Linux-Advocacy Digest #203, Volume #26 Fri, 21 Apr 00 02:13:11 EDT
Contents:
Software Patents, Public Domain Microprocessors -- Links (Mark S. Bilk)
Re: Unix is dead? (SeaDragon)
Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...) ("Stephen S. Edwards
II")
Re: Linux vs. BSD (Andy Newman)
Re: Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...) (Jim Richardson)
Re: Sell Me On Linux (SeaDragon)
Re: Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...) ("Drestin Black")
Re: DCOM versus CORBA, some history (SeaDragon)
Re: Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...) (SeaDragon)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark S. Bilk)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Software Patents, Public Domain Microprocessors -- Links
Date: 21 Apr 2000 04:42:11 GMT
In article <8do285$raf$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
David Steinberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>...
>--
>David Steinberg -o) Boycott Amazon.com! Fight
>Computer Engineering Undergrad, UBC / \ the "1-Click Order" patent:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] _\_v http://www.nowebpatents.org
The link in David Steinberg's .sig sent me on an interesting
journey, which I'd like to share with others who may not be
familiar with some of this information. Thanks, David!
The microprocessor designs of opencores.org -- at least the
one I looked at -- are licensed under the GPL. I'm not sure
about the others -- openip.org and free-ip.com -- so I don't
know if improvements to them have to be given back to the
community. Therefore a link to the FSF website about such
issues is included before that section.
Apparently GNU/Linux has been ported to the OpenCores RISC
processor, and they're also working on various I/O and memory
chips, so eventually, it will be possible to use a computer
that's Open Source down to the chip microcode and circuitry!
The links are in the Lynx bookmark format -- simple HTML.
Software Patents:
<LI><a href="http://www.nowebpatents.org/">NoWebPatents.org -- lots of info and
links!</a>
<LI><a
href="http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/reports/gmsv/backups/morn02292000.htm">SiliconValley.com:
In Time For Reports: Good Morning Silicon Valley</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.noamazon.com/">Stop typing amazon.com. Start typing
noamazon.com. -- lots of links to other book sellers on the Web!</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/amazon_patent.html">Ask Tim O'Reilly --
Software Patents Issue</a>
<LI><a
href="http://www.oreillynet.com/cgi-bin/conf/item?group=oreillynet.patents&item=19">O'Reilly
Network | Newsgroups | oreillynet.patents -- thread</a>
<LI><a
href="http://www.oreillynet.com/cgi-bin/conf/summary?group=oreillynet.patents">O'Reilly
Network | Newsgroups | Summary of oreillynet.patents threads</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/patents/">O'Reilly Network: Patents DevCenter
-- the evil of software patents -- lots of links and info!</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/patent_list">O'Reilly Network: Patents --
list of particularly harmful software patents</a>
<LI><a href="http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-922281.html">CNET.com - News -
E-commerce - Amazon sues Barnesandnoble.com over patent -- "one-click"</a>
<LI><a
href="http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/qa041700.htm">Patent
office faces a changing tech world (4/16/2000)</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,12377,00.html">
Amazon.com Patents Enemy-Making Process </a>
<LI><a href="http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?&pn=US05443036__">Patenting Prior
Art -- Method of exercising a cat (US5443036) -- with a laser pointer!!!</a>
Public Domain (Open Source?) CPU and other chip designs:
<LI><a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html">Philosophy of the GNU
Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20000228S0007">Free 32-bit processor core
hits the Net -- OpenCores</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.opencores.org/">OPENCORES.ORG -- free digital designs for
CPUs, FPU, IO controllers, etc.!!!</a>
<LI><a
href="http://www.opencores.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/or1k/or1001/alu.vhd?rev=1.1.1.1&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup">or1k/or1001/alu.vhd
- view - 1.1.1.1</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.openip.org/oc/links.html">OpenIPCore related sites -- lots of
free hardware project sites</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.openip.org/">OpenIP Organization - Open Source Software and
Hardware -- IP = "intellectual property"</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.openip.org/oc/">OpenCore Project -- including licensing and
