Linux-Advocacy Digest #523, Volume #29 Sun, 8 Oct 00 16:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Why should anyone prefer Linux to Win2k on the DeskTop ("James Stutts")
Re: Because programmers hate users (Re: Why are Linux UIs so crappy?) (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Because programmers hate users (Re: Why are Linux UIs so crappy?) (Richard)
Re: How low can they go...? (JS/PL)
Re: Why is MS copying Sun??? (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Why is MS copying Sun??? (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Why is MS copying Sun??? (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Why is MS copying Sun??? (T. Max Devlin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "James Stutts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why should anyone prefer Linux to Win2k on the DeskTop
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 13:51:24 -0500
"Osugi Sakae" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8rpqlp$rka$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <8romqc$1ea$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "James Stutts"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > "Osugi Sakae" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:8rojno$ef0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> In article <8rnmj2$jki$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "James Stutts"
> >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > When you use the government against someone within your industry, you
> > set a precedent for their involvement.
>
> Fair enough, though I doubt that governments really worry too much about
> precedent. They'll just do whatever they want, as long as people don't
> complain. But at least they are elected. I distrust large companies more,
> because they are less directly responsible to the people.
The lawyers for the US Department of Justice aren't elected.
<snip>
> Think of all the many clueless people out there using Windows - for them
> it is a lot of trouble.
If they're too clueless for this, how do expect them to handle Linux?
>
> >> installing various Linux distros. But I'll repeat part - Linux distros
> >> come with software to help you partition the drive(s) when you install
> >> the os. Windows does not - it requires the use of third party software
> >> after the os is installed.
> >
> > Partition Magic is still the preferred software, no matter the OS.
>
> I don't really know what the most popular software is, my point was that
> many Linux distros provide tools to partition the drive during the
> install. Windows doesn't. That causes some (clueless) people a lot of
> trouble later.
Actually, Windows does contain the tools to partition the drive. At least
NT does. Repartitioning nondestructively is another matter.
>
> >> Also, I have heard many semi-advanced Windows users say that they don't
> >> partition their C:\ drive because then it gets too full when you add
> >
> > Get a bigger drive.
>
> That isn't always an option. And adding a drive is beyond the abilities of
> many if not most Windows users.
Again, how will Linux help them here?
>
>
> >> programs later. Also, the swap file defaults to the C drive.
> >> Certainly, linux systems can be poorly partitioned - resulting in a
> >> full /usr
> >
> > You can put the swap file anywhere you want in either case.
>
> You can, if you know what you are doing. Most windows users don't.
When this comes up from the Linux perspective, the usual answer seems
to be RTFM. Linux doesn't hand-hold either for anything beyond
what Red Hat (or the like) think you should do.
>
>
> >> >> No problem at all. Unless you really f**ck things up, you won't even
> >> >> have to touch your backups.
> >> >
> >> > You have to merge the /etc, among other things. There's far more too
> >> > it than you seem to think. I've been using Unix-based systems for ten
> >> > years. I used Slackware at kernel revision 0.99. I've been there
> >> > before.
> >>
> >> Again, see above about reinstalls. I have installed several distros and
> >> have never had to "merge the /etc" whatever that it.
> >
> > You don't know what the /etc directory is? That's where most
> > configuration files are for such things as DHCP and your networking
> > settings. Do you even USE Linux
> > (beyond the pretty gui)? Those settings files are in different
> > locations, depending on the distro. Not to mention, what moron came up
> > with
> > "user/linux". That's almost as bad as "usr/people" from IRIX.
>
> I know what /etc is, and I know (for the most part) what is in there. What
> I didn't understand was the "merge" part. And yes, I use Linux. Everyday.
"Merging" refers to moving the configuration from one /etc architecture to
another.
>
> My mandrake machine doesn't show a /usr/linux.
Depends on the implementation.
