Linux-Advocacy Digest #822, Volume #27 Thu, 20 Jul 00 17:13:05 EDT
Contents:
Re: BASIC == Beginners language (Was: Just curious.... (Roberto Alsina)
Re: No win situation for Linux market ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It? (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Will SUN be allowed to opensource? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: I just don't buy it (Jim Richardson)
Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary? ("Robert Moir")
Re: What I've always said: Netcraft numbers of full of it (Nathaniel Jay Lee)
Re: Just curious, how do I do this in Windows? ("Drestin Black")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Roberto Alsina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: BASIC == Beginners language (Was: Just curious....
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 17:52:15 -0300
Drestin Black escribió:
>
> "Donovan Rebbechi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > On Wed, 19 Jul 2000 16:00:02 +0200, David Brown wrote:
> > >
> >
> > >I would not consider Visual Basic for teaching, but there are a lot of
> other
> > >Basics that are much better. Call me old fashioned, but I think a BBC
> Micro
> > >with BBC Basic is still one of the best educational systems available.
> >
> > I've used some of the old basics and they were horrendous. They encourage
> > bad practices such as the use of GOTOs, and writing directly to memory.
> > They're not really "structured". They are certainly not "object
> oriented".
>
> Writing directly to memory? What BASIC class did YOU take? Not the way I
> learned it. I NEVER wrote directly to memory from BASIC.
You must have a had a very weird microcomputer BASIC if it lacked PEEK
and
POKE, or have learned BASIC quite late in the history of the language.
--
Roberto Alsina (KDE developer, MFCH)
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: No win situation for Linux market
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 16:45:09 -0400
Wait for a couple of CAD programs to be ported to Linux.
This will lead to an installation base rivalling or even
surpassing HP and Sun workstations. Such a market will be
hard to ignore, as it will grow MUCH more rapidly than did
HP and Sun on the desktop.
Pete Goodwin wrote:
>
> "'Chicken and egg' prevents user and industry commitment
>
> THE Linux market is trapped in a chicken (or perhaps penguin)-and-egg
> situation, as suppliers wait for users to show serious interest in Linux-
> based enterprise applications and users wait for suppliers to produce the
> goods, writes John Leyden. According to analyst IDC, Linux users in Western
> Europe are seeing the value of buying into the web server and networking
> offerings of the open-source software but few are planning more complex
> solutions which would generate revenue for vendors. 'Users are attracted to
> Linux for its cost effectiveness and rnalicability for specific- purpose
> devices, both for client and server. However, the lack of available
> applica- tions and perceived lack of service and support offerings are
> major inhibitors to this market's growth; noted Kirsten Ludvigsen, Unix
> research director for IDC Ludvigsen said the industry is waiting for user
> demand to pick up before it develops enterprise applications and commits to
> the Linux environment. This, she argues, has lead to a 'chicken-and-egg
> situation in which the Linux industry may suffer from a lack of sufficient
> funding to continue developing future products. IDC also predicts that the
> major areas of deployment of Linux will be in the enibedded or appliance
> space for both clients and servers until 2004. 'Clients will have many
> forms and shapes, and we believe smart handheld devices and cable TV
> devices will be the major areas of growth for Linux in Western Europe,'
> said Ludvigsen."
>
> Computing, 20th July 2000
>
> --
> Pete Goodwin
> ---
> Coming soon, Kylix, Delphi on Linux.
> My success does not require the destruction of Microsoft.
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[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: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 16:59:36 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said Chad Irby in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> And only one law, too. The Sherman Act, in fact. Two charges, one on
>> section 1. (Tying, 'integration' of IE) And one on section 2.
>> (Monopolization, coercion of OEMs, etc.)
>>
>> The first one, tying, is actually a bit dubious. If the Supreme Court
>> *doesn't* over-rule that conviction, then its going to have a lot bigger
>> of an affect on the software industry and technology as a whole,
>> possibly even media and entertainment, then the breakup of Microsoft
>> itself is going to have. This is because it would throw out the
>> fundamental *per se* rule concerning all tying cases, essentially.
>
>Not really. See the court records and news coverage of the case.
>Microsoft tied products to their OS for just the wrong reasons, and with
>just the wrong results.
I have seen the relevant court records, and in that light the news
coverage is superfluous. Judge Jackson specifically did not address the
issue of the tying test, with specific reference to "MS II", the Consent
Decree case which proceeded the anti-trust action. In that case, the
Appeals Court stated that MS passed the tying test, because they could
fabricate a justification for 'the right reasons'. Since MS could
reasonably claim (even without proof) that the integration benefited
consumers, according to the appellate court, IE was an "integration",
not a "bundle". This is not purely a test of the "technical tying" per
se test, because the appellate court wasn't trying a Sherman Act case,
but only determining if the pre-existing consent decree was sufficient
to prevent W98 from including IE.