methodology</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.openip.org/oc/lic.html">OpenIP Core License</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.free-ip.com/">The Free IP Project</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.free-ip.com/cores.htm">Free-IP Cores</a>
A Public Domain GUI:
<LI><a href="http://www.openip.org/oa_overview.html">The OpenAmulet Project -- free
portable super-GUI -- openip.org</a>
Incidental items encountered:
<LI><a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/python/">O'Reilly Network: Python DevCenter</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/rss/">O'Reilly Network: Syndication DevCenter
-- RSS -- Rich Site Summary</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.asktog.com/">Ask Tog Home Page: April, 2000 -- Apple GUI
design problems?</a>
<LI><a href="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q151/5/01.ASP">Visual
C++ -- Q151501 - FIX: Linking Large Projects Can Be Very Slow</a>
<LI><a href="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q168/9/12.asp">Q168912 -
INFO: Summary List: Visual C++ 5.0 Known Problems</a>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (SeaDragon)
Subject: Re: Unix is dead?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 04:58:19 GMT
On Thu, 20 Apr 2000 16:45:59 -0600, John W. Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>Nope. Linus was inspired by Minix, but did not "base" Linux on Minix
>any more than Windows NT is based on Minix (IE, all modern OS'en share
>some pretty general architechtural concepts . . .)
You must be really new to Linux. Minix was much more than "inspired" by
Minix. It was originally intended to be "a better Minix than Minix".
Early versions of Linux were binary compatible with Minix, and the
original filesystem for Linux was the Minix filesystem (which some
Linuxers claim is still the best filesystem for floppies under Linux).
So you are completely clueless in stating that Linux had no more
similarities to Minix aside from what all operating systems have in
common.
------------------------------
From: "Stephen S. Edwards II" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...)
Date: 21 Apr 2000 05:01:52 GMT
Rob Hughes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[SNIP]
: Drestin, you are one of the last people I would ever be able to respect.
: You're a freak, and often scare me with your narrowness of vision as well as
: of mind. We are on the same "side" only in that we made the same choice for
: our primary operating systems/network operating systems. I would venture to
: guess though that we made these choices for completely different reasons.
I think Drestin's actions are more geared towards "giving the other sides'
zealots a taste of their own medicine", rather than genuine WindowsNT
zeal. At least, that is what appears to be the case from my perspective.
When one steps back, and takes a good hard look at this whole .advocacy
thing, it really is quite ridiculous. I bitch and moan about MacOS, or
Solaris, Drestin and others voice complaints about Linux, others complain
about Microsoft or Windows, etc. But the only thing that counts is
getting work done. Hell, I have an old Macintosh Centris 650 that I still
use primarily for driving my HP ScanJet IIc (mostly just for scanning in
drawings). MacOS has a lot of problems, but honestly, it works just fine
for 2D applications, despite my mild distaste for it. I could run the
scanner with my WindowsNT workstation, but honestly, why go through the
extra trouble of adding more hardware for _ONE_ measly application,
especially when I can run another operating system to give me a bit more
flexibility? There is not one reason for such action (outside of office
space limitations).
People often tend to embrace a product, because it does exactly what they
want it to, and after time, they develop a genuine positive sentiment for
said product. But some people take this to an extreme, and they attempt
to "evangelize" said product to everyone else, who may or may not have a
particular like for said product. Then, when criticisms are offered, the
"evangelist" often feels insulted, and a flamewar ensues.
We all need to understand that these are just tools... tools for getting
work done. I'm a 3D animator: I cannot afford to be so blindly biased
that I only work on one platform. I use MacOS for 2D graphics, WindowsNT
for 3D animation (Lightwave, primarily), and NetBSD for raytracing, and
light simulation (Radiance, actually -- http://radsite.lbl.gov/ --
Incredible!).
I'm planning on getting either a used SGI Indy, or an older Sun SPARC
machine to do more 3D work under UNIX (as there are some higher-end
freeware tools out there that I want to get my hands on (and porting them
to WindowsNT would be very difficult for someone such as myself)). Do I
give a flying fart that SGI is rather bitter towards Microsoft? Should I
worry about using the products of two competing companies? Absolutely
not. The only thing that blind zeal does, is limit your flexibility.
