Linux-Advocacy Digest #214, Volume #34 Sat, 5 May 01 14:13:05 EDT
Contents:
Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office 97/2000? (Bill Vermillion)
Re: IBM Linux mainframe to displace NT, Sun, HP boxes at Venezuelan bank (Dave
Martel)
Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office 97/2000? (Rich Teer)
Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office 97/2000? (Rich Teer)
Re: The long slow slide to Microsoft.NOT ("Mike")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! (Rick)
Re: Exploit devastates WinNT/2K security (Bob Hauck)
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: The long slow slide to Microsoft.NOT ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Article: Linus Torvalds Replies to Mundie's Attack on Open Source (Ian Pulsford)
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("Daniel Johnson")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("Daniel Johnson")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.advocacy,alt.solaris.x86,comp.unix.solaris
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bill Vermillion)
Subject: Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office 97/2000?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 15:56:32 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Said Bill Vermillion in comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu, 3 May 2001
>>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, T. Max
>>Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Anyone here remember [as I do] when Gates thought the future of
>>computing was in Unix.
>But the future of the PC was MS crapware.
>>He then licensed Unix from AT&T and at that
>>time only AT&T could call it Unix, so Microsoft's implementation
>>was named Xenix.
>Xenix had two main purposes:
>A) If anyone wanted Unix on a PC, he could monopolize with Xenix
>just as he monopolized with DOS.
Xenix was not just on a PC platform. Seeing something like an
Altos with an 8086 processor, 386K of RAM, a 25MB HD, and 5
terminals and a couple of printers, running a business
successfully, shows just how efficient it was.
I've also seen 3 user system on 256K of RAM with the 15MB hard
drive running on the 68000 [4MHz as I recall] Motorola based system
from Radio Shack. They had the largest base of installed Unix based
systems at one time. THere were a lot of 1,2 and 3 user Radio
Shack 16's and Tandy 6000s, with the second place vendor being DEC.
Of course the DEC platform had more user seats - if you based that
on totals - but Tandy has more physical machines running.
78K kernels seem like almost like an impossible dream from the
past.
The Tandy Xenix [they did their own port on the 1.x] was what got
me hooked in the Unix world 18 years ago. No one ever considered
a Unix system a viable entity on a PC system in those days. It was
not until the '386 - where you could forget the 64K paragraph
limitations - that made *ix really workable on that architecture.
The Altos used the 8086 - not the 8080 - so at least is was 16
bits across the board, not the hybrid 8/16 in the 8088.
Xenix was also the orignal OS in the Apple Lisa - which you had to
use to write and OS for the Mac, as the Mac was so limited it
couldn't do anything as complex as compiling an OS.
>B) To suck enough as a Unix on a PC that they didn't have to work that
>hard and could get away with easy, crapware, DOS.
We can't totally eliminate point A - Gates wanting to monopolize
the OS - but at that point in time MS was primarly a language house
and Xenix was the ONLY OS they produced. They did have the highly
successful Z80 add-in card for the Apple so the Microsoft licensed
version of CP/M was a big hit in the Apple world.
We can totally elminate point B - 'suck enough on a PC ..' because
what we call the PC [the iNTEL based platform] had not been
introduced at that time.
I remember Gates ranting and raving and calling all hobbyiest
thives for 'stealing' his $150 cassette basci [highly over-priced
in the 1977 world] while the competition was in the $35 to $50
range.
>>Then he had an 'office suite'. Multimate, Multiplan, and Multi???
>>Then IBM knocked on the door and things changed.
>Office didn't happen until after Win3.1,
"Office" by that name didn't happen until Windows but the 'office
suite' concept existed in Xenix. MultiMate [Word Processor],
MultiPlan [spread sheet] and Mulit ???? [I can NOT remember what
that app was] came long before even PC-DOS 2.0
> Previously, the app space was only monopolized by directly
>killing off competition with Windows (Lotus, Wordperfect, dBase).
>Multimate was Ashton-Tate's (dBase) word processor, IIRC.
I had frined running Vulcan - the predecesor to dBaseII - on their
CP/M machines. That dates to about 1978 - when MS was only
producting Cobol, Fortran, Basic and a couple of other languages -
primarily in the CP/M market, and licensing ROM verison of MS Basic
to Commodore, Apple, Tandy, et al.
Bill
--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
------------------------------
From: Dave Martel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: IBM Linux mainframe to displace NT, Sun, HP boxes at Venezuelan bank
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 10:12:42 -0600
On Sat, 05 May 2001 11:54:11 GMT, Brent R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>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?
Nope. Too much like DOT Net.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.advocacy,alt.solaris.x86,comp.unix.solaris
From: Rich Teer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office 97/2000?
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 16:31:10 GMT
On Sat, 5 May 2001, 3FE wrote:
> Nor is vi. vi is appropriate for tweaking config files. Not
> programming.
