Linux-Advocacy Digest #97, Volume #26 Wed, 12 Apr 00 21:13:09 EDT
Contents:
Re: Penfield Jackson bitch-slaps Bill Gates (Mike Marion)
Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine! ("Leonard F. Agius")
Re: Vehical Comparisons (Mike Marion)
Re: Windows IS the dominant corporate OS (Michael Uman)
Re: Comparison between Linux and FreeBSD! (david parsons)
Re: Rumors ... (Seán Ó Donnchadha)
Re: Comparison between Linux and FreeBSD! (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine! ("Colin R. Day")
Re: Linux for a web developer (Salvador Peralta)
Re: Rumors ... ("Erik Funkenbusch")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mike Marion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Penfield Jackson bitch-slaps Bill Gates
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 23:33:52 GMT
"Seán Ó Donnchadha" wrote:
> Before Microsoft pushed Windows, they pushed OS/2 1.x, the product
> they had taken years to develop with IBM. It was an excellent OS, with
> preemptive multitasking, virtual memory, full memory protection, and a
> very robust architecture. Yet those early versions of OS/2 bombed, and
> for one reason only - bad DOS compatibility. OS/2 1.x's DOS support
> was affectionately known as "the DOS penalty box".
And I have to disagree with that. I don't remember even seeing offers of
computers with anything other then Dos/windows on them (well, PCs anyway). If
MS had switched the whole bundling scheme over to OS/2, I belive it would likely
have taken off. But placed side by side with Dos as it was at the time, your
comparison is true: Noone wanted the one that wouldn't run the programs they
already owned.
Unfortunately they were really just delaying the inevitable, we're going to run
into this wall eventually. When even home PCs are full 64 bit machines, they
might have some kludgy system to try to run the 32 bit stuff, but it won't work
very well. You can already see a similar situation with DOS programs (and
win3.1 programs) that won't run under NT and/or often even with win9x.
--
Mike Marion - Unix SysAdmin/Engineer, Qualcomm Inc.
Ralph: "Oh yes, Larry Benson... the x1000. Worked out better then you dreamed,
didn't they?"
Larry: "Actually there was a little bit of a problem."
Ralph: "Then it's with your software!" -- Small Soldiers.. sounds like most
Chip and OS companies though. :)
------------------------------
From: "Leonard F. Agius" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine!
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 23:35:47 GMT
Bob Lyday wrote:
> Bloody Viking wrote:
> >
> > In alt.destroy.microsoft Christopher Browne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > : a) No, Adobe never bought it. They *created* it. The definitive books
> > : on PS are produced by Adobe. The specs are produced by Adobe.
> >
> > Damn. I guess we're stuck with .HTML as a file format, since we need an
> > open format. Whatever the format we're stuck with, any word processor will
> > have to read it, convert to an internal format, and write to files
> > whatever format we're stuck with.
> >
> > And Adobe is guilty of the lame old game of extending Postcript to force
> > lock-in with .PDF format. Apparently, history shows that format lock-in is
> > an inevitable result of commercial software. We see it with Microsoft
> > (about their only innovation), Adobe with .PDF, and Netscrape with the
> > .HTML.
> >
> The only way SW companies know how to compete is to break each
> other's products. I am not sure what to do about file format
> madness. I think perhaps the open-source crowd should produce a
> great Office package and give it away. Maybe that will stop
> it. Anyway, the government could then require that any major
> commercial Office package out there must include the option to
> save (well) in the open-source format. If the SW makers do not
> go along, perhaps they could be forbidden to sell the product in
> the U.S. until they comply, or, less drastically, they could not
> sell to the federal government until they comply. I think some
> good regulation is what this industry needs.
You have got to be friggin' kidding? Are you out of your mind, or are you using too
many drugs? Government Regulation?
Give me a break.
> The free market model has almost ruined computing.
The free market rules. Man, do you need a dose of reality.
> Look what it begat -- the Microsoft Monster...oh, boy!