>
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >> Whether you accept them as fact or not is totally irrelevant. They are
> >> not facts as in the "facts" you find in a science book or an
> >> encyclopedia. They are the facts as proven to the judge during the
> >> trial through the evidence and testimony. As such they are considered
> >> the facts to be used in determining guilt or innocence. MS should have
> >> done a better job presenting its case.
> >
> > I'm sure they will on appeal. The case if FAR from decided.
>
> I agree that the case is far from over. On the other hand, I have no idea
> what the final outcome will be.
>
>
> <snip>
>
> >
> > They used non-Windows APIs, but I never noticed that those were
> > available for anyone to use for free (until they open-sourced the
> > thing).
>
> Got me on this. I do not understand programming enough to comment
> intelligently one way or the other.
>
>
> <snip>
>
> >>
> >> So, you expect me to believe that the FoF are totally wrong, and that
> >> Navigator in fact does _not_ expose API's while simultaneously
> >> admitting that IE does expose API's. You can see, I hope, where I would
> >> have trouble believing you over the FoF.
> >
> > If you wish to believe an engineer over a lawyer, then that's your
> > problem.
>
> Since it is being decided in a court of law, I will base my analysis on
> what the court decides are "facts". They might not always be true, but
> that's what MS has lawyers for.
>
> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> With the market share that MS windows has, and the corresponding
> >> >> >> lack of competition, they have no incentive to include any
> >> >> >> software that they don't absolutely have to. (Also, my not
> >> >> >> including any extra software with
> >> >> >
> >> >> > If the had this level of market share, they could raise prices.
> >> >> > They haven't.
> >> >>
> >> >> I have no data one way of the other. But, are you trying to say that
> >> >> they aren't a monopoly if they don't raise prices? Do you see that
> >> >> that makes no sense? Higher prices are one way that a monopoly
> >> >> might be abused. IE and MS Office are other ways.
> >> >
> >> > IE is free. How is that harming the customer?
> >>
> >> You are switching the focus here. You said that they couldn't be a
> >> monopoly since they hadn't raised prices. Now you are asking how a free
> >> program could hurt the consumer. Are you admitting that a monopoly
> >> doesn't have to raise prices to be called a monopoly?
> >
> > A "monopoly" is whatever the judge thinks it is. That can change with
> > the next administration. Judges make plenty of mistakes and often have
> > their own agendas.
>
> I hope there is more than that to a monopoly - but since it seems neither
> of us is a lawyer, we may have to skip over the definition of a monopoly.
>
> Companies and courts of appeal also make mistakes and also have agendas.
> So, it would seem do governments, individuals, and DOJ's.
>
> >>
> >> As (some) winvocated are fond of saying, "there is no such thing as a
> >> free lunch". The damage is not directly and immediately dropped upon
> >> the consumers shoulders, rather the damage comes later, in the form of
> >> what could have been. That free program was the club used to beat the
> >
> > Netscape was the monopoly. They lost. It is interesting that at the
> > start of the anti-trust proceedings, Netscape had a larger market share
> > than IE. It is also interesting that anti-trust law, by definition, was
> > designed to act against
> > "trusts".
> > A "trust" is a group of companies that agree to fix the market price.
>
> Again, definitions that I cannot comment one way or another on. Was
> Standard Oil a trust under your definition? How about AT&T?
Perhaps they shouldn't refer to it as "antitrust legislation". It isn't.
>
> I don't buy the "netscape was the monopoly" thing. They had market share,
> yes, but no power. At best, they temporarily had _a_ monopoly and they did
> nothing to abuse that monopoly. MS had a monopoly in another field and
> used that monopoly to compete unfairly in the browser market.
You know they charged $50 for Netscape. They based that on a monopoly
(temporarily though it was) on the web server market with proprietary
extensions on top of HTML (same thing people complain about MS for).
There aren't any saints in the computer industry. MSs competitors would
be just as happy to do what MS has done.
>
>
> <snip>
>
> > You've never read or listened to McNealy, have you?
