Linux-Advocacy Digest #701, Volume #32 Thu, 8 Mar 01 07:13:03 EST
Contents:
Re: definition of "free" for N-millionth time (Steve Mading)
Re: Why Open Source better be careful - The Microsoft Un-American ("GreyCloud")
Re: Something Seemingly Simple. (Steve Mading)
Re: What does IQ measure? (Ian Davey)
Re: GPL, an open mind, options? (Ian Davey)
Re: Windoze Domination/Damnation ("Weevil")
Re: Things Linux can't do! ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Things Linux can't do! ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Do Windows developers settle? ("Donal K. Fellows")
Re: Microsoft screws itself again! ("Donal K. Fellows")
Re: Sun Blade 100 (Matthew Gardiner)
Windows 2000 uptime increased dramatically! ("Masha Ku'Inanna")
Re: GPL Like patents. (Rob S. Wolfram)
Re: Windows 2000 uptime increased dramatically! (Chris Ahlstrom)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,misc.int-property
Subject: Re: definition of "free" for N-millionth time
Date: 8 Mar 2001 09:07:54 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy JD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: "Steve Mading" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
:news:986hs3$br6$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
:>
:> Here's a free clue: Freedom is optimized when *some* reasonable
:> limits exist. Laissez-faire approaches do not optimize freedom.
:> Anarchy does not lead to the greatest freedom, it simply leads to
:> whatever bullies have power becoming the ones in charge.
:>
: Of course, your claim about 'Anarchy' has nothing to do with the
: GPL not being free. That is a perfect example of reducing the
: argument to the absurd... A free license doesn't cause anarchy.
: Misleading claims like: "The GPL is a license of free software" isn't
: anarchy, communism or capitalistic... That statement about the GPL
: being free is a lie.
Only in the same sense that NOTHING ELSE is that 'free' either.
you are setting the bar so high that everyrhing possible will
fail.
------------------------------
From: "GreyCloud" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Open Source better be careful - The Microsoft Un-American
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 01:16:55 -0800
"Aaron Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Karel Jansens wrote:
> >
> > Bloody Viking wrote:
> > >
> > > For energy _storage media_ like hydrogen (takes more energy than you
get,
> > > hence "storage media") you need a _source_ to have it. Breeders like
crazy? I
> > > say yes, but we all know about the politics of nuke plants. Nukes is
the long
> > > term solution, to power homes and factories, electric rail, etc.
Hydrogen has
> > > the annoying problem of being awful cold, second to liquid helium.
> > >
> > This question is probably out-of-bounds for this newsgroup (but then
> > again, is it <G>?): How difficult is it to "transform" hydrogen into
> > more manageable hydrocarbons, like methane or alcohol?. If that could be
> > done easily, a home-based powerplant would not sound so wild anymore
> > (use solar, wind, whatever to generate power and store as
> > easily-manageable alcohol or methane).
>
> There are LOTS of bacteria which produce hydrocarbons as a waste product.
>
> All it we need to do is cultivate them, just like we do chickens
> for their eggs.
I find this topic of great interest! You have a very strong point here! Do
you realize that only 10% of
earths' biomass is on the surface and that the rest is deep down under foot?
There is a fellow that is
researching a new theory that I believe to be true and also seems to drive
the political engine of oil.
This scientists' claim is that oil is produced by the underground bio-mass
of bacteria. Its a self renewing
resource and I suspect the oil industry top execs know this. One of this
scientists tests involved opening
a certified dry hole in texas. He found it full of oil again and then went
to other abandoned wells. Some
weren't full but had plenty of oil in them. It all seems to fit when one
considers the balkiness of the
auto industry to change. Remember when the science text books back in the
late 50's said we would run out
of oil by 1970? Well, we're still using it. Anyway, this scientist was
paid off and told to shut up.
My closest friend in the 70's was employed by Chevron. He went up with a
research drill team from Cal. to
Wash. Everytime they drilled they got oil. He told me we've got plenty of
oil. So it doesn't surprise me
that oil is big business and politics. A politician at this time can cash
in and look good by saying "We have drilled in Alaska and look at all the
oil we have found! We are now energy independent! " Politics as usual.
