Linux-Advocacy Digest #917, Volume #25 Sun, 2 Apr 00 19:13:16 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linux vs Windows development man-hours? ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: Windows 2000 has "issues" ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: Windows 2000 has "issues" (Shell)
Re: Windows 2000 has "issues" (Shell)
Animations (JOE)
Re: Linux bugs!!! ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Misleading advertisement about linux and redhat !!! (Shadow Hunter)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux vs Windows development man-hours?
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2000 17:28:23 -0500
Robert Morelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Evolution is going to have branches on each side. For instance, nothing
> > like MAPI, TAPI, or DirectX exists for Linux. Comparing only similar
> > functionality is meaningless to the "bottom line" as you put it.
>
> You still don't seem to understand the question. If Microsoft programmers
are
> working on features that Linux doesn't have, then that's man-hours for
Windows
> with no comparable man-hours for Linux. Since you seem to be struggling
with this,
> let me make it entirely clear: if that's the case, it's favorable to
Windows.
>
> Mind you, I posted this question because I want a real answer. I would
find it
> very depressing to think that Windows will survive long term against Linux
and
> other open source projects, but if that is a reasonable expectation,
I'll
> accept it. I'm pefectly willing to include aspects of Windows that are
still
> unmatched under Linux.
I simply do not understand what you are trying to accomplish here. You do
not seem to want to compare development directly. It might help if you
defined what the "goal" you are looking for is.
> > Well, we can look at the work that has been done. Linux and NT started
at
> > about the same time, yet NT is far more mature than Linux in many ways,
> > Linux in others. SMP for instance, as has been proven. Yes, I know
that
> > Linux's SMP has been improving, and that 2.4 has made great strides, but
no
> > benchmarks have yet been done to prove that.
>
> It is obvious that NT developed faster and had a much larger team in the
early
> days. NT began with, I think, a team of about 300, while Linux began
with
> a team of 1.
No, NT started with a team of 2 (Dave Cutler and Mark Lucovsky (or however
it's spelled). It expanded to a team of about 10-20 I think within a year
though and ended up with a team of 300 by the time it shipped (4 years
later).
By 1993, (the year that NT shipped) Linux had thousands of people working on
it (if you count all the people doing work for GNU and other free
utilities).
> I wouldn't have even asked the question 5 or even 3 years ago.
> However, in the past 2 years, there has been an explosion in the Linux
> community, with no apparent counterpart in Windows.
What do you call the 20 million new lines of code in Windows 2000? That's
not an "explosion"?
There was more change between Windows 2000 and NT 4 than the entire change
from the day work begun on Windows NT till NT4 SP6a. And that was only in 4
years versus the nearly 10 for NT4 SP6a.
> I recently attended
> a presentation by someone on the openBSD team, which is tightly
organized.
> OpenBSD development has been following a clear exponential growth pattern
for
> several years. OpenBSD is generally regarded as much smaller than Linux,
> but in terms of contributors, the OpenBSD team is now comparable to the
original
> NT team. About 200 people have privileges to write changes to the basic
OS
> components (thread support, file system, etc.). An additional 1000 or
so also
> make regular contributions by submitting them to one of the 200. This
doesn't
> include anyone working on higher level functionality like KDE, which is
easily ported
> over from Linux.
FreeBSD is similar.
> Another clue is the rate at which Linux is acquiring automatic hardware
detection
> and easy installation routines. This must obviously be counted as a point
of
> comparison. Even a year ago, Windows would have mopped the floor with
Linux on
> this issue. Some people I know who use (and like) both Windows and Linux
have told
> me that the newest Linux installers are smoother than Windows and are
actually better
> at detecting hardware.
Nothing is smoother than Windows 2000's setup. It barely asks any questions
other than basic information (name, organization, etc..). Windows 2000
detects supported hardware quite well, but of course doesn't do well with
unsupported hardware.
