Linux-Advocacy Digest #659, Volume #29 Sat, 14 Oct 00 18:13:05 EDT
Contents:
Re: Microsoft kicked off the Web! ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: Linux Out perfoms Windows (Charlie Ebert)
Suggestions for Linux (unicat)
Re: Why is MS copying Sun??? (T. Max Devlin)
Claire & Pete (Charlie Ebert)
Re: David T. Johnson lies again ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Claire Lynn (Charlie Ebert)
Re: David T. Johnson lies again ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: End-User Alternative to Windows (Tony Tribelli)
Re: CROSSPOST Re: David T. Johnson lies again (Jim)
Re: CROSSPOST Re: David T. Johnson lies again (Jim)
Re: Why is MS copying Sun??? ("Simon Cooke")
Re: David T. Johnson lies again (Marty)
Re: David T. Johnson lies again (Marty)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft kicked off the Web!
Date: 14 Oct 2000 19:57:42 GMT
Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Microsoft has such a small grip on the WEB you could functionally
: declare
: their bid for the market over.
That is true on the Internet, but, unfortunately, IIS is still very
widely used inside corporate firewalls (where the security issues are
far easier to address).
Joe
------------------------------
From: Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux Out perfoms Windows
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:15:37 GMT
Pete Goodwin wrote:
> And LinuxTrolls complained about my generalisation "Linux lags behind
> Windows" yet here we find one doing exactly the same as I did: "Linux
> outperforms Windows".
>
> You don't mention wether you are running on the same hardware or wether
> you are running consoles on Linux under X or without X.
>
> I did my own tests and found both Linux and Windows ran at about the
> same speed. Running POVray on Linux without X compared to Windows
> revealed Windows was faster. All done on the same hardware.
>
> --
> ---
> Pete
> Coming soon: Kylix!
> (I do not need the destruction of Microsoft to succeed).
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
Yes
Very good Pete,.
Charlie
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 16:15:48 -0400
From: unicat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Suggestions for Linux
At the risk of providing fuel for the Wintrolls, I am posting some
friendly criticism of Linux and the Gnome/KDE GUIs.
(Notice to Microsoft, you can't copyright any of these ideas,
I am hereby copyrighting c2000
them and placing them in the public domain)
Linux will never complete its dominance of the computing world
if we are simply striving to be "as good as" Windows. We must set
our sights on an OS that is not just more reliable, but much much
easier to use than MS if we are going to see continued adoption of Linux
on the desktop. Along these lines, here are some suggestions:
1) We need to kill off the "Cult of UNIX" mentality.
There are too many Linux advocates who are old-line UNIX
gurus, who believe in the "users should have to earn the right to
use a computer" ethic. You can see this in the LPI and Redhat
certification, where the text command line rules supreme. The
attitude seems to be "If you really want to use Linux, we'll force
you to learn the bourne shell -bwah-hah-hah-hah!" This anti-social
elitist mindset is CRIPPLING linux, and we desperately, desperately
need to eliminate it!
2) We need to completely eliminate the command line interface.
That's right. Get rid of it. Anything that can't be done from a
GUI isn't worth doing. Remove ed,vi,emacs,vim, telnet, rlogin, rsh,
and especially getty from the distribution package completely.
Run ppp on all serial lines by default. PCs are cheaper than VT100s,
and we can use X-windows over ppp instead of curses. To
replace telnet and rlogin, use an http link and HTML pages that
use cgi to run commands.
3) We need to add superior functionality to the Linux GUI, like
the "Halflife" game, with openGL and 3-D icons for linux functions-
a) A restaurant. F'rinstance, you boot linux, and you see a first
person view of yourself walking into a restaurant. You sit at a
table,
and tux the penguin walks over and hands you a menu. The menu has
linux programs grouped on pages with clickaable tabs. You click a
tab for
say, graphics, and a page turns to all the graphics programs . You
click
on a menu selection to start up the corresponding function.
b) An office building. You find yourself walking down a hallway,
each door leads to either a room or another hallway. Rooms are
directories with representational 3-D icons for files (like a TV
for viewing
animations, or a filing cabinet full of documents, each of which is
a spearate manilla folder). Hallways are directories of
directories.
We could produce a tool like a .wad file editor to allow users to
customize the 3-D environment.
4) DWIM, or Do what I meant -
Instead of setting up a user interface with the goal of outsmarting
the user
and finding clever ways to keep them from doing what they want, make
the goal
of the user interface to figure out and implement what the user
"meant" to do.
a) Have defaults for everything - paths, settings, verbosity, etc.
and always fill in the
defaults for anything the user forgets.
b) Always warn the user about doing stupid things, like when they
enter
* and .txt as spearate files to be removed, when they meant *.txt
c) Never ever ever ask the user to provide the same information twice
-
keep everything they ever tell you in a KEYWORD=value file.
standardize
the use of keywords, and always check this file before asking the
user for some fact.
d) Run a background process once an hour to check the integrity and
consistency
of all configuration files - and fix them so they work.
e) The ten year old test - If 90% of ten year old kids can use an
application
without training - it's user friendly enough to be DWIM.
