Linux-Advocacy Digest #9, Volume #27 Sat, 10 Jun 00 14:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Canada invites Microsoft north (tinman)
Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes ("Quantum Leaper")
Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It? (Pascal Haakmat)
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (tinman)
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Canada invites Microsoft north
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 13:18:21 -0400
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Mayor
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In article <tinman-1006001048200001@dsl-64-34-84-
> 49.telocity.com>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (tinman) wrote:
>
> >Oh, no, you're not baiting me into this one, I'm not falling
> into another
> >tholenesque spiral this week, I've got gardening to do....
> >
> Your gardening is irrelevant.
>
Incorrect. It's the only relevant thing (today).
--
______
tinman
------------------------------
From: "Quantum Leaper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 17:58:48 GMT
"Sam Morris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:VHs05.310$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> Cons: They reaassign themselves at the slightest excuse; add a new
> >> drive, and all bets are off as to which of your existing drive letter
> >> assignments will stay the same.
> > Verdict: Stupid 1970s way of doing things that should be ashamed to be
> > still showing itself in the 21st century.
> >
> >The same goes for all the other filesystems in use today.
>
> Per-volume systems do no such thing. If I add another disk to my Mac, each
> formatted partition appears on the desktop and doesn't screw up everything
> else that came before.
>
> Example: Installing a new Hard Disk.
>
> On my Mac: Connect the cables up inside and turn it on (both IDE/SCSI).
> Initialise the disk when asked to do so by the MacOS. Do whatever I want
> with the new disk.
>
All Macs I have seen with IDE, only HAVE one bay. I may be mistaken
though.
> On my PC: Look in manual to discover jumper settings for Master/Slave (IDE
> only; I haven't tried to add a SCSI card to my PC). Connect up cables.
Boot
> up. Discover that my CD is now E:, not D: and every damn thing that
expects
> it's files to be on a CD now needs to be told differently.
>
Manual??? What that? ;) I look on the drive, almost all drives I have
seen have a little sticker stating the jumper settings. The only drive I
have without a sticker is a VERY old 230 MB HD (from a defunct company),
and I have PCRef to look that one up.
It takes a few brain cells, but if you put your CD on maybe Z or something,
you never have a problem. BTW my DVD is X, my CDR is Y and my Zip is Z. I
never had any problem add new HDs. Currently I have 2 HDs, C and D. I will
be adding one by the end of the month, which will be E, unless I do
something dumb like partitioning it with a Primary Partition.
> God knows how Windows copes with multiple partitions on a removeable
drive;
> if I repartition my main prive in half, then I now have C: and D:, E: and
> F:. But what happens if I insert a CD with two partitions? Does F:
magically
> split into F: and G:?
>
I don't know about Removeable drives. Partition Magic is what I would use
if I had to repartition (I have used it), my HD and that takes care of all
the links, including the stuff in the registry.
What software lets you format a CD with Partitions???? CDs are composed of
Tracks.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pascal Haakmat)
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: 10 Jun 2000 18:01:53 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Daniel Johnson wrote:
>"Pascal Haakmat" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Daniel Johnson wrote:
>[snip]
>> >> Maybe. I suppose I don't use the stuff that makes it unusually good.
>> >
>> >Well, they are pretty good about supporting their competitors protocols
>> >and formats.
>>
>> You must mean they are very good at bait-and-switch!
>
>No. I don't recall them advertising ont he basis of compatibility
>either, so even if they didn't deliver it, it wouldn't be "bait and
>switch". It would just be "switch". :D
Sometimes I think you have a blind spot.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/guide/server/features/interop.asp
[snip]
>> Take for example NT's "Services for Macintosh". The promise is: buy NT
>> Server and interconnect your existing systems. So you do just that and
>hook
>> your existing Macs up to the NT machine. But then performance proves
>abysmal
>> and a host of printing problems ensues. This has management conclude "Macs
>> suck. We must move everything to Windows".
>
>Well, I ask you how many *other* server OSes even go this far: how many
>support Apple's protocols at all?