> I personally have my doubts about this question, but the mere
> fact that it's debatable is significant. It is quite plausible that if
this is not
> yet the case, it will be so in the near future. Back when Win95 was
being developed,
> Microsoft coerced large numbers of hardware companies into supplying them
with
> exclusive information about their devices. Even with this information,
it was a
> huge problem for Microsoft to get anything like plug and play to work
right.
The majority of the problems with Plug-N-Play had nothing to do with the OS.
It was devices and BIOS's that were not up to spec. Hardware today is
largely pretty compatible, and thus you see similar success in detection
between 98, 2000, and Linux.
> It's stats like these that make the question interesting for me. It seems
> plausible that the Linux community will soon surpass the Windows team,
and it may
> already have happened.
Given that Linux doesn't support even 1/10th of the hardware that Windows 9x
does, that's a long way off. Granted that much of that hardware is old and
specific purpose equipment, but still valid.
> > Not true in the slightest, since they are *NOT* doing the exact same
thing.
> > They're doing similar things differently, and work from both will be
used in
> > other projects down the line.
> >
> > What you seem to be doing is trying to concoct some mechanism by which
to
> > say "See, Linux development is happening much faster than windows!" if
you
> > throw away this and that and combine these statistics and ignore those
other
> > ones.
>
> You are so confused about this that you don't realize that I'm trying to
*reduce*
> the number of man-hours that count toward Linux.
Exactly. Thus making it appear that Linux is moving faster with fewer man
hours. (more productive) when it isn't and is in fact less productive due
to the redundancy.
> I'm trying to count 50 hours
> while you're trying to count 100. I want a true measure of comparison,
and all
> that counts is how fast base functionality for Linux is evolving compared
to Windows.
> Your confusion may be that you are thinking in terms of efficiency. You
may want to
> argue that it takes more man-hours to get something done for Linux than
for Windows.
> I consider that obvious. If we don't count efficiency, Linux obviously
outweighs
> Windows by a huge margin. I'm trying to count how much actually gets
done, not
> how much time is spent doing it. There are advantages and disadvantages
to
> having multiple parallel development, but that's a whole different
debate.
Let's look at lines of code. Not exactly a great comparison, because LOC
penalizes efficiency, but it's the best we can do here.
Windows 2000 has added 20 million lines of code in 4 years. How many lines
of code were added to Linux in the last 4 years?
I don't think Linux ships with a CORBA orb (I could be wrong), so the entire
COM+ subsystem of Windows isn't compareable (despite the fact that COM+ and
CORBA are 2 different things with overlapping functionalities in some
areas). COM+ includes message queing, and transaction serving (similar to
Tuxedo or other systems). ActiveDirectory is much larger in functionality
than the LDAP supported by Linux.. etc...
Windows 2000's feature set is larger, and the individual features are more
rich than their Linux counterparts, and getting here faster.
> > How long did AT&T and IBM exist before they began to become more
research
> > oriented? Probably a lot more than the 20 or so years that MS had
existed
> > before starting on that path. Something you fail to realize is that
> > research heavy houses have to have money to support the resource drains
of
> > research. I've heard statistics that less than 1% of all IBM research
ever
> > makes it to market.
>
> I think you're wrong about the more than 20 years figure. The computer
industry
> began in the late 40's. At the time, of course there was no existing
technology,
> so IBM was forced to start inventing it. In all the years since then,
IBM has
> continued to do fundamental research in every aspect of computer
techology. It
> has been remarked that IBM starts with sand, and produces enterprise wide
> computer systems. IBM has also done a lot of other pure research, like
Nobel
> prize winning work on the scanning tunneling electron microscope, which
uses
> quantum mechanical principles to image objects on atomic scales. Another
of many
> things that was done was the groundwork for SGML, which was already begun
in the
> 60's. IBM has indeed been criticized for not getting their technology to
market,
> but I don't know why that's relevant to the discussion.