------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Something Seemingly Simple.
Date: 8 Mar 2001 09:12:48 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy GreyCloud <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: "Steve Mading" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
: news:986hv4$br6$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
:>
:> Okay, then. Change my example to "It's like saying you are allowed
:> to drive 75 mph in the US", when this is really only true in limited
:> areas of the US.
: Sorry, looks like my ISP has given me so many broken threads that its hard
: to tell what I've
: missed here.
Recap: Aaron K. was acting as if when a programming language
standard specifies that foo is "implementation dependant",
that this is identical to saying "You are allowed to do foo in your
program". I'm pointing out that that statement needs some pretty
hefty qualifiers before it can become true. The speed limit thing
was an anology. Speed limits above 65 Mph in the US are "implementation
dependant", but the statement "you are allowed to go faster than
65 mph in the US" is highly misleading at best, a lie at worst, if
you don't add a lot of qualifiers.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,soc.singles
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ian Davey)
Subject: Re: What does IQ measure?
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 09:53:11 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> There was an interesting series on in the UK a while back when they discussed
>> this. There has been some research done that developed a test that was aimed
>> at a different area of intelligence. People that have a low IQ did better in
>> it than those with a high IQ. If I remember rightly it was something to do
>> with problem solving, where people with a lower IQ were found to be highly
>> adept at solving certain kinds of problems.
>
>Could you be more...specific...
I would but the pause in the middle of that sentence has shifted the
processing of this question into the background...
If I remember rightly I think it was something to do with solving real life
emotional style problems. "What should someone do if...". People who were bad
at IQ tests tended to come up with a practical solution quickly, whereas those
with a high IQ take longer. Possibly because those with a high IQ are more
analytical and have difficulty with more nebulous problems where there isn't a
narrowly specified right or wrong answer.
I think the main problem is that intelligence is itself a nebulous thing, not
best represented by a single number. IQ tests may be good at measuring
logical/analytical style intelligence, but intelligence is far more wide
ranging than that. I'm not sure human intelligence can truly be measured by
groupings of checkboxes, if it were that easy we would have created
intelligent machines long ago, all these things can truly measure is certain
aspects of intelligence.
ian.
\ /
(@_@) http://www.eclipse.co.uk/sweetdespise/ (dark literature)
/(&)\ http://www.eclipse.co.uk/sweetdespise/libertycaptions/ (art)
| |
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ian Davey)
Subject: Re: GPL, an open mind, options?
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 10:02:04 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Is there a sufficiently protective public license which both protects the
>rights of the individual developers but still allows a program to be used in a
>non-free system?
Have you had a look at the MPL (Mozilla Public License)?
ian.
\ /
(@_@) http://www.eclipse.co.uk/sweetdespise/ (dark literature)
/(&)\ http://www.eclipse.co.uk/sweetdespise/libertycaptions/ (art)
| |
------------------------------
From: "Weevil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windoze Domination/Damnation
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 10:24:10 GMT
Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <DHto6.6356$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
> > There's nothing really stopping you from saving a little money, catching
a
> > plane to China, and trying to single-handedly stop the human rights
abuses,
> > by force if necessary. The only thing STOPPING you is cowardice and/or
> > laziness.
>
> There's one big difference. You _can_ actually buy a PC with Linux
> installed.
>
> --
> Pete
> All your no fly zone are belong to us
You can also fly to China and try to stop human rights abuses. Why don't
you? Are you a coward or are you just lazy?
--
- Weevil
================================================================
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough [for breaking encryption schemes]
would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers."
-- Bill Gates, The Road Ahead (pg 265), 1995
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Things Linux can't do!
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 12:22:33 +0200
There is that screen server.
"Bloody Viking" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:98735l$d1v$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> Dominic Vernius ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
> : BSOD...
>
> ... be emulated on an NT box without being able to make NT BSOD.
>
> --
> FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
> The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
> The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Things Linux can't do!
