Linux-Advocacy Digest #209, Volume #34 Sat, 5 May 01 10:13:02 EDT
Contents:
Re: IBM Linux mainframe to displace NT, Sun, HP boxes at Venezuelan bank (Brent R)
Re: Just how commercially viable is OSS?... (Was Re: Interesting MS (Bill
Vermillion)
Re: This post has something to offend just about everyone (Nomen Nescio)
Re: If Windows is supposed to be so "thoroughly" tested... ("~¿~")
Re: Article: Linus Torvalds Replies to Mundie's Attack on Open Source ("~¿~")
Re: The Text of Craig Mundie's Speech ("Weevil")
Re: Linux advocacy or Windows bashing? ("Mart van de Wege")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! (Roy Culley)
Re: A patchy patch for Microsofts already patched-up Outlook (Roy Culley)
Re: A patchy patch for Microsofts already patched-up Outlook (Roy Culley)
Re: Performance Measure, Linux versus windows (Charles Lyttle)
Re: Linux advocacy or Windows bashing? ("Mikkel Elmholdt")
Re: Alan Cox responds to Mundie ("Edward Rosten")
Re: How to hack with a crash, another Microsoft "feature" (Charles Lyttle)
Re: Just how commercially viable is OSS?... (Was Re: Interesting MS speech on
OSS/GPL ( /. hates it so it's good)) ("Edward Rosten")
Good Tex Pdf Files was Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office 97/2000?
(Steve Bellenot)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Brent R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: IBM Linux mainframe to displace NT, Sun, HP boxes at Venezuelan bank
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 11:54:11 GMT
Gary Hallock wrote:
>
> http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/05/03/010503hnibmbank.xml?p=br&s=10
>
> "IBM ON THURSDAY scored a win in its crusade to establish
> Linux on mainframes, announcing a deal with one of
> Venezuela's largest banks."
>
> "As part of a multiphase transition, Big Blue has signed a
> deal with Banco Mercantile, the assets of which total $3
> billion, to migrate the functions now carried out by 30
> Windows NT servers onto one of its mainframes running
> Linux. The Windows NT servers were acting largely as Web
> servers, firewalls, and Internet domain servers."
>
> "In phase two, the bank plans to move functions now being
> carried out by Unix-based Sun Microsystems and
> Hewlett-Packard servers over to the mainframes."
>
> Gary
The return of the mainframe is one of the reasons that I like UNIX/Linux
now, although I don't use it as a desktop OS. I work on an old mainframe
at work (20 years or so), raised floor and all, but some of these newer
IBM mainframes kick ass! I may not be prejudiced against MS users BUT I
would say that I am prejudiced against anyone who says that Intel/AMD
PC's are better than mainframe. Let them work on their little dinky
glorified consoles, REAL men use mainframes! :^)
Anyone else dig mainframes?
--
- Brent
http://rotten168.home.att.net
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bill Vermillion)
Subject: Re: Just how commercially viable is OSS?... (Was Re: Interesting MS
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 11:58:23 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Stephen Edwards wrote:
>> First of all, Microsoft is a member of the
>> BSA.
>The BSA is a Mafia$oft sockpuppet.
Jsut this past week one of trade mags had an article about that,
and how vendors such as Lotus and Novell are no longer
participitating in BSA because it is so MS oriented/prejudiced.
--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
------------------------------
From: Nomen Nescio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: This post has something to offend just about everyone
Crossposted-To: soc.singles,soc.men,alt.snuh
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 14:31:08 +0200 (CEST)
cbelway wrote:
> I love the title of this thread-by the way, where are the linux billionaires?
WELL?
jackie 'anakin' tokeman
men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin,
more even than death
- bertrand russell
------------------------------
From: "~¿~" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: If Windows is supposed to be so "thoroughly" tested...
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 12:30:53 GMT
> Does Red Hat inform all their 5.0 users that they should upgrade because
> they have tons of problems?
No. Only in COLA are you told that with Linux you don't need to get on the
upgrade wagon.
Unless, of course, you compare an older version of a Linux distribution with
windows<anything>.
