Linux-Advocacy Digest #872, Volume #25 Wed, 29 Mar 00 11:13:07 EST
Contents:
Re: Penquins Forever! Was (Re: A pox on the penguin?) ("ax")
Re: I don't want to stir up any concerns... (Matt Chiglinsky)
Re: I don't want to stir up any concerns... (Matt Chiglinsky)
Re: I don't want to stir up any concerns... (Matt Chiglinsky)
This was posted to the 'alt.humor.best-of-usenet' and well I think it needs to be
posted here... :) ("Dan J. Smeski")
Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit. (R.E.Ballard ( Rex
Ballard ))
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "ax" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Penquins Forever! Was (Re: A pox on the penguin?)
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 15:08:05 GMT
"Mark S. Bilk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8bt1lc$j20$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Robert Heininger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >ax <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >:Robert Heininger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >:>ax <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >:>:Matthias Warkus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >:>:>Robert Heininger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >:>:>>Matthias Warkus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >:>:>>:ax <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >:>:>>:>But in Linux, all penguins are lazy sitting with round belly.
> >:>:>>:>They cannot walk or fly. They cannot even stand up
> >:>:>>:>with fat belly. Linux penguins must have been eating
> >:>:>>:>too much "free" stuff.
>
> >:>:A really smart signature!
> >:>: - a big "L" shape at the bottom.
> >:>: - a word "Linux" on top of the "L" shape.
> >:>: - a "<" shape at the end of the "Linux".
> >:>:It means, "Linux" is being pushed ("<") to the corner ("L"),
> >:>:which is the choice of the GNU Generation.
>
> >:Your signature means a lot. Here is another one:
> >: - a big "L" shape representing a chair
> >: - a big word "LINUX" sitting on a chair
> >: - a big "<" shape representing a lock
> >:It means: lock "Linux" to a chair, which is the "Choice
> >:of the GNU Generation".
> >:Now, everything in Linux are "sitting" including all
> >:heavy belly Linux penguins and "Linux" itself. Keep sitting!
>
> The above quotes are all from "ax" -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] He also
> wrote: "'consumer view' may not matter at all to Linux
> Penguins. Linux Penguins are all blind deaf-mutes."
>
> If you look him up in DejaNews, you'll find that all the
> articles from this anonymous person are about Linux, and
> almost all of them are very negative toward it. In one
> large thread that he started, which has the word "Microsoften"
> in the Subject, he repeatedly complained that all four Linux
> distributions that he tried would not support his hardware,
> including an HP laser printer. Since such printers are in
> fact well supported, he was asked repeatedly to name the
> exact printer that he has, so he could be helped with it, but
> he refused to do so, and kept complaining.
>
> "ax" has also claimed several times that Open Source is
> destroying the software industry, and that it's leading to
> a multitude of closed systems, both of which assertions are
> clearly untrue. His opposition to Open Source, expressed as
> "free stuff", also appears in his remark quoted above. He
> additionally wrote that he couldn't get any help with Linux,
> while the evidence in his posts is that he refused to cooper-
> ate with the people who were trying to help him.
>
I am talking about PENGUIN. But YOU are emotional
and personalize things.
You are wasting your time to search my previous posts!
Your hobby is not in line with the "free speech".
> All of this behavior supports the conclusion that "ax" is yet
> another anonymous anti-Linux propagandist. The fact that he
> refuses help with his alleged failed installations, and goes
> out of his way to fabricate nasty characterizations about
> Linux, like the four quoted above about penguins and your
> signature, make it unlikely that he is simply confused or
> innocently mistaken.
>
You think I am anti-Linux? That's funny.
Don't throw someone an "anti-Linux" hat for pointing out
some flaw of the "Open Source Movement" or making
a few jokes on penguins. Deep Linux lovers really care
about Linux including its flaw. Deep Linux lovers understand
Linux from many perspectives with close examination of its
pros and cons and search for the solutions to reduce or fix
the flaws in order to take Linux to the next level. Besides
pointing out some potential problems of "Open Source",
I am also working hard on solutions to make Linux better!
Hide the flaws or leave them open for discussion?
Which one is better for the Linux future?
> What all of this means regarding you is that since "ax" seems
> to be trying to impede the Linux/Open Source movement, you
> should absolutely *not* follow his advice about anything,
> including your signature.