5) Put all files in an associative index which provides the user with
date, owner, subject,
occurence of a text string, and filetype clues for finding files,
which can be used
instead of a file path whenever a file must be located.
Easy to do? No! But worth doing if we really want Linux to win!
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.lang.java.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why is MS copying Sun???
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 16:41:30 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said James A. Robertson in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
[...]
>That marketing reality was created by the failures of vendors competing
>with MS. Apple lost fair and square in the 80's.
Apple didn't compete with Microsoft in the 80s. It competed then, as it
does now, with computer manufacturers. Given your inability to even
understand enough about markets and vendors to understand the
difference, your speculation on what caused Microsoft's monopoly is
rather suspect.
>> >The competition is in OS
>> >market, and Apple could easily have been a player there. Heck, the Unix
>> >vendors could have been, but explicitly chose not to.
>> >
>> >By your reasoning, I now declare Honda to be a monopoly in the Civic
>> >market. Let's go get them, shall we?
>>
>> This kind of trivial 'every product is a monopoly in that product'
>> argument was dealt with more than two years ago. Perhaps you have some
>> catching up to do.
>
>By people wishing to ignore the existence of other options, perhaps.
No, by people who want to be able to treat these other options as if
they were commercially feasible alternatives, which they are not so long
as there is a monopoly. Particularly, in this case, a monopoly which
maintains barriers, such as the application barrier, which Microsoft
clearly and willfully created in order to prevent threats to their
illegal lock on the majority of the PC pre-load market.
[...]
>That product is successful due to being 'goo enough' amd having
>excellent marketing. Apple could have beaten it.
Says you. Not very ingenious, but at least you're ingenuous.
[...]
>> >Such as? The price of Windows is cheap.
>>
>> Compared to....?
>
>Other options, such as Solaris on a low end Sun box. MacOS on Apple
>hardware until very recently
Are we really to believe that you think Windows is cheap because it
costs less than an entirely different computer? You really haven't
thought much about this, have you?
Oh, oh, you mean "a PC is cheap compared to alternatives". Well, why do
you think everyone likes PCs? Why do you think Microsoft illegally
monopolized PCs? You seem to be confused about what Microsoft produces;
it does not build computers for Gateway, Dell, Compaq, or IBM. Nobody
accused MS of monopolizing computers, nor accused PCs of monopolizing
computers. MS is monopolizing PCs. Get it?
[...]
>You declare it a monopoly, and it is. Wow. You declare the price too
>high, and it is. Mr. Devlin, meet Karl Marx.
The federal courts, which are responsible for doing such things, is the
where it was declared. Not by me. Mr. Robertson, meet Judge Jackson.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f4400/4469.htm
>> >That's why it worked. The
>> >price of the alternatives was high; that's why Apple lost. It's called
>> >marketing.
>>
>> The price of Apple included replacing the entire hardware platform. Its
>> called a computer. Your desire to envision an entire proprietary
>> computer platform as competition for an operating system on a
>> non-proprietary computer platform is somewhat silly.
>
>Back in 1985 - 1990 it did <not> include replacing; it was typically the
>very <first> PC purchase being made. I owned an Apple IIe at the time,
>and wanted to buy a Mac. I decided on a PC due to the $2000.00 price
>differential.
So because you were introduced to the concept of computers in 1985-1990,
you think choosing which OS to use on your PC is the same as choosing
which computer to use? I think I may have figured out why you're having
a problem making sense of what's going on. You are confused by the fact
that there are two somewhat conflicting uses of the term "personal
computer", and its acronym, PC. This is caused by the fact that the
abbreviation was, in fact, used on occasion to mean any microcomputer,
particularly hobbyist and home microcomputers, before IBM decided to
call their first microcomputer product "the IBM PC." The usage has been
causing problems ever since, because in on sense, an Apple II is a
personal computer, and therefore a PC, but in the more common sense
(since the cloning of the IBM PC enabled 'Intel-compatible
microcomputers' to become a competitive market), it is a personal
computer, but not a PC.
>> [...]
>> >Had Apple played differently in the 1985-1990 timeframe, it could have
>> >easily been different.
>>
>> Yea, so?
>
>That's my point, the own that is apparently just beyond your grasp...
No, it is not beyond my grasp; I'm just not naively presuming that it
makes a bit of difference, as you are.
[...]
>They didn't because (in general) the market chose to buy from MS and
>it's partners rather than exercise other available choices. It's called
>a free market; you might read up on it sometime. try starting with Adam
>Smith.