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 12:22:56 +0200
"Dominic Vernius" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> BSOD...
> Like 64Forth used to do on my lit'll C64.
>
Sure it can, all you have to do is to hack the kernel to stop it from
panicing.
------------------------------
From: "Donal K. Fellows" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Do Windows developers settle?
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 10:30:21 +0000
Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
> If I were doing socket programming, i'd prefer Unix, since it's a little
> more straight forward, however GUI programming is much easier and straight
> forward on Windows than X.
It depends on what you're doing and on what toolkits you are using. IMO
the biggest advantages that all the Unixes have over Windows lie in the
area of communication channels (Unix has a single unified API) and process
control and IPC (where Windows manages to suck more than a lifetime in
downtown Milwaukee...)
Donal.
--
Donal K. Fellows http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- There are worse futures that burning in hell. Imagine aeons filled with
rewriting of your apps as WinN**X API will change through eternity...
-- Alexander Nosenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: "Donal K. Fellows" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft screws itself again!
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 10:39:33 +0000
Ray Chason wrote:
> Thus I give the Pentium architecture about five years to live. To
> get more speed, Intel either must stuff more and more circuits onto
> a chip, generating more and more heat, or just say the hell with it
> and move to Itanium.
I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that the architecture
was given 5 years to live back around when the first Pentiums were
coming out. Nowadays, I just write my code so it will compile on any
(Unix) platform I care to throw at it... :^)
Donal.
--
Donal K. Fellows http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- There are worse futures that burning in hell. Imagine aeons filled with
rewriting of your apps as WinN**X API will change through eternity...
-- Alexander Nosenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: Matthew Gardiner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Sun Blade 100
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 00:07:06 +1300
And now that Compaq bought out digital they have sat on the Alpha chip
doing fuck all development! Fuck, if I was Compaq and spent billions
buying the bloody company, I would use the alpha technology to its full
potential, instead, they are sitting on the alpha CPU and selling third
rate 32bit servers to the stupid wintel crowd, never dominated by
techno-people, but by CEOs and C*O's who want to suck bills cock instead
of getting a decent server and setup. The sadest part is that the Alpha
architecture has so much potential, yet, never fully exploited and
marketed by Compaq, hence the reason, why the likes of SUN and IBM are
having a field day in the UNIX market.
Matthew Gardiner
GreyCloud wrote:
> "Donn Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
>>
>> Tim Cain wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Looks pretty interesting. I'm tickled pink at the thought of having
>>> a Sun box sitting in my home-study, but OTOH, what the hell would
>>> I do with all those MIPS/FLOPS or whatever?
>>
>> Just get a lower-end Sun, then, like for example, a Sparc-5 120 MHz (or
>> is that 150 MHz?).
>>
>
>
> Hard to say, Donn, on the Sparc-5... last time I checked on the price the
> 5's were running around $2000.
> The Blade 100 is only $995 and runs at 500Mhz and is 64 bit instead of the
> 5's 32 bit processor. But, I bet
> that the 5's will drop down in price by quite a bit. Things like that
> happen.
>
> That vax 4000... I'm getting it from a university and I was told it was
> running straight for 6 years without being
> shutdown or having any glitches. But I don't have the fine details to prove
> this. Its their claim. On the Suns an
> individual claimed to have been running one since 1999 without any shutdowns
> or reboots. Then he did an update and some memory upgrades which ended that
> streak.
> Before I retired, I was running vms on their machines and one day my pointy
> haired boss came in and said "Well, we can't afford the license contracts on
> these machines so we're going to shut them down and move over to windows
> machines and network them with Novell". Thats when I retired! Believe
> me,... DEC was far better than windoze!
------------------------------
From: "Masha Ku'Inanna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Windows 2000 uptime increased dramatically!
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 06:05:27 -0500
Reply-To: "Masha Ku'Inanna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Hey! The uptime from my Win2k box jumped from the last posted total of three
hours, to approximately a day and a half!
