Linux-Advocacy Digest #918, Volume #26 Mon, 5 Jun 00 19:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It? ("Daniel Johnson")
Re: OSWars 2000 at www.stardock.com (Marty)
Re: Why We Should Be Nice To Windows Users -was- Neologism of the day (Scott Norwood)
OEM Linux (Neil Cerutti)
Re: windoze 9x, what a piece of shit! (sandrews)
Microsoft OS, no full OS CD Re: More Dirty Microsoft Tactics (Timothy J. Lee)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It?
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 22:58:18 GMT
"Leslie Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8hep9o$140o$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <HIt_4.2335$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Daniel Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >> The things where one price covers everything could be considered
> >> one piece. But you shouldn't have to replace any of those
> >> pieces to work against a replacement server that has
> >> a per-client fee.
> >
> >Why?
>
> That's where competition would happen if it were not for
> the vendor-lock effect.
I don't think the history of the industry bears that out. Competitions
usually comes not from replacement parts that do the same thing
but by new and different products.
It's dang near impossible to get people to replace a component
on a working system.
[snip]
> >No, not really. You are thinking of web pages there. Word processor
> >documents are usually printed, not e-mailed or otherwise
> >transferred.
>
> Unless your office is very different from mine, people work
> in groups and modify documents as computer files many
> times before printing the final copy - if there is such
> a thing.
That's fine, but it argues only for everyone using the same
tool, not that it must be Word.
> Many times the document is archived or kept
> updated on line for years. And in many cases the group
> spans organizations and the organizations themselves are
> sold and reorganized during the process. There is often
> no central point of control over the people involved and
> their software.
Well, that's fine too, but saying that MS must abandon
all efforts and innovation and submit to a standards body
*just* because some companies want to use Word for
data exchange- not a task it was intended for- is draconian
in the extreme.
> >The occasional use of word documents as an interchange format
> >is an artifact caused by the vast popularity of word.
>
> If you believe that, please describe what you consider the
> typical life cycle of a document developed by a group and
> what you think happened when one of that group first upgraded
> to word97.
I'll betcha most Word documents are not created by groups. Word
is not especially well suited to that task.
[snip]
> >You haven't asked me to, until now. Now you can tell me what
> >you mean by "100% interoperable".
> >
> >I have this nasty feeling it means "uses the same wire protocol".
>
> Yes, I mean something where you can actually replace a service
> with something from a different vendor and the stock Microsoft
> client interoperates fully and correctly.
Complete with features that that service doesn't provide, but
MS's competing service does.
No, wait, you want to keep MS from making any improvement
to their services.
> >> Not unix, cross-platform.
> >
> >Unix. You can say 'cross platform' over and over and over, but it is
> >still Unix.
>
> And you can say unix all you want, but it is really cross platform.
> There is nothing one OS can do over a network that another can't
DCOM?
> if the protocol is documented, and as I mentioned before, most
> of the currently popular protocols were developed on non-unix systems.
Well, some of them were. Those ones, oddly enough, seem to be
able to support non Unix platforms more or less.
> >> Yes it does. It applies to AS/400's and MacOS at least as
> >> much as unix.
> >
> >It "applies" by mere fiat; some people got together and *declared*
> >that eveyrone else in the world should use their formats, because
> >Its The Standard.
>
> Yes, agreement is the way it works. And it gives you a choice
> of vendors when more than one follow the standard.
What about those of us who do not agree? Should we be forced
down to Unix's level?
> >But this is not reality. Those standards *cannot* be used effectively
> >when then presume Unix-isms that other OSes do't support. We've
> >already touched on Kerberos's assumptions about security.
>
> Standards can be extended.
But even *that* is widely condemned when Microsoft does it. Kerberos
is a case in point.
> >I don't know AS/400 very well, the last one I had to tough was running
> >a System/36 emulator, so it was like looking at System/36. That system
> >used BCD for everything in sight; very different from the binary used
> >by Unix-based network standards.
>
> They can emulate other things too.
I'm sure they can't. But you can't tell a company that
depends on, say, DMAS to just switch to Unix. Or
even OS/400.
[snip]
> >Gawd. You really believe that?
>
> Yes. I believe that something I save on disk should be mine,
> not lock me into forever using a certain vendor's product
> every time I access it and force me to upgrade the product
> that wrote it if some other copy of a later version ever
> touches it.
You apparently don't believe Microsoft's software should
be theirs; rather than using prodducts you like, you'd have
Microsoft build software just for you.
> >You'd put a halt to all progress, if you had your way.