Don't like MS? Use something else. The rest of the normal population will use what
ever we want, and will support the free market model as long as it suits us. And if
we can make money off of it, so much the better. Furthermore, if it pissed off the
lunatic fringe out there, well, then oh well. That's the way it goes.
>
> >--
> Bob
> "We blew it -- too big, too slow..." - Bill Gates talking about
> Windows NT during a meeting with Steven McGeady of Intel.
--
Fight SPAM!!! Remove the _nospam from the above address to send e-mail.
The opinions expressed are my own.
------------------------------
From: Mike Marion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Vehical Comparisons
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 23:38:04 GMT
Davorin Mestric wrote:
> i have yet to see someone that actually used source to fix some problem that
> he had with linux. "you have source so you can fix your problem" is a myth.
You'd probably be surprised how many have.. I know I have. I've only done
really small things, usually fixing something in the UI that I didn't care for.
Case in point: ssh does a strcmp when you ssh to a machine you've not been to
before.. so you have to type in "yes" or "no" exactly. I hacked the code so
that even a 'y', 'Y', 'n', 'N' work. Sure, small change but with a windows
program I don't have that ability at all.
I think the biggest advantage that OSS has, is it gives potential programmers
something to learn from. You don't have to use a book and it's examples by
themselves to learn something like writing a device driver. You can look at the
code of another driver to learn how that person did it.
--
Mike Marion - Unix SysAdmin/Engineer, Qualcomm Inc.
If at first you don't succeed, you must be using Windows.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michael Uman)
Subject: Re: Windows IS the dominant corporate OS
Date: 12 Apr 2000 23:39:22 GMT
PLEASE NO.....
KEEP MFC OFF OF LINUX... Please...
I have worked with MFC for quite a long time {since 1993} and I think it is the
stupidest thing around. It really makes your code dependant on Microsoft and
makes it not portable to other OS's. I am still dealing with un-MFCing several
applications. It requires you to distribute the Microsoft MFC dll's or else you
need to link it statically which bloats your code to unimaginable size.
Microsoft... Please don't infect the Linux world with your torturous software.
MFC is not a framework which should be used to write portable software. It is a
great tool for idiots who don't want to put an effort into software development
and it also ensures Microsofts encroachment into your development efforts.
Also, I don't think COM is all it's cracked up to be. I have written many COM
and OLE servers. All a COM component is is a DLL which has three known exported
functions. Through those functions one can query for supported interfaces
{through IUnknown}. These components register themselves by modifying the
system registry with it's GUID and the location of the DLL. Is this innovation
OR WHAT?
COM is very simple, and based on principles which have been around for almost
15 years. I think Microsoft has it's head up it's ass if it thinks that COM is
it's innovation. Also, SQL is the standard for databases.... Microsoft didn't
invent SQL either. ADO, DAO, and all the other 'supposed' microsoft
technologies are just candy-wrappers.
I've developed for many major platforms, including MS Win 3.1, MS Win 95, MS
Win NT, Unix, Linux & Mac. And Microsoft does nothing but get in the way of
real software development.
Most developers I work with who have any experience in the field most often
agree that Microsoft has put the software development field back about five
years. I was a coder back in 1983, when MS was just a bit-player in the market.
I wish we could go back to those days and re-invent the industry without the
existence of Microsoft.
I agree, many MIS support people don't know squat about the systems they are
supposed to be maintaining. At my company, the last MIS guy didn't even know
how to configure the DNS servers.
Michael Uman
Sr Software Engineer
Sonic Solutions
On Tue, 11 Apr 2000 20:01:02 GMT, Joseph Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>abraxas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:8cvro5$2kv9$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Joseph Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > Windows will remain the dominant corporate operating system because it
>has
>> > some features/frameworks that would make it easier for enterprise wide
>> > computing. For instance, DAO, ADO and COM. These frameworks that to the
>best
>> > of my knowlede only exists on the Windows platform
>>
>> Thank god.
>>
>.....
>
>> Linux: Oracle, SQL, etc---samba, appletalk, tcp/ip, ipx, etc---beowulf.
>>
>> Problem?
