problem is that "bespoke" applications (one of the more compact
terms for this sort of software) tend to be invisible to people at large.
Nonetheless, when you look at information technology companies with
buildings with thousands of people, it's entirely likely that most of
them are indeed working with "bespoke" applications.
This is true for:
- Mainframe shops, where you have hordes of people writing report
generators, transaction processors, and such;
- Departmental applications to track whatever it is that a department
does;
- *ANYTHING* specialized enough to require customized software.
The company I work for employs *thousands* of people doing "bespoke"
work internally and for a few external customers.
--
Photons have mass? I didn't know they were catholic!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - - <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: 26 Feb 2000 04:08:47 GMT
On Fri, 25 Feb 2000 19:51:57 -0800, Jeffrey B. Siegal wrote:
>developed. In reality most funding for software development (approximately
>90%) is done in-house our on a custom basis and would be largely unaffected by
>free software (except to the extent that free software reduces costs and
>improves productivity).
Yes, and I'd agree that free software makes sense for the purpose of inhouse
software. However ...
> The prepackaged software industry is a relatively
>small and relatively insignificant anomoly.
No, it is not an "anomoly", and it is not "insignificant". It has a great
impact on the lives of everyday users.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: Albert Ulmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Binary compatibility: what kind of crack are they smoking?
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 04:10:49 +0000
Mario Klebsch wrote:
> >> SUSE, Caldera,... They all claim to be Linux, but in fact are
> >> different OSes.
> >Nonsense, they all cater the diverse needs of various users. In my view
> >that's the main point about the whole open source movement: CHOICE! It
> >is good to be different!
> The absence of the ABI destroys the choice. If you are not running
> RedHat or SUSE Linux, you really are in trouble, today. However, the
> degree of trouble varies from distribution to distribution.
Very true. I'm running Debian and rest assured, I have no trouble at
all. There is not one single Linux program, be it available in binary or
source, that I can not run on my system. Period. No trouble today, none
tomorrow.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: 26 Feb 2000 04:19:21 GMT
On Fri, 25 Feb 2000 19:23:24 -0800, Jeffrey B. Siegal wrote:
>Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
>> Before we proceed, I should clarify my viewpoint. What I am trying to
>> argue is *not* that free software has no place, not even that I consider
>> free software "invalid". The debate here is about whether authors should
>> be able to profiteer from the licensing model. I am *not* advocating the
>> traditional licensing model to the exclusion of all other models. On the
>> contrary, I believe that a grants system like the NSF, whereby funding
>> would be available for free software would be a good thing. But I don't
>> think that this means that commercial software developers should be forced
>> to give up their copyrights.
>
>OK, in fairness to you I will also clarify your position, so you know what you
>are attempting to argue against.
>
>I am not arguing that commercial software developers should be forced to give
>up their copyrights. I am simply arguing that free software as an
>organizational model can conceivably satisfy society's needs for good
>software, perhaps better than a strong-copyright model.
>
>I reject your notion that copyrights are an inherent or natural right.
I have no such notion. However, I believe that in the context of a capitalist
economy, they are more or less essential. There are people such as Phillip
Lord who point blank don't accept the assumptions of capitalism and
"propertyism" and if you don't accept the notion of extensive property rights
( which are, as I've stated, by no means some kind of moral absolute ) then
it makes sense to also reject intellectual property rights.
>I don't believe that you are entitled to profit from your labor simply because
>you labored.
But what if the market considers your labor valuable enough that they
are prepared to pay to use your work ?
>I never said it should be funded by tax payers. That is one way of funding
>it. There are plenty of others. In fact, relatively little of existing free
>software has been directly funded by tax payers.
A lot of free software was funded within a university environment, and
a lot of the university funding comes from government grants.
>> ESR says that free software is *voluntary* among other things. He doesn't
>> advocate free software to the exclusion of eveything else.
>
>You missed the point entirely. You asked "Where is the economic incentive to
>develop such software under your model?" ESR answers this question in at
>least a dozen different ways, maybe more.
OK, I see the point you make now. Yes, ESR does make a strong case that
economic incentive does exist. What he does not say is that free software
can or will replace proprietary software. He also doesn't say that it
there is a moral obligation to give away software.