I think it's silly that some people use an operating system just to "get
away from Microsoft" or other such nonsense. Use of an operating system
should be dictated by one's tasks, tastes, and lifestyle, and not the
other way around. Any other reasoning beyond that is simply mental
illness, AFAIC.
I would suggest that users of any OS try (or at least, read/research info
about) other operating systems. You just might find a better way to do
what you're doing now.
: add-ons, or natively, but I personally prefer FTP and email, and require the
: same from my users. I like to log ;) *gets ready for the network/sysadmin
You require your users to _prefer_ FTP and E-mail? Gee, you are a mean
sysadmin! *grin*
--
.-----.
|[_] :| Stephen S. Edwards II | NetBSD: Free of hype and license.
| = :| "Artificial Intelligence -- The engineering of systems that
| | yield results such as, 'The answer is 67E23... I think.'"
|_..._| [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.primenet.com/~rakmount
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Andy Newman)
Subject: Re: Linux vs. BSD
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 14:52:58 +1000
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Craig Kelley wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas) writes:
>
>> Derek Callaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > How is Linux better than (Free|Net|Open)BSD?
>>
>> It isnt.
>
>Unless you have an SMP machine, that is...
And your system spends most of its time in the kernel.
--
Chuck Berry lied about the promised land
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 05:20:27 GMT
On 21 Apr 2000 05:01:52 GMT,
Stephen S. Edwards II, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>Rob Hughes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>[SNIP]
>
>: Drestin, you are one of the last people I would ever be able to respect.
>: You're a freak, and often scare me with your narrowness of vision as well as
>: of mind. We are on the same "side" only in that we made the same choice for
>: our primary operating systems/network operating systems. I would venture to
>: guess though that we made these choices for completely different reasons.
>
>I think Drestin's actions are more geared towards "giving the other sides'
>zealots a taste of their own medicine", rather than genuine WindowsNT
>zeal. At least, that is what appears to be the case from my perspective.
>
>When one steps back, and takes a good hard look at this whole .advocacy
>thing, it really is quite ridiculous. I bitch and moan about MacOS, or
>Solaris, Drestin and others voice complaints about Linux, others complain
>about Microsoft or Windows, etc. But the only thing that counts is
>getting work done. Hell, I have an old Macintosh Centris 650 that I still
>use primarily for driving my HP ScanJet IIc (mostly just for scanning in
>drawings). MacOS has a lot of problems, but honestly, it works just fine
>for 2D applications, despite my mild distaste for it. I could run the
>scanner with my WindowsNT workstation, but honestly, why go through the
>extra trouble of adding more hardware for _ONE_ measly application,
>especially when I can run another operating system to give me a bit more
>flexibility? There is not one reason for such action (outside of office
>space limitations).
>
>People often tend to embrace a product, because it does exactly what they
>want it to, and after time, they develop a genuine positive sentiment for
>said product. But some people take this to an extreme, and they attempt
>to "evangelize" said product to everyone else, who may or may not have a
>particular like for said product. Then, when criticisms are offered, the
>"evangelist" often feels insulted, and a flamewar ensues.
>
>We all need to understand that these are just tools... tools for getting
>work done. I'm a 3D animator: I cannot afford to be so blindly biased
>that I only work on one platform. I use MacOS for 2D graphics, WindowsNT
>for 3D animation (Lightwave, primarily), and NetBSD for raytracing, and
>light simulation (Radiance, actually -- http://radsite.lbl.gov/ --
>Incredible!).
>
>I'm planning on getting either a used SGI Indy, or an older Sun SPARC
>machine to do more 3D work under UNIX (as there are some higher-end
>freeware tools out there that I want to get my hands on (and porting them
>to WindowsNT would be very difficult for someone such as myself)). Do I
>give a flying fart that SGI is rather bitter towards Microsoft? Should I
>worry about using the products of two competing companies? Absolutely
>not. The only thing that blind zeal does, is limit your flexibility.
