Linux-Advocacy Digest #886, Volume #25 Thu, 30 Mar 00 23:13:05 EST
Contents:
Re: Enemies of Linux are MS Lovers ("doc rogers")
Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit. (R.E.Ballard ( Rex
Ballard ))
Re: Drestin Black is one clueless dude ("Drestin Black")
Re: W2K: The "Mr. Creosote" of operating systems (Tim Kelley)
Re: M$, IBM & *nix (was I WAS WRONG) (Shane Phelps)
Re: Need help on compiling Linux stats (Tim Kelley)
Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse (Jim Richardson)
Re: M$, IBM & *nix (was I WAS WRONG) (mlw)
I'm back again! (piddy)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "doc rogers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.microsoft.sucks,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Enemies of Linux are MS Lovers
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 21:23:48 -0500
LShaping@... <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> "doc rogers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>><snip>
> >> If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone
> >> use this "we just don't get obsessed..." strawman,
> >"We just don't get obsessed" strawman? Okay, without looking it up,
define
> >strawman for us.
> >--doc
> Any intelligent author who has spent much time arguing in the fabulous
> world of UseNet should know what a straw man is (BTW, it is two
> words).
Which is why I'm surprised that T. Max used the term incorrectly. And
strawman written as one word isn't wrong, but it is less common, yes.
> Without looking it up, a "straw man" is like when someone
> involved in an argument pretends that the other made a silly point
> that he really didn't make.
> Then that someone shoots down the other's
> silly (imaginary) point. The dictionary definition is more concise
> than mine.
> C ya,
> LShaping
Very good, LShaping.
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit.
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 02:46:45 GMT
In article <61bD4.3424$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Bill Gates has one of the smallest salaries in
> the industry (for a fortune 500 company).
> He's made the vast majority of his money from stock,
> not from people that purchased Microsoft software.
Bill Gates also has one of the largest stakes in a company
in the industry. At one point he held almost 35%. Gates,
Ballmer, and Allen jointly control nearly 25% of the company.
Just this month, Gates sold 1 million shares of Microsoft stock.
He's been sliding out slow and easy. Gates is down to 787 million
shares. Paul Allen is selling off even faster. He owns 259 million
shares and has sold over 2.8 million this month.
At the rate they are going, if Microsoft stock held it's current
price, and there were no splits, and they continued to sell 1 million
shares per month, Gates would last another 65 years (about 110)? And
of course, both Gates and Allen are notorious for their individual
investments, and the investments of their venture capital funds.
Paul Allen has invested in companies like AOL and Transmeta,
and Gates owns substantial interests in Satellite dishes, cable
networks, and television networks. The really fun part is that
both GE and Microsoft have several of the same top 10 holding
companies.
Company %MSFT %GE (NBC,MSNBC,CNBC)
Fidelity Management & Research 3.73 3.78
Barkleys Bank PLC 2.81 2.94
State Street Bank 1.81 1.81
Vanguard Group 1.58 1.58
AXA Financial 1.16
Taunus Corp 1.54 1.28
Mellon Private Asset Management 1.08 1.31
Then we have the mutual funds:
Fidelity Magellan 1.10 0.89
Vanguard 500 0.82 0.81
Fidelity Growth and Income. 0.59 0.35
Simply put, Bill has some very big friends, but none of them
have the power to push Bill around. The combined proxy power
of all of the mutuls and institutions combined couldn't
outvote Bill. In fact, it would take Steve Ballmer AND Paul
Allen AND the combined votes of the institutions to stop Bill
Gates from doing anything or to make him do anything. Meanwhile,
the CEOs of companies like GE hold 0.02% of the company, about
781 thousand shares.
Sure, Bill gives his employees a few hundred shares of Microsoft
stock instead of cash, and then he dilutes the value by dumping
$95 million in less than a week.
Is it any wonder than when Microsoft Executives were being fried
on the Witness stand, that Bill's request that NBC find some
other story to make really really hot - might be accepted. And
wasn't it thoughtful of an anonymous tipster to leak news of an
illegal wire-tap that indicated that the President might have had
a quickie - would conveniently appear in a prominent location on
the MSNBC web site, right at that moment.
I'm sure it was just a coincidence :-).
I can't help wondering how many journalists or editors would have
published the details of an illegal wire-tap - regardless of the
implications (since the information obtained in the wire-tap
was legally still private until and unless a judge ruled that
it was admissable - which would have exposed the publishers to
substantial liability).
FDR kept the press from taking pictures of him in his wheel-chair,
and MSNBC decides to dedicate 40 hours/week of PRIME TIME to coverage
of whether the President touched her directly on the labia - but
without actually ever publishing the exact text of the question.