Oh, you are new here, aren't you?
You seem to be ignorant of the fact that Microsoft manipulated the
market in a large number of predatory ways, all of them putatively
illegal (since vendor's aren't allowed to act anti-competitively,
whether it makes them money or not). Provide something other than an
argument from ignorance to substantiate the idea that the market 'chose
to buy from MS', rather than got locked in to per-processor licensing,
alternatives were destroyed by use of FUD, and Microsoft engaged in
restraint of trade and monopolization in order to destroy what Adam
Smith, the U.S. Government, and T. Max Devlin would prefer to see
control prices and competition in PC software.
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
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------------------------------
From: Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Claire & Pete
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:41:33 GMT
Pete
Coming soon: Kylix!
(I do not need the destruction of Microsoft to succeed).
This is interesting. Pete has changed his tune somewhat and declared
the best way to make a go of Linux is use Kylix.
Okay... What ever....
It won't hurt.
I might use it myself.
I think the problem with Pete and Claire is they still just don't
understand
what makes Linux keep rolling and gaining momentum.
They don't know what makes this thing run.
It's that GPL license. That's the whole key.
As long as Linux is under the GPL license, it will continue to gain
momentum. People don't contribute to free projects if there's a
chance their contribution will just be RIPPED OFF!
Now, I'm probably going to get Kylix just like everybody else.
I've probably used the Windows based Delphi as long as anybody else
here. Wrote a lot of things at my house and my parents using interbase
and Delphi over the span of 6-7 years.
Kylix will probably be the business developers choice for linux.
Who knows.
But the real reason why Linux has any power at all lies in the
GPL license.
That's what drove companies like IBM and HP to just dump their top
corporate
secrets into IA 64.
Hey buddy! Want about 12 million dollars! Well they just gave them
more
than that in the IA64 code. And it got GPL'ed!
You have to look at this and wake up here.
That's what finally made Sun dump Star Office wide open.
That's what made Kylix a possibility for Borland.
That's what keeps tens of thousands of individual programmers in there
developing for Linux. As nobody can steal my code! I will always get
access to it and always be able to use it for MY purposes for FREE!
The era of the mainframe is passing to the cluster.
We are entering the era of the global cluster.
And this is exactly why the development effort for Linux is just
outstripping
Microsoft's and it's also exactly why Microsoft's time on earth is very
limited.
Microsoft and copyrights are passing into history. They are quickly
becoming
as far placed as cowboys carrying guns and riding horses.
An era is passing.
I feel honored to have been alive when there was CLOSED PROJECTS.
It's almost like saying I lived in a day when we wore ARMOR to work and
carried 6 foot long swords!
But I rather doubt how you make your gui really decided any of this.
Charlie
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: David T. Johnson lies again
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:48:16 GMT
Marty writes:
> David T. Johnson wrote:
>> You continue to repeat the same arguments which futilely attempt to
>> characterize my replies to your personal attacks and name-calling as
>> 'harassment and denigration' of OS/2 developers. You have falsely
>> accused me of harassment and denigration of OS/2 developers. For that,
>> you will have to answer.
> Just shut up, blowhard. This is the 5th time that you've repeated this
> blurb. How ironic.
How ironic, coming from Marty "see what I mean" Amodeo.
------------------------------
From: Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Claire Lynn
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:50:38 GMT
mlw wrote:
> Vann wrote:
> >
> > I've been lurking around this group for a few weeks now, and I've noticed
> > a large volume of posts being made by Claire Lynn. I don't have anything
> > against Claire, per se, but, what doesn't make any sense to me is why
> > Claire posts at a linux advocacy group. ( Note: I do understand what a
> > troll is, but Claire seems to be doing more than mindlessly trolling. )
> > Anyways, shouldn't Claire being doing something more productive with her
> > time? I mean, honestly, what, if Microsoft is so much better, is the
> > point of coming to COLA and posting constantly? Won't the "invisible
> > hand" of capitalism take care of linux, if it is, in fact, so horrid? Or
> > was Adam Smith a buffoon?
> >
> > Just my two cents.
>
> What is not clear to the casual viewer is that "Clair" is an alter ego
> of another poster. I leave it in the capable hands of the curious to
> discover whom.
>
> --
> http://www.mohawksoft.com
Okay, that's fine. We've delt with this before.
If their not demonstrating dual personalities then they are
in that 6-9 month process of converting to Linux from being
a Win-troll.
There's a whole lot of denial in being a Win-troll.
It takes em quite a while to convince themselves they were
wrong and they need to reverse course.