>
Just a few joke on penguins make you so ....
> >:>:>A five-line Figlet signature! Jesus Christ!
>
> Now this, on the other hand, is from mawa, a very knowledge-
> able and expert Linux user, whose credentials are beyond
> reproach. However, I think he is being rather narrow and
> picky about what constitutes a suitable signature. For some
> reason he seems to have an aversion to "figlets" (large fonts
> made by combining ASCII characters). Maybe this originates
> from a concern about saving Net bandwidth, back when the
> capacity of the Internet was only 1% of what it is now.
> Anyway, the pro-Microsoft spammers waste thousands of times
> as much bandwidth in c.o.l.a, because they post a hundred or
> more articles per day here of Microsoft propaganda, most of
> which have nothing (or nothing truthful) to do with Linux,
> and are therefore totally inappropriate.
>
> >:>YIKES! I get the point. Thanks all!
>
> Look, the anti-Linux "ax" has posted 3 or 4 nasty, lying
> comments against your signature. That probably means that
> he thinks it's effective, and therefore he doesn't want
> people to see it. So, since you obviously want to boost
> Linux, you *should* use it. As to mawa, I think he's
> expressing a personal preference, and does not represent
> anyone but himself on this matter. I'm a longtime Usenet
> poster myself, and I think your signature is excellent --
> well designed and with a good message.
>
> If you feel like adding a penguin to it, here's one:
>
> -o) Pascal Bleser
> /\\ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> _\_v C++/UNIX Development,
> ATOS Payment Systems (Aachen)
> From: Pascal Bleser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> He can look to the right, too:
>
> Robert Heininger __
> # / / __ _ _ _ _ __ __ #
> (o- # / /__ / / / \// file://_// \ \/ / #
> //\ # /____/ /_/ /_/\/ /___/ /_/\_\ #
> v_/_ # The Choice of the GNU Generation #
>
> >It means:
> >
> >1) Spreading the word about the Linux revolution.
> >2) That I'm proud about choosing to be a member of the GNU generation.
> >3) It's not commercial spam.
> >4) Your mileage may vary.
> >5) Optional: If folks don't like it, I suggest that they put me
> > in their kill filters, and/or ignore my postings.
>
Smart piece of reply here.
> Right on!
>
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matt Chiglinsky)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: I don't want to stir up any concerns...
Date: 29 Mar 2000 15:16:43 GMT
On Sun, 26 Mar 2000 22:13:55 -0500, W. Kiernan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Matt Chiglinsky wrote:
>>
>> Microsoft making software for someone else's OS? Nothing new. Didn't
>> they do that a long time ago with Apple? It will only promote
>> standardization. If they would only port Word to Linux then Linux
>> would finally be a decent desktop OS.
>
>Word doesn't have and will never have WordPerfect's "reveal codes"
>feature, and Word doesn't have and will never have a documented file
>format. And with its automatically-running macros with zero designed-in
>security features, Word also is the Typhoid Mary of computer software.
>So I have no use for Word and never will.
Who said Word was a good product, and who said Windows was a good OS?
The only reason I use either is because they are very popular. :)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matt Chiglinsky)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: I don't want to stir up any concerns...
Date: 29 Mar 2000 15:15:11 GMT
On Mon, 27 Mar 2000 21:47:29 GMT, JEDIDIAH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On 26 Mar 2000 02:51:06 GMT, Matt Chiglinsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Can't win? They've already won big big BIG. All you Linvocates can do
>>is whine about how much they've won and make idle threats that somehow
>>they'll fall soon. Well, let me know when computer newbies start
>>running Linux and Applixware or Star Office or GNUmeric or whatever
>>other free alternative you propose. Let me know when Gateway's tech
>
> In order for a newbie to run such a thing, they have to be
> exposed to it. That's rather difficult when typically the
> only thing they are force fed in retail establishments is
> WinSomething.
>
> What is far more likely is that someone slightly above the
> newbie level will try out Star Office because it's free,
> might just satisfy their needs, could keep them compatible
> with inconsiderate twits like you and would keep them from
> having to constantly re-buy MS Office everytime M$ things
> it needs a revenue boost.