>
>I think it's silly that some people use an operating system just to "get
>away from Microsoft" or other such nonsense. Use of an operating system
>should be dictated by one's tasks, tastes, and lifestyle, and not the
>other way around. Any other reasoning beyond that is simply mental
>illness, AFAIC.
>
>I would suggest that users of any OS try (or at least, read/research info
>about) other operating systems. You just might find a better way to do
>what you're doing now.
>
>: add-ons, or natively, but I personally prefer FTP and email, and require the
>: same from my users. I like to log ;) *gets ready for the network/sysadmin
>
>You require your users to _prefer_ FTP and E-mail? Gee, you are a mean
>sysadmin! *grin*
>--
Sounds reasonable, but you are the guy who said he'd toss BeOS 4.5
(an OS you claimed to like) in the trash if Redhat bought Be.
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (SeaDragon)
Subject: Re: Sell Me On Linux
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 05:24:58 GMT
On Thu, 20 Apr 2000 20:39:47 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>Runs on more hardware (IBM mainframes, Dec Alphas-64bit, apple hardware,
>Sun hardware...)
Buying an IBM or an Alpha to run Linux is about as smart as buying
a Porsche to drive around in first gear.
>MS is limited to Intel x86 -- MacOS to apple.
Incorrect.
If you want to talk about hardware vendor support, Microsoft has _many_
more hardware vendors supporting it, and you have _much_ more choice in
choosing a vendor for an MS system than you do for a Linux system. There
are literally thousands of PC clone vendors, who support Microsoft. A
tiny portion of them support Linux.
Linux runs on more _architectures_ than Windows, but that is irrelevant:
people are interested in what more vendors offer solutions, and clearly,
Windows users have a _much_ bigger choice for hardware vendor.
Don't like Intel? Then support a vendor who sells AMD, Cyrix, IDT, Rise,
or one of the multitude of the IA-32 clones available.
>Stable command structure (minimal retraining every time a new version is
>released).
1. A new Windows version is not released frequently. It appears that the
flagship version is released every four years, and this does not warrant
frequent expensive retraining as you suggest.
2. Linux commands, especially with respect to administrative tools,
vary drastically from version-to-version, and especially from
Linux distribution-to-distribution.
3. The documentation for this "stable command structure" is less than
stable and wildly out-dated in some cases. On more than one occasion
I have followed instructions in what were purported to be up-to-date
HOWTO files on up-to-date distributions, and have been greeted with
all kinds of errors since the tools have changed since the HOWTO was
written (two or three weeks ago).
4. Linux training locks you into Linux; I have met many a person
who learned Linux and was mystified when using a Sun or HP machine
(so moving from Unix flavor to Linux to Unix flavor costs mega-bucks
in retraining).
>Runs the most common Internet apps (sendmail, Apache...).
Yes - sendmail - the application which singlehandedly brought down
the internet in 1987. A program which I REALLY want running on
my servers. I am so jealous...
>Proven remote management.
Proven to suck. When you disconnect from your remote session, and
then reconnect to it, does Linux even bring you back to your previous
session or does it restart, losing your old work? It does the latter,
even though almost every OS built since 1970 (including Windows) does the
former. Another example of Linux slipping further and further behind the
technology curve.
>Large number of file systems supported.
Ah yes. Exactly which filesystem do you need to read on Windows that
you can't? This would improve your daily productivity in what way?
Do you really find that sneakernet is faster than 1 GB ethernet?
>Multiple User interfaces, you can pick the on
>the fits YOUR needs. Can run with OUT a GUI to save resources.
Ah, yes. Today everybody is running 1 BIPS machines with 1 GB RAM,
and you are concerned about the entire 1 MIPS and 2 MB RAM of overhead
that the GUI costs? Come back and play when you solve the more
fundamental speedpaths in Linux (like using a textfile for large
databases), which Windows solved about 10 years ago.
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...)
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 01:13:13 -0400
"Stephen S. Edwards II" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8donc0$avi$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Rob Hughes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> [SNIP]
>
> : Drestin, you are one of the last people I would ever be able to respect.