Irrelevant to the possible issue of bait-and-switch, which we were
discussing.
>> Or take the telnet client that ships with Windows. The promise, again, is:
>> buy Windows and connect to your legacy systems. So you do just that; but
>> not surprisingly, the client's VT100 emulation is so abominable that many
>> applications refuse to work correctly or at all. Leaving management to
>> conclude, again, that "Unix sucks. We must move everything to Windows".
>
>If they are using VT100s, they are going to conclude that *anyway*.
No, that is not true, and I don't see how you could possibly know.
>I've used Window's telnet. It's pretty limited, but it is servicable.
No, it's broken. The VT100 emulator breaks (among other things) the "talk"
client and the telnet implementation cannot negotiate window size.
[snip]
>> >To NT, sure. This is, in part, why Windows 2000 suddenly
>> >learned to speak Kerberos. It already knew NetWare,
>> >but increasingly its competitors wasn't speaking that.
>>
>> Can you explain to me what all the fuzz was about with MS' implementation
>of
>> Kerberos security?
>
>MS asked MIT (I think it was) for an extension to Kerberos that would
>let them put NT security info into Kerberos transmissions; you need this
>to support NT's security model. MIT obliged, and the result is that
>Windows 2000 clients work better with Windows 2000 Kerberos
>servers, because they can integrate with domain security; if you use
>Unix Kerberos you do not get this, and it is a pain.
OK.. Thanks for the briefing.
>> >Yes. That's why I don't think mandating a standard technology
>> >that everyone must use is a real answer to the problem of
>> >interoperability.
>> >
>> >"Everyone should use (say) TeX format" is no better than
>> >"everyone should use Word format".
>>
>> Yes, it is.
>>
>> It's approximately the difference between "all cars should use gasoline"
>and
>> "all cars should be Fords".
>
>No, it isn't. You may prefer one format. You may prefer one format
>simply because you like its creator, or dislike the creator of the
>other.
>
>But your preference in such things is no reason for *everyone* to use
>your favored format.
My preferences are not the issue. You were comparing the Word document
format (a binary representation with largely ill-understood and hardly
discoverable semantics) to the TeX document format (an ASCII representation
with well-understood and easily discoverable semantics).
Owing to their differing nature, the document formats sport differing
characteristics. These characteristics are independant of my preferences.
In the hypothetical event that a fascist world leadership should arise and
proclaim we must all use One Document Format, several characteristics of the
Word document format (storage of personal data, single-vendor appropriation,
troublesome discoverability) make the TeX document format a better choice
given the circumstances.
However this is getting to be an increasingly irrelevant discussion.
Firstly because I never claimed that everyone should use my favored format.
Secondly because if a fascist world leadership does arise, what document
format it wants to use is going to be the least of my worries.
>> To slip out of hypothetical generalities and into reality for a moment, I
>> would not require either TeX or Word to be used by everyone. Use the best
>> tool for the job, and sometimes that may be Word.
>>
>> The difference between human readable text files and binary data in a
>> proprietary format remains.
>
>Text data storage versus binary is a implementation detail; you may
>well feel that text data storage is superior, but again that is you
>preference and it is not universal.
>
>It is still no reason for everyone to use TeX.
It's your straw man. Pummel him as you please.
[snip]
>> >I think you are holding the bar of substitutability that no product
>> >could ever acheive it with respect to any other product.
>>
>> [Usenet economist speaking:]
>>
>> Not really. If I take an example like Coke or Microsoft, the bar of
>> substitutability is so high not because of my standards, but because of
>> their dominance in their respective markets.
>
>This sounds very like "I have a double standards; big companies
>must meet a high standard because of this."
>Did you mean it that way?
It makes a lot of sense to distinguish between big companies and small
companies or individuals. What this has to do with double standards escapes
me.
>> This is why monopolies are
>> generally bad -- they hurt substitutability.
