Linux-Advocacy Digest #993, Volume #27 Wed, 26 Jul 00 17:13:03 EDT
Contents:
Re: Star Office to be open sourced (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man!
Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man!
Re: No wonder Hackers love Linux (Bob Hauck)
Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man! (John Jensen)
Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It? (Bob Hauck)
Re: From a Grove of Birch Trees It Came... ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It? (Seán Ó Donnchadha)
Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man! (John Jensen)
Re: Windows98
Re: If Linux, which? If not Linux, what? NOT flame-bait! (Wouter Coene)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sys.sun.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Star Office to be open sourced
Date: 26 Jul 2000 14:47:46 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (phil hunt) writes:
>
>> I've just read a news article linked from Linux Today that Sun are
>> thinking of open-sourcing Star Office under the GNU GPL.
>>
>> Does anyone have any speculation as to why they might do this? Apart
>> from hurting MS, of course?
>
>This is Sun we're talking about here.
>
>What other motive do they have apart from hurting Microsoft?
>None. McNealy and Ellison (Oracle) hate Microsoft more than the most
>vehement Mac/Linux/Amiga cultist hybrid I know. The only reason they
>did this is because Microsoft Office is an inpenetrable market.
As long as everyone's files are stored in formats only usable
by MS products they are locked into running on MS platforms
forever just to be able to access their own data. Doing all
they can to make alternatives, conversion tools and open
storage formats available is bound to help anyone who has
any chance of selling alternative platforms.
>There is NO WAY anyone can compete. The featureset is done (and has
>been done since Office 4 or 5) and everyone uses it because most sold
>systems come with it anyway. It's basically a part of Windows that
>everyone either pays for or pirates.
The real reason you need MS-office has been to be able to work
with files in MS formats that other people send you. If
the conversions work well enough this will no longer be
true.
>It's the browser thing all over again. Microsoft Office will
>eventually be "integrated" into Windows, so that people won't be
>tempted to use something else -- but the Redmonians may as well milk
>it for all they can up until that day.
I think the courts may have something to say about the
integration business.
>Hell, how many people went out and got Office 2000, just because it's
>the "new thing"? Can *anyone* name a must-have feature that demands
>upgrading? (other than the file formats, that is...)
File formats is it - and it was more of a problem the last
time around. It will be interesting to see if MS can pull
off another incompatible change if openoffice manages to
provide complete compatibility with the current formats.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man!
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 19:48:16 GMT
On 26 Jul 2000 13:27:20 GMT, John Jensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>: On 26 Jul 2000 03:27:54 GMT, John Jensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>: >Which widget? Apple's? Modula's? Oberon's? Lagoona's? Java's? Or do
>: >your blinkers only permit you to see Microsoft's work? God, you are Bill
>
>: At the moment, we happen to be talkign about the M$ widget in
>: particular which being like any MS widget is more about advancing
>: Microsoft's market domination goals than any sort of engineering
>: excellence.
>
>: Furthermore, criticisms about a particular implementation of an
>: idea or a class of implementation or a particular implementor
>: in no way implies that the notion in general is disputed.
>:
>: >Gates dream lover .. you think everything is a Microsoft innovation!
>
>: No, you are just indulging in the construction of very weak
>: straw effigies to avoid actually addressing the issues
>: inherent abdicating control over your own applications and
>: data.
>
>Nice to see you retreat to the position I've suggested all along.
You are simply an ass or an idiot.
I never criticized component technology in general.
That notion is simply a dellusion of your own creation.
>That is, that the general concepts have merits outside Microsoft's
>specific implementation. Look again at the quote you took execption with
>yesterday:
>
>"Doing 'component-oriented software engineering' doesn't put you "even
>more at the mercy of the likes of Microsoft". There might be some
It depends on the particular technology.
[deletia]
Plus, if the interfaces are controlled by Microsoft, then you
are INDEED at the mercy of Microsoft. Just ask some DirectX
developers or people that need to communicate via office document
formats.
What Microsoft wants to pull off puts them in the position of banker.
This is an important aspect of the technology to consider.
Beyond that, what they are proposing is in no way interesting.
--
Unless you've got the engineering process to match a DEC,
you won't produce a VMS.
You'll just end up with the likes of NT.
|||
/ | \
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man!
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 19:49:47 GMT
On 26 Jul 2000 10:40:18 -0600, Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>John Jensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> There are some deeper issues here than depending on network communications
>> to run a word processor. The primary goal of component technology is the
>> independant deployment and assembly of software units. Anyone who has
>> tried to upgrade their Gnome libraries should appreciate that goal.
In the worst case:
rpm -U --force --nodeps *rpm
Your dragon has no fire.