> : You're a freak, and often scare me with your narrowness of vision as
well as
> : of mind. We are on the same "side" only in that we made the same choice
for
> : our primary operating systems/network operating systems. I would venture
to
> : guess though that we made these choices for completely different
reasons.
>
> I think Drestin's actions are more geared towards "giving the other sides'
> zealots a taste of their own medicine", rather than genuine WindowsNT
> zeal. At least, that is what appears to be the case from my perspective.
>
>
well, it's true my favorite thing to do is to give back as I got, only
better - I am truely a NT fan. Zealot? Nawww... I just use what I know
works. I say "know" because I've tried the rest and have always come back to
the best. I'm quiet and not very into the groups lately only because i'm
finally back on my feet after a long term accident which put me off my feet.
We've installed 65,000 seats of W2K already and just shy of 1000 servers - I
can safely say I've never EVER in 18 years had a more successful, easy and
according-to-plan set of installs. I feel that with W2K, there is nothing
left to be said re: "nt vs linux" - the game is over.
take care,
db
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (SeaDragon)
Subject: Re: DCOM versus CORBA, some history
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 05:35:26 GMT
On 20 Apr 2000 14:36:26 GMT, Donal K. Fellows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>The main reason that apps for X have not typically supported anything
>other than plain text is the lack of agreement on how the data should
>be represented.
They should give you some sort of an award for stating the obvious. The
whole problem with X is that there is no agreement on anything. You have
just restated the symptoms of the problem by stating its cause. You
have contributed no insightful point to the discussion.
This is a fundamental flaw in free software which has been identified
years ago by the critics of free software. The advantage of a single
vednor who defines standards is that they can control the standards. You
lose this when go to free software because the programmers are generally
less professional and less experienced, and want to do things in their
own, hackery way, instead of working of the fundamental problems. Superior,
more robust systems such as Mac and Windows do not have such glaring
limitations as the more fragile systems such as Linux and Unix have.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (SeaDragon)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 05:55:39 GMT
On 21 Apr 2000 05:01:52 GMT, Stephen S. Edwards II <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>I think it's silly that some people use an operating system just to "get
>away from Microsoft" or other such nonsense. Use of an operating system
>should be dictated by one's tasks, tastes, and lifestyle, and not the
>other way around. Any other reasoning beyond that is simply mental
>illness, AFAIC.
Correct. One thing you will find in some of the less technically incline
people, is people who (e.g.) favor Unix, and favor Mac (or MVS), and
like both better than Microsoft. Microsoft is a pretty good middle
point between Unix and Mac (or MVS), and e.g. provides consistent,
easy-to-use interfaces like the Mac (or MVS), and on the other hand,
pretty good access to most of the system, and a command line, and simple
files (like Unix). (OS X need not apply). There is a certain straggling
line of people who are so confused, and so technically ignorant, that
the like Macintosh AND Unix but not Windows. So they are so far gone,
so full of Microsoft hatred, that they don't even realize their mistake
and believe that they have some sort of technical justification for
this. It is clear that they have a highly non-technical agenda, and
are interested in hating Microsoft, and joining the militant, trendy,
buzzword-slobbering, fashionable anti-Microsoft army, but not interested
in in technical superiority in any way.
>I would suggest that users of any OS try (or at least, read/research info
>about) other operating systems. You just might find a better way to do
>what you're doing now.
One thing you have to keep in mind is that most of the Linux users are
extremely new to computers. Many of them are so ignorant that they
believe that "operating systems" means "different flavors of Unix". If
you set them in front of a machine running Windows, Macintosh, OS/390,
TOPS-20, whatever - their reaction will be the same: "It's not Unix". But
not in so many words. They will try to make it emulate Unix and will
never really learn the new system, but just how well it does Unix. They
won't succeed in that and will conclude that they system sucks. Unix is
so ingrained into people especially at that collegiate level that most
people involved in Linux have no serious knolwedge of any system. Many of
them have never even logged in to a IBM mainframe. Your push to teach
them that other systems even exist will not be a fruitful exercise -
teaching Linux users that other computer systems are viable is about as
easy as educating fundamentalist Christians in evolutionary theory.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
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