Linux-Advocacy Digest #486, Volume #33 Tue, 10 Apr 01 13:13:03 EDT
Contents:
Re: Read this clueless Linux advocates... (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: OT: Treason (was Re: Communism) ("billh")
Re: Communism ("billh")
Re: Need your recommendation for a full-featured text editor ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: lack of linux billionaires explained in one easy message (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Need your recommendation for a full-featured text editor ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Communism ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: Read this clueless Linux advocates...
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 17:00:29 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Goldhammer
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Tue, 10 Apr 2001 12:43:25 GMT
<NdDA6.72928$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>On Mon, 09 Apr 2001 19:15:54 GMT,
>The Ghost In The Machine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Goldhammer
>><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote
>>on Sun, 08 Apr 2001 14:56:45 GMT
>><N__z6.56894$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>>On Sun, 08 Apr 2001 14:37:23 GMT, WGAF <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Luckily for Linux, there are people who
>>>>can see behind the hype.....
>>>>
>>>>http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/12/index3a.html
>>>
>>>
>>>This article presents the usual incorrect
>>>picture of the OSS movement as somesort of
>>>'corporation' or 'business' whose goal is
>>>to compete in the marketplace:
>>
>>They are supported by corporations, and they *are* competing,
>>for mindshare, if nothing else. Whether they are a corporation
>>in themselves is unclear
>
>
>What is unclear about it? The OSS movement is not
>a corporation. Can you show me the incorporation
>papers for the OSS movement? In which country
>was the OSS incorporated? Or is it an international
>corporation? It's none of these things.
Heh...good point. Perhaps I should amend that to
"unclear to *some*".
>
>
>>but the totality of those working on open source
>>certainly aren't doing it under one umbrella.
>
>
>Which is why it's ludicrous to spew advice like
>"The OSS movement should court Microsoft" or
>"The OSS movement has to aggressively compete
>in the office suit market" or "The OSS movment
>has to clean up it's act with respect to having
>too many GUI desktops" or "The OSS movement should
>get Goldfarb-Lipschitz Inc. to do their accounting."
True as well. It is standard operating procedure to
note that geniuses go their own way (with a side note
that many who think themselves such also try to do so);
I strongly suspect that OSS will want to go its own way,
as well; after all, a tool is a tool. If it's useful,
it'll survive -- we haven't replaced hammers, after all.
>
>
>>I, for instance, am working on stuff
>>that may never see the light of day, or that I might
>>distribute through my web site, or something. But I'm
>>not working for RedHat, Debian, Slackware, SuSE, etc. etc.,
>>nor for my current employer, on this particular project.
>
>
>There you go. Greenspan is telling you that
>you just won't "succeed" if you don't compete
>with or court businesses, or if you aren't
>funded by one. So, here's what I suggest.
>Go down to Redmond with a big placard saying
>"HEY MICROSOFT! I AM COMPETING WITH YOU!".
>Brandish it as you jump up and down in front of
>MS corp headquarters. If that doesn't work, try
>again with a placard saying "HEY MICROSOFT! I
>AM COURTING YOU!"
>
>As far as I am concerned, once you have coded up
>your project as best as you can, and you feel it's
>good enough to post on your site, you are successful.
>Despite what idiots like Greenspan say, your success
>is measured by how far you have fulfilled the original
>goal you had in mind. Not by how much of the office
>suite market you've ripped away from MS.
>
>
>>>"To stay competitive, open-source companies and
>>>communities must do a better job of courting a
>>>group for whom they seem to have little
>>>understanding or respect. Ironically, it's a
>>>group they should know very well."
>>
>>That is very correct. Note that he says open-source
>>companies, not company;
>
>
>But note he said "open source communities" as well.
True.
>He also throws in "open source movement" all over
>the place in his article. That is what I'm objecting
>to.
>
>If he wants to give some of his timeless,
>valuable strategic business advice to, say,
>RedHat or SuSE, that's fine. But he's addressing
>much of it to "the open source community".
>And that makes him sound just plain stupid.
Or at least overgenerous. :-)
>
>
>>>Natually, with this incorrect mental picture
>>>of the OSS movement, it is easy to suggest
>>>that OSS will fail because it has no organized
>>>marketing department, no armies of PHBs, no
>>>telemarketers, no advertising deparment, no
>>>human resources management layer, or other
>>>bogosities irrelevant to loose groups of
>>>volunteers who do what they do because they
>>>find it interesting.