>
>This doesn't make sense. "XCorp has a monopoly" is not
>equivalent to "YCorp's products are not substitutable for XCorp's";
>if you want to argue that monopolies do hurt substitutability,
>argue that: but don't suppose it to be self-evident.
>
>I could make an argument that they *enhance* substitutability
>by giving everyone a nice obvious target to try to clone.
True.. In an effort to get away from the subject of economics as quickly as
possible I did make some unwarranted assumptions. Alas, I did not get away
that easily..
>> >Well, bear in mind that less dominant players can also obstruct
>> >interoperability in the same way; and they can do so without
>> >monpolies.
>>
>> They could, but for less dominant players, interoperability is a
>_benefit_.
>> To monopolies, it is a _threat_.
>
>No. If interoperability allows people to switch to the monopolies
>product. That is why MS is so gung ho about it.
Um. A monopoly seems to imply that most people are already using the
monopolies product.
>> >But it *is* true that making a product with all the capabilities
>> >of Windows is very hard to do. I'm not sure this says anything
>> >*bad* about Microsoft.
>>
>> Look, it's also very hard to make a car that has all the capabilities of
>> another car, or a VCR, or even a good spaghetti. Still people seem to
>> manage. With operating systems, nobody seems to manage. Either everybody
>is
>> incompetent, which is what you often end up saying, or there is some other
>> force involved, which is of course the position that I, in my infinite
>> wisdom, tend to procure :)
>
>Well, I would say that *some* people are incompetant. But the competant
>ones do not want to spend their effort solving a solved problem; that is
>boring. Worse, it's not very lucrative- you *may* make some money
>if you can pry all or part of the market from Microsoft, but it sure is
>doing
>it the hard way. MS will fight back. You are taking a big risk, and great
>efforts will be needed for sure.
>
>Far, far better to head for new, untapped areas. Get innovative; come up
>with something new. That's where the real money is, *and* where the
>real excitement is.
I understand what you are saying as an implicit admission that Microsoft has
cornered the OS market and there is no longer any excitement or money there.
"Let's move on" strikes me as a very pallid response.
>What possible inducement could there be for a creative, driven,
>ambitious individual to want to build a better Windows?
None. Sad, isn't it.
>> >I'm not sure you have an inalienable right to have different sugarwaters
>> >manufactured just so you can sample them.
>>
>> No, but you do have an inalienable right to make money selling me
>> sugarwater.
>
>I very much disagree. Y ou have no right to make money selling it; that
>necessarily implies that other people have an obligation to buy it and
>pay for it, even if it tastes like Yoohoo, but looks like Mountain Dew.
>
>I do not accept that your 'rights' can impose such an obligation on others.
Well, let me rephrase that to read "you have the inalienable right to try
and make money selling me sugarwater".
If you're going to be this literal, we are not going to get very far. Some
days it is more difficult to find the right words than others and this kind
of response makes me wonder whether it is worth the effort.
>> >There are good reasons
>> >why people *don't* favor variety in their OSes, and they have nothing
>> >to do with Microsoft.
>>
>> It's hardly surprising that people don't favor variety in their OSes
>> considering that a part of the Microsoft strategy is to penalize such
>> variety ("decommoditization").
>
>Do you know what a "commodity" is?
>
>It isn't noted for variety.
>
>"Commoditization" is when a class of product becomes essentially
>indistinguishable, so that the only differentating factor is price.
>
>"Decommoditization" favors variety; MS wants to be different
>from the next guy, so you'll want their software instead of
>his.
We're not talking about the same thing. The variety comes about because
widely disparate products can interoperate on the basis of a commoditized
protocol.
When you are in a position where you can more or less successfully dictate
what protocols are being used, like Microsoft, decommoditizing the protocol
means that products can no longer interoperate, and the ensuing variety
disappears.
IOW, when everyone wants to use Windows, how does this "favor variety"?
>> Besides this is just a very weak argument. Most people don't even know
>what
>> an OS is, let alone whether they want variety in it.