>> Anyone who has followed their 'rpm' dependancies down four levels should
>> appreciate that goal. It would be sad if the problem became off-limits
>> simply because Microsoft happened also to be working on it.
>
>Oh, but you see we *already* have this. Both Debian and RPM packages
>can auto-update dependencies (that's basically how RedHat's installer
>works).
>
>Upgrading to GNOME-1.2 is as easy as typing
>
> lynx -source http://go-gnome.com | sh
>
>You can select one package with web rpmfind and (with your permission)
>it will get all the required dependencies automatically for you. Our
>version of 'SOAP' has been done for quite a while, and our network
>components aren't tied to a specific architecture either (ie, if you
>have PowerPC Linux, you'll get binaries for it instead).
>
>--
>The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
>Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
--
Unless you've got the engineering process to match a DEC,
you won't produce a VMS.
You'll just end up with the likes of NT.
|||
/ | \
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: No wonder Hackers love Linux
Reply-To: hauck[at]codem{dot}com
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 20:02:46 GMT
On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 19:19:26 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Rooting a system is pretty meaningless without some way to access it.
You're not thinking like a cracker. They do not come in the front
door, as that is normally locked. One procedure is:
0. Find an exploitable bug that allows you to run your own code on
the target system. If you can download a few hundred bytes and
have it executed, that is enough. One way of doing this is to
find a buffer to overflow such that you can overwrite the return
address and cause the contents of the buffer to be executed as
code. This is not as hard as it sounds (i.e. there are lots of
exploits of this type).
1. Find a system running the exploitable software. A particular
version of wu-ftpd say.
2. Run an exploit script that sends a carefully crafted string that
will trigger the buffer overflow and cause the remote system to
execute some code of yours. Have this code start /bin/sh with
stdin and stdout connected to a network socket on some odd port.
This can be done in a few hundred bytes of assembler.
3. Telnet to that port and connect to your shell, running as whatever
user the original daemon was running as.
There, you are in and have an interactive shell with no need for a
telnetd on the target system. To make a complete job of it you just
need to download a rootkit that will clean up the logs and install your
backdoors so it'll be easier next time.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| Codem Systems, Inc.
-| http://www.codem.com/
------------------------------
From: John Jensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man!
Date: 26 Jul 2000 20:05:33 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
: On 26 Jul 2000 13:27:20 GMT, John Jensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: >Nice to see you retreat to the position I've suggested all along.
: You are simply an ass or an idiot.
:
: I never criticized component technology in general.
: That notion is simply a dellusion of your own creation.
: >That is, that the general concepts have merits outside Microsoft's
: >specific implementation. Look again at the quote you took execption with
: >yesterday:
: >
: >"Doing 'component-oriented software engineering' doesn't put you "even
: >more at the mercy of the likes of Microsoft". There might be some
: It depends on the particular technology.
: [deletia]
You stupid sack of shit, you just deleted and missed the point of the
paragraph, _again_.
John
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It?
Reply-To: hauck[at]codem{dot}com
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 20:12:57 GMT
On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 11:04:34 -0700, Josiah Fizer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>KDE has the browser tied so tight into the interface that there is no
>way to remove it without replacing the window manager.
Er, no. kfm and kwm are separate programs. And most Linux distros
comes with at least three browsers (kfm, netscape, lynx).
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| Codem Systems, Inc.
-| http://www.codem.com/
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.society.liberalism
Subject: Re: From a Grove of Birch Trees It Came...
Date: 26 Jul 2000 20:15:02 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Mark S. Bilk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:>The world's capacity to produce oil, or any other commodity, is not a
:>constant. It is determined by price. We can produce a great deal
:>more oil than we do, if buyers are willing to pay more for it than
:>they do now. However, it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to
:>bring new capacity online, or to restart previously idled exploration
:>and production efforts. It would take a much longer and/or bigger
:>jump in oil prices than anything we've seen (thus far) to justify this
:>cost.
: There's one thing that the laissez-faire Capitalists forget
: when they claim that the laws of the Holy Market control
: everything:
FYI: I believe in liberty, not necssarily "capitalism" (especially
capitalism as it is defined by most people whose economic leanings
tend toward the left - I don't approve of corporate welfare or most
other forms of subsidies). That will likely become an important
distinction as this discussion moves on.
: The laws of physics.
: What happens when it takes more energy to explore, drill,
: and pump a barrel of oil out of the ground than the energy
: yielded when that barrel of oil is burned?
: A net energy *loss*, that's what. On every barrel pumped
: after that point, even if there are oceans of it down there.
That's true, but largely irrelevant, for at least four reasons.