>>
>>OSS may not fail, but without staying competitive, neither
>>will it succeed; it will just basically dwindle into a sort
>>of gray limbo.
>
>
>Let us assess the sanity of your remark. Have
>a good look at some of the GPL'd/free projects
>out there, coming from the OSS community. Eg,
>
>http://sal.kachinatech.com/sal1.shtml
>
>Let's take some examples:
>
>R
>R is a system for statistical computation and graphics.
>It consists of a language plus a run-time environment
>with graphics, a debugger, access to certain system
>functions, and the ability to run programs stored in
>script files.
Interesting.
>
>
>Pari/GP
>Calculator for number theory. The PARI system is a
>package which is capable of doing formal computations
>on recursive types at high speed; it is primarily aimed
>at number theorists, but can be used by people whose
>primary need is speed. It is possible to use PARI in
>two different ways: (1) as a library, which can be called
>from any upper-level language application, (2) as a
>sophisticated programmable calculator, named GP, which
>contains most of the standard control instructions of a
>standard language like C.
Interesting as well, with a side note that one of my
hot buttons is cryptography, which is based on number theory.
>
>PVM
>PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) is a software package that
>permits a heterogeneous collection of Unix and NT computers
>hooked together by a network to be used as a single large
>parallel computer. Thus large computational problems can be
>solved more cost effectively by using the aggregate power
>and memory of many computers. With thousands of users, PVM
>has become the de facto standard for heterogeneous cluster
>computing world-wide. The source is available free thru
>netlib and has been compiled on everything from laptops
>to CRAYs.
I'd be curious as to how well this compares to Beowolf (wulf?).
>
>Now, there is an awful lot of open source like this.
>What do you notice here? Well, these projects have no
>relevent analogy to the activities of a marketing
>company, i.e., Microsoft. Most open source developers
>simply could not give a shit about office suites and
>such. Ah, but I can hear the objections: "nobody uses
>this stuff, this isn't software your average Joe
>understand or needs." And that's what these debates
>always come down to. Because according to guys like
>Greenspan and other MS drones, the above isn't real
>software. Real software is the stuff MS markets. The
>above, according to Greenspan's criteria, cannot be
>successful, because they can neither compete with nor
>court Microsoft.
Assuming it makes sense to even want to; you're right
in that they're not for everyone (they strike me as
being useful, but esoteric -- but then, so is a system
that monitors websites :-) ).
>
>But the guys who work on, say, Pari/GP define their
>success a different way: by how well they can refine
>number theory algorithms and turn them into high-performance
>code. Since their code is absolutely fantastic, they *are*
>a success, and they *have been* a success for a long time.
>Same with R. R is excellent. I use it. Lots of people
>use it. But it isn't an office suite and you don't see it
>advertised on TV. It's a success. But to feeble minds like
>Greenspan's, it isn't even worth mentioning.
>
>Critics of OSS do not seem to understand that OSS
>exists in a much broader world than the Land of Office
>Suites, GUIs and the kind of mass-marketed shit Microsoft
>peddles. Much bigger. This world has little to do with
>MS and the wasteland of shrink-wrapped software. These
>communities do not want to waste their time scheming
>strategies to out-market Microsoft or Apple or whoever.
>If Greenspan unloaded his advice on these developers,
>they'd think he was a nut.
>
>
>>Microsoft succeeded through hard work
>>(unfortunately, it also used licensing, domination tactics,
>>and scare tactics); in the Win3.1 days it was the best in the
>>biz. It's still the most popular desktop option.
>
>
>In many cases, if open source developers spent their
>time fantasizing about Microsoftian competitive tactics,
>nothing would have gotten done. They would have failed.
>
>(I know, I know... Pari/GP isn't "real" software...
>PVM isn't real... Joe Blow never heard of 'em...
>yadda yadda.)
Well, all I can say is that I've not heard of them. Doesn't mean
they're not successful, and I wouldn't know about Joe Blow.
I've been working on 'puters in some form for more than 20 years,
possibly more than 25 (I was introduced to programmable Wang calculators
in seventh grade), so in a very real sense, I'm disconnected from
Joe Blow, Joe Sixpack, John Q. Public, etc. etc.