About the only way you could get the actual text was to go to
the federal court web site.
I don't doubt that Clinton was a scoundral, and I'm no big fan
of Clinton. I'm a registered Republican. But I was very interested
in what was happening to the richest man in the world in federal court,
and getting incredibly bored with whether or not Monica was wearing
her underwear.
--
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.
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Drestin Black is one clueless dude
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 22:38:29 -0500
"Christopher Browne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Drestin Black would say:
> >
> >"abraxas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:8bofpl$17sf$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Christopher Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >> > "abraxas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> > news:8bnq94$n6l$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> >> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Chad Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> > "W. Kiernan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> >> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> >> >> Mark Hamstra wrote:
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> > "W. Kiernan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> > > Was it really Chad Myers who wrote?:
> >> >> >> > > >
> >> >> >> > > > ...NTFS, which has journaling.
> >> >> >> > >
> >> >> >> > > It does? That's news to me.
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> > You shouldn't be so quick to broadcast your ignorance.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> I shouldn't ask questions, you mean. I should learn by
telepathy,
> >> >> >> osmosis, however you do it, you bigdeal genius you.
> >> >>
> >> >> > Of course! <grin>
> >> >>
> >> >> > NTFS 5 (which is implemented in Windows2000 and read by NT 4.0 SP4
> >and
> >> > higher)
> >> >> > has a change journal.
> >> >>
> >> >> Neat. Now its just like MacOS 7.5.1.
> >>
> >> > Eh ? Since when was HFS journalled ?
> >>
> >> HFS and HFS+, since the invention of the dynamically updated desktop
file.
> >It is
> >> a journaled filesystem in the strictest sense of the term.
> >
> >once again you are could not possibly be more wrong. NFS is NOT a
journaled
> >file system - you only wish it were. Provide proof or go back under your
> >bridge. Maybe you and MiG can play yank-yank together.
>
> Who ever said anything about NFS?
>
> Are you so visually challenged that you cannot tell the difference between
> an "H" and an "N"?
>
<snip unimportant silliness>
OPS - so I typed a "N" instead of a "H" - sorry about that. i think that any
intelligent or educated person who would actually read would notice that I
was replying to a thread that mentioned HFS over and over and never NFS once
so you might have actually thought, gee, a typo? Instead you choose to
actualy change the Subject just so as to try to insult me? I must really
threaten you... or are you just that afraid of W2K?
------------------------------
From: Tim Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: W2K: The "Mr. Creosote" of operating systems
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 21:41:18 -0600
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> http://www.montypython.net/showimage.php3?PIC=/pix/meaning/creo.jpg
> http://www.montypython.net/showimage.php3?PIC=/pix/meaning/vomitcln.jpg
>
> Have another DLL. They're wafer thin!
>
> http://www.montypython.net/showimage.php3?PIC=/pix/meaning/explode.jpg
Truly .. would .. you like another ... mint?
<duck>
--
Tim Kelley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Shane Phelps <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: M$, IBM & *nix (was I WAS WRONG)
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 13:46:52 +1000
"R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > wrong again - MS owned XENIX, a version of Unix.
>
> That's right. In fact, Microsoft owned XENIX before they
> approached IBM to offer them an operating system. The myth
> that Microsoft had nothing in it's back pocket when it approached
> IBM isn't entirely true. For some reason, Bill decided to have
> Paul Allen approach an old friend about QDOS - a clone of CPM/80
> reassembled for the 8088 instead of giving IBM the rights to
> use Xenix.
>
> There are numerous rumored reasons why Bill Gates decided to go
> with QDOS. He may have decided that there was too much risk of
> liability to AT&T. He may have decided that he didn't want to pay
> royalties to AT&T. It may be that IBM feared that Xenix powered
> PCs would threaten the Series 1, System 360, and System 3x markets.
>
This is probably just computer folklore, but the story as I understand it
is:
IBM were throwing together a aheap low-end microcomputer thing to compete
with Apple, Altair, etc. They could lash the hardware together quickly
but didn't
want to allocate the resources for developing an OS for something which
would
only sell a few thousand copies (I see a market for perhaps 9 of these
"computer"s
in the world - Thomas Watson)
IBM's CEO was on the board of a charity with Bill Gates's mother, who
mentioned
that her son had a small software company and might ve able to help.
IBM approached Microsoft (long before it became M$ :-), who proposed
Xenix.