There's a difference between doing R&D for direct production versus pure
R&D. Neither AT&T or IBM did pure R&D for the sake of R&D only closer to
the 60's.
> > They were much smaller back then. In the early 80's, they had less than
100
> > employees. IBM had 10's of thousands and they couldn't even write their
own
> > OS for the IBM PC.
>
> I don't have exact figures over the years, but I know that Microsoft
already
> had more than 100 employees in 1981. There is a traditional annual
meeting at
> Microsoft, and the 1981 meeting was attended by more than 100 employees,
> according to an article I have.
Not much more than 100.
> IBM's outsourcing the OS for the PC had nothing to do with manpower or
ability.
> They could have easily written it. In fact, they had a fairly large team
that
> drafted the specs for Microsoft to work with. The fact was that they were
embroiled
> with the DOJ over anti-trust issues, once of which was bundling IBM
operating
> systems with IBM hardware systems, thereby locking out software
competitors.
> They outsourced DOS to appease the DOJ.
IBM had been embroiled with the DOJ for 20 or so years. It was the longest
anti-trust trial on record.
> > Anyone can come up with a cool idea from scratch and implement it. But
if
> > you need to adapt one crappy product into your cool idea while
maintaining
> > backwards compatibility with the crappy product, that's not anywhere
near as
> > easy.
>
> I'm curious. Have you ever written software or been engaged in other
similar
> kinds of creative work? Frankly, your remarks don't sound like they come
from
> someone who has. It's a virtually universal attitude that implementing
existing
> ideas is relatively easy, but people with genuinely new ideas are very
rare. It's
> the difference between someone who studies enough in school to be a
competent
> musical arranger, and the rare gift for producing good melodies.
I said nothing about the rarity of ideas. I said that if you have an idea,
it's much easier to implement it from scratch rather than adapt an existing
product to fit it while maintaining backwards compatibility.
> > The point you seemed to miss from my statement was that *GIVEN THE
> > RESTRICTIONS* that the Windows 95 programmers were under, it's amazing
that
> > Windows 95 worked as well as it did. It's truly amazing.
>
> Even if it were amazing, it's no act of genius. It's the sort of thing a
company
> with lots of many and a large number of drones can do. In any case,
IBM's version of
> OS/2 came out years before Win95 and it had very good support for DOS
programs and quite
> good Win31 support. It was in fact an embarrassment for Microsoft that
for a number of
> years, OS/2 had better backwards compatibility than did their own NT and
Windows 95.
Completely untrue. I spent the better part of 2 years fighting with OS/2
with windows compatibility, specifically in regard to ODBC apps. The
company I worked for was an IBM business partner and we wrote software for
the AS/400 sales department. They ran OS/2, but our app was a windows app.
It had to run under OS/2 and we had lots of problems, despite having IBM
direct support.
OS/2's DOS support was slow compared to Win95 (as an example, on the same
machine DOOM (version one) ran 3x slower than it did running in a Dos window
of Windows 95.
OS/2's Windows support was ok, but if you used single VM mode things like
OLE didn't work between apps. Also, few VxD's were supported, so you
couldn't use many popular apps that needed them (certain communication
programs that had their own comm port VxD's for instance). Win95 supported
all of these, plus legacy DOS device drivers for Win32 applications. You
couldn't use Legacy DOS oriented hardware with OS/2 apps.
> You also need to count the fact that a huge third party software market
assisted
> Microsoft in this job. Hardware companies were forced to make their
drivers work
> as well as possible. Software companies had to work around problems in
the system
> to make their products work. Companies like Symantec based their business
on filling
> the gaps in Microsoft's work. Because of their monopoly status,
Microsoft had
> captive third party support.
Microsoft didn't have a monopoly until well into the 90's.
> > It was a feat that Apple (who you seem to idolize) was unable to do for
any
> > cost.
