Linux-Advocacy Digest #885, Volume #30 Thu, 14 Dec 00 20:13:02 EST
Contents:
Re: Sun Microsystems and the end of Open Source (Pan)
Re: A Microsoft exodus! ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Caifornia power shortage... (kiwiunixman)
Re: Sun Microsystems and the end of Open Source (Pan)
Re: Nobody wants Windows because it don't Super Computer. (Charlie Ebert)
Re: Sun Microsystems and the end of Open Source (Gary Hallock)
Re: Caifornia power shortage... (kiwiunixman)
Re: Linux is awful ("Ayende Rahien")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Pan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Sun Microsystems and the end of Open Source
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 16:18:11 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Chad C. Mulligan" wrote:
> > www.openoffice.org, again.
>
> Where's the production releases?
Who said that anything has been moved into production only 3 months into
the project? Try the 609 or 605 build.
> > > I don't care about Wildebeest licensing I was
> > > looking for allegedly free software and found it owned by one of the
> biggest
> > > whores in the industry.
> >
> > When was the last time M$ released a product under the gpl?
> >
>
> Again, who cares.
You do, apparently. Calling Sun an industry "whore" and taking issue
with "allegedly" free software. Did you have to pay for S.O. 5.1? If
not, then it is free. Did they release the source code? Yes. Then
that is free also. Nothing "alleged" about S.O. being free.
> I don't give my product away and I see no benefit in
> doing so. You want to run my applications, pay for them.
What applications have you built? Links?
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://salvador.venice.ca.us
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: A Microsoft exodus!
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 00:16:23 GMT
Steve Mading writes:
>>> You mean it doesn't go one character forward?
>> Ah, you caught my point.
>>> Gee, I guess that makes more less intuitive than vi in that regard,
>>> using similar logic to your own.
>> On the contrary, similar logic to my own would have resulted in you
>> saying that it makes more non-vi-like in that regard. But you don't
>> want to say that because it contradicts your position.
> Learn how sarcasm works.
It works as a substitute for a logical argument when you don't have
one.
>>> So what?
>> Go back and reread your original claim, then my response to it.
> Why would this change anything?
It should answer your question about "So what?".
> Your words in the news spool haven't changed while I wasn't looking
> have they?
Your comprehension could change, however.
>>> Your exact verbatim statement was that there was "no need to
>>> move a cursor around in an unmmodified document." The /pattern
>>> search is all that is sufficient to make that statement false.
>> Incorrect, given that you're not moving the cursor around with
>> hjkl.
> Which has nothing to do with the statement I refer to.
It has everything to do with the statement I refer to.
>>> How do you like it when people get pendantic with you, huh?
>> Whether I like it or dislike it is irrelevant. What is relevant is
>> why you're choosing to use a "pendantic" [sic] argument.
> That's the nature of it. Once one person starts, the other only has
> two choices: 1 - drop it and walk away, or 2 - make replies to the
> pendantic points, which will of course themselves be pendantic.
You're erroneously presupposing the existence of only two choices,
as well as erroneously presupposing that the points made were merely
"pendantic" [sic].
>>>> Finding an occurrence of a string is a rather different matter from
>>>> simply viewing a document. The latter was what he brought up.
>>> Why?
>> You'll have to ask him why he brought it up.
> The "why" was about why it's a different matter, not why he brought
> it up.
But it followed the statement about what he brought up.
> This should be blantantly obvious since my "why" was
> immediately followed by the sentence you have quoted below.
Your "why" immediately followed the remark about what he brought up.
> And you accuse ME of reading comprehension problems, sheesh.
And I substantiated my claim, unlike what you've been doing.
>>> By that logic, I could say that inserting text is a different
>>> matter than moving the cursor,
>> And you'd be right.
>>> and therefore it doesn't matter if you have to switch modes
>>> between those two tasks.
>> On what basis do you claim that it doesn't matter? Switching
>> modes slows you down.
> On the basis that you didn't seem to care if viewing a document
> and searching through it were totally seperate tasks. Do
> remember that I said, "By that logic" - in response to your post.
> I was pointing out your inconsistency.
What alleged inconsistency? Do remember my response to your "By
that logic".
>>>>>>>>> d/foo<enter> = delete until the pattern "foo"
>>>>>>>> As opposed to "delete the pattern 'foo'".