>Are these in any way different from DAO, ADO and COM? What advantage do
>these frameworks offer that the similar Microsoft frameworks don't? If not
>then IT managers who are known to be ultra-conservative when choosing
>software for their company needs will often stick with Microsoft products.
>
>>
>> > ADO and DAO serves the purpose of making
>> > database access easy to accomplish in Windows systems. COM is
>Microsoft's
>> > model for interprocess communications and distributed computing.
>>
>> Its an ancient piece of buggy, bloated shit.
>How so? COM has become the industry standard for interprocess communication.
>If it is buggy and bloated who in their right mind would choose to work with
>it or even making it the standard for the software industry no less?
>
>I've even heard rumors of efforts underway of porting the MFC library and
>COM to other platforms. Linux may some day become Microsoft friendly :)
>This shows the kind of clout these frameworks have.
>
>> > ADO and DAO
>> > gives you an extra layer of abstraction when dealing with your database.
>> > This means that you don't have to worry that much about lower level
>details
>> > when making a program to manipulate your database.
>>
>> So you can be an idiot and still write database clients. Neat. That must
>> be whats been happening.
>
>A particular area in judging a library or framework is whether or not it
>provides a higher level of design for the programmer who need not be
>encumbered by low level details that the library should take care of
>reliably. There are many examples of this: A socket library that hides the
>details of packet sending, receiving, verification and reassembly. letting
>the programmer worry about other things like ports, protocols and
>synchronization. A memory manager library that lets programmer have the
>freedom and not worrying whether or not an object is deleted, in use, shared
>by other objects because it will be garbage collected at the end. Even the
>C/C++ language which (for most cases) lets the programmer worry more about
>design of the program rather than releasing the stack frame calculating the
>address of the pointer by taking the segment address and flipping bits
>and... or maybe its not a segmented architecture or ... or ... or ...
>The point is a library is design to get rid of or at least minimalize all
>this menial work and let programmers become more productive by focusing on
>design rather than details.
>
>>
>> > Your data could be on a
>> > server in the next room or located in some little known server somewhere
>it
>> > Timbuktu in doesn't matter.
>>
>> Welcome to the internet.
>>
>Okay, once you get there how do you manipulate the data? Go into the
>database tables? Perform queries on the fly. Lock out other users while
>updating the table? Beside reaching the server you need to do useful work
>once you get there. ADO and DAO makes doing this rather transparent and
>painless.
>
>> > You can access your data in the same fashion.
>>
>> Why cant you do that with *any* operating system?
>>
>> > Another advantage of DAO and ADO is the standardisation of data
>accessing.
>>
>> The standardization within microsoft and microsoft products only. Thats
>> some standard you got there.
>Only microsoft products? Are you sure other databases like Dbase, Clipper,
>Oracle can't be accessed?
>
>>
>> I think you're very, very stupid.
>>
>Note I'm not an IT manager. I only heard mine spout this stuff to me.
>
>
>Joe
>
>
--
//-------------------------------------------------------
// PROGRAMMER : Michael A. Uman
// PROJECT : Email Signature
// TITLE : Senior Software Engineer
// EMAIL : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
//-------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (david parsons)
Subject: Re: Comparison between Linux and FreeBSD!
Date: 12 Apr 2000 15:01:03 -0700
Oh, and I just noticed...
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Andy Newman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>david parsons wrote:
>> And why is this? I don't know, though I strongly suspect that, even
>> with softupdates on, FreeBSD's annoying habit of forcing sync writes
>> on nfs traffic is what's making nfs performance slower. In any case,
>> it means that freeBSD ends up being tucked into the corners of
>> my network where speed isn't all that important :-(
>
>Well softupdates has nothing to do with NFS, but...
I think you're wrong here. NFS is hosted on existing filesystems, and
thus softupdates should have everything to do with it. If I'm enabling
softupdates, I'm asking the filesystem to defer transactions; why should
it be any different if an application or an nfs server is doing the
transactions?
____
david parsons \bi/ 500k/sec on a 100mbit ethernet really sucks :-(
\/
------------------------------
From: Seán Ó Donnchadha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Rumors ...