The first is that the price of oil will rise to an unacceptable level
long before that happens. Let's assume that for the time being, most
oil is being used for fuel. As the energy expended in producing it
increases, net yields decrease, and the money cost per net unit
therefore increases. As the energy expended in production begins to
approach the net energy left after production, the cost rises very
rapidly. Price can never be less than cost over the long term, so
price will rise very rapidly as well. By the time it hits $US100 a
barrel or so, *lots* of other alternatives become economically
attractive. Many of these alternatives would still allow the
production of gasoline at a price comparable to what Europeans are
paying for it today.
Second, you're making an assumption which has historically not held
true, namely, that the energy cost of extracting a barrel of oil is
not favorably impacted by new technologies and techniques. As a
matter of fact, it is. A lot of the oil being produced - probably the
majority - could not have been produced, at any cost, a hundred years
ago.
Third, the chemical equivalent of crude oil and its byproducts can be
manufactured - albeit rather expensively - from almost any other
hydrocarbon, including those that derive from renewable resources. If
it ever becomes necessary to do so in large quantities, new
technologies and economies of scale will drive the cost of doing so
down.
Finally, while most oil is currently used for energy, some is used for
the manufacture of other products, and if oil became sufficiently
scarce, such that it were no longer an economically viable source of
energy, some of the other products produced from it might still
command a sufficient price to justify additional production. (If
there were no way to recover, in oil, the energy cost of producing the
oil, then obviously another energy source would be needed.)
Don't get me wrong - I'm not going to guarantee that cheap oil will
last until we find a good replacement, and, in fact, it's very
plausible that it may not. There is no incentive to find a good
replacement *until* the price gets high enough to provide one. One
may come along accidentally, as a byproduct of some other kind of
research or discovery, but we should not count on that happening.
Since energy drives a great deal of the industrial world's economy
(and is a necessary ingredient to cost-effective agriculture as well),
it will cause great economic hardship when oil begins to grow more and
more expensive. We ought to pro-actively prepare for this time, in
whatever liberty-friendly ways we can.
But knowledge, progress, and markets - which exist, like gravity,
whether you want them to or not - do tend to produce solutions to most
of our problems of scarcity. I don't believe that an "energy crisis"
will by itself lead to the destruction of our way of life. We receive
far more energy from the Sun than we need now, or are ever likely to.
We just don't know how to collect more than a tiny fraction of it in a
form concentrated enough to be immediately useful. If we ever have to
learn, I think we will.
Thus, my original point stands, namely, that caution is warranted, but
not the doom-and-gloom scenario that lots of folks are trying to sell.
Joe
------------------------------
From: Seán Ó Donnchadha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It?
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 16:17:53 -0400
On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 20:12:57 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck) wrote:
>
>And most Linux distros comes with at least three browsers (kfm,
>netscape, lynx).
>
That makes perfect sense to me. So why can't Windows come with even
one browser?
------------------------------
From: John Jensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man!
Date: 26 Jul 2000 20:19:30 GMT
Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
: Oh, but you see we *already* have this. Both Debian and RPM packages
: can auto-update dependencies (that's basically how RedHat's installer
: works). [...]
I think 'rpm' is a fine package, but it is really more about managing
dependancies than about reducing them. I think the interesting thing to
glean from Component-Oriented studies is how to reduce interactions. If
an application and its libraries were able to be upgraded independantly,
'rpm' would have a much easier job.
I've been in the situation where I have two (or more) apps referencing the
same library. I'd like to upgrade one of my apps, which requires a
library update. If all of my apps have been upgraded to match the new
library it isn't a problem. I can just upgrade them all at once. If, for
some reason, an application has not been updated I have three choices:
- I can upgrade force, risking a runtime error in the old app.
- I can download source (or Source RPM) and try a recompile of the old
app. Many times that is a low-risk operation. It could be that a
end-user tool could even attempt a Soruce RPM rebuild in the
background.
- I can uninstall my old app.
As much as Mr. Jedi sees this as an advocacy game, I'm actually most
interested in reducing some of the risk and uncertainty in this procedure.
Protocols like SOAP interest me because they work at the front end,
improving compatibilities between components. I don't actually think my
interest is bad for UNIX, or that far afield from Miguel de Icaza's
keynote at the Ottawa Linux Symposium:
http://lwn.net/2000/0720/
: Upgrading to GNOME-1.2 is as easy as typing
: lynx -source http://go-gnome.com | sh
This worked on one of my systems, and failed rather spectacularly on a
second. Given that the second was a new Red Hat 6.2 install, I was less
than pleased.