>
> I'm a teacher in Japan. I count my blessings that the whole
> Clinton-Lewinsky thing was almost over before I first heard Star's or
> Lewinsky's voice. So, in short, no, I have never heard McNealy. Is he as
> bad as Gates? Does he rail at Gates, or at imaginary threats, a la MS?
McNealy is the CEO of Sun. You really don't want to be a small customer of
Sun. You really don't.
JCS
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Because programmers hate users (Re: Why are Linux UIs so crappy?)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 14:55:17 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said Richard in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
>> I fail to see why either of these would be considered in any way
>> incorrect statements. If a sub-domain uses new words, then English is
>> well-suited to it because you can define new words that are well-suited
>> to the sub-domain. English is a beautiful language when beautiful
>> things are written in it, as much as ny language can be considered
>> beautiful for any other reason. Feel free to disagree. (He says,
>> knowingly.)
>
>You obviously were never in the position where you had to learn a
>language ....
I wouldn't be stupid enough to base my opinion on whether any particular
language is 'beautiful' on my own particular preferences and
sensibilities. I think all natural languages are beautiful, by nature,
and don't have a preference for one or the other.
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
======USENET VIRUS=======COPY THE URL BELOW TO YOUR SIG==============
Sign the petition and keep Deja's archive alive!
http://www2.PetitionOnline.com/dejanews/petition.html
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
From: Richard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Because programmers hate users (Re: Why are Linux UIs so crappy?)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 19:20:26 GMT
Steve Mading wrote:
> Also, there's the problem of precedence. To make
> homemade operators work, there would either have to
> be a way to let the programmer define the operator's
> precedence, or the language would have to ignore all
> precedence and do everything left-to-right. The second
> solution (which is what I gather Smalltalk does from
> what Richard said) is distasteful to me because it
> diverges from the way we've been educated to view math
> expressions (It seems "icky" to have a language that
> does 2+3*x in the wrong algebraic order.
As you said, this is only because that's the way you've been
educated. And trust me, it takes very little time to get used
to it.
> It means I'm
> going to have to insert a heck of a lot of parentheses
> in any nontrivial expression.)
In practice, you don't do that. Rather, you reorder
your expressions so that the left to right and canonical
evaluation orders coincide.
And Smalltalk has id1 id2 id3 as valid expressions
(so long as id2 ends with a colon). So
'aParser parse: aString' is valid Smalltalk. In fact,
all methods in Smalltalk are infix so even though
#inject:with: is a single method, you write it
aCollection inject: aBlockOCode with: anInteger
Smalltalk isn't completely left to right; it has three
precedence levels (unary, binary, keyword) so that
you don't have to put brackets around arguments to
methods.
------------------------------
From: JS/PL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: How low can they go...?
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 15:21:27 -0400
"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
>
> Said JS/PL in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
> >"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
> >>
> >> Said JS/PL in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
> >> >"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> >
> >> >> You've again missed the point. I don't care.
> >> >
> >> >Your typical response to being proven a liar.
> >>
> >> My typical response to you, when you pretend to have 'proven me a liar'.
> >
> >Is that what you call it when your asked to cite an official reference
> >to laws and facts you seem to make up off the top of your head.
>
> Yes, because your question implies that there is a single concise law
> which explicitly states a simple act which is unlawful, and if one can't
> be provided, the activity is lawful. This is a rather gross fallacy,
> since the actions you ask about are neither simple nor singular, but
> contextual representations of circumstance that are not directly
> relevant to law.
In the U.S. at least, your actions are all considered to be lawfull by
default unless the action is documented as "unlawfull" by the
government.
You stated quite simply
<quote>
"You do realize that by so editing a newsgroup, you take on the role,
and
thus the legal responsibility and liability of a newspaper owner, don't
you?"
</quote>
I provided a link right to the U.S. code which states that it does not.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/230.html
And then challenged you to show me the specific law you were citing as
the basis for your "made up law" in the quoted text above. You couldn't.
End of argument, you were wrong and no amount of handwaving will make
you right.
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.arch,comp.lang.c,alt.conspiracy.area51,comp.os.netware.misc,comp.protocols.tcp-ip,comp.lang.java.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why is MS copying Sun???