But I can't say I know everything. I don't even know Smalltalk. :-)
Ultimately, it may depend on how one defines "success". Microsoft
is successful, as it has made oodles of money on shoddy code.
OSS is successful, as it has made oodles of high-quality code for
little money -- or perhaps, in some cases, a lot of money in support
contracts.
All I can say is -- we'll see.
>
>
>--
>Don't think you are. Know you are.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
EAC code #191 4d:06h:40m actually running Linux.
Linux. The choice of a GNU generation.
------------------------------
From: "billh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,us.military.army,soc.singles
Subject: Re: OT: Treason (was Re: Communism)
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 17:00:52 GMT
"T. Max Devlin"
> >Read Exodus and Numbers. God instructed the Israelites to wage war and
kill
> >entire populations. The quibble is using one verse from scripture to
state
> >all killing is wrong, when in fact, use of that one verse of scripture to
> >support such a position is wrong.
>
> That's my point. God's instructions did not contradict this verse,
> though shalt not murder (kill), because God gets to decide who is human,
> and anybody the Isrealites want to kill were simply excluded from the
> definition.
LOL!!! Incredulous. You truly are clueless.
> The "quibble", as it were, is your misconception that this single
> statement is the entirety of the argument for taking an anti-war
> position. It was merely the refutation of a single point of your
> pro-war position. Deal with it.
No, a true quible is your statement above regarding who is and who isn't
human.
------------------------------
From: "billh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,us.military.army,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Communism
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 17:02:10 GMT
"T. Max Devlin"
> >> Said Roger Perkins in alt.destroy.microsoft on Thu, 5 Apr 2001 21:18:13
> >> >And there you go! You finally figured him out.
> >> >
> >> >Roger
> >> >AIRBORNE!
> >>
> >> Fuck off.
> >
> >that was pretty funny
>
> Fuck off.
That's a mighty puerile sentiment.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.comp.shareware.programmer,comp.editors,comp.lang.java.help,comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.lang.java.softwaretools,comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: Need your recommendation for a full-featured text editor
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 12:59:50 -0400
Phillip Lord wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Aaron" == Aaron R Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> Aaron> Which means that as soon as your on a new machine, your stuck
> Aaron> editing WITHOUT your config file....
>
> Aaron> UGH.
>
> This is why God invented NFS mounted home spaces.
>
> Phil
And if your behind a corporate firewall which doesn't permit
NFS connections through it....
>
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
DNRC Minister of all I survey
ICQ # 3056642
K: Truth in advertising:
Left Wing Extremists Charles Schumer and Donna Shalala,
Black Seperatist Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan,
Special Interest Sierra Club,
Anarchist Members of the ACLU
Left Wing Corporate Extremist Ted Turner
The Drunken Woman Killer Ted Kennedy
Grass Roots Pro-Gun movement,
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,soc.singles
Subject: Re: lack of linux billionaires explained in one easy message
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 17:06:49 GMT
Said Matthew Gardiner in alt.destroy.microsoft on Sun, 08 Apr 2001
>"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
>
>> Said Matthew Gardiner in alt.destroy.microsoft on Fri, 06 Apr 2001
>> 22:55:42 +1200;
>> >Have you ever heard the term, "the best technology doesn't always win on the
>> >day".
>>
>> Yes, and I consider it a myth; more, an obvious fabrication, by
>> definition.
>
>Example of this would be the engine on the European Space probe, both the French and
>English companies were competing for a tender to provide the engines (I think they
>were proton engines?), the French won the contract, even though the ones designed by
>the English company used less fuel.
And here I thought you were talking about free markets, not political
international development of a single item.
>The only reason why the French company did get the contract was because the French
>Government were able to use its weight, in the form of how much the put into the
>European Space Programme, to their advantage. Thats one example of the best
>technology not winning on the day.
It's an example of a flaw in your definition of 'technology'. In this
instance, obviously, the term must include political justifiability and
some ideological merit, as well as being able to maintain its integrity
in a vacuum.
>> >UNIX has been around for 35 years, and has never been intended to be run on
>> >end lusers systems such as yours, that is why they have stuck with high end
>> >servers and workstations, the area where the end user has some grey matter in
>> >their head.