>>>>>>> Yes, /foo positions you to the beginning, not the end of the
>>>>>>> matched pattern.
>>>>>> My point is that its action isn't intuitive.
>>>>> To whom?
>>>> To someone who hasn't used it before. Who else? Intuition
>>> NO - To someone who has NOT seen d/foo before, but HAS
>>> used the 'd' command, and the /foo mover, it is intuitive
>>> how they go together.
>> You have a peculair notion of intuition. If I learn that the form of
>> a Fortran DO loop ends with start, stop, and step values, and the first
>> time I use a step value of one, does that make the subsequent time I
>> use it with a step value of two an intuitive use? No! I learned the
>> form.
> There are fewer forms to learn in vi than a programming language like
> fortran.
Number of forms has nothing to do with whether something is intuitive
or not.
> Once you have them, everything else falls neatly into place.
Once you have them, it's no longer intuitive. You just follow the
rules.
>>>> You have a peculiar notion of intuition. Needing to know a bunch
>>>> of things suddenly makes something intuitive.
>>> There you go leaving off the qualifiers again.
>> How ironic, coming from someone who has left off qualifiers, such as
>> "nothing [about computers] is intuitive" and "hjkl [as cursor keys]
>> is not intuitive", with the qualifiers your left off in brackets.
> The first I've already dealt with.
So have I.
> In the second, the qualifier was not describing to whom it would be
> intuitive, so it doesn't matter to the argument at hand.
On the contrary, it does matter to your unsubstantiated claim that
I was leaving off qualifiers, when you've been ironically doing that
yourself.
>>> <sarcasm
>>> Yeah, let's stop using all those overloaded keys like "ctrl',
>>> and 'return' (does it break a line or does it pick a menu
>>> option from a drop-down, or does it select the "ok" of an
>>> ok/cancel dialog? Oh, crap it does three different things
>>> depending on context! Oh, no, how un-intuitive!)
>>> </sarcasm
>> Do you feel better now?
> Well, I've learned that I always need to tell you when
> sarcasm is turned on.
That doesn't answer my question.
>>>>>>>>> 4dj = delete current and 4 lines going down
>>>>>>>> Assuming you remember which letter is for up and down.
>>>>>>> Which you don't have to consider a special case.
>>>>>> Is 4dk a special case?
>>>>> It fits the generic pattern: {number}{command}{movement}
>>>> I see you missed my point.
>>> What? You asked if it was a special case.
>> After you said that you don't have to consider 4dj a special
>> case, despite the fact that I wasn't talking about that.
>>> I showed that it isn't.
>> While missing my point.
>>> I'm sorry if "no" wasn't the answer you were looking for.
>> I was looking for some recognize of the point I made.
>>>>> Ctrl-V is common in many other unix interactive tools.
>>>> Backslash is common in many other UNIX applications.
>>> Yeah. And?
>> It's prefix for special chaarcters. Why use ^V^M when \r will
>> work? Or does it?
>>> Now are you trying to assert that something needs to be
>>> universally used in every other context on the computer to be
>>> intuitive?
>> Not at all. I've not come anywhere close to even trying to
>> suggest that everything on the computer should be intuitive.
> That's not what I said, Mr "reading comprehension".
You said "universally used in every other context", Steve.
> The statement that "everything on the computer should be intuitive"
> is totally different from the statement "something needs to be
> universally used in every other context on the computer to be
> intuitive"
Care to explain the alleged difference?
> [rest deleted. I don't have time for this shit anymore.]
Then why are you bothering to respond at all?
------------------------------
From: kiwiunixman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Caifornia power shortage...
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 00:18:34 GMT
In the case of alternative fuels, here in New Zealand (sorry for the
repetition), we have Unleaded 91, Premium Unleaded (Leaded petrol had
been outlawed around 3 years ago for environmental reasons), LPG
(Liquefied Petroleum Gas) and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). A car
running on CNG, which my parents car runs on, if you have two CNG
bootles, they commonly hold (combined) around $NZ15 (around $US6) worth
of CNG, which normally will take you around 160km. LPG (A mixture of
Butane and Propane) is slightly more expensive, however, there is no
performance loss when moving from Petrol to LPG, when compared to the
performance loss when moving from petrol to CNG. The great aspect of
CNG is that it can be produced from Methane collected from biomass and
rubbish dumps.
kiwiunixman
<snype>
------------------------------
From: Pan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Sun Microsystems and the end of Open Source
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 16:21:25 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pan wrote:
>
> "Chad C. Mulligan" wrote:
>
> > > www.openoffice.org, again.