>
>I don't think *anyone* knows what an OS is in precise terms; I've certainly
>never heard a definition that is consistant with real world usage. :D
Hear hear.
>> I think the popularity
>> of eye-candy software (considering that to most people the GUI _is_ the
>OS)
>> casts further doubts on the validity your argument.
>
>What popularity fo eye candy software?
Screensavers, desktop animations, window dressing, skins, ...
>> >I don't agee; Microsoft has no magical powers, and OS/2 failure
>> >came from several sources. Microsoft's leverage over IBM was, at
>> >that time, limited to its ability to woo IBM's OS customers away from
>> >it.
>>
>> I agree that the OS/2 failure came from several sources. That said, I
>don't
>> hold it above Microsoft to prevent e.g. Compaq from preloading OS/2 or
>some
>> other OS by threatening to raise licensing cost.
>
>I don't either. MS is quite ruthless. But the *source* of this power is
>MS's ability to woo customers (and developers) to Windows; only
>once this is accomplished can threatening to withhold Windows
>work.
>
>And after it is done, the rest is just a formality- Windows has won.
Actually I think yours is an fascinating take on matters. I generally see
Windows as an add-on to DOS and the transition from DOS to Windows as
somewhat self-evident. But what you seem to be saying, namely that the
transition was a battle that Microsoft simply fought well, is more
interesting.
>> Of course I don't know whether that happened -- it's a mere speculation
>> showing how hypothetically, Microsoft's "ability to woo IBM's OS customers
>> away" can be brought about using plain old bribery.
>
>Nope; the extortion (it's really a threat, not a bribe) has to come *after*
>you've got the customers. Otherwise Compaqs answer will be
>"so what? We're shipping OS/2 anyway. That's what out customers
>want."
Well, Microsoft got the customers with DOS. I'll grant that this is only
half the story, though.
[snip]
>> So if you are happy with W2K, that is great.
>
>Well, thank you.
Welcome.
>> >Yes, I know. But what you are looking for is not really
>> >the determining factor.
>>
>> No, the determining factor is whether it makes money. And if I'm looking,
>> that means there is a market. The question is whether the market is
>> profitable enough.
>
>I think there *is* a market for a non MS OS that products like
>Linux can fill; I just don't think it's the same market Windows 98
>is filling.
I don't think anything competes in the same market as Windows 98. People
don't buy operating systems; they buy Windows. While there are some grey
areas, generally speaking Windows 98 defines the market.
[snip]
>> Current software engineering practices cannot deliver (say)
>> an .AVI, .MOV or DVD player for (say) Linux?
>
>Maybe.
"Maybe" current software engineering practices cannot deliver a media player
for Linux???
>Linux is not exactly a really media friendly sort of OS, when
>you get right down to it. I'm not saying it's impossible, but
>certainly it is a challenge.
The problem as it stands is not so much display as decoding. It's not
immediately apparent to me how that hinges on any real or perceived
media-unfriendliness.
>And there's only so much talent out there to meet that
>and many, many other challenges.
>
>Why is that one the important one?
Your question is a bit of a red herring.
It begs the question why, if talent is so limited and challenges so
abundant, an incompatible and only marginally better solution was developed
in the first place.
>> >> I've addressed this above, too. Windows could triumph because it had
>> >> Microsoft's blessing.
>> >
>> >Microsoft isn't the software fairy- they have no magic.
>>
>> This is the second time you're confusing "magic" and "power".
>
>Forgive me, but I think you have confused them. You are saying
>that Microsoft's "power"- whatever that was before Windows took
>off- just suddenly *caused* Windows to succeed without so much
>as a mechanism.
>
>Sure seems like magic.
Microsoft could fumble about for years releasing at least two useless
versions of Windows. Sure seems like power.
>> >In particular, they didn't manage a seamless DOS->Windows
>> >transition; it *cost* and it had all the disadvantages you'd expect
>> >from a platform switch.
>>
>> And Microsoft got away with it -- an example of their power.
>
>You say "power", I say "product quality".