John
------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows98
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 13:17:21 -0700
Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Spud <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:DBEf5.8600$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> [snips]
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:8lm7bo$ilt$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> > > None of which is needed... other than perhaps the first step, and
> > > quite possibly not even that. I've seen several backup packages
> which
> > > do sensible backups to tape drives, and which provide a boot
> floppy
> > > containing the restore software. With a Win9x system, you might
> also
> > > need the Windows recovery disk... big deal. So,. no need to
> install
> > > _anything_, by any sort of necessity, in order to do a
> restoration.
No different than the Linux solution in this reguard. Use a Linux boot
floppy and restore from the archive. With the Linux solution you would not
have to rely on a thrid party to supply the "sane backups to tape" The
standard distributions come with several packages to do the job. You are
not limited to devices on your local machince, you can back and retore to
any device on your machine, any other machine in your office, your building,
your company, the city, or the nation or the world, so long as you have the
access rights on those remote systems.
> >
> > But you are the one that said, "Pop this CD in to install Windows,
> then pop
> > that CD [or tape] in to restore apps and data" If you don't like
> the ugly
> > details of your procedures don't evoke them in the first place.
>
> Even if you need this... any IDE CD drive produced in the last 5 years
> or so is liable to work just by plugging the fool thing in, no
> configuration necessary, so not an issue. Even SCSI CDs work that
> way, although it's possible you'll need to configure your SCSI card.
>
> > ...and failed? Don't pull a deadpenguin on us. Linux supports FDC
> tape
> > drives, IDE tape drives, and SCSI tape drives right in the kernel
> without
> > the need for driver modules. If you have as much experience you
> claim that
> > you do, then that should have been not be problem for you.
>
> Been there, done that - on both platforms. Neither walks away a
> decisive winner.
There is one important difference Windows needs external thrid party drivers
to handle the tape drive. Does Windows still support FDC tape drives?
> > Windows is playing catchup to Linux and unix again. Yep, you just
> keep
> > feeding them to me!
> Perhaps it is... so what? At most it says the technology is available
> under both platforms...
Then why did YOU make an issue of it?
> so you gain nothing by using your methods ovre
> more sensible methods, under either platform.
Using the Windows solutions you loose portability, flexibility, and PROVEN
reliability.
> Did I claim that? No. I said Win2K offers a more sensible and less
> expensive method for doing this sort of operation than the method
> you're describing. Why can't you be honest enough to deal with what
> *is* being said, instead of inventing things?
Yes, you did say, "I much prefer the faster, easier and more reliable Win2K
mechanism". That is the statement I was addressing my comment to. As I
said, Windows 2000 has not been around long enough for it to prove your
claim of it being reliable.
>> Windows is playing catchup to Linux and unix again.
> And winning, if the method you describe is the way Linux does it. If
> Linux doesn't have to resort to your way, then why would one do things
> you way in *either* platform?
By definition no one can win by catching up. So based on your acceptance on
my comment you agree that Windows can never win over unix when it comes to
features. Since your statement begins with "And winning" to have any
meaning it would have to concatenated with my statement that your were
addressing. The combined statement, "Windows is playing catchup to Linux
and unix again and winning", is an oxymoron.
You know perfectly well that the method address by my example is not THE way
that Linux does it. That was simply one way that the job could be done in
the unix environment in general and Linux as a particular instance of unix.
The backup and restoration of data methods available to unix platforms is
has been proven to be more reliable, stable, flexible than any method that
is available to the Window's platform. Linux as an instance of the unix
environment is able handle backups for itself, DOS, Windows and other OS's
as well. The backup archives can be read on any of a number of unix and
non-unix operating systems.
The method the was illustrated in the example was an attempt to show that
the feature you were you were promoting as a feature of Windows 2000 can
also be done in unix. It also showed the additional capability which unix
has that Windows 2000 can not equal. The same is true with all of the other
features you are promoting for Windows 2000.
Can you restore a backup generated with the backup utility of DOS 2.0 with
the software that comes standard with both Windows 9x and Windows 2000?
Linux can extract files stored in tars well before the time of DOS 2.0. So
can any other unix and many other OS that can read a tar file.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wouter Coene)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.portable,comp.os.linux.hardware,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.openbsd.misc
Subject: Re: If Linux, which? If not Linux, what? NOT flame-bait!
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 20:31:20 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
According to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> I hear Slackware is a favorite of relatively knowledgeable Linux users. Is
> it really any better documentation-wise?
Not really. As for the Linux'es, Debian has the best documentation. But it
doesn't even get _near_ the quality of the OpenBSD documentation.
The major advantage of Slackware (and the reason I use it) is because it's
much more UNIX-like than Debian/Redhat/Suse etc etc..
Wouter
--
------------------------------
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