Linux-Advocacy Digest #392, Volume #27 Thu, 29 Jun 00 12:13:05 EDT
Contents:
Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best (Bob Hauck)
Re: Richard Stallman's Politics (was: Linux is awesome! (Volker Hetzer)
Re: Richard Stallman's Politics (was: Linux is awesome! (Volker Hetzer)
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform (Secretly Cruel)
Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (Henry Blaskowski)
Re: M$ Exposed (was Re: Oracle's Dirty Tricks Department) (Henry Blaskowski)
Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best (No Name)
Re: Linux is junk (Nathaniel Jay Lee)
Re: Linux, easy to use? (Roberto Alsina)
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform (Sascha Bohnenkamp)
Re: Richard Stallman's Politics (was: Linux is awesome! (Stefaan A Eeckels)
Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Corel Does Nothing To Help The Linux Cause (Nathaniel Jay Lee)
Re: How fast is your text? (Nathaniel Jay Lee)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Subject: Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best
Reply-To: hauck[at]codem{dot}com
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 12:45:22 GMT
On 29 Jun 2000 04:15:55 GMT, David M. Cook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>As to why USB is so late, as far as I understand this was a screw up.
My understanding is this:
USB creates lots of issues with how to manage device nodes. You can
have lots of devices and they can come and go at any time, which does
not fit well with the standard Unix-y /dev directory with unchanging
device files, one for each device. It took a while to settle on the
best way to handle this.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| Codem Systems, Inc.
-| http://www.codem.com/
------------------------------
From: Volker Hetzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman's Politics (was: Linux is awesome!
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 12:45:48 +0000
Phillip Lord wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Volker" == Volker Hetzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> Volker> Hyman Rosen wrote:
>
> >> It's helped along by organized labor, which is grasping at straws
> >> trying to get protectionism back.
> Volker> Protectionism is done by companies to protect their profits
> Volker> from the competition.
>
> And also governments. Supposedly we live in a free market. So
> why is it that if large capital interests want to move their factories
> to Eastern Europe because the labour is cheaper they are free to do
> so. But if labour wants to move to western europe because they will
> get paid more there's a hoard of immigration officers waiting for
> them. Does not seem very free to me.
OTOH, governments within the EU give lots of money and economic aid
to the e.e. countries. At the moment they hope to bring them up to our
level instead of us down to theirs (as would happen otherwise).
Any better ideas?
Greetings!
Volker
--
The early bird gets the worm. If you want something else for
breakfast, get up later.
------------------------------
From: Volker Hetzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman's Politics (was: Linux is awesome!
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 14:02:47 +0000
phil hunt wrote:
> On the net, you don't need lots of money to get lots of people to look
> at your ideas. You can put them on the web, and it costs nothing for
> millions of people to look at them.
Seconded. The net certainly *is* a good way to get ideas across.
Simply because you can skim much faster through articles here than watch
the news.
> True, but good ideas can make it without lots of money behind them.
IMHO, it's getting better. Slowly.
Greetings!
Volker
--
The early bird gets the worm. If you want something else for
breakfast, get up later.
------------------------------
From: Secretly Cruel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linsux as a desktop platform
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 10:31:55 -0500
"Shock Boy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted:
> No, because hardware support is inferior in linux.
Please let us know how you arrived at this conclusion.
--
[Secretly Cruel]
-Antispam measures in my email address are obvious-
...Your motherboard wears combat reboots...
------------------------------
From: Henry Blaskowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action
Date: 29 Jun 2000 14:39:13 GMT
In talk.politics.libertarian Bob Hauck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> impact of allowing "free movement of people", they'll be the ones howling
>>> the loudest.
>>About what?
> If you take the gross world product and divide by the number of
> people, what do you get? A couple thousand dollars? Are all the
> westerners going to be ok with having their living standard drop to
> that world average? I think that them who proposed this would be
> lynched, and they'd howl about that.
This is a naive analysis, assuming a static world. It assumes that
poor people are poor because there are not enough resources in the
world, rather than because they lack opportunity. This has been
proven to be false, historically. It is clear that the number
one resource is human ingenuity, and when it is freed it raises the
standard of living for everyone. Free movement is part of that
freedom, along with respect for individual rights and secure ownership
rules. I'm not afraid of freedom. Why are you? Do you think
eveyone else is smarter/harder working/better than you, and that you
will suffer by comparison? Perhaps that is true... only you would
know that.