> >
> > Where's the production releases?
>
> Who said that anything has been moved into production only 3 months into
> the project? Try the 609 or 605 build.
... make that 2 months into the project.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://salvador.venice.ca.us
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Charlie Ebert)
Subject: Re: Nobody wants Windows because it don't Super Computer.
Reply-To: Charlie Ebert:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 00:20:17 GMT
On 14 Dec 2000 13:55:35 GMT,
Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 13:09:40 GMT, Charlie Ebert wrote:
>>On 14 Dec 2000 05:23:47 GMT,
>>Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>If I'm their senior marketing spokesman, haven't you
>>wondered why it's still growing at 40% per year?
>
>Because you're not a marketing spokesperson (heaven help anyone misguided
>enough to hire you for that purpose!) and because the user base is quite
>small, and because the "free"-ness of Linux is about much more than
>price.
>
Thought about that back in 97.
Today, however, this notion is gone.
Linux has been around almost 10 years now.
It was considered fad from say 94 thru 97-98.
Another good thing about Linux is it's FREE for EVERYONE.
Let me emphasis this word, "EVERYONE".
It's tuff to get fired from a free software development
job. Further, it's even tougher to fire the marketing help.
>Linux's success is largely due to the fact that it's a grass-roots movement.
>It's easy to learn Linux. Just go to Borders or Barnes & Noble and get one
>of many books, or just use the free LDP docs. The "free as in speech" is
>probably more important than "free as in beer", because it has helped Linux
>attract a lot of very good developers.
>
Well,
That and the fact it's totally free for download from the internet
and it has the most tremendous uptime of any OS on the market.
>The "free as in beer" helps, but not that much. Below a certain price, it
>doesn't make that much difference to most home users. For example, BeOS
>costs less than a Redhat box set, but they haven't attracted as many
>developers as Linux. BTW, the "cheap" argument doesn't really hold water
>for Linux anyway (not for most home users). Most home users need to invest
>a lot of effort into setting things up, spend money on books, and many also
>buy boxes and spend money on replacement hardware.
>
Humm. I think your totally exaggerating this setup time.
Appearently you've never heard of Linuxconf or Webmin.
With Webmin you can set up your entire box in just 30 minutes,
that's web servers, ftpd, sshd, telnetd, samba {WINS} server,
users, chron, anything you want.
But stock installs for workstation use is generally no effort at all.
>The person who really does get a good deal out of Linux is the person who makes
>use of the development tools, many of which are quite good, indeed better than
>what is available on "traditional UNIX" systems. (again, this is probably one
>of the reasons why Linux attracted a lot of developers.)
>
Yes.
>In a development environment where the ratio of programmers to machines is
>approximately 1, "free beer" is not as much of an issue, because programmer
>time is very expensive compared to software licenses.
>
True, BUT! You have to pay those GD licenses whilst your paying
the developers anyway. And those developers have little trouble
developing in Linux. It's actually quicker to develop using Linux
tools than Windows. Take a look at the record from 91 the start
of Linux. In less than 10 years this system is performing better
and has more features than Windows itself and it's 20 year development
record.
>On the other hand, if the machines are servers (possibly several machines
>to one admin), "free beer" could be a significant factor.
>
Server cost is significant but the cost of compilers for developers
is also significant. Some of the BEST commercially available
development tools are 6K a pop for a once seat license.
If you have 30+ people working with you like I do,
that's $180,000 a year for compilers alone. This doesn't
count the PVCS licenses, PC anywhere stuff, other compilers
like VB at $2200 a throw, and so on. Before all is said
and done with licenses you are looking at $500,000 a year
for licenses for a small development shop.
And for me, it's $6,000 a year in recertifications not
counting getting the software to do it.
Windows sucks anyway you cut it.
>>It's because Linux is an operating system and Windows
>>isn't. And Linux is free.
>
Yes, I said that before you told me I was wrong and
a bad spokesman.
>Win 3.1 isn't an OS. Win 98 is in gray territory and somewhat hobbled
>by DOS compatibility. NT and Win2k are definitely operating systems.