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 19:44:11 -0400
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Grant Fischer) wrote:
>>
>>The point i'm trying to make is that the DOJ specifically told them they
>>COULD do what they later prosecuted them for. Why would they think what
>>they were doing was illegal of they had been specifically told they could do
>>it?
>
>Specifically? They mentioned IE by name? Or perhaps there is some
>room for interpretation? It isn't as clear as you make it out.
>
If I understood it correctly, the decree prohibited tying, but allowed
the integration of products into Windows provided there is some
plausible benefit.
>
>I think your position is rather shaky considering the current judgement.
>It is fine to play Internet Lawyer, but the real courts aren't
>agreeing with you.
>
Sure, but this is the same judge who ordered Microsoft to remove IE
from Windows and was overruled on appeal.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Subject: Re: Comparison between Linux and FreeBSD!
Date: 12 Apr 2000 18:50:42 -0500
In article <8d2rmv$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
david parsons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> And why is this? I don't know, though I strongly suspect that, even
>>> with softupdates on, FreeBSD's annoying habit of forcing sync writes
>>> on nfs traffic is what's making nfs performance slower. In any case,
>>> it means that freeBSD ends up being tucked into the corners of
>>> my network where speed isn't all that important :-(
>>
>>Well softupdates has nothing to do with NFS, but...
>
> I think you're wrong here. NFS is hosted on existing filesystems, and
> thus softupdates should have everything to do with it. If I'm enabling
> softupdates, I'm asking the filesystem to defer transactions; why should
> it be any different if an application or an nfs server is doing the
> transactions?
Mostly because the NFS spec says the server has to sync to the
hardware before telling the client the operation is complete.
The idea is that you are supposed to be able to reboot an
NFS server without disrupting client activity (other than
causing a long pause). However most systems allow a more
practical view that the NFS service doesn't have to be more
reliable than the local filesystem would be on the server
and default to not syncing on every write.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine!
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 00:08:03 +0000
Aaron Kulkis wrote:
> Jeremy Crabtree wrote:
> >
>
> > --
> > "The UNIX philosophy is to provide some scraps of metal and an enormous
> > roll of duct tape. With those -- and possibly some scraps of your own
> > -- you can conquer the world." -- G. Sumner Hayes
>
> It beats using the charred piece of flimsy plastic produced by M$.
Aaron,
Jeremy means that as a complement to UNIX.
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: Salvador Peralta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux for a web developer
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 17:11:19 -0700
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In my experience with 7.0, the graphic interface caused multiple fatal
system crashes when the pentium optimizations were selected on install.
The installer itself is buggy, and hides too much of the process without
making the core areas of difficulty any easier than on previous
installers.
OTOH, Mandrake 6.1 on my toshiba laptop was my first personal linux
system, and I'm generally a big Mandrake guy as far as linux
workstations are concerned.
OOrkis wrote:
>
> "Salvador Peralta" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > I'd stay away from Mandrake 7.0
>
> any particular reason ?
--
Salvador Peralta
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.la-online.com
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Rumors ...
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 19:16:55 -0500
Grant Fischer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >The point i'm trying to make is that the DOJ specifically told them they
> >COULD do what they later prosecuted them for. Why would they think what
> >they were doing was illegal of they had been specifically told they could
do
> >it?
>
> Specifically? They mentioned IE by name? Or perhaps there is some
> room for interpretation? It isn't as clear as you make it out.
No, Microsoft specifically negotiated for the right to integrate products,
and the DOJ agreed to it.
3 years later, long after MS had been doing the integration, the DOJ came
down and lost in court. That's why the new anti-trust case was brought, to
overrule the consent decree.
> I think your position is rather shaky considering the current judgement.
> It is fine to play Internet Lawyer, but the real courts aren't
> agreeing with you.
The judgement has nothing to do with the consent decree. My point is simply
this. Why should Microsoft have thought they were doing anything wrong when
the DOJ told them they could do something, and a court of law upheld that
right?
------------------------------
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