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 15:29:12 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said Chad Myers in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Microsoft's bogus .NET 'platform'
>
>Head -> Sand
>
>It's not bogus, it will revolutionize application development and,
>in the long term, multiplatform application development.
LOL.
>Have you read anything about it? Of course not. You're content
>reading Slashdot for all your news.
If it were something which would revolutionize application development,
I'd expect Slashdot to have quite a bit about it.
>> involves ensuring, according to
>> unicat, who's opinion I'd trust more than yours because I've never read
>> anything he wrote, that XML is going to be used predatoraly by Microsoft
>> to replace the more widely supported HTML presentation of Internet
>> documents.
>
>Again, always the conspiracy. MS is always out to destroy the world.
No, they're always out to monopolize. Have you been asleep for a few
years?
>Give me a break. You idiots remind me of the Lone Gunman on X Files,
>but you have less talent.
"Novell is after the desktop.... This is perhaps our biggest threat. We
must respond in a strong way by making Chicago a complete Windows
operating system, from boot-up to shut-down. There will be no place or
need on a Chicago machine for DR-DOS (or any DOS)."
"DOS being fairly cloned has had a dramatic impact on our pricing for
DOS. I wonder if we would have it around 30-40% higher if it wasn't
cloned. I bet we would!"
"I doubt they [Digital Research] will be able to clone Windows. It is
very difficult to do technically, we have made it a moving target and we
have some visual copyright and patent protection. I believe people
underestimate the impact DR-DOS has had on us in terms of pricing."
"Linux can win as long as services / protocols are commodities."
"HTTP-DAV. DAV is complex and the protocol spec provides an infinite
level of implementation complexity for various applications (e.g. the
design for Exchange over DAV is good but certainly not the single
obvious design). Apache will be hard pressed to pick and choose the
correct first areas of DAV to implement."
"This is good news because it means OEMs are listening to us. Andy
[Grove] believes Intel is living up to its part of the NSP bargain and
that we should let OEMs know that some of the new software work Intel is
doing is OK. If Intel is not sticking totally to its part of the deal
let me know."
"[O]bviously netscape does see us as a client competitor[...] we have
to work extra hard to get ohare on the oem disks."
"You see browser share as job 1. . . . I do not feel we are going to win
on our current path. We are not leveraging Windows from a marketing
perspective and we are trying to copy Netscape and make IE into a
platform. We do not use our strength which is that we have an
installed base of Windows and we have a strong OEM shipment channel for
Windows. Pitting browser against browser is hard since Netscape has 80%
marketshare and we have 20%. . . . I am convinced we have to use Windows
this is the one thing they don't have. . . . We have to be competitive
with features, but we need something more Windows integration.
"If you agree that Windows is a huge asset, then it follows quickly that
we are not investing sufficiently in finding ways to tie IE and Windows
together. This must come from you. . . . Memphis [Microsoft's code-name
for Windows 98] must be a simple upgrade, but most importantly it must
be killer on OEM shipments so that Netscape never gets a chance on these
systems."
"The major reason for this is . . . to combat Nscp, we have to [ ]
position the browser as "going away" and do deeper integration on
Windows. The stronger way to communicate this is to have a new release'
of Windows and make a big deal out of it. . . . IE integration will be
[the] most compelling feature of Memphis."
"The stunning insight is this: To make [users] switch away from
Netscape, we need to make them upgrade to Memphis. . . . It seems clear
to me that it will be very hard to increase browser market share on the
merits of IE 4 alone. It will be more important to leverage the OS asset
to make people use IE instead of Navigator."
"Winning Internet browser share is a very very important goal for us.
Apparently a lot of OEMs are bundling non-Microsoft browsers and coming
up with offerings together with Internet Service providers that get
displayed on their machines in a FAR more prominent way than MSN or our
Internet browser."