Charlie
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: David T. Johnson lies again
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:49:00 GMT
Marty writes:
> David T. Johnson wrote:
>> You continue to repeat the same arguments which futilely attempt to
>> characterize my replies to your personal attacks and name-calling as
>> 'harassment and denigration' of OS/2 developers. You have falsely
>> accused me of harassment and denigration of OS/2 developers. For that,
>> you will have to answer.
> I'll let you know when I'm scared. In the meantime, get on with your life and
> try not to be such a hypocrite in the future so that we can avoid these
> situations.
Practice what you preach, Marty.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: End-User Alternative to Windows
From: Tony Tribelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.misc
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:51:30 GMT
Larry Ebbitt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 2:1 wrote:
>> The early OSs were a lot less than DOS was. Dos is an old OS. 20 years
>> ago, that wasw about all the OS you could fit o to one of those
>> computers, but it was still an OS. Just because it was used long past
>> it's use-by data, doesn't make it any less of an OS.
>
> The industry standards and real OS's were around long before DOS for
> OC's. IBM had a couple and UNIX was around.
Microsoft offered a Unix, XENIX, and users stuck to DOS despite Microsoft's
advocacy for XENIX. Even with modern free Unix implementations the public at
large has a hard time accepting Unix. Apple probably has the best approach
with the upcoming MacOS X, bury and hide Unix so the user doesn't even know
it's there.
Tony
------------------------------
From: Jim<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: CROSSPOST Re: David T. Johnson lies again
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 17:42:11 -0400
Reply-To: Someone who gives a damn
On Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:48:16 GMT, in comp.sys.mac.advocacy,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] took a break from surfing the porno sites and
said:
>Marty writes:
>
>> David T. Johnson wrote:
>
>>> You continue to repeat the same arguments which futilely attempt to
>>> characterize my replies to your personal attacks and name-calling as
>>> 'harassment and denigration' of OS/2 developers. You have falsely
>>> accused me of harassment and denigration of OS/2 developers. For that,
>>> you will have to answer.
>
>> Just shut up, blowhard. This is the 5th time that you've repeated this
>> blurb. How ironic.
>
>How ironic, coming from Marty "see what I mean" Amodeo.
Mind your own buisness, fukhead.
------------------------------
From: Jim<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: CROSSPOST Re: David T. Johnson lies again
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 17:43:03 -0400
Reply-To: Someone who gives a damn
On Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:49:00 GMT, in comp.sys.mac.advocacy,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] took a break from surfing the porno sites and
said:
>Marty writes:
>
>> David T. Johnson wrote:
>
>>> You continue to repeat the same arguments which futilely attempt to
>>> characterize my replies to your personal attacks and name-calling as
>>> 'harassment and denigration' of OS/2 developers. You have falsely
>>> accused me of harassment and denigration of OS/2 developers. For that,
>>> you will have to answer.
>
>> I'll let you know when I'm scared. In the meantime, get on with your life and
>> try not to be such a hypocrite in the future so that we can avoid these
>> situations.
>
>Practice what you preach, Marty.
Mind your own buisness, fukhead.
------------------------------
From: "Simon Cooke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.lang.java.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why is MS copying Sun???
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 22:03:41 GMT
"Weevil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:EBZF5.14658$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Simon and his fellows generally
> try to pass themselves off as either expert or very experienced with past
> and present software technology, and they've tried to use this expertise
to
> bolster their arguments. To admit that they've been wrong about so much,
> they would also have to admit that their technical expertise isn't quite
as
> strong as they thought (or possibly pretended).
I'm sorry that you're so right all the time, could never be wrong, and
frankly that you ate so much lead-based paint as a child.
Simon
------------------------------
From: Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: David T. Johnson lies again
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 22:05:27 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Marty writes:
>
> > David T. Johnson wrote:
>
> >> You continue to repeat the same arguments which futilely attempt to
> >> characterize my replies to your personal attacks and name-calling as
> >> 'harassment and denigration' of OS/2 developers. You have falsely
> >> accused me of harassment and denigration of OS/2 developers. For that,
> >> you will have to answer.
>
> > Just shut up, blowhard. This is the 5th time that you've repeated this
> > blurb. How ironic.
>
> How ironic, coming from Marty "see what I mean" Amodeo.
See what I mean?
------------------------------
From: Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: David T. Johnson lies again
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 22:06:08 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Marty writes:
>
> > David T. Johnson wrote:
>
> >> You continue to repeat the same arguments which futilely attempt to
> >> characterize my replies to your personal attacks and name-calling as
> >> 'harassment and denigration' of OS/2 developers. You have falsely
> >> accused me of harassment and denigration of OS/2 developers. For that,
> >> you will have to answer.
>
> > I'll let you know when I'm scared. In the meantime, get on with your
> > life and try not to be such a hypocrite in the future so that we can
> > avoid these situations.
>
> Practice what you preach, Marty.
Likewise.
------------------------------
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