Ironically, the reason that the Appeals Court decision provided as
"benefit to the consumer" was not, in fact, any functional benefit
concerning the software's purpose. The benefit to the consumer (notably
in that case, the OEM, not the end-user, but the 'logic' holds true
regardless) was that MS saved them the hassle of loading two different
programs from two different CDs, and *that is all*. They quite directly
indicated that the actual function and purpose of the programs was
irrelevant. This also brings into question the idea of "right" and
"wrong" reasons for tying. Jackson couldn't be right either way; he's
either contradicting the appellate decision, or he is not upholding the
per se test of restraint of trade. Therefore, he wisely pointed out
that it is up to the Supreme Court to decide which way to go on this
issue, as it is there authority by which per se rules become part of
precedent and law. For the same reasons, however, he was 'forced' to
convict MS on the section 1 charge, if only to give the Supreme Court
the opportunity to reverse his decision and maintain the possibly
meaningless tying test.
>> The particular rule, which qualifies the activity as criminal regardless
>> of any other considerations, has always been that bundling is either
>> implemented to deter competitors or of benefit to the user. This
>> dichotomy was valid, because it was assumed that producers could not
>> afford to re-engineer and re-package two products together and then sell
>> them at the same price as one of the originals, because of the cost
>> involved, which would depreciate their own ability to compete.
>
>This applies very directly to the Microsoft case.
>
>Microsoft didn't bundle Explorer with Windows as a direct competitive
>advantage (making better products). Their own internal memos say, very
>directly, that they had a second-rate product in the version of Explorer
>they were producing at the time. They first tried to "cut off
>Netscape's air supply" by giving away Explorer for free, forcing
>Netscape to do the same with Navigator or lose the market completely
>(selling the server software was supposed to make a profit).
But the question is whether it is of benefit to the consumer, not
whether it is for "direct competitive" or anti-competitive advantage.
Business *are* free to make decisions which don't directly benefit the
consumer but only provide them competitive advantage in comparison to
alternatives. Historically, the reasoning has been that any competitive
advantage to the producer is of benefit to the consumer, and only
anti-competitive practices are forbidden. This issue brings up the
question of whether there is such a thing as a "competitive advantage"
which is not of direct and observable value to the consumer.
>Then, when Netscape started giving away Navigator (and Explorer was n't
>growing in market share at a high rate, like MS wanted), Microsoft
>decided to tie Explorer to their monopoly operating system as a method
>of directly attacking Netscape. After all of that, MS also tried to
>tell people that they couldn't remove Explorer from the OS without
>severely damaging Windows - a lie that cost them dearly in the trial.
>
>This was all detailed quite clearly in Microsoft's internal memos, and
>is a big part of why the judge found against them.
>
>So in this case, at the very least, the strict definition of tying does
>apply.
Perhaps you need to review the actual decision more closely. The
"unremovable" issue was actually in the MS II decision (called 'II'
because it was the review of the consent decree from 'MS I', I guess,
which was in 1995 when Win95 was being released), which was overturned
by the appeals court, it was not addressed directly AFAIK in the
anti-trust case.
Jackson , who heard the MS II case but was reversed on appeal,
originally subscribed to just the notion you present, and still feels it
is valid. But he's a judge, and this isn't a matter of his opinion, but
of his legal decision, and so he must recognize that this notion is, in
fact, a contradiction to existing law, which says that if *any* benefit
occurs to the consumer, then even if the change would have the effect of
decreasing competition, it is not restraint of trade. It is the effect,
not the reason, which makes the action criminal, in this particular
issue. And if the effect provides benefit to the consumer, the theory
goes, then the potential decrease in competition may be a normal result
of the *marketplace*, and is not illegal activity.
--
T. Max Devlin
Manager of Research & Educational Services
Managed Services
ELTRAX Technology Services Group
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-[Opinions expressed are my own; everyone else, including
my employer, has to pay for them, subject to
applicable licensing agreement]-
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------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Will SUN be allowed to opensource?
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 20:53:41 GMT
In article <10Cd5.23017$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"CC Ghost" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message
<8l5bma$fnq$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> >Assuming file formats is the key to the kingdom,
>
> Peculiar assumption; why would you think the
> file formats are significant?
It's the only thing that can keep people tied down to a specific
product, in that this particular product is the only one that can read
the file format. For instance, assuming Excel had a completely open
file format, what on earth would keep people from trying gnumeric,
which pretty much duplicates the Excel look and feel? Granted, you
can't script with VBA with gnumeric, but the majority of the market
doesn't use Excel that sophisticatedly.
Plus, I've heard that pretty much the biggest knock against most Linux
office software is that they don't read MS file formats very well. I
assumed that this was more to do with the fact that file format
information was hard to come by and not because of incompetence on the
programmers' parts... maybe that's a mistaken assumption.
It would make sense to me to keep the file format closed if I were MS,
particularly with the emergence of free office software alternatives.
At some point the notion of losing all those licenses to free
alternatives would become a business's nightmare.
-ws
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Subject: Re: I just don't buy it
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:13:26 -0700
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Thu, 20 Jul 2000 00:49:02 -0400,
Jeff Szarka, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>On Tue, 18 Jul 2000 13:40:42 -0700, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>>Would you want to maintain your financial records on the server?