IBM wanted to use the 8088 (no MMU) instead of the 8086 to save money, so
it
couldn't run any *nix properly. Bill Gates suggested Gary Kildall
(Digital Research),
who didn't take IBM seriously enough. IBM came back to Microsoft , who
then
bought QDOS from Seattle Software. They tried to sell the rights to IBM
without
success, but were lucky enough to arrange a non-exclusive contract.
If not for IBM's penny-pinching in using the crippled 8088 we might all
be using MS-UX by now ;-)
The 8088 was eons ago - I may be wrong about the reason it couldn't
run Xenix. Xenix certainly ran on the M68K and 80186 (Tandy had a
version)
but I can't be sure it would run on the 8086.
>
> IBM was already seeing loss of Series one costomers who were using
> Corvus Constellation, a Televideo Network, and a little start-up
> called Novell.
>
> > "JoeX1029" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > damn it anyway i was wrong i read my info wrong about M$
> > > they actually didn't have their own version of UNIX.
> > > Although for quite some time (and they still
> > > may) they ran on UNIX
>
> Microsoft sold Xenix, along with all rights to the UNIX market,
> to the Santa Cruz Operation back in 1989 to fund the development
> of Windows 3.0. The details of the contract aren't available on-line,
> but they appearantly prevent Microsoft from reentering the UNIX
> market (including creating it's own version of Linux).
>
Here's food for thought. M$ had a 15% share in SCO, at least until
recently.
Does that mean they have a legitimate right to the Unix tradmark and
source code?
>
> --
> 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.
------------------------------
From: Tim Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Need help on compiling Linux stats
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 21:46:04 -0600
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tom Steinberg wrote:
>
> I have spent the last couple of days reading endless Linux articles looking
> for any and every bit of statistical data I can find concerning Linux. I'm
> not getting very far very fast, so I've returned to the wonderful and
> generous people on usenet ( butter butter ) to ask for suggestions and info.
> Absolutely anything numerical is helpful, but I am especially looking for:
Well, no statistics, but, I say that in 2002, everyone will discover that
everyone else is using linux. :-)
--
Tim Kelley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 03:53:58 GMT
On Fri, 31 Mar 2000 07:49:38 +1000,
Christopher Smith, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>
>"mlw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Christopher Smith wrote:
>> >
>> > "abraxas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> > news:8c06fp$14b0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> > > > I have real problems classifying NT as Multiplatform. two or three
>tops.
>> > > > Multiplatform is something like netbsd. Linux, although originally
>> > > > developed for the x86, has been proven to be capable of being
>> > > > multiplatform. NT has only been ported to alpha, mips, and is Merced
>out
>> > > > yet? Mips was dropped. The Alpha's port is on shaky ground (is it on
>> > > > again or off again this week?)
>> >
>> > It's somewhat unfair to compare a commercial OS (that has to be
>profitable)
>> > to free OSes like that.
>>
>> Why? If they claim it is portable, then porting it to other platforms
>> should be part of the business model.
>
>Why ? Why would you port to a platform that your product wouldn't sell on ?
>How could you _justify_ a port to a platform that isn't really interested ?
If that were their logic, they'd have dropped the palmtop windows (what's it
called this week?) and gone back to the desktop with their tail between their
legs.
>
>> If the OS is not portable, stop
>> calling it portable.
>
>Portable does not imply ported.
>
>> You mean to tell me that NT on a power PC wouldn't be an interresting
>> market?
>
>Interesting, sure. Successful ? Highly doubtful. The only volume OEM of
>affordable PPC based hardware is Apple, and we all know how well they react
>to potential competitors.
>
PPC is everywhere, it's very popular for embedded, but if you meant *desktop*
then IBM's stuff is pretty popular.
>> How about NT on Sun hardware?
>
>You don't think Sun would have anything to say about that ?
>
Sun is a hardware company, why would they care (except for licensing costs)
what OS runs on their hardware. Unless of course they didn't want their
fast, reliable hardware, to look bad because of the OS running on it.
Second though, I guess you have a point there...
<snip>
>
>> As it is now, portability of NT is, at best, a joke.
>
>How would you know ? You know nothing of itsportability, merely of its
>ports. Not many commercial OSes run on more than one or two platforms.
>
Linux, whether you wish to believe it or not, is a commercial OS.
>> > > Its off again.
>> > >
>> > > They also dropped a PPC port a few years ago. Just when it was
>looking
>> > > quite nice actually.
>> >
>> > Quite nice ? Just who was making machines that could run it ? How
>about
>> > software ?
>>
>> Actually SGI was using mips. It was a political move more than anything.
>
>That has what, precisely, to do with PPC ?
There was an NT-Mips version in work at one point.