And just think, I was not trying to do too many things at once with a
K6-2/500, 256MB RAM machine, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Operating System, this time. No Outlook Express/ICQ/IE5.0/Musicmatch
Jukebox/Winamp clogging the scarce amount of RAM on the ol' machine, this
time.
Certainly, perhaps last time I was asking far too much of a pre-emptive
multitasking operating system with advanced memory protection, and complete
process control worth several hundred dollars, you think? Perhaps I needed
512MB of RAM to perform that kind of heavy workload.
This time around, having learned my harsh lesson, I did not ask so much of
the computer. All I was doing was copying some of my music CD's with Nero
5.0, and lo and behold, at some point, by the third CD, the system reported
that Nero was not responding. So I click the pretty little button to "End
Task". But, no, I could not, because the next dialog box mentioned that "If
the process is being debugged.." or something similar to "please wait..."
CTRL-ALT-DELETE back to the taskbar. Find the nero.exe process to kill it.
Click the shiny "Kill Process" button.
The response was typical. "Schmuck! Now you KNOW you cannot do THAT, now do
you?.."
So, I decide to eject the offending CD. It had to be something on the CD, I
figured. Dust. Dirt. Microscopic pits in the surface. Something MUST be
keeping the ol' system from willingly killing "nero.exe" right?
There is a shiny "eject button" on the CD-ROM drive. So, I press the button.
No cd.
I press again.
No cd.
Grr...
I looked for any process that could possibly be tying up the CDROM drive.
0% CPU time across the board, except for about 85% CPU time, all of a
sudden, for "nero.exe" -- which is quite an improvement from 95% CPU time
from a week or so ago.
Still, nothing could be done to release "nero.exe" nor free the captive
CDROM.
Reboot. At least I could do that.
POST options roll by, and the K6-2 is reported at 527mhz, and locks.
527????
Reset button again.
Boots fine.
Back to the ol' desktop.
===========After=Action=Review============
So, I figure that since I did a lot less than what I attempted to accomplish
last time, my uptime improved, possibly demonstrated by a proportional
decrease in an offending application's process-hogging.
So -- I multitask LESS, and my uptime improves.
Good lord! I can increase my uptime even further, if I boot to the desktop,
and leave it alone for a week. I can be at least reasonably assured, by my
system's past performance, that if I do not touch my computer for a week, I
can have an uptime increase to about 5 days, considering a screen-saver will
be running.
Were I to avoid it all together, and turn off everything, including the
anti-virus protection AND screen saver, I can increase my uptime to about a
month, reliably, assuming, of course I do not sneeze in the same room as my
system..
Hell, this is all a vast improvement over Win98's average of 4-6 reboots per
day, just trying to dial-out and connect to Mindspring!...
I cannot wait for Windows XP.
Oh man. oh man. oh man. I simply cannot wait......
The part that I find grotesquely hilarious about this last incident was that
the music CD I was copying was Metallica's "Ride The Lightning" album...
=======================================================
Adrian Feliciano
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
***
Do What thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
Love is the law, love under will
-Aleister Crowley
Harm None
-Wiccan Law
As above, so below
-Hermetic Philosophy
=======================================================
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rob S. Wolfram)
Subject: Re: GPL Like patents.
Date: 8 Mar 2001 07:18:37 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Roberto Alsina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
>So, the GPL is either a force slowing down the improvement of software, or
>it is neutral. In either case, the only reason for the GPL's existence is
>politics.
>
>That is not necessarily bad, itsjust never said.
I wholeheartly agree with you that the discussion is mainly political,
and AFAIR that's exactly RMS' intention with the GPL. I think that if
you would compare the BSDL and GPL with politics then the BSDL would be
more like a free but anarchistic society where most people somehow
respect each others freedom bu do not really have to. The GPL is more
like a free society with laws that enforce said respect.
Personally I prefer latter society. I think RMS' comment does apply:
"Your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose".
Basically I think the discussion of which license is "better" is kind of
a waste if time. The licenses were made up with two completely different
*political* ideals in mind. The purpose of the GPL is to enforce that
software that starts out Free never gets nullified by proprietary
extensions, and I think that the GPL achieves that goal. The Objective-C
compiler is a good example of that.