Foo! I've been using vi as a programmer's editor for around 10 years.
I strongly disagree.
Why don't you think vi is OK for programming?
--
Rich Teer
President,
Rite Online Inc.
Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.advocacy,alt.solaris.x86,comp.unix.solaris
From: Rich Teer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office 97/2000?
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 16:33:08 GMT
On Sat, 5 May 2001, T. Max Devlin wrote:
> Multimate was Ashton-Tate's (dBase) word processor, IIRC. MS's office
> suite was Word, Excel (more directly from Visicalc than derivative of
> multiplan, which could do a lot of stuff that Excel still can't), and
> whatever the shoved in with it (PowerPoint was bought, Access was
> replaced internally with FoxPro, which they bought, and then there's
> always MS Publisher, which they bought, as well.)
In other words, MS spells innovate like this: B U Y.
--
Rich Teer
President,
Rite Online Inc.
Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net
------------------------------
From: "Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: The long slow slide to Microsoft.NOT
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 16:40:48 GMT
"Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
...
> This is that crux of what you should attempt to deny:
>
> 1. Microsoft's code has not had extensive community peer review because an
> aspect of their development policy is keeping their source code secret
(i.e.
> security through obscurity).
Okay, but what about Sun, HP, IBM, SGI, DEC, and Apple? All of those
companies have kept their operating systems private, and yet you don't
attack them.
If I understand correctly, you're trying to argue that only Linux/FreeBSD
could possibly be secure, but then you single out Microsoft as the only
counterexample. That doesn't make a very convincing proof - at least, not to
a skeptic.
-- Mike --
------------------------------
From: Rick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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, 05 May 2001 12:45:19 -0400
JS PL wrote:
>
> "Roy Culley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > "JS PL" <the_win98box_in_the_corner> writes:
> > >
> > > That line of shit was debunked ages ago, IN COURT! No vendor has ever
> been
> > > prevented from selling other OS's installed. Even the DOJ's witnesses
> affirm
> > > that fact.
> >
> > This is just untrue.
>
> Microsoft offered three principal types of operating system license
> agreements: per copy, per system and per processor. A per copy license
> obligated an OEM to pay Microsoft a royalty on every computer shipped with a
> copy of MS-DOS installed on the computer; a per system license obligated an
> OEM that wished to install a Microsoft operating system on computers that
> bore a particular model designation to pay Microsoft a royalty on every
> computer shipped that bore that designation; and a per processor license
> obligated an OEM that wished to install a Microsoft operating system on
> computers that contained a particular microprocessor, e.g., an Intel
> 80386SX, to pay Microsoft a royalty on every computer shipped that contained
> that microprocessor. (See Kempin Dep. (Exh. 1) at 13-14;
>
> OEMs were not required to use a particular license type, but rather could
> choose among the various options. (See, e.g., Gates 10/27/97 Dep. (Exh. 2)
> at 45-46; McLauchlan Dep. (Exh. 3) at 31; Lin DOJ Decl. (Exh. 4) at C005866;
> Waitt DOJ Decl. (Exh. 5) at C005868.) No OEM was obligated under any of
> Microsoft's licenses to install MS-DOS or Windows, nor was any OEM
> prohibited from installing DR DOS or any other competing product. (Lum Dep.
> (Exh. 6) at 89-90; Fade Dep. (Exh. 7) at 110; Hosogi Dep. (Exh. 8) at 30.)
>
> > > At the hieght of per processor licence aggreements only about half of
> the
> > > OEM's opted for that type of licence, of that half, about 25 OEM's still
> > > shipped other os's on the same proccessor with full agreement of
> Microsoft.
> > > MS has always strived to provided customers with exactly what they want.
> > > It's 99% of the reason everyone chooses their products.
> >
> > What an inane paragraph. You are either delusional or in the pay of
> > Microsoft. I fancy the former.
>
> During Microsoft's 1994 fiscal year - the final year in which it offered per
> processor licenses - approximately 59% of MS-DOS units licensed by OEM
> customers were covered by per processor licenses. In fiscal year 1993,
> approximately 62% of MS-DOS units licensed by OEM customers were covered by
> per processor licenses. The prior year, Microsoft's 1992 fiscal year,
> approximately 51% of MS-DOS units licensed by OEMs were covered by per
> processor licenses. Per processor licenses made up 27% in fiscal year 1991,
> 22% in fiscal year 1990 and smaller percentages in earlier years. 2a
>
> Although per processor licenses generally obligated the OEM to pay a royalty
> on every machine shipped containing a particular processor, Microsoft
> negotiated exceptions with at least twenty-seven OEMs to allow those OEMs to
> ship up to ten percent of their machines containing particular processor
> types without paying royalties on those machines. (See Kempin FTC Testimony
> (Exh. 9) at 104-05; Lum Dep. (Exh. 6) at 92; Apple Dep. (Exh. 10) at 23-24;