------------------------------
From: Henry Blaskowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.economics
Subject: Re: M$ Exposed (was Re: Oracle's Dirty Tricks Department)
Date: 29 Jun 2000 14:49:13 GMT
In talk.politics.libertarian Jeff Szarka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>NEW YORK (AP) -- The Oracle Corp. has confirmed it hired a detective agency
>>>to investigate allies of rival Microsoft Corp., and said the work showed
>>>that Microsoft paid the trade and policy groups to ``influence'' public
>>>opinion during its federal antitrust trial.
> Welcome to Washington DC.
What's funny about this is that earlier in this thread, the MS bashers
called me all sorts of names for claiming that politics and influence
had anything to do with this trial, and claimed that federal judges
were above this sort of petty politics. Now they are claiming that
this 'proves' that MS influenced the trial and apparently corrupted
the judge. Once again, this is typical of the MS bashers -- their
story changes at every opportunity to make the case look legitimate,
when really it is about politics.
Time for another huddle, MS bashers: was the case influenced by
politics or not? Please choose an answer that will stick, it's
hard to discuss this issue when you keep changing your story.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (No Name)
Subject: Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best
Date: 29 Jun 2000 14:38:30 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Wed, 28 Jun 2000 21:05:40 GMT, Pete Goodwin said:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pedro Iglesias) wrote in
><o0t65.253$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>>Just installed, Windows 2000 as an example, does not enable 3D
>>acceleration on
>>cards as spreaded as TNT. That should be enough answer. Microsoft itself
>>does not
>>target Windows 2000 as a gaming platform could be another.
>
>I know, but if you set it up correctly (set the hardware acceleration for
>sound to max, nothing else), it runs better than Windows 98 SE. Its paging
>system allows the system to keep up, as opposed to the jerkiness that
>happens on Windows 98 SE.
>
>Boy, is life fun testing 3D Positional Audio on Sound Cards! Oops! Linux
>doesn't have that yet, does it!
>
>Pete
99% of computer users don't give a fig about "3D Positional Audio on
Sound Cards".
------------------------------
From: Nathaniel Jay Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux is junk
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 10:05:41 -0500
Craig Kelley wrote:
>
> Nathaniel Jay Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > >
> > > Linux is a stinkin', steamin' pile of shit as far as I am concerned.
> > >
> > > I wasted $40 on Corel Office and wish I could get my hard earned money
> > > back!
> >
> > Another happy Corel Linux user. And they wonder why people in the Linux
> > community don't like the Corel offerings to the Linux world?
>
> Yes, Corel Linux *1*.0 is bad -- but is it any worse than other 1.0
> releases?
>
> Although, I'd *never* reccomend it to a new user, it does have promise
> (maybe version 3 will be better? Hopefully Corel can stay in business
> long enough to turn it out...)
>
> --
> The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
> Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
Yes, but I still say trying to turn Linux into a cheap Windows clone is
going to result in a bad product, no matter how "mature" it is. Linux
and Windows are two completely different OSes. Hopefully Corel will
figure that out before it's too late for them. People (at least those
that I know) in the community had a lot of faith in Corel when they
started to "take up the cause", but we are all waiting for proof that
they actually mean to do well. We know they are trying, but we want to
see better. I still hope they pull it off, but like I've said before I
won't hold my breath.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nathaniel Jay Lee
------------------------------
From: Roberto Alsina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux, easy to use?
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 14:59:20 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin) wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Roberto Alsina) wrote in <8jdkoa$qpk$1
> @nnrp1.deja.com>:
>
> >Drag and drop from the file manager into the terminal window (what
you
> >windows people call "a DOS box").
>
> Touché! But what happens when you dram from KDE file manager to an
XTerm?
The "intuitive", of course, as long as you use a DND aware terminal
emulator instead of a xterm ;-)
But even with a xterm: copy/paste behaviour in terminals in unix is
much more consistent with other GUI apps than in windows, is it not?
--
Roberto Alsina (KDE developer, MFCH)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Sascha Bohnenkamp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linsux as a desktop platform
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 17:23:07 +0200
> That's been my experience on all our PC's at work and my one PC at home.
are you talking about windows-nt or 0.98 ?
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefaan A Eeckels)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman's Politics (was: Linux is awesome!
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 17:29:13 +0200
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Volker Hetzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Stefaan A Eeckels wrote:
>> They don't have to like them to favour "free trade".
> As long as it means they can export, they favour it.
>
>> Consider that there are several aspects to free trade.
>> - it gives businesses in less developed countries (read "lower salaries")
>> access to markets in rich countries
> Nice cue: Consider the EU and the russians. In the past we never tired of
> telling the eastern bloc countries how nice free trade is. And that whoever is
> cheapest (and has reasonable quality) gets the deal. Suddenly the russians
> discovered that they had nice cheap steel to sell. And what does the european
> steel industry (not the unions!) do? Go whining to whoever can do this and
> got themselves some hefty import tariffs on imported steel.