You're not disagreeing with me except for the "twit" part. I was
assuming that newbies make up the majority of computer purchases so
some small number of intermediate users switching to Linux wouldn't
make a difference. Prove my assumption wrong and you prove my
argument wrong and MS will fall.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matt Chiglinsky)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: I don't want to stir up any concerns...
Date: 29 Mar 2000 15:23:04 GMT
Hey, someone watch their followup editing. My name's in there but
nothing written below was ever typed by me. You lost my words a few
posts back, and I don't know which attribution you meant to put there:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2000 23:37:58 +0100, 2:1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>Trevor Fuson wrote:
>
>> W. Kiernan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> > Matt Chiglinsky wrote:
>> > >
>> > But I could put up with that ugly-as-a-dog interface with relatively few
>> > complaints, if only they had "reveal codes" and a documented file
>> > format. Butn Microsoft will never open their data format, because it's
>> > part of their long-term strategy to keep the customers in the dark, and
>> > to hold their data hostage, as much as possible.
------------------------------
From: "Dan J. Smeski" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: This was posted to the 'alt.humor.best-of-usenet' and well I think it needs
to be posted here... :)
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 09:50:55 -0600
Subject: Linux and Bowling
From: "Dave Marsh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
As many of you have heard some Microsoft Execs are buying the PBA bowling
tour.
Rumor has it that Linux execs backed out of buying the PBA when the PBA
wouldn't agree to their terms.
Here's some of the Linux group's demands.
1. All scores would be kept in scientific notation.
2. Bowler would not be allowed to bowl without first calculating for all
possible factors (slip, spin, speed, time, etc,) and presenting the logic
behind such calculations.
3. Bowlers would not be allowed to wear matching socks or eyeglasses without
masking tape wrapped around the noserest.
4. If the pinsetting machine or ball return fail to work.correctly the
bowlers would be required to stay up all night fixing it.
5. The bowlers would be allowed to bowl for free, but parking is $75.00 per
hour.
6. The pins would not always fit into the pinsetting equipment, but could be
made to work with a few hours of "tweaking"
7. All equipment used by the bowlers would be the same as what is used
now,
but for some unexplained reason wouldn't always work.
8. Penguin poop on the lanes is to be considered an enhancement.
9. Bowlers can bowl in any way they want no matter how bizarre as long as
other bowlers are informed of their new approach and are free to use it.
10. Any gutter balls are to be attributed to Microsoft.
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit.
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 15:48:31 GMT
In article <HKgE4.614$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:8brr9u$hcb$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > IE is a problem in several areas. First, it was used as a cover for
> > shipping most of the binaries for Microsoft Office, which would
have
> > been treated as bundling. Most of the ActiveX controls bundled with
> > explorer, including the excel viewer, powerpoint viewer, word
viewer,
> > and chart viewer, were effectively a thinly veiled attempt to
smuggle
> > in the OLE and COM objects of Windows and make them memory
resident.
>
> Sounds plausible, like many of your statements until reality is
checked. IE
> does *NOT* ship with viewers for powerpoint, word, or excel. You need
to
> download those seperately.
True, but a very large portion of this software is already installed
into the standard windows distribution. The viewers are merely the
"face" of the application that has already been embedded.
Some of this is also included in wordpad as well.
> > Had Microsoft simply stuck with an enhanced version of Mosaic, and
> > complied with the original terms of the original NCSA license
> > agreement, I wouldn't have been terribly upset. But Microsoft's
> > use of an Open Source project to perpetuate it's own proprietary
> > technology without the consent of the thousands of people who
> > contributed freely to Mosaic and NCSA/Apache for the express
> > purpose of userping public standards with it's own tightly
> > controlled standards is unacceptable.
>
> Microsoft bought a liscense to SPYGLASS moasic,
> not NCSA mosaic. Spyglass was granted the exclusive
> right to resell liscenses for NCSA mosaic by the
> NCSA.
What the contributors to NCSA Mosaic were told by NCSA was that
Spyglass wanted "Branding Rights". This primarily consisted of
the ability to put a logo where the Mosaic ICON was originally,
and the ability to preload the bookmarks file.
There were specific exclusions - many developers, including Marc
Andreeson specifically denied the request to modify the executable
binary outside of the NCSA public license (Open Source).