At which point you'll be told ... "you're using an ancient version of
<distro>, why don't you upgrade? <insert personal insult here>".
I know. I was just told this last week after comparing the setup of a home
LAN using DHCP with RedHat 6.2. WinMe, win 98, and Whistler beta 2.
Isn't RH 6.2 newer than win98?
------------------------------
From: "~¿~" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Article: Linus Torvalds Replies to Mundie's Attack on Open Source
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 12:36:33 GMT
The article not only isn't funny, it doesn't address MS's position on the
topic.
I don't agree with MS, btw. I understand their concerns, but I don't condone
any actions to undermine either the GPL or opensource. Two distinctly
different things, though this is lost on many LinZealots, who would rather
take any news story on MS, spin it to fit their needs, then direct us all to
read the article with the spin as 'directions' on how to interpret it.
Too bad the reading comprehension of most zealots, including LinZealots, is
near nil.
"Dave Martel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
<http://web.siliconvalley.com/content/sv/2001/05/03/opinion/dgillmor/weblog/
torvalds.htm>
>
> "I'd rather listen to Newton than to Mundie. He may have been dead for
> almost three hundred years, but despite that he stinks up the room
> less."
>
> He he!
>
> That's just the wrap-up. The rest is a little nicer.
>
>
------------------------------
From: "Weevil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The Text of Craig Mundie's Speech
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 12:43:16 GMT
Mikkel Elmholdt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:9ctrmr$2iqt$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> "Interconnect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:9ctgi2$7fa$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> <snip>
>
> > That article made me sick! How greedy and rapacious can a company be.
>
> This kind of attitude never stops to amaze me. Why is it that some people
> (you included) obviously regard making (lots of) money as close to a
> cardinal sin? Microsoft is not doing anything that their competitors would
> not love to do, if they had been just as good at producing marketing bull.
Microsoft did not get here through marketing. Microsoft was handed their
monopoly by IBM when IBM hired MS to provide an operating system for its
upcoming PC. It is popular to claim that IBM's management was incredibly
stupid in doing this, but the truth is that NO one knew that's what was
happening, including Microsoft. MS had been around for years already when
they lucked into this windfall. They were just another software company,
competing with others and dominating nothing.
Marketing also did not enable them to maintain their monopoly when superior
competition arose. They kept their monopoly by their willingness to take
ruthless, unethical, and (in most countries) illegal action against their
competitors.
I personally believe that marketing did enable them to increase their total
number of customers, though. They really went all-out with their Win95
media blitz. After that, people who hadn't thought about computers twice in
their lifetimes were now shopping around for them.
> But then every religion needs a Satan, and MS is obviously filling that
role
> in the Church of the Holy Penguin ....
You haven't been around long, have you? This isn't a Linux phenomenon:
it's a Microsoft phenomenon. MS attacks, viciously, anything (and anyone)
they perceive to be a threat, however slight, to their monopoly. For some
reason, so do some of their users. This produces a very predictable
reaction: anti-Microsoft sentiment among the users of whatever MS has
targeted.
Flash back to the mid-80s, when the dominant OS was Microsoft's text-only,
single-tasking, memory-limited DOS. A few flashy and attractive
alternatives were cropping up, the biggest among them being the Macintosh.
Others were the Amiga and the Atari ST.
My preference was for the Amiga. It was truly multi-tasking, had a colorful
GUI as well as a command line interface, built in sound chip and graphic
accelerator, etc, etc. It was a multimedia system before the word existed,
and the list of advantages it had over the primitive DOS machines would have
filled volumes.
The non-internet Usenet equivalent of the time was BBS "echo" areas.
Shortly after I got my Amiga, I joined a few Amiga echoes, expecting to find
other Amiga owners and lots of helpful tips, interesting stories, that sort
of thing. What I found instead was pretty much what exists here in COLA --
a few DOS users who tirelessly attacked the Amiga, insulted its users, and
praised DOS, along with a few Amiga users who defended the Amiga and, one by
one, took to attacking DOS.