>
>And I think that my view is supportable. In particular, I notice
>that Windows 1 and 2 failed badly, and Windows 3 succeeded.
>I observe no substantial difference in Microsoft's "power"
>over this time period; but there was surely a different in product
>quality.
>
>Thus, my "product quality" explaination can explain why *this*
>Windows succeeded, and others had failed. I don't see how your
>"power" explaination can do so.
My "power" hypothesis does not need explanations. Instead it employs goons
to beat up your hypothesis :)
Seriously, your product quality hypothesis does not explain why the
Macintosh or the Atari or the Amiga or the Acorn, all quite capable systems
in their own respect, did not succeed.
One explanation is hardware. All the other systems were more or less closed.
The PC architecture has always been relatively open.
>> >It's quite different from, say, Apple's transition from 680x0 to
>> >PPC. They made that dang near seamless; you could hardly
>> >tell you were doing it, and they were able to leverage developers
>> >onto the new platform because they could make it clear (with
>> >credibility) that 680x0 *would* die.
>>
>> Had Apple made a clean break with the past, most everybody would have left
>> the platform and went with Microsoft.
>
>They made a pretty darn clean break, actually. "You all have to program for
>PowerPC now. Have a nice day."
Depends how you look at it. I was thinking more along the lines of clean
break == dropping backward compatibility.
>> Microsoft doesn't need to worry about these things very much -- they have
>> more power.
>
>Yet they do worry; they bend into pretzels for backwards compibility.
I think that is always true of any kind of backwards compatibility. It's
simply hard.
>> >You can argue that Microsoft should have been able to do this,
>> >but they *did not* do it when switching from DOS to Windows.
>>
>> They did not have to. Power.
>
>They were not able to. They lacked the power to make developers swtich
>suddenly. They had to try to lure them over, and they ahd mixed success.
>They were a *long* time wooing the game developers, in particular.
>
>In the meantime, they had to rely on compatibility.
They lacked the power to make developers switch but they could afford to
spend a "*long* time" wooing developers?
>> >> Digital GEM?
>> >
>> >GEM was like Windows, but it didn't deal with the memory problems,
>> >so it was next to impossible to write non-toy software for it.
>>
>> Atari was able to deliver a nice (for the time) desktop environment based
>on
>> GEM for their hardware. Why didn't that catch on?
>
>I'm not that familiar with Atari's product. I recall vaguely that
>they had a bad case of 'too little, too late'- they went to 16 bit
>very late, and by then it was all old news.
The Atari ST appeared in 1985 or the beginning of 1986. It was a sixteen bit
machine based on the 68000 chip.
>"It wasn't Microsoft branded" doesn't explain why the MAc did
>so much better than the Atari, or what the Commodore Amiga
>also did.
>
>I was thinking of GEM for DOS, of course. That was like
>Windows. Like early, useless Windows. :D
I understand. But there were alternatives. Heck, there was even a Sony MSX2
system that had a desktop, trashcan, floppy disk icons ...
>> For the Mac, one could make the argument that it was too expensive. But
>for
>> the Atari?
>
>I dunno. Maybe there were too expensive too. :D
No, they weren't. It's a pity I don't recall the going prices for PC's,
Macs, Amiga's and ST's around that time.
>> >Same problem killed Windows 1 and 2, too. You just can't
>> >do the stuff that needed doing in 640k on an 8086.
>> >
>> >GEM is about the closest thing out there to Windows that
>> >didn't have a Microsoft brand name.
>>
>> Which is what killed it.
>
>No, no, it was just inadquate, in the same way and for
>the reasons Windows 1 and 2 were. It was dang near
>impossible to write real software with the memory
>constraints you faced.
An architectural problem that did not exist on, for example, the Atari ST.
Another blow to your product quality hypothesis :)
[snip]
--
Rate your CSMA savvy by identifying the writing styles of
ancient and recent, transient and perdurable CSMA inhabitants:
(35 posters, 259 quotes)
<http://awacs.dhs.org/csmatest>
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