>
> First off, you're point is ass backwards. The compatibility problem MS
faced was
> minor compared to the feat Apple is pulling off with Next. Next is a UNIX
based
> system, and is about as different from MacOS as anything in existence.
For Apple
> to smoothly move its entire system on top of Next is a more impressive
feat.
Not as impressive as them having created their own OS to replace MacOS
(which they couldn't do). And not as impressive what Microsoft did with
Windows 95. Apple is creating emulation boxes, something that even neophyte
developers are doing for platforms like the Amiga, Nintendo, and
PlayStation, etc..
> In any case, I don't idolize Apple or excuse them for their multitasking
ineptitude.
> You have forgotton a key part of the story though. First, Apple
deteriorated
> after Steve Jobs left. Jobs' Next system appeared in the 80's, and like
every
> other OS other than Microsoft's, it had a nice GUI interface. Next of
course also
> had lots of other neat features. I knew someone who was writing
algorithmic computer
> music on a next using a home grown program built out of a well designed
component
> architecture, back at a time when showing colors on a PC and getting a
mouse to track
> smoothly were high end acheivements. In short, Next had both vision and
competence.
Indeed, they did.
> Apple also initiated a project called Pink in the 80's that they expected
to be the
> successor to MacOS. Pink was a very ambitious project that would have
gone far
> beyond the mundane vision of NT. Unfortunately, Pink got caught up in
politics
> with IBM, and at the same time as Apple started going into heavy
financial losses
> and Win95 became a big commercial success. It wasn't possible for Apple
to
> complete Pink without going belly up financially.
Sounds like what happened with Microsoft and OS/2.
> > Microsoft hires less than 1% of all the people that apply for them.
They
> > have over 3,000 open job postings, yet they are still very picky about
who
> > they hire.
>
> Where did you get that figure?
It's been publicised quite a bit in regards to the H1-B visa issue. I've
read several reports that call the IT worker shortage a scam to get cheap
immigrant slave workers. They use Microsoft as a prime example. If there
really was a worker shortage, Microsoft couldn't afford to be so picky.
> In any case, I am highly suspicious of the
> significance of a stat like that. For one thing, Microsoft is notorious
for
> the illegal practice of treating people who work full time like part time
> employees, to avoid paying certain kinds of benefits.
Untrue. What you are referring to are "Permatemps" which are Temps that are
hired from other agencies and then denied things like Stock options. This
isn't "part time", they work full time, but because they are employed by
someone other than Microsoft, those companies pay their salaries and
benefits. Even so, Microsoft has recently lost some court battles which
require them to pay benefits to these workers, despite the fact that they
aren't employed by them directly.
> They probably don't count those "part time" employees as hired.
They aren't "part time". They're temps.
> Also, a high profile company
> like Microsoft will get more applicants than a less known company. Still,
when
> you have 3000 open positions, you're going to get the kind of people you
get
> when you advertise in a newspaper. You're not going to get the quality of
> people who found their own company.
Of course, but your comment was that Microsoft hires people out of the
streets to meet their demands. I'm pointing out that Microsoft doesn't hire
most of the people that apply despite having great need.
> > You call Linux creative? All it's doing is recreating an OS that's been
> > around for 30 years. Name something creative that has come
*SPECIFICALLY*
> > from Linux that has never been done on any other OS.
>
> I don't see Linux as a particularly creative OS. In fact, I wish it were
more so. Up
> until this point, the work has mostly gone into producing a serviceable
UNIX clone.
> However, Linux has philosophical significance and it represents a
paradigm shift and
> a new historical manifestation of human freedom. The Linux open source
community is a
> free, open, and very active community. It's now going in many
directions at once,
> exploring new ways of doing everything from desktop integration to highly
parallel computing.
> Generally speaking, the free and open exchange of ideas is where creative
ideas develop.
The Linux community did not create this paradigm either. Richard Stallman
did (and a few others). Linux simply evolved because of it.