Correct. Both management and unions are in unison here, BTW.
>
>> > Counter example to "big labour". The german green card. Instead of lobbying
>> > against the import of foreign labour they made sure that they don't get paid
>> > less than their german counterparts. I call this "social conscience", not
>> > "protectionism".
>> Nonetheless, when confronted with cheap imports, unions react
>> with demands for protectionist measures.
> I don't know about unions in the US, but here they've been pretty reasonable
> in the last decade or so. But, as unions (and companies) consist largely
> of people I acknowledge that there are reasonable guys and morons in both
> parties and sometimes in a position of power too.
>
>> You see, foreigners
>> working for less than a German are a threat to their members, so
>> they can proceed in two ways:
>> - make the foreigner non-competitive (someone who speaks poor German
>> and is paid the same as a native German speaker is at a disadvantage),
>> whilst holding the upper moral ground.
> Don't understand this. Three non-german speaking students in my team
> don't feel like at a disadvantage. Especially in young teams, everybody
> speaks enough english to get along. It's a compulsory school subject in
> germany.
Nonetheless, management will be less enclined to spend money
on importing foreigners when they're not cheaper than Germans.
At the least, raising the price of foreigners above that of
Germans (travel allowances, settling-in time, language problems,
etc) of equivalent expertise allows the unions leaders to say that
there genuinely seems to be a shortage of skilled workers.
>> - refusing entry and looking like racists.
> True.
>
>> Which alternative would _you_ prefer, knowing that in both cases the
>> result is the same?
> Could you please be a bit more clear about point 1?
OK (if the above isn't enough already).
A company that employs someone wants to have the most skilled
person at the lowest acceptable salary and ancilliary costs.
Given equal salary, those that cost less to hire will be
more attractive than those who cost more (like plane tickets,
or time to become productive because of langauge problems, etc).
Second, a company has limits to what is can pay, so that even
when there's an extreme shortage of certain skills, it will
never offer more than that limited salary. These limits can
be due to company finances, or can be legal limits. I believe
that in Germany (like here in Luxembourg), unions and employers
negotiate pay packets, and agree on both _lower_ and _upper_
limits for various jobs. Good plumbers are getting very scarce,
but pumbing contractors cannot raise wages above the limits
agreed to by his employer's organisation, even if he could afford
to pay more.
Third, our social system obliges employers to pay more based
on qualifications (even if they're not strictly required for
the job. If you hire a university graduate, then you have to
pay her more than a graduate from a technical school).
This makes foreign workers very attractive, as their degrees
can be suitably ignored.
>> You have to understand that the reactions of companies and unions is
>> wholly self-serving.
> Pretty big generalisation, huh? Could you show a few examples please?
Monsanto and GM foods. Tobacco companies and lung cancer.
Trade union leaders getting paid big bucks for serving on
the board of a largely state-owned utility...
>> Mealy-mouthing about free trade, or solidarity
>> is just selfrighteous bluster designed to hoodwink the public or
>> allow people to feel good when choosing sides.
> Why?
Because people cannot function when they know they are
"bad", hence they find nice sounding explanations for their
behaviour. Example: a chap named Kohl.
Take care,
--
Stefaan
--
--PGP key available from PGP key servers (http://www.pgp.net/pgpnet/)--
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To:
misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action
Date: 29 Jun 2000 15:50:59 GMT
On Wed, 28 Jun 2000 22:45:15 -0300, Brian Scheetz wrote:
>
>And if the movement of the first, say, 40 million started to lower living
>standards,
Note that there would be a big gap between themn lowering American living
standarards and lowering their own.
> or created some sort of housing or employment crisis a la your
>premonitions, are the other 960 million going to follow them just because
>they're stupid, or because they want to be mean?
Not for either reason. They'll follow them because even though their living
standards are "lower" than those America enjoyed previously, they'd still
be higher than they were in China.
The point is that this will be a great equalizer in terms of world living
standards. If you're happy with that, that's OK. I don't mind being poor
either.
>Effectively, on the North American continent, we pretty much have the free
>movement of people already - de facto, if not de jure.
No, you don't. The immigration policy works quite hard at keeping certain
immigrants out. I explain this further below.
> Not every Mexican
>has chosen to move. Why do you think every Chinese person would?
I know a lot of Chinese people. Basically, a majority ( yes, more than half,
and according to my Chinese girlfriend, almost all ) of the university
students take GREs so that they can study in the US. And the government are
imbeciles if they believe for one moment that they're going to leave once
they're here. They never go back ( to go back is usually viewed as failure ).