"We have had three options for how to use the "Windows Box": First, we
can use it for the browser battle, recognizing that our core assets are
at risk. Second, we could monetize the box, and sell the real estate to
the highest bidder. Or third, we could use the box to sell and promote
internally content assets. I recognize that, by choosing to do the
first, we have leveled the playing field and reduced our opportunities
for competitive advantage with MSN."
"Content drives browser adoption, and we need to go to the top five
sites and ask them, "What can we do to get you to adopt IE?" We should
be prepared to write a check, buy sites, or add features basically do
whatever it takes to drive adoption."
"The pace of our discussions with Apple as well as their recent
unsatisfactory response have certainly frustrated a lot of people at
Microsoft. The threat to cancel Mac Office 97 is certainly the strongest
bargaining point we have, as doing so will do a great deal of harm to
Apple immediately. I also believe that Apple is taking this threat
pretty seriously . . . ."
"We need to create the reputation for problems and incompatibilities to
undermine confidence in DR DOS 6.0; so people will make judgements
against it without knowing the details or facts."
"It's pretty clear we need to make sure Windows 3.1 only runs on top of
MS DOS or an OEM version of it. I checked with legal, and they are
working up some text we are suppose to display if someone tries to setup
or run Windows on a alien operating system. We are suppose to give the
user the option of continuing after the warning. However, we should
surely crash at some point shortly later."
"What the guy is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has
bugs, suspect that the problem is DR DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS.
Or decide to not take the risk for the other machines he has to buy for
in the office."
"I am wondering if we should change the detection words to say we failed
to detect MS-DOS, rather than say we detected an operating system other
than MS-DOS. The latter words would make people think we are looking for
DR DOS . . . ."
"Microsoft marketing plan: Objectives: FUD DR DOS with every editorial
contact made."
"There won't be anything we won't say to people to try and convince them
that our way is the way to go."
"This is not about browsers. Our competitors are trying to create an
alternative platform to Windows."
"The costs for misclassifying a legitimate E-mail as junk far outweigh
the cost of marking a piece of junk as legitimate."
>Microsoft supports the growing movement of XML and XSL for formatting
>and stylizing data over every medium (including the web and internet).
Microsoft supports Microsoft, and is more than willing to harm
customers, partners, and competitors, in order to dominate the web and
the Internet. Don't be naive.
>This is nothing new, and it's no conspiracy by MS, this is what people
>and corporations are demanding. They're tired of having 1500 different
>ML's, they want one specific one that is all encompassing. MS only does
>things that people want and will make them profit. It's simple
>capitalism 101.
You ought to try taking capitalism 201 before shooting your mouth off.
No, markets do not demand nor desire a lack of competition. Only
inter-operability, which is precisely why Microsoft so studiously and
emphatically opposes it.
>HTML will never go away, and will be maintained as a legacy language.
>
>> >> and then putting your applications on the server and using a thin client
>> >> to get to them. The XML langauage lets web pages have "dynamic"
>> >
>> >That's only a small piece of .net.
>>
>> Yes, whatever someone says to criticize it, that always seems to be the
>> response. Interesting, considering how vaguely the thing is defined.
>
>.NET is much more than just serving applications over the Internet. When
>you learn to read, you should read the specs, it's pretty amazing all
>the stuff MS is doing.
You mean "is promising". And the more impressive the specs, the more
silly the whole idea becomes. I speak as someone who has watched the
lack of development in distributed applications, primarily caused by
Microsoft itself, in the last decade, with some professional interest.
>> [...]
>> >> in other words, MS has reinvented Java and Java clients.
>> >
>> >Except that .NET isn't limited to one language. [...]
>>
>> No, its just limited to one vendor. Guffaw.
>
>Not really. If you read the spec, you'll know this is an ignorant statement.
If you took your blinders off, you'd know how that is a naive statement.
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
======USENET VIRUS=======COPY THE URL BELOW TO YOUR SIG==============
Sign the petition and keep Deja's archive alive!
http://www2.PetitionOnline.com/dejanews/petition.html
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.arch,comp.lang.c,alt.conspiracy.area51,comp.os.netware.misc,comp.protocols.tcp-ip,comp.lang.java.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why is MS copying Sun???