> A talented young programmer in the present day probably won't think it's
too cool to get a
> little cubicle at MS and get assigned to hack out some feature of NT he
probably doesn't
> have a personal stake in. Your work never gets seen, the direction of
the OS is dictated
> from above, and you're nothing more than a mercenary. You also risk the
possibility of
> being part of something like NT which is a big disappointment, but out of
your control to
> rescue. If money means enough to you, you'll do that. It's like a
painter getting hired
> by an ad company to do illustrations. You don't find too many Picasso's
and Da Vinci's
> do ad illustrations.
You'd be surprised what nice stock options do to a persons will to work in a
cubicle. Not to mention the working conditions (Microsoft doesn't have
cubicles. Each programmer get's their own office with a window and a door.
The culture is very programmer friendly. They encourage eccentric behavior,
goofing off and many other things which are very attractive to a young
talented programmer).
> > > You'd know if it had any. Like most Microsoft projects, Windows has
been
> > developed with
> > > the most conservative possible agenda.
> >
> > In other words, you don't even know yourself, since you can't answer the
> > question.
>
> I suspect that you lack experience with creative work, so the concept
isn't
> clear to you. The burden is on you to produce something innovative in NT.
I'm
> saying it's not there. If there's nothing there, all you can say is that
there's
> nothing there.
Again, you can't seem to describe such a simple concept. Why not? Just
answer the question. What exactly is "creative daring"?
> > You claimed they couldn't maintain "core competance" which is saying
they
> > can't keep experienced people around. Then you claimed they had too
many
> > experienced people and not enough young blood (nevermind that Microsoft
> > mainly hires only recent college graduates unless you have a proven
track
> > record in the industry. They do this so that they can train them how
they
> > want them before they learn bad habits).
>
> I guess I take it too much for granted that people understand the
distinction
> between things like competence, experience, and creativity.
Which doesn't explain the dichotomy of your statements. Which is it? Do
they lack the ability to keep core competance, or do they rely too heavily
on seniority and don't have enough fresh blood?
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 has "issues"
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2000 17:38:02 -0500
abraxas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8c813e$164o$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > I still don't understand your point. Creating subnets doesn't mean the
> > domain controller has to be a part of each subnet.
>
> It means it does, or that you have a separate domain controller for each
> subnet if youd like to have domain controller functionality there.
Ever heard of a router?
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 has "issues"
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Shell)
Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2000 22:34:59 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas) writes:
>In comp.os.linux.advocacy Shell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>>Yes, and if you divide your groups into logical IP subnets, which some
>>>companies do, you may need more than 51. The issue is, if there does not
>>>need to be a limit, why have one? Is Windows 2000 so poorly designed
>>>that this resource must be limited? Once you decide to have a limit, one
>>>should do research into what that limit should be.
>> I highly doubt any company is going to divide their LAN into 51 logical IP
>> subnets. Hmm, you're going to have 13,000 machines all off one network
>> segment? Seems odd to me, and would have horrible performance.
>Some people actually do this, and can become less or more of an issue
>depending on the sort of network protocols one uses. Routed networks would
>have a huge problem of course...
13,000 machines running NETBEUI!?
Heck even 1,000 machines running NETBEUI? The broadcast traffic alone
from having to locate my machines by name rather than address would kill
your performance, much less people actually using the network for work.
>> The only reasonable situation where this will occur is for virtual web
>> serving.
>This is indeed possible.
That's about the only typical configuration where this would come up.
>> And it's rather stupid to make your domain controller your web
>> server. So I don't see this happening. You obviously don't either.
>As I understand it, I cannot have a domain controller that can see more than
>51 ips...
Then you understand wrong.
Via DHCP you pass the name of your WINS or DDNS server to the client, and
using this facility the clients can locate the domain controllers without
having to have one on every single subnet.
>So I have a domain controller on a subnet and a webserver on the same subnet
>serving up 30k ips. Theres something wrong.
Yes, your network administrator is a moron.