>
>--
>Donovan Rebbechi * http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/ *
>elflord at panix dot com
NT and W2k are not operating systems as operating systems
have the capability to allow packages to fail without
taking the entire system down {BLUE SCREEN}.
This is why Microsoft doesn't make an operating system,
it makes a rather large application which emulates
an operating system to a degree.
Charlie
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 19:18:40 -0500
From: Gary Hallock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Sun Microsystems and the end of Open Source
"Chad C. Mulligan" wrote:
> "Pan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > "Chad C. Mulligan" wrote:
> >
> > > The rest of these responses were largely idiots explaining how to
> falsify
> > > registration info or people just up in arms over a simple and true
> > > observation.
> >
> > You said that there has been no further development on the GPL version,
> > which is false: There have already been 3 build versions in the last 3
> > months are no fewer than 20 teams moving the Open Office project
> > forward, and parts of it have already been integrated into the gnone
> > project's office suite.
> >
>
> Links please.
http://www.openoffice.org/
>
>
> > You can stick your head in the sand and ignore the truth of the
> > situation when it gets pointed out to you, but it won't change the
> > facts. The only observation one can make about your post is that you
> > either had no clue what happened to what happened to S.O. after it was
> > GPL'd, or you simply lied. Which is it?
> >
>
> I just did a search on SO and found one, repeat one, hit that pointed to Sun
> who cliamed to own SO. I don't care about Wildebeest licensing I was
> looking for allegedly free software and found it owned by one of the biggest
> whores in the industry.
>
Since SO is now Open Source and available from the link I mentioned above, it
really doesn't matter what Sun does or does not do. They can't turn back the
clock.
Gary
------------------------------
From: kiwiunixman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Caifornia power shortage...
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 13:22:53 +1300
The cleaner, long term solution is to use fuel cells and ethanol.
Burning ethanol the conventional way is very inefficient, however, when
used in a car with fuel cells, it is more efficient. Now, the big
hurdle is whether the big car corps will see the light and finally
produce a car that uses fuel cells.
kiwiunixman
Craig Kelley wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ian Davey) writes:
>
>
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote:
>>
>>> Per mile driven, Electric cars take MORE energy to run, due to
>>> transmission losses between the power company and the car, and
>>> in charging up the batteries.
>>
>> Who said you need a power company to charge the batteries? Use a solar panel
>> and you get open source energy right from the sun :-) Why rely on big
>> companies to provide your energy? That's like relying on Microsoft to supply
>> your operating systems.
>
>
> You still have the huge problem of battery acid waste, coupled with
> the problems associated with solar panels.
>
> I'd love to have a clean solution, but let's make sure it really is
> clean and that it works.
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.ms-windows,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux is awful
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 02:14:46 +0200
"Jerry Peters" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:tad_5.17321$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In comp.os.linux.x Ayende Rahien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > "Jerry Peters" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:ahxZ5.12$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> In comp.os.linux.x Ayende Rahien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >> > "Jerry Peters" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> > news:0AdZ5.25390$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> >> In comp.os.linux.x Ayende Rahien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> > "Jerry Peters" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> >> > news:hIyW5.2834$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> >> >> In comp.os.linux.x Ayende Rahien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> > "Jerry Peters" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> >> >> >
news:BieW5.5326$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> >> >> >> In comp.os.linux.x Ayende Rahien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >> >> Then let's discuss the registry, another stinking pile of
dung
> >> > from
> >> >> >> >> >> MS. The same information repeated multiple times under
> >> >> > indecipherable
> >> >> >> >> >> keys with little or no documentation. I'll take text format
> > files
> >> >> > any
> >> >> >> >> >> day.
> >> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >> > The registry is hard to deciphere.
> >> >> >> >> > You aren't suppose to work with it directly, not unless
you've
> > a
> >> > good
> >> >> >> > level
> >> >> >> >> > of understanding about it.
> >> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >> Oh yeah, little things like software that puts run some crud
at
> >> >> >> >> startup in the registry that you want to get rid of.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> > msconfig.exe
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >> > As for it to be undocumented, this is *false*.
> >> >> >> >> > There are *plenty* of resources to find out what each key or
> > node
> >> > or
> >> >> >> > value
> >> >> >> >> > does.
> >> >> >> >> > Take a trip to *any* good NT/2K focused site, and you'll
find
> >> > plenty
> >> >> > of
> >> >> >> >> > tips on what the registry does, how it does it, and how to
> > change
> >> > it.