>
> Hardly. It would give everyone an equal chance at
> making progress.
They've that chance now.
> >> Microsoft took advantage of that without allowing any
> >> compitition with compatible software components.
> >
> >Now, Microsoft did nothing to prevent competition with
> >compatible software components; in fact, due to legal
> >entanglements, they were *compelled* to provide the
> >Windows source code to IBM, which incorporated it into
> >OS/2.
> >
> >I find it hard to believe you were unaware of this.
>
> The way I rememer it was that in this case also, Microsoft
> soon afterwards came out with a new, incompatible release
> and demanded vast amounts of money for it. The pattern
> repeats.
Windows 95, that was. And I'm sure you feel that Windows 95
offers nothing beyond what Win 3 does but incompatibility; that it
was all just a ploy to lock IBM out.
Do I guess near the mark?
[snip]
> >Unix *still* does not have a decent uniform printing
> >service. They best it has managed is to partially
> >standardize on PostScript, which is a second rate
> >solution for this problem. Business cannot live
> >without this. This is a big part of what made Windows
> >necessary in the first place.
>
> Postscript plus ppd files covers the bulk of the problem.
If you use mostly postscript printers, that does mostly
cover the problem.
> I'll agree that a problem exists, but I consider a
> windows-only solution the same as any single-vendor
> solution.
Well, it is more or less the same.
> You could solve the problem in the same
> way by just using a single printer vendor. Or only
> printer vendors that use a standard protocol.
No, that wouldn't solve the problem the same way; it
greatly reduces the variety of printers you can use;
the same problem PostScript has, but possibly worse
(it depends on the vendor)
> >Unix also does not have even marginal support for
> >games. Home users do insist on their games. OpenGL
> >is not enough; you must support game controllers,
> >sound, 2D acceleration, and net play.
>
> I haven't kept up with the game business, but at
> spring Comdex there were Linux boxes running games
> that looked fine to me and they were certainly
> networked and had sound.
Was the sound device independant?
I assume they were on networking; what MS provides
in DirectPlay can be implemented entirely by the game
with no drawbacks except the effort of writing it.
> >One can quible about other things, but until these two
> >issues are resolved, forget it. Even if Windows evaporated
> >tomorrow, Unix will still not be able to take advantage.
>
> There is nothing in unix that prohibits either a postscript
> plus ppd style printer capability mechanism or another
> abstraction done as a cross platform standard.
Nothing in Unix, no. The very nature of standards bodies
keeps them too slow and unresponsive to help much, and
the culture of Unix hurts too.
> >This still does not give MS any ability to expand. Vendor lock
> >keeps you customers your own, but it keeps your competitors
> >customers his, too.
>
> MS writes their applications so they read the files of
> more polite vendors that don't change formats yearly and
> then saves by default into their format that nothing else
> can read.
Those vendors also read the files of MS's products.
> >The amount of technical innovation and progress in the software
> >industry- which has heretofore been largely free to do as it likes-
> >has been stupendous.
>
> What can word print today that framemaker couldn't years ago?
Well, excel spreadsheets, for one thing. Word can embed them;
I dunno of FrameMaker can do that now, but it couldn't years
ago- MS invented the technology that makes it work.
[snip]
> >Oh, we stopped discussing a long time ago. :D
>
> I'm still typing in facts and observations.
Oh, I dunno.
> >> The damage was done by then. The 4.3 ->95 ->97 changes were the costly
> >> ones.
> >
> >"The damage"?
>
> The extraction of money that should have gone elsewhere.
Oh, please. Who gave you the right to decide where other people's
money 'should have gone'?
[snip]
> >It was adopted as the standard printer language by Unix
> >vendors and users.
>
> And Mac vendors and users, and the Next, and print shops,
> and probably many others.
NeXT, yes.
Mac, no. MacOS uses QuickDraw, which is very similar to the
technology Windows uses, but not quite as good at it.
Indeed, that's what Microsoft got the idea, almost certainly.
> >And that is why you are pushing it as The Standard That Everyone
> >Must Follow Because No-one Is Permitted To Do Better
> >Than Unix.
>
> No, I have that same objection to any single-vendor approach.
Yes, I'm sure you do.
[snip]
> >> >The *problem* was that you couldn't expect to
> >> >print reliably from your applications. The rest is
> >> >tech speak. MS's solution worked, and worked better
> >> >than Unix's currrent efforts to standardize on GhostScript
> >> >do.
>
> Huh? The *reason* you couldn't print reliably is simply that the
> printers did not have a standard language.