>> It seems to me that you are an intelligent person and understand the issue,
>> why then are you blowing it out of proportion? You aren't a Linux troll
>> trying to make every little issue into some big deal to satisfy your own
>> personal agenda, are you?
>The fact is, its enough of an issue to have been discovered mere WEEKS into
>W2K's glorious release.
It's not a particularly interesting fact. No more so than the Linux
trolls trying to make a big deal of it.
>There are certianly more to come.
Well, duh. Name to me one piece of perfect software?
Heck even your typical 'hello world' example lacks error checking.
>> --
>> Steve Sheldon email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> BSCS/MCSE url: http://www.sheldon.visi.com
>> BEEF! - Cause the west wasn't won on salad.
>Dont assume for one moment, btw, that you know anything about the way
>real networks work, being an MCSE and all. :)
You should think first before taking bait.
--
Steve Sheldon email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
BSCS/MCSE url: http://www.sheldon.visi.com
BEEF! - Cause the west wasn't won on salad.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 has "issues"
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Shell)
Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2000 22:36:28 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas) writes:
>In comp.os.linux.advocacy abraxas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> So I have a domain controller on a subnet and a webserver on the same subnet
>> serving up 30k ips. Theres something wrong.
>I'm sorry...I wasnt thinking when I wrote this...
Well i'm glad you finally realized that.
I just wish you understood why. :(
--
Steve Sheldon email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
BSCS/MCSE url: http://www.sheldon.visi.com
BEEF! - Cause the west wasn't won on salad.
------------------------------
From: JOE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Animations
Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2000 22:47:39 GMT
Hello all;
I am wondering if / where an ap similar to Lotus Screen Cam for Linux? I
was hopping to whip up a few tutorials / How To's that were animated.
And if anyone knows of any such animated tutorials....
Thanks in advance.
JOE
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Linux bugs!!!
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2000 00:48:13 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cihl wrote:
>
> This is a follow-up of the thread "Nice link" which was started by me :-)
> I wish to propose the following challenge for everyone:
A good link! However, my dad's machine didn't BSOD; it opened WinAmp
instead... (?)
> Find a way, ANY way of crashing the entire Linux operating system while
> operating as a non-root user! Please post anything you can find in this
> thread. I'm sure many people will be interested!
Well , the only situation in which I've managed to completely freeze my
Linux-box has been some perverted combination of the GIMP and GNOME
running X into some absurd freeze. Not even my serial terminal will
react after that freeze. Fortunately, it's only happened a couple of
times over the past two years or so. Anyone care to enlighten me how
this could happen?
--
Nicholas John Murison
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don't mess with penguins
Registered Linux User #153895 http://counter.li.org
------------------------------
From: Shadow Hunter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Misleading advertisement about linux and redhat !!!
Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2000 18:52:45 -0400
I wasn't trying to sound paranoid. Sorry if I came across like that.
The original posted did say that Red hat wasn't an Operating System.
It is a Linux Distribution built around the Linux Kernel. It was a
little misleading but it was not an outright lie. I'm sure you are
definitely right that a Rep from any other distribution would say that
would be Misleading without a doubt. No arguments there. :)
Shadow Hunter
On Sun, 2 Apr 2000 21:28:27 +0100, "Robert Moir"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>"Shadow Hunter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>
>> Redhat is an operating system! It's a Linux OS, not Windows. I guess
>> general Windows users consider Linux not to be a real OS? It's kind of
>> like Ford owner's not thinking that Chevy's are real cars? The Redhat
>> Distribution is proprietary, however, the Linux Kernel is not.
>> Remember, all Linux distributions run on the same kernel.
>
>Wow, you see paranoid or dumb windows users behind everything? I could be
>wrong, but I got the impression the poster was mentionning the fact that
>they seemed to imply that redhat = linux and linux = redhat. I'm sure a
>debian or corel rep would agree that was misleading.
>
------------------------------
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