>
>Encryption.
But will you be using the closed source encryption provided by the ASP
"for your convenience"? Or will you be using the ASP provided S/W to manipulate
the unencrypted data?
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: "Robert Moir" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary?
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 22:02:03 +0100
"David Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8l6t4j$nrh$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >I take it that you are one of the "few people" who have seen the Windows
NT
> >source code, then ?
> >
> No, but I have heard of people who have... Ok, I happily admit that I
have
> not seen any Windows source code, and have no basis for commenting on it
> other than common sense
Then you want to post this in alt.folklore.urban - its just down the hall
there, look!
(writing code that is easily readable and
> maintainable by others is a substantial extra burden in development - MS
> seldom releases any of their source code, so why would they pay this extra
> cost?)
Because I very much doubt if they have had zero turnover of staff on any
project at MS, if they are like any company I have worked at or with.
> , and from the programmatically visible part of the OS - i.e., the
> Windows API. The API is such a mess that it is difficult to believe that
> there is a neat, modular, organized system hiding underneath.
I'll grant you that its difficult to believe but if you or I have not seen
the source code, then neither of us *knows*
------------------------------
From: Nathaniel Jay Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: What I've always said: Netcraft numbers of full of it
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 16:01:00 -0500
Drestin Black wrote:
> Don't invoke it in the first place.
>
> Just don't log into the server at the console.
>
>
> Choose not to log in at the console. Telnet in and use the CMD CLI.
None of these suggestions "disable" the GUI. It's still up, it's just
running on the login screen. How do you bring up NT in text mode?
That's what we're asking. I can bring up any *nix or clone in text
mode, with no GUI, or I can bring it up with XDM/KDM/GDM running and
leave it at the login screen as you say to do with NT, but I have the
choice of bringing up the GUI or not bringing up the GUI. As far as I
know, with Windows this is not an option. So, do you know some little
secret the rest of us don't? This is a serious question. I really
would like to know how to get a fully running NT server without running
the GUI. Is it possible?
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nathaniel Jay Lee
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Just curious, how do I do this in Windows?
Date: 20 Jul 2000 16:07:05 -0500
"Perry Pip" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On 18 Jul 2000 18:08:13 -0500,
> Drestin Black <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >OK - I'll take the bait. I can't. So, why don't you show us some C logic
> >that can't be done in VB. Show me something I can't do in VB...
>
> void endian_flip(unsigned short *word){
> int temp = *word;
> *word = 0;
> for(int i = 1; i < sizeof(unsigned short) ; i++ ){
> *word |= (temp & 1);
> temp >>= 1;
> *word <<= 1;
> }
> *word |= (temp & 1);
> }
>
> Show me how to do that in VB.
This is my understanding of Big Endian and Little Endian:
"On an Intel computer, the little end is stored first. This means a Hex word
like 0x1234 is stored in memory as (0x34 0x12). The little end, or lower
end, is stored first. The same is true for a four-byte value; for example,
0x12345678 would be stored as (0x78 0x56 0x34 0x12). "Big End In" does this
in the reverse fashion, so 0x1234 would be stored as (0x12 0x34) in memory.
"
So, I took it to mean inputting: 0x12345678 I should output: 0x78563412 -
and so on.
So... hows this?
FUNCTION EndianFlip (Value)
Temp$ = HEX$(Value)
IF LEN(Temp$) MOD 2 THEN Temp$ = "0" + Temp$
Bytes = LEN(Temp$) \ 2
FOR X = 1 TO Bytes
Build$ = MID$(Temp$, (X - 1) * 2 + 1, 2) + Build$
NEXT
EndianFlip = VAL("&H" + Build$)
END FUNCTION
In Delphi I would simply use the "swap" function which converts between big
endian and little endian values. Now that's simple.
However, allow me this escape, if I misunderstood the purpose/function of
your function then please correct me so I can produce the routine you would
like to see.
(p.s., a fellow programmer, the Crazy Englishman, just walked over, looked
at my code, agreed it would work and then laughed cause he said I took the
hard route and that there is a much easier way in VB. Argh, now I'm going to
have to actually think for a bit...)
>
> And how about writing routines that take variable argument lists. For
> example:
>
<snip> order. Can you do variable argument lists on your subroutines in VB??
yes, you can as well as in VBA. VB can tell you the type of argument in the
order it was passed. No problem there.
>
> Another good example would be an abstract linked list or tree of
> pointers, that could then be used as a framework for creating linked
> lists or trees of any data type. I can post some code if you want. Can
> you do an abstract linked list or tree framework in VB??
Yes, using linked lists is not uncommon and can be done. I honestly think
you should review a current version VB book. I think you may be suprised at
all that has changed and enhancements. There is really quite a bit more to
it than your old GWBasic :)
If you haven't checked out BASIC in the last 3 years, more than a cursory
glance, then you're not at all up on what has been developed for a language
with such a deceiving name and history.
------------------------------
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