Perhaps the *reason* I couldn't print reliably is simply that
there was no intermediate software rendering layer.
You see, I can phrase the problem in terms of the solution
I like, too. It doesn't make it any more real when I do it, of course.
[snip]
> >No, it isn't.
> >
> >Ghostscript imposes a particular model that teh printer
> >must follow- it must look like a postscript printer.
> >
> >Some printers just *can't* do that.
>
> What does that mean? I once tried running a daisy-wheel printer
> with Word through the windows print driver and it failed badly.
> Is that supposed to work? This was a long time ago and I
> also couldn't get the 'text file' driver to work right.
I have no trouble getting the generic text only driver to work,
and I can print on text only printers. I have.
> >Others work suboptmially if they have to do it. For
> >instance, HP's popular LaserJet printers have
> >their own fonts; they are not identical to the Adobe
> >fonts PostScript uses. You can't use them if you
> >want a LaserJet to look like a PS printer; instead,
> >you can render the page as a bitmap and print that.
>
> I thought ghostscript was a little smarter about fonts
> than that, but still everyone using windows is going
> to use windows fonts and have them sent as bitmaps
> anyway. The model is still approximately the same.
Actually, no, HP's printers will do automatic substitution. You
won't notice (provided you use the right drivers) because
Windows can compensate for this. (But try using the
*wrong* LaserJet driver; interesting stuff happens.)
[snip]
> >Windows needs exactly the same abstraction- a printer driver.
>
> If you have postscript, and a postscript printer, you don't
> need any other abstraction.
That is too limiting. Not everybody has postscript printers. In
fact, quite a lot of people don't.
> In fact it is fairly hard to
> get windows to do the obviously correct thing with a postscript
> file. I think you have to drop to dos to manage to send it
> to a printer without letting the windows driver mangle it.
This is only 'obviously correct' to a Unix user; it's what Unix does.
> >You can do what you like with your data. You're telling me you
> >want to force me to use your formats for *mine*.
> >
> >I don't like your formats.
>
> I haven't mentioned what the format should be. You just want
> the ability to extort more money to be able to continue to
> access my own files after a new version of a program touches them.
Believe it or not, I do not get a cut from Word sales.
[snip]
> >Considering the way *that* standard came out, can you blame them?
> >
> >Probably you can- you seem to favor standardization for its own
> >sake, at *any* cost.
>
> No, I am saying the cost of standardization is less than the
> cost of not standardizing,
Well, aren't you glad everyone standardized on Word, then? :D
> and the innovation you claim to
> want will be increased because your data is no longer locked
> by the vendor's product that wrote it.
The data is not locked, now. The innovation is happening, now.
The problem you purport to solve by prohibiting any change
is not real.
> >Buying your OS separately is weird and anomalous; it almost
> >defeats the purpose.
>
> Not at all, but it would certainly do away with the illusion
> that Windows is easier to install than the alternatives.
Well, at least you aren't in denial about *everything*; you realize
there's a problem with printing in Unix. That's something.
> >The OS is a bundle of software
> >everyone needs for a particular computer; making everyone go
> >out and buy it separately is just a shade strange.
>
> It is not strange at all if you recognize that there are
> choices. From that perspective, having only vendor's product
> generally available bundled is the strange thing.
It's actually quite normal for computers. The Intel based
PCs are unusual in giving you a choice; most computers
don't.
[snip]
> >It would have been extremely limiting to do so; such devices
> >would have had to have been real mode to work with DOS,
> >so every protected mode OS- Unix included- would have had
> >to switch down to real mode to do any hardware access.
>
> Why would they have to be limited to real mode? I'd expect
> them to provide both real and 32-bit for anything that
> made sense. And these days a lot of devices don't bother
> supporting DOS at all.
You expect far too much. If they must build in a driver to sell
the card they will, but only the one driver they *need*; and
before 1990, that would have been for DOS, and hence
real mode.
And Windows would have had to provide software drivers
anyway.
> >And one can ask what the drivers should look like. Suppose
> >MS had promulgated the notion (somehow) that video
> >cards should contain GDI-style drivers built into them. Would
> >you be willing to abandon X Windows for that? Would you
> >insist that since X is The Standard(tm), video card makers
> >must implement an X server in their cards?
>
> Either or both would work as long as the card provided a
> standard interface. It would turn the device into an
> object instead of an arbitrary mess of ports, registers
> and memory.
How open minded of you. But I suspect your tune would be
different if it had happened, and gave Windows an advantage
because it supports Window's display model directly.