Back to the present:
This is a Microsoft thing. Not a Linux thing, not a Macintosh thing, not a
FreeBSD thing. You don't find Mac users in COLA bashing Linux, nor do you
find Linux users in Mac groups bashing Apple. The same goes for OS/2,
FreeBSD, and every other system you can name...except Microsoft. Microsoft
users invade every non-MS newsgroup and attack relentlessly.
The reverse is not true. Unless it has changed recently (I haven't
checked), you do NOT find Linux users attacking MS in the MS newsgroups. I
used to check for that on a semi-regular basis, and while it did
occasionally happen, it was pretty rare. There were never any Linux/Mac/OS2
users who just hung out daily in the MS groups bashing Windows at every
opportunity.
It's a Microsoft thing. It has been ever since they got their monopoly.
--
Weevil
================================================================
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough [for breaking encryption schemes]
would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers."
-- Bill Gates
------------------------------
From: "Mart van de Wege" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux advocacy or Windows bashing?
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 14:49:11 +0200
In article <9d0h3d$3ig$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Mikkel Elmholdt"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Damn, you people are thin-skinned, aren't you? Out of God-knows-how-many
> knee-jerk-reflex flame postings I have received, only one (ONE) have
> bothered to post something akin to a Linux advocacy (thanks to Salvador
> Peralta). Get the point by now? With advocacy like this, you are not
> convincing anyone new, you are only preaching to the converted.
>
> Mikkel
>
With all due respect Mikkel, but your initial post *did* sound
inflammatory. If you *sound* like yet another wintroll, don't be
surprised to get knee-jerk-reflex flame postings as a reply, which was
the entire point of my original post (minus the sarcasm this time).
Mart
--
Gimme back my steel, gimme back my nerve
Gimme back my youth for the dead man's curve
For that icy feel when you start to swerve
John Hiatt - What Do We Do Now
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Roy Culley)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 13:48:53 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In article <zJzI6.4287$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> "JS PL" <the_win98box_in_the_corner> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
[snip]
>> It makes a descent platform for running Apache though.
>
> Sure. Unix was never meant to do what Windows does. It's
> unreasonable to expect it to be good at it.
>
> It's just as unreasonable to expect Apache to perform
> well on Windows 95. Windows 95 has many of the
> necessary APIs as hand-me-downs from NT, but
> their implementation is often not so great.
Sun's Sunview desktop environment was an excellent user environment.
It would run on a Sun 3/50 with 4MB ram and was very fast. Then they
developed OpenWindows which was again an excellent desktop including
drag and drop. Being based on X remote displaying of X clients was
available. It was slow and needed a fast workstation Sun 3/80 (fast at
the time) and at least 8MB ram to be usable. Sun started to develop
NeWS (display postscript) at this time but made the mistake of keeping
it proprietary and it just never got off the launch pad. A great shame
as it was reputedly far superior to X. Then there was NeXT. Again a
great Unix desktop system. Too expensive was its main drawback. All of
these desktop environments were far superior to anything Microsoft had
to offer. To say that Unix was never meant to do what Windows does is
just rubbish. Unix lost the desktop for other reasons one being the
cost. This is where Linux and the BSD's come in. Cost isn't a problem
anymore. The huge strides in X based GUI's over the past couple of
years has been truly amazing. The next couple of years are going to be
fascinating. It is clear that Linux and the BSD's are going to
continue dominating the Internet server market. The desktop is going
to be the great battleground. Microsoft are right to be seriously
worried.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Roy Culley)
Subject: Re: A patchy patch for Microsofts already patched-up Outlook
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 14:00:59 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In article <9cpatg$fkt$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Matthew Gardiner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> After Microsoft release the patch, they felt rather proud of their
> achievement, funny enough, the patch is patchy, surprise surprise?
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/8/18679.html
>
> Matthew Gardiner
If you subscribe to bugtraq you will see just how often Microsoft
have to release patches to their previous security bug patches. So
much for regression testing.
Over 100 security bugs in Microsoft SW in 2000. An infamous record.
The worst offending app? IIS. It isn't looking any better this year
either.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Roy Culley)
Subject: Re: A patchy patch for Microsofts already patched-up Outlook
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 14:11:33 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In article <V40I6.22013$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Also months ago.