> >> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >> But I shouldn't have to read anything or know anything to
admin
> > my
> >> >> >> >> computer, recognize the quote? At least the old *.ini files
made
> >> > some
> >> >> >> >> sense, the registry is just crap.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> > No, if you want to use the registry directly, you need to read.
> >> >> >> > If you use the tools that the OS/Application supply, you
generaly
> >> > don't
> >> >> > need
> >> >> >> > to use the registry directly.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Ecxept that the OS and applications have a habit of doing things
> > that
> >> >> >> I don't want, and the only way to fix them is to edit the
registry.
> >> >> >> The typical windows mentality, BTW, "we know what's best for
you".
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> My major reason for editting the registry is to remove all of the
> > junk
> >> >> >> that various apps add to startup. If they would only just add the
> > damn
> >> >> >> things to the startup folder so I could remove them.
> >> >>
> >> >> > Why are you doing this via the registry?
> >> >> > msconfig.exe, the last tab.
> >> >> > You can disable/restore/delete programs that run from startup.
> >> >>
> >> >> Perhaps because I don't have a program called msconfig.exe?
> >>
> >> > what version of windows are you using?
> >>
> >> > It is on 98.
> >> > If you are using older version or NT/2000, get it from here:
> >> > http://www.techadvice.com/files/w98/msconfig.exe
> >>
> >> > It took me 5 seconds to find it "download msconfig.exe" in
google.com,
> > and
> >> > clicking on the first result.
> >>
> >> > You may also want to get:
> >> > http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
> >>
> >> > To have something similar on your control panel
> >>
> >> Thanks, but no thanks. I have exactly what I need on the system and
> >> have enough problems with it. Since I now have it configured, I tend
> >> to leave it alone & hope that it keeps working.
> >>
> >> I tend to not tinker with the w95 system as windows is just too
> >> fragile. Due to MS's poor design of LFN's plus their idiotic registry,
> >> it's just too hard to put back together again after it breaks. And I
> >> have full backups on DAT. Linux, OTOH, is not fragile, & if I really
> >> screw it up, can restore from it's backup tapes without having to
> >> reinstall the OS and all of the applications.
>
> > Restoring Win9x from backup is about the easiest thing you can do.
> > You copy all the files (except win386.swp, which refused to be copied,
and
> > doesn't matter anyway) to another HD/CD/Zip dirve/Backup tape.
> > Then you copy them back, worst case scenario, you will need to fdisk/mbr
&
> > sys.
>
> Have you ever tried that? What about LFN's? With dos & win3.x I could
> do that just fine. I could also copy from one disk to another with
> xcopy. With Linux I can copy from one disk to another with cp -a.
> With w9x, the LFN's make that risky. Since the short alias is
> determined by the order files are created, you can easily get the
> wrong alias for any given LFN. I have also been told that w9x puts the
> short alias into some registry entries, leading to problems. Do a
> search on xxcopy, IIRC it's www.xxcopy.com for further explanation.
>
> If it's so easy, why does NovaStor have NovaBoot? Watching NB backup
> w95 is interesting, one of the first steps it takes is to us lfnadmn
> to backup and remove all of the LFN's; you can see the effect on the
> desktop as the various folder names change from the LFN to the short
> alias. As one of the last steps of the backup it then restores the
> LFN's.
>
> The best I've been able to to with backup/restore is to restore my
> data files. An application re-install over the restored app fixes any
> registry issues.
Do the copying from within win9x, and it will all be fine, it will copy
itself correctly, and it will handle long file names the way it should.
Trying to copy from DOS cause problems, though.
In response to your question, yes, I've done so many numbers of time, the
only problem that I've encountered that you can't just drop to C:, Ctrl+A,
Ctrl+C and go to the destination and then Ctrl+V
You've to deselect Windows directory, and copy its content seperatedly
(becasue of %WinDir%\win386.swp, which you can't read from, which cause the
the copying to fail)
This cause the copying to be a little longer, as you need to go into the
windows directory, Ctrl+A, deselect Win386.swp and then copy everything to
the destination (remember to create a directory with the same name your win
dir has, of course)
Then, at worst case, you'll need to sys your HD to install boot sectors, or
maybe fdisk/mbr, although this is largely unnececary.
------------------------------
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