[snip]
> >If you choose to ignore everything from Microsoft, there's no hope;
> >you are simply chosing to believe those who agree with you.
>
> I have been misled too many times before. And I choose to
> believe that they haven't changed.
I, too, have been mislead many times before- by those who
tell us all that MS hides this or thing functionality for their
app's advantage.
It's never been true yet, when I've checked it.
> >My URLs lead to MS technical documentation. The technical
> >docs you were saying doesn't exist.
>
> What I am looking for is unbiased evidence that working
> products that interoperate can be created from this. And
> something to give me faith that the protocols/formats will
> not change as soon as a compatible product is developed.
A revelation from Gawd Almighty would not convince you of that,
I think. You can, as you put it "choose to believe" whatever you
wish.
[snip]
> >Oh, I don't think so. I don't know too much about it, but I rather
> >suspect there's room for extra features that Unix doesn't
> >have.
>
> The extra feature is putting money in Microsoft's pocket. In
> this case the LDAP server happens to be Netscape's running on
> an NT box, so yet again this has nothing to do with unix.
That's right, it has nothing to do with Unix.
> >Microsoft's approach to this problem *works*.
>
> It works as long as you define the problem as coercing
> people to buy Microsoft's server because their bundled
> clients are inconvenient to use with anything else.
That's not the only problem it solves, but we've been
over this.
> >Nobody outside
> >the Unix lobby things there's something wrong with a solution
> >that works, but doesn't emulate Unix.
>
> You mean instead that no one inside of Microsoft sees a problem.
The world is not dividing into Unix and Microsoft; there are other
factions as well.
You'll notice that Apple, for one, has chosen to ignore the accepted,
ratified Unix standards in their new MacOS X. This despite it's being
based on Unix! The flout the well-known X-Windows standard,
and implement their own thing.
Apparently they think they can do better. But they aren't compatible
with other Unixes.
> >If you use MS style modem drivers, you *can*, becuase you are
> >no longer constrained to doing what Unix has done for 20 years.
>
> But you haven't improved your communications, you have just sapped
> the CPU and limited yourself to a single OS.
You've saved money.
> No one but the vendor that just locked you into that product can
> consider that an advantage.
Nonsense; everyone likes to save money. :D
> >That is, after all, a very strong claim. You are saying that
> >there are products out there that are effectively identifical
> >to Office, except for the file formats.
> >
> >I don't think such exist.
>
> There are plenty of products out there that are capable of doing
> word processing,
like WordStar? :D
> but since you think Microsoft is magic, let's
> just consider people who had Office 95 or the corresponding flavor
> of word.
Oh yes, you're saying you don't like upgrades. I had
forgotten already.
> >I suspect you really meant to ask a slightly different question:
> >Something like ".. that no copies of Office are sold
> >to people would could not have suffered along with an inferior
> >product that is more Unix compatible"
> >
> >To which question I would have to say "no, I guess not."
>
> I don't see how 'suffering along' with office 95 is that much different
> now than it was back when Microsoft was promoting it instead
> of the new and incompatible 97.
It isn't. But like I said, Microsoft slips up *once*, and you'll
never forgive them.
[snip]
> >So that *is* what you want. No progress because Unix can't keep up.
>
> I don't define progress as extracting money from the consumers,
> which is the real purpose of most of these changes.
Welcome to the wonderful world of capitalism. The only reason
companies improve their products is to extract money from
customers.
This may be distasteful to you, but it works.
> >I wonder why Unix has such a hard time though.
>
> At what?
Technological progress. That was a rhetorical question,
by the way, the reason is pretty simple. Unix is tied down by
the standardization process. Slows things down
immensely.
> >TIFF is a good example of why this does not work. Knowing
> >enough to skip over data you don't understand isn't good
> >enough- the whole *point* of translation is to get that
> >data out, and skipping it defeats the purpose.
>
> So you prefer to demand that old programs be replaced even
> to handle new files that don't contain any of the new
> data types? I don't.
Naw. But it's better to use translators; they have a chance
and coping in a less destructive way.
This does not have to be inconvinient. I believe the way
MS eventually (!) dealth with the Office 95->97 problems
was to release plug-in translators that could cope.
(They should, of course, have done that on day 1.)
[snip]
> >Apparently some of these 'others' do need the features; and
> >that means you need to be able to read their output that
> >uses those features.
>
> There is no basis for that conclusion - the format being
> different is an arbitrary choice and causes trouble with
> or without any new features being used.
I don't think so.