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 15:30:27 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said JS/PL in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>"Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
[...]
>He only reads about things after making completely asinine statements like
>the ones above. Trust me, right at this moment he's feverishly scanning the
>internet seeking out some spin control for his asinine comments. When and if
>he finds nothing to back up his asinine comments he will proclaim that he
>"Doesn't care" and has no time for the "ankle biters" who ask him to back up
>his asininities.
Yes, I'm sure that's how you see it. <chuckle>
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
======USENET VIRUS=======COPY THE URL BELOW TO YOUR SIG==============
Sign the petition and keep Deja's archive alive!
http://www2.PetitionOnline.com/dejanews/petition.html
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.arch,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Why is MS copying Sun???
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 15:32:22 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said JS/PL in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Said JosB in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>> [...]
>> >I still consider Novell Netware superior to MS windows NT/2000.
>> >But that is pure the Fileserver and printserver part.
>> >And perhaps for Oracle databases.
>> >
>> >NT is probably still a better application server. :-(
>>
>> I don't know about you, but when I hear the term 'application server', I
>> mostly think of Oracle databases, or X clients programs.
>
>That's because your an idiot.
No, that's because I've worked with global-scale enterprise networks for
long enough to know what an application server is, and nine times out of
ten its a database server, or runs X client software.
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
======USENET VIRUS=======COPY THE URL BELOW TO YOUR SIG==============
Sign the petition and keep Deja's archive alive!
http://www2.PetitionOnline.com/dejanews/petition.html
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.arch,alt.conspiracy.area51,comp.os.netware.misc,comp.protocols.tcp-ip,comp.lang.java.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why is MS copying Sun???
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 15:41:16 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said Simon Cooke in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Pretty pathetic, isn't it. WINE can't even get a fucking NOTEPAD to
>> work correctly. Sounds to me like Win32 is a complete piece of shit,
>> and MS ought to be taken out and shot just for pretending its a useable
>> API.
>
>Sounds to me like WINE's developers don't know their arses from their
>elbows. Win32 is perfectly usable -- you just have to take the time and
>energy to understand it.
Yea, sure; when in doubt, insist it is the incompetence of others.
>It's like the Mac -- perfectly usable APIs, but if you come from a different
>part of the computing world, it'll stump you at EVERY turn, because you're
>not used to the way they thought when they put it together.
You don't seem to understand; WINE isn't writing apps.
>Same going from Windows to Unix. And from any place to any other place, come
>to think of it.
There's software designed by professionals to function correctly and
reliably, and then there's monopoly crapware. Moving from one to the
other would be quite a transition, I'm sure, but that's the point. The
competent and eager programmers of WINE can't even get the absolute
simplest app (a friggen' *text editor*) to work. Sounds like Win32 is a
piece of shit, to me, designed more to prevent competition than to
provide functionality.
>Each OS has its own paradigms in its design. Win32 is just different to what
>*you* or *they* are used to -- but rather than spend the time to get your
>head around it and actually try to understand *why* it was done that way,
>people go "Oh God! Totally unworkable API! Argh! Mummy!"
Ha. Hardly. Win32 is just a piece of crap, is what you mean, where
even competent programmers can't get anything to work because of
Microsoft's obfuscation, churn, and counter-productive
(anti-competitive) design methods. Wake up and smell the coffee.
"Uhmm . . . denying DRI the VxD smells of an antitrust lawsuit. You're
not supposed to use your control of one market, in this case Windows, to
influence another market, in this case DOS. Err something like that."
It is their way of doing business, not anyone's inability to program on
more than one platform, which makes Win32 appear to be a "totally
unworkable API."
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
======USENET VIRUS=======COPY THE URL BELOW TO YOUR SIG==============
Sign the petition and keep Deja's archive alive!
http://www2.PetitionOnline.com/dejanews/petition.html
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
** 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
******************************