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: M$, IBM & *nix (was I WAS WRONG)
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 22:58:46 -0500
Shane Phelps wrote:
>
> "R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" wrote:
>
> > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > wrong again - MS owned XENIX, a version of Unix.
> >
> > That's right. In fact, Microsoft owned XENIX before they
> > approached IBM to offer them an operating system. The myth
> > that Microsoft had nothing in it's back pocket when it approached
> > IBM isn't entirely true. For some reason, Bill decided to have
> > Paul Allen approach an old friend about QDOS - a clone of CPM/80
> > reassembled for the 8088 instead of giving IBM the rights to
> > use Xenix.
> >
> > There are numerous rumored reasons why Bill Gates decided to go
> > with QDOS. He may have decided that there was too much risk of
> > liability to AT&T. He may have decided that he didn't want to pay
> > royalties to AT&T. It may be that IBM feared that Xenix powered
> > PCs would threaten the Series 1, System 360, and System 3x markets.
> >
>
> This is probably just computer folklore, but the story as I understand it
> is:
>
> IBM were throwing together a aheap low-end microcomputer thing to compete
>
> with Apple, Altair, etc. They could lash the hardware together quickly
> but didn't
> want to allocate the resources for developing an OS for something which
> would
> only sell a few thousand copies (I see a market for perhaps 9 of these
> "computer"s
> in the world - Thomas Watson)
>
> IBM's CEO was on the board of a charity with Bill Gates's mother, who
> mentioned
> that her son had a small software company and might ve able to help.
> IBM approached Microsoft (long before it became M$ :-), who proposed
> Xenix.
> IBM wanted to use the 8088 (no MMU) instead of the 8086 to save money, so
> it
Actually the 8088 and the 8086 are identical-- except that the 8088
multiplexes the 16 bit data path of the 8086 on two read/write cycles,
instead of 16 bits on one read/write cycle on a 16 bit bus.
I mentioned this earlier, I didn't think that Xenix could run on an
8088/8086 because the 8088/8088 did not have MMUs. The 80286 was the
first x86 processor to have an MMU.
> couldn't run any *nix properly. Bill Gates suggested Gary Kildall
> (Digital Research),
> who didn't take IBM seriously enough. IBM came back to Microsoft , who
> then
> bought QDOS from Seattle Software. They tried to sell the rights to IBM
> without
> success, but were lucky enough to arrange a non-exclusive contract.
>
> If not for IBM's penny-pinching in using the crippled 8088 we might all
> be using MS-UX by now ;-)
>
> The 8088 was eons ago - I may be wrong about the reason it couldn't
> run Xenix. Xenix certainly ran on the M68K and 80186 (Tandy had a
> version)
> but I can't be sure it would run on the 8086.
If it could run on an 80186, then it probably could have run on a 8086.
>
> >
> > IBM was already seeing loss of Series one costomers who were using
> > Corvus Constellation, a Televideo Network, and a little start-up
> > called Novell.
> >
> > > "JoeX1029" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > damn it anyway i was wrong i read my info wrong about M$
> > > > they actually didn't have their own version of UNIX.
> > > > Although for quite some time (and they still
> > > > may) they ran on UNIX
> >
> > Microsoft sold Xenix, along with all rights to the UNIX market,
> > to the Santa Cruz Operation back in 1989 to fund the development
> > of Windows 3.0. The details of the contract aren't available on-line,
> > but they appearantly prevent Microsoft from reentering the UNIX
> > market (including creating it's own version of Linux).
> >
>
> Here's food for thought. M$ had a 15% share in SCO, at least until
> recently.
> Does that mean they have a legitimate right to the Unix tradmark and
> source code?
>
> >
> > --
> > 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.
--
Mohawk Software
Windows 9x, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
Visit http://www.mohawksoft.com
"We've got a blind date with destiny, and it looks like she ordered the
lobster"
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (piddy)
Subject: I'm back again!
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 04:02:11 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Why am I getting this error in the KDE when trying to connect to dial
up internet? This is the log:
Mar 30 21:37:36 wl2000 pppd[466]: pppd 2.3.7 started by me, uid 1000
Mar 30 21:37:36 wl2000 pppd[466]: Using interface ppp0
Mar 30 21:37:36 wl2000 pppd[466]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS0
Mar 30 21:38:06 wl2000 pppd[466]: Terminating on signal 15.
Mar 30 21:38:12 wl2000 pppd[466]: Connection terminated.
Mar 30 21:38:12 wl2000 pppd[466]: Connect time 0.6 minutes.
Mar 30 21:38:12 wl2000 pppd[466]: Exit.
------------------------------
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