You can say it over and over, and you do, but even
the switch to structured storage, while poorly handled,
was a good idea in principle.
------------------------------
From: Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.be.advocacy
Subject: Re: OSWars 2000 at www.stardock.com
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 22:57:34 GMT
rj friedman wrote:
>
> On Mon, 5 Jun 2000 05:27:08 Marty wrote:
>
> ˙> P.S. I don't use my computer to play games.
>
> ˙You certainly use it to play infantile games on Usenet.
>
> Isn't it amazing how hard the RAT tries to rise above
> itself. Sure, they conditioned me to type, it says to
> itself, but I aspire to more than that. I know, I know, I'll
> say something witty so they can be astounded by my
> intellect!
>
> Sigh - too few food pellets or too many electro-shocks when
> you were being put through the maze, I'm afraid.
What's truly amazing is how all I have to do is hold up the hoop and RJ
obligingly jumps right through it without a second (or first for that matter)
thought. The infantile game continues...
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,talk.bizarre
Subject: Re: Why We Should Be Nice To Windows Users -was- Neologism of the day
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Scott Norwood)
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 22:58:49 GMT
In article <8hhano$1qnp$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Leslie Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>VNC is better than nothing, but pretty slow over a low
>bandwidth link.
As if X is any better? Personally, I find X performance to be slow
even on a 10Mbps LAN and just barely tolerable on a 100Mbps switched
network. That's why it's important to have an OS which has good
command-line tools, regardless of whatever cute GUI the vendor might
also provide.
--
Scott Norwood: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cool Home Page: http://www.redballoon.net/
Lame Quote: Penguins? In Snack Canyon?
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Neil Cerutti)
Subject: OEM Linux
Date: 5 Jun 2000 18:05:57 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
When in casual discussion with friends about the computer industry, the
difficulty of Linux installation is always an issue. My use computers to
get things done, not as a hobby, and the few that have any experience with
Posix-style systems (at work) feel that it's too complicatd.
I generally say that Linux, if pre-installed by an OEM, would prevent no
more difficulties to desktop-end-users than a pre-installed Windows system
does. But I don't really know if that argument holds true in practice.
There are now OEMs selling PC's with Linux pre-installed. Is there any data
available that shows how end-users are faring with it?
I may be off base though, since probably most pre-installed Linux machines
are meant for sys-admin use as servers, etc.. Is there an OEM selling Linux
machines meant for the Average Joan Desktop User?
--
char NeilCerutti[]= "[EMAIL PROTECTED]";
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 19:02:58 -0400
From: sandrews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: windoze 9x, what a piece of shit!
Pete Goodwin wrote:
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Black Dragon) wrote in
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> >No insults here, just the facts. Instead of using the Linux help news
> >groups, you prefer to come here for no other reason but to trash Linux
> >itself. If you were to put forth as much effort into seeking the
> >solutions to your problems as you do sniveling about them here in COLA,
> >you would be much further ahead and you just might actually learn
> >something. Until then, you are just a TROLL, and not a very good one,
> >either.
>
> The fact is I'm still not lying. I'm telling the truth. The fact is you
> don't want to hear the truth, because it reveals the basic weaknesses of
> Linux.
>
> So, you call me a Troll, and you say I'm not a very good one.
>
> Still doesn't alter the fact I'm not lying.
>
> Pete
Yep Not lying, just not telling the truth. Gee that sounds like a
certain
software company that makes shitty OS`s.
Now begone, fore I startup my Troll-Be-Gone app.
--
"You can open self extracting archives using PKZIP25.EXE
or unrar" - censored by Microsoft."
"You can unzip a self extracting .EXE with WinZip" -BANNED BY MICROSOFT"
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Timothy J. Lee)
Subject: Microsoft OS, no full OS CD Re: More Dirty Microsoft Tactics
Date: 5 Jun 2000 23:08:58 GMT
Reply-To: see-signature-for-email-address---junk-not-welcome
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (billy ball) writes:
|p. 117, Infoworld, June 5, 2000:
|
|regarding Microsoft's un-announced policy of no longer including a CD-ROM
|with computers sold with a Microsoft operating system installed...
Here are some links to Infoworld's web site on the subject:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/05/01/000501opfoster.xml
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/05/29/000529opfoster.xml
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/06/05/000605opfoster.xml
--
========================================================================
Timothy J. Lee timlee@
Unsolicited bulk or commercial email is not welcome. netcom.com
No warranty of any kind is provided with this message.
------------------------------
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.advocacy) via:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
ftp.funet.fi pub/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
******************************