2nd May. You really do have problems with the simplest of things
don't you. The register is a uk site and uses the international
standard for dates: dd/mm/yyyy. The fact that the US do it arse
about face is not our problem.
> "Matthew Gardiner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:9cpatg$fkt$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> After Microsoft release the patch, they felt rather proud of their
>> achievement, funny enough, the patch is patchy, surprise surprise?
>>
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/8/18679.html
>>
>> Matthew Gardiner
------------------------------
From: Charles Lyttle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Performance Measure, Linux versus windows
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 13:35:33 GMT
"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
>
> Said Charles Lyttle in comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri, 04 May 2001
> >Benchmarks on the whole are crap. I
> >can rig benchmarks to prove anything.
>
> The first statement does not follow from the second, I'm afraid.
> Benchmarks on the whole are not absolute proof of anything, because
> nothing, on the whole, is absolute proof of anything.
>
> --
> T. Max Devlin
> *** The best way to convince another is
> to state your case moderately and
> accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
If a benchmark can be rigged to prove anything, then benchmarks are
crap.
I can rig benchmarks to prove anything.
Therefore, benchmarks are crap.
A fundamental element of logic is that a false assumption can be used to
prove anything.
By making a false assumption when writing a bechmark, a benchmark can be
used to prove anything.
The only benchmarks that count are those you write to test your
application. And they are meaningless for anyone else.
--
Russ Lyttle
"World Domination through Penguin Power"
The Universal Automotive Testset Project at
<http://home.earthlink.net/~lyttlec>
------------------------------
From: "Mikkel Elmholdt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux advocacy or Windows bashing?
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 15:36:36 +0200
"Mart van de Wege" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <9d0h3d$3ig$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Mikkel Elmholdt"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Damn, you people are thin-skinned, aren't you? Out of God-knows-how-many
> > knee-jerk-reflex flame postings I have received, only one (ONE) have
> > bothered to post something akin to a Linux advocacy (thanks to Salvador
> > Peralta). Get the point by now? With advocacy like this, you are not
> > convincing anyone new, you are only preaching to the converted.
> >
> > Mikkel
> >
> With all due respect Mikkel, but your initial post *did* sound
> inflammatory. If you *sound* like yet another wintroll, don't be
> surprised to get knee-jerk-reflex flame postings as a reply, which was
> the entire point of my original post (minus the sarcasm this time).
Hi Mart
The purpose of my initial post was of course to provoke some response, hence
it sort fits the definition of "trolling" (and I like the word
"inflammatory", it makes me sound like a dangerous agitator :-) ). And some
flaming was thus to be expected. However, I had hoped for some more
intelligent responses that I actually got, and that (some) people could
perhaps distinguish my line from a mere "lets-poke-the-penguins" troll.
I took a hint from one of the others posters (Terry Porter - definitely not
my friend after this!) and went and looked for past postings in Deja (now
Google). And there has undoubtably been a lot of Linux-bashing going on
here, I must admit. However, I would say that the typical Wintroll post
seems to contain at least one unsubstantiated and unreasoneable degrading
remark of the Linux OS as such (such as "Linux sux, and you're all losers",
or other niceties). I don't think that I went to that level, but OK - people
here seem to be pretty sensitive. I think that I'll make a lot of the
regular poster's day, and simply disappear from here .....
Mikkel
------------------------------
From: "Edward Rosten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Alan Cox responds to Mundie
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 15:48:09 +0100
> Don't make the mistake of trying to claim MS is against Open Source.
> They could care less if someone gives their code away. What they care
> about is that the GPL prevents businesses from taking advantage of code
> paid for by taxpayer dollars.
Since when has the GNU project been supported by the taxpayer?
And you also seem to be saying that they are annoyed that they can't make
money off other peoples work? Well so what? Do you think anyone cares
about MS that much?
> The original internet wasn't even developed on Unix. My point is that,
> if the government had released the original DARPANET code under a
> license like the GPL, companies like DEC, IBM, and Sun would have never
> adopted it.
Why not? The GPL doesn't license protocols. Companies would be quite free
to develop a compatible implementation, using the GPL source as a
reference.