>whether it is a viable business model. I don't remember writing anything
>about copyright being unfair. So if that's what you want to debate, you're
>responding to the wrong author/posts.
OK, thanks for clarifying your position.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: "Jeffrey B. Siegal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 20:44:43 -0800
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> >I don't believe that you are entitled to profit from your labor simply because
> >you labored.
>
> But what if the market considers your labor valuable enough that they
> are prepared to pay to use your work ?
That still does not automatically entitle you to profit, unless society sees
fit, after considering all of the relevant trade-offs, to create the
institutions which may be necessary for you to do so.
See "market failure."
------------------------------
From: "Jeffrey B. Siegal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 20:42:03 -0800
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> > The prepackaged software industry is a relatively
> >small and relatively insignificant anomoly.
>
> No, it is not an "anomoly", and it is not "insignificant". It has a great
> impact on the lives of everyday users.
It is relatively insignificant in an economic sense.
Compaq, Dell, Citigroup, the US Government, and a relatively small number
other big stakeholders could easily get together and fund the equivalent of
all of the prepackaged software industry's R&D simply for their own benefit,
if they were inclined to do so.
And compared to the spending on what Christopher Browne calls "bespoke"
applications, it would be a rounding error.
------------------------------
From: "Jeffrey B. Siegal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:01:49 -0800
Barry Margolin wrote:
> The problem is that this is really only going to work for important
> applications. Apple could hardly be expected to pay for the entire
> Macintosh software industry.
I forgot to mention in my other reply that it is unclear how many other deals
like this Apple did in fact make. For example, they apparently made a similar
deal with Intuit about Quicken.
------------------------------
From: Arthur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft migrates Hotmail to W2K
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 20:32:31 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Drestin Black wrote:
>
> "Wolfgang Weisselberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
> message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > On Fri, 25 Feb 2000 11:07:29 -0500,
> > Drestin Black <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip}
> > I would say that:
> > - Banks are places where money matters. It's their whole reason
> > for existence.
> > - Most German banks sampled here use Apache and Solaris for
> > their WWW presence. Some use Linux. Few use NT.
> > - Banks do not use NT on a larger scale for their WWW presence.
> > - Your claim that apache is found in "small ISPs" and not in big
> > firms is very wrong, according to my data. Please reveal your
> > sources.
> > - BSD seems not to be a webserver for banks. It's impossible to
> > say if BSD is used for routers, though.
> >
> > - Interesting side note: Linux seems to be used more in bank
> > webservers than NT (but since the sample is small, I'll stick
> > with 'seems to'). And it's not just regional banks using it
> > ...
> > as they say, the ball is on your side now ...
> German banks - not US. I will grant you that there are more German banks
> using some form of unix for their external website than IIS. I can't address
> the topic of German OS choices very well. I was speaking of US banks. Also,
> consider the important transactions happen on SSL - take a look at your
> netcraft survey regarding SSL servers - overwhelming majority are IIS and
> growing.
Well, I went over to netcraft and looked up a few banks and found:
NS or Apache on Solaris: 14 or 73%
(WellsFargo, BofA, Citibank, JP Morgan, Marshall and Illsley,
Key Bank, Bank of NY, Mellon, Travelers, Fleet, MBNA, FCNB,
TD, Norwest)
NS on AIX: 2 or 11%
(Bankers Trust, Washington Mutual)
IIS4 or Website Pro on NT4: 3 or 16%
(Chase, Bank One, US Bank)
I checked SSL on about half and it matched their non-secure server
for every one, so I gave up on that. Your SSL claim certainly doesn't
seem to wash for banking either, nor does "overwhelming" (IIRC it
was about 38% of SSL sites using NT). I also ran down the entire list
of servers for a couple of the bigger banks and didn't see any
difference in OS usage or http server (other than version) either.
I think I have the top 10 US banks in there, plus some of the major
banks I do/have done international banking with. I don't claim the
sample is complete or representative, but it doesn't appear NT has
significant market share - at least not among major banks where Solaris
appears to dominate. Perhaps NT is stronger in the smaller banks
like Bank of Humptulips or something, and that skews the results.
Arthur
------------------------------
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