Bottomline is, he who writes the code gets to choose the license, and if
the author chooses the GPL, he wants his code to be used accordingly. He
who does not agree is free not to use it just like you are unable to use
the code of proprietary software.
Just some random ramblings that entered my mind...
Cheers,
Rob
--
Rob S. Wolfram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> OpenPGP key 0xD61A655D
To err is human, to forgive is against company policy.
------------------------------
From: Chris Ahlstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 uptime increased dramatically!
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 12:02:58 GMT
Masha Ku'Inanna wrote:
>
> Hey! The uptime from my Win2k box jumped from the last posted total of three
> hours, to approximately a day and a half!
>
> And just think, I was not trying to do too many things at once with a
> K6-2/500, 256MB RAM machine, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
> Operating System, this time. No Outlook Express/ICQ/IE5.0/Musicmatch
> Jukebox/Winamp clogging the scarce amount of RAM on the ol' machine, this
> time.
>
> Certainly, perhaps last time I was asking far too much of a pre-emptive
> multitasking operating system with advanced memory protection, and complete
> process control worth several hundred dollars, you think? Perhaps I needed
> 512MB of RAM to perform that kind of heavy workload.
>
> This time around, having learned my harsh lesson, I did not ask so much of
> the computer. All I was doing was copying some of my music CD's with Nero
> 5.0, and lo and behold, at some point, by the third CD, the system reported
> that Nero was not responding. So I click the pretty little button to "End
> Task". But, no, I could not, because the next dialog box mentioned that "If
> the process is being debugged.." or something similar to "please wait..."
>
> CTRL-ALT-DELETE back to the taskbar. Find the nero.exe process to kill it.
> Click the shiny "Kill Process" button.
>
> The response was typical. "Schmuck! Now you KNOW you cannot do THAT, now do
> you?.."
>
> So, I decide to eject the offending CD. It had to be something on the CD, I
> figured. Dust. Dirt. Microscopic pits in the surface. Something MUST be
> keeping the ol' system from willingly killing "nero.exe" right?
>
> There is a shiny "eject button" on the CD-ROM drive. So, I press the button.
>
> No cd.
>
> I press again.
>
> No cd.
>
> Grr...
>
> I looked for any process that could possibly be tying up the CDROM drive.
>
> 0% CPU time across the board, except for about 85% CPU time, all of a
> sudden, for "nero.exe" -- which is quite an improvement from 95% CPU time
> from a week or so ago.
>
> Still, nothing could be done to release "nero.exe" nor free the captive
> CDROM.
>
> Reboot. At least I could do that.
>
> POST options roll by, and the K6-2 is reported at 527mhz, and locks.
>
> 527????
>
> Reset button again.
>
> Boots fine.
>
> Back to the ol' desktop.
>
> -----------After-Action-Review------------
> So, I figure that since I did a lot less than what I attempted to accomplish
> last time, my uptime improved, possibly demonstrated by a proportional
> decrease in an offending application's process-hogging.
>
> So -- I multitask LESS, and my uptime improves.
>
> Good lord! I can increase my uptime even further, if I boot to the desktop,
> and leave it alone for a week. I can be at least reasonably assured, by my
> system's past performance, that if I do not touch my computer for a week, I
> can have an uptime increase to about 5 days, considering a screen-saver will
> be running.
>
> Were I to avoid it all together, and turn off everything, including the
> anti-virus protection AND screen saver, I can increase my uptime to about a
> month, reliably, assuming, of course I do not sneeze in the same room as my
> system..
>
> Hell, this is all a vast improvement over Win98's average of 4-6 reboots per
> day, just trying to dial-out and connect to Mindspring!...
>
> I cannot wait for Windows XP.
>
> Oh man. oh man. oh man. I simply cannot wait......
>
> The part that I find grotesquely hilarious about this last incident was that
> the music CD I was copying was Metallica's "Ride The Lightning" album...
You must not be USING your COMPUTER correctly, you idiot.
Love,
Bill
------------------------------
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