-Ed
--
You can't go wrong with psycho-rats.
u 9 8 e j r (at) e c s . o x . a c . u k
------------------------------
From: Charles Lyttle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How to hack with a crash, another Microsoft "feature"
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 13:53:37 GMT
Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
>
> "Roy Culley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > In article <Ny7I6.22197$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > >
> > > I guess it depends on what you mean by "secure". If someone doesn't
> know
> > > the decode algorithm, 4-bit encryption could be quite secure
> >
> > What crap. If you don't understand something don't make pathetic
> > attempts to show that you do. ANY 4-bit encryption algorithm could be
> > cracked by brute force in less time than it took you to write such
> > rubbish. The best known encryption algorithms are known and open to
> > peer review. If you invent a new encryption algorithm but won't make
> > it open to peer review then it just will not be accepted. Security
> > through obscurity just doesn't cut it at any time.
>
> What's crap is your understanding.
>
> You can only brute force it if you know the decode algorithm. You can
> guess, and analyze and do lots of things, but it could be things like XORing
> the data against a pets name, while rotating 3 bits and compressing it using
> 10 different compression algorithms. The number of possible combinations of
> decode algorithms is limitless.
>
You aren't required to know the algorithm to crack encryption. You don't
care about the algorithm, you care about recovering the message. So the
attack has to create an algorithm that decodes the message. It doesn't
matter if the algorithm is the "correct" algorithm or not. In fact,
doing things such as you suggest often make a code easier to crack. When
you apply multiple compression algorithms, or multiple xor, the attacker
doesn't have to know how many times you compressed, he just has to find
one scheme to go from encrypted message to plain text.
> Yes, if you had the software that encoded the data, you could probably
> reverse engineer it and figure it out, but if you only have encrypted data
> and know that a key is 4 bits, then you could spend eternity looking for the
> right algorithm.
There are only 16 possible 4 bit keys. NSA would probably spend about 16
microseconds decrypting your message, no matter how you applied the key.
--
Russ Lyttle
"World Domination through Penguin Power"
The Universal Automotive Testset Project at
<http://home.earthlink.net/~lyttlec>
------------------------------
From: "Edward Rosten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Just how commercially viable is OSS?... (Was Re: Interesting MS speech
on OSS/GPL ( /. hates it so it's good))
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 15:56:56 +0100
> However, I agree on one
> point, the Linux commercial distributors are struggling to make profits.
IBM might become a large Linux distributer. The distribution may not make
a profit, but if the popularity of Linux increases, IBM benefit since
their hardware runs Linux
-ed
--
You can't go wrong with psycho-rats.
u 9 8 e j r (at) e c s . o x . a c . u k
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steve Bellenot)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.advocacy,alt.solaris.x86,comp.unix.solaris
Subject: Good Tex Pdf Files was Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office 97/2000?
Date: 5 May 2001 13:57:09 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Paul Floyd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On 4 May 2001 16:12:38 GMT, Igor Sobrado
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>In alt.solaris.x86 pookoopookoo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> No matter how powerful it is, all it does is edit text. That's not what the
>>> average user wants. They want nice printed output, with reasonable color
>>> correction and WYSIWYG formatting. Maybe a few nice templates. Most
>>> important is a nice GUI and WYSIWIG.
>>
>>TeX and vi *are* WYSIWYG, do you think that Word is it too?
>>Think again!
>
>Hmm. Does that mean that you view your documents at 300, 600 or even
>1200 dpi on a (say) 72 dpi monitor?
>
>I'd add that in the case of PS and PDF (generated with TeX default CM
>fonts, viewed on screen), then it's a clear case of WYSI hideously ugly.
Truely ugly, but what is worse is that it is easily fixed. Both
pdflatex and pdftex bypass the pk fonts and even the usual dvips route
can produce good cm fonts, all it requires is passing the parameter
`-Pcms' to dvips before using distill or gs to convert to pdf. All
recent TeX include the postscript versions of the cm family.
--
http://www.math.fsu.edu/~bellenot
bellenot <At/> math.fsu.edu
+1.850.644.7189 (4053fax)
------------------------------
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