>>
>> No, actually, it was that for the first decade of PC development, Unix
>> developers did not want to water-down their market by supporting
>> commodity hardware PCs. The second decade, they were unable, due to
>> Microsoft's illegal activity in both decades.
>
>I understand where you are coming from. Apparently (I have never used it), SCO
>UNIXWare 7.1 is quite a good flavour of UNIX for the Intel platform. As far as
>I know, Pizza Hutt New Zealand still uses it for their pizza ordering system and
>other requirements. Quite a good system, when I worked there (when I was at
>Uni), it never crashed the whole time I was there, compared to my last job that used
>NT.
Yes, SCO Unix had a lot to do with Microsoft's maneuvering to try to
keep Unix vendors away from PCs.
[...]
>I agree. I would like to see one day, although a very long pipe dream, that the major
>UNIX vendors got together and combine the good aspects of Linux, AIX, IRIX and
>Solaris to create an OS that can seriously compete against Microsoft.
Its called Linux.
[...]
>> Well said. So much for bogus "market share" breakdowns. Market share
>> is meaningless, unless you're ignorant of the law.
>
>True, and remember, for every one "market share" breakdown, there will be another
>with a totally different conclusion. Hence, it is virtually impossible, unless it is
>part of a census form requiring people to state
>what OS they use. Even then, you can't always guarantee that people will be truthful.
This is not an issue limited to OSes or even technical markets. All
markets are like this. The only time it is worthwhile, useful, even
meaningful, to represent a market as a pie chart, where "share" is the
size of your slice of the pie, is when you are entirely clueless about
your own product and your customers, and wish to use your competitor's
knowledge because of their success in knowing their's. Comparing your
market size to somebody else's market size makes sense if you'd like to
be as successful as they are, as profitable as they are. That is all
the farther you can go, though, and if you want to be more successful or
more profitable, you should skip the step with the pie-charts, to begin
with. Pie-charts make sense in market research. They are senseless
everywhere else. And I propose that, given it seems the Sherman Act's
restriction against all "monopolization or attempted monopolization",
use of pie-charts by amateurs can cause a crime to occur about as easily
as handling of firearms by amateurs. Even negligent homicide is a
crime; you don't have to actually want to hurt anybody.
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.comp.shareware.programmer,comp.editors,comp.lang.java.help,comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.lang.java.softwaretools,comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: Need your recommendation for a full-featured text editor
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 13:04:05 -0400
Randall Parker wrote:
>
> On Tue, 10 Apr 2001 06:00:03 GMT esteemed JLI did'st hold forth thusly:
> > For simple editing work vi is properly the best tool on UNIX.
>
> Does it do color syntax coding or language and library sensitive code expansion?
>
> Its been a long time since I used vi and it was the second editor I learned to
> use. But I think perhaps I should learn it again to help when administering
> Linux and Unix boxes.
vim does.
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
DNRC Minister of all I survey
ICQ # 3056642
K: Truth in advertising:
Left Wing Extremists Charles Schumer and Donna Shalala,
Black Seperatist Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan,
Special Interest Sierra Club,
Anarchist Members of the ACLU
Left Wing Corporate Extremist Ted Turner
The Drunken Woman Killer Ted Kennedy
Grass Roots Pro-Gun movement,
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,us.military.army,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Communism
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 13:04:51 -0400
"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
>
> Said Aaron R. Kulkis in alt.destroy.microsoft on Sat, 07 Apr 2001
> 18:32:39 -0400;
> >"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
> >>
> >> Said Roger Perkins in alt.destroy.microsoft on Thu, 5 Apr 2001 21:18:13
> >> >And there you go! You finally figured him out.
> >> >
> >> >Roger
> >> >AIRBORNE!
> >>
> >> Fuck off.
> >
> >that was pretty funny
>
> Fuck off.
Ha!
>
> --
> T. Max Devlin
> *** The best way to convince another is
> to state your case moderately and
> accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
DNRC Minister of all I survey
ICQ # 3056642
K: Truth in advertising:
Left Wing Extremists Charles Schumer and Donna Shalala,
Black Seperatist Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan,
Special Interest Sierra Club,
Anarchist Members of the ACLU
Left Wing Corporate Extremist Ted Turner
The Drunken Woman Killer Ted Kennedy
Grass Roots Pro-Gun movement,
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
------------------------------
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