About two weeks before Microsoft was approached, NCSA unilaterally
changed the terms of the license, giving NCSA the right to do whatever
it wanted. This was done ex-post-facto, and was a direct violation
of the trust which led to hundreds of contributions, upgrades, and
bug-fixes contributed by companies who would NEVER have given their
code directly to Microsoft. Some of these contributors included
companies like Sun, HP, SGI, and other UNIX vendors. The LAST
thing they would have wanted would have been to have Mosaic put
directly inder the control of Microsoft.
When the news broke that (I thought it was Spry - not Spyglass),
had sold unconditional modification rights to Microsoft, along
with the protection of comprehensive nondisclosures, the flack
flew with a vengence.
I had written the specifications to 5 major enhancements which
were critical to e-commerce. This included specifications for
SHTTP, SSL, Cookies, and htaccess, along with the original
specifications for the earliest web browser (Viola). I put
them on the internet. In several cases, I even published them
under the terms of the GNU general public license.
Of course, since I was a faceless personality on the internet
and the online-newspapers and online-news mailing lists (currently
[EMAIL PROTECTED]), I was pretty much anonymous,
which was appropriate for that period of my life. I have included
some of the work I did to "put the 'com' in '.com'" on my personal
web site.
> > For example, the IETF publishes specifications for nearly every
> > protocol used on the internet, except for the proprietary stuff
> > used by Microsoft. There was a reason for this in 1982 and it's
> > just as valid today. It was believed that regardless of how good
> > the security system was, if traffic went across the internet that
> > couldn't be indentified, traced, and audited, then the entire
> > infrastructure was vulnerable to attack.
>
> And which protocols might those be?
> There aren't many of them.
TCP/IP, IP, DNS, HTTP, HTML, MIME, TCP/IP over PPP, Frame Relay, and
ATM, arp, smtp, nntp, snmp - in all over 3000 RFCs covering everything
from the IP address to multimedia.
> Even many of the protocols Microsoft developed
> or co-developed exist as RFC's.
> PPTP for instance.
This is true. On the other hand, MOST of Microsoft's specifications
are incomplete or ambiguous. This includes MS-CHAP, WINS, for several
years SMB, and Imap, and most recently DCOM and ActiveX. Furthermore,
most of these measures were proposed as a means of allowing Microsoft
to transmit binaries - some of which contain executable code - across
the internet.
One of the reasons ARPA formed what is now the IETF in the first
place was to prevent the unfiltered proliferation of executible
binaries across the internet. Using FTP to download a program,
and then choosing to execute that program gives a substantial
audit trail including the TCP connection log, the FTP transfer log,
the image stored on the hard drive, and in the case of files FTP'd
using a web browser, the HTTP log. There is still a chance that
the DNS name was spoofed, the IP address was spoofed into the router,
and that the binaries will erase themselves after doing their damage,
but these are security risks that can be identified, managed, and
mitigated. Using ActiveX, a hacker can put his content on an
unsuspecting site, register the control using information
obtained from a wallet left with a coat-check service, and
let unsuspecting users download programs that send confidential
files (e-mail, passwords, whatever) to competitors, or to the
"highest bidder".
> > With the introduction of ActiveX controls, there have been more
> > breaches of security, more invasions of personal privacy, and more
> > examples of fraud and corruption by supposedly trusted people.
>
> The only security breaches that I'm
> aware of relating to ActiveX was when
> the controls were installed improperly
> and marked safe for scripting when
> they were not. Can you name some?
Read www.ultraviolet.org. The defense given is that the
user gives permission to automatically load ActiveX controls
which then allows the ActiveX control to access files on the
hard drive.
Keep in mind that Microsoft and several other companies
use these controls for "support functions", which includes
license registration, piracy detection, upgrade notification,
and even automated upgrade of application software.
One option is to check the "ask for permission on each ActiveX
control", but you are immediately inundated with so many permission
requests that you eventually end up ignoring them anyway. I tried
running in "confirm mode" and was shocked at some of the "signatures"
that were being accepted by the system. Many corporations have
a strict policy of disabling ActiveX controls entirely.
--
Rex Ballard - Open Source Advocate, Internet
I/T Architect, MIS Director
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 60 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 1%/week!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.advocacy) via:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
ftp.funet.fi pub/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
******************************