I don't think all of them would come, but a lot would, and the number would
certainly surprise you. Coming to America isn't just something a few Chinese
think about, it's on the agenda of the typical university student.
At the moment, the immigration policy is primarily trying to hold back on
the numbers of green cards for Chinese ( and either Indians, Mexicans
or both ). Basically, how it works is that there is a hard limit on the
amount[*] of green cards the INS will hand out to any nationality in a given
year. The population is not taken into account, so Chinese ( and possibly
Indians ) have to wait about a year and a half after getting approval to
get their green cards. ( and getting approval isn't that fast or easy )
My point is that the immigration policy is no where near "free" despite what
you may claim. IMO, the silliest thing about it is that they don't realise
that these guys who get student visas are not going to leave, so they shouldn't
give out student visas that they aren't prepared to follow up with permanent
working visas.
[*] To be more precise, I think the rule says that no more than (X)% of
green cards can be given to nationals of any given country.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: Nathaniel Jay Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Corel Does Nothing To Help The Linux Cause
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 10:51:28 -0500
"Colin R. Day" wrote:
>
> Nathaniel Jay Lee wrote:
>
> >
> > I personally, feel that Wine is the wrong thing to do. I know that
> > Corel are trying to do the right thing by Linux, but they just don't
> > seem to be able to figure out what that right thing is. As far as your
> > attempted implication that I am anti-commercial Linux, where did you get
> > that impression. I have no problem with buying thing either, if they
> > are worth buying. I have purchased many Linux applications (MoneyDance,
> > StarOffice before it was free, Applixware, games, drivers) and I have no
> > problem whatsoever with commercial interest or development for Linux. I
> > just think Corel has taken the wrong track.
> >
> > Corel's decision to impliment WPO2K on Linux with the Wine emulation
> > layer is, in my opinion, a mistake. They could have switched to one of
> > the "modern" widget sets on Linux without ditching actual native code.
> > I realize it would have taken a lot of time, but porting win32 to Linux
> > is a bad thing IMHO. I don't see how putting all the Windows garbage on
> > Linux is going to help Linux. Yes, you can run Windows applications on
> > Linux, but I seriously want Linux applications.
>
> As do we all. But do you expect Davidson to port Reader Rabbit to Linux?
> Or Mindscape to port Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing?
> Or Romtech to port Universe Explorer? Or Living Language Multimedia
> to port Triple Play Japanese? Or Microsoft to port Encarta or Office?
> Getting applications and users is a chicken-or-egg problem, and
> Wine is one way to attack it.
>
> > They run faster, are
> > more stable, and don't carry along all the windows baggage. This is my
> > *opinion*.
>
> For certain applications, speed and robustness are important, but for
> many of the apps I listed above, the extra baggage wouldn't be much
> of a problem.
>
> <snip>
>
> Colin Day
As far as users vs applications and which needs to come first: If you
actually think making things run crappily on Linux using Wine is the way
to get users, I think IMO you are mistaken. People will see that it
runs slower and less stable under the emulation layer on Linux and
assume that Linux sux (as the WinLovers are always saying). They won't
care that there is emulation, the impression will be that Linux sux
because program XYZ runs so much slower on Linux than it does on
Windows. Once again proving that Linux is just a cheap clone of
Windows. This is not the way to make Linux progress. If they can
manage to get Wine running apps just as fast as they do natively (like
FreeBSD can do with Linux apps), or faster, then I might not feel this
way. But the way it is, Linux looks more every day like a cheap Windows
knockoff, not something I want to see happening. And I really don't
think I'm the only one.
Nathaniel Jay Lee
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nathaniel Jay Lee
------------------------------
From: Nathaniel Jay Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How fast is your text?
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 10:58:15 -0500
Jeff Szarka wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Jun 2000 20:05:08 -0700, Ciaran
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >in his original post. I think s/he was trying to point out how
> >Pete whathisname was post stupid and invalid comparisons.
>
> I haven't been following this group closely... I'm not sure who Pete
> whoever is. This test, and any like it, are invalid.
That's exactly the point of the post. Pete had posted a "contrived"
test to show how superior Windows was. So, the original poster of this
thread posted a response to show how you can make Linux look faster than
Windows. The difference is that this post actually stated the fact that
this test was contrived and "invalid" as you say. It was to refute the
point made earlier that a simple hacked up test can be made to make
$your_preference OS look better than $others_preference OSes. Getting
in a huff and stating that a test that was originally stated as being
invalid is invalid is a bit redundant, and makes you look like your
trying to stir up a fight where one isn't really needed.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nathaniel Jay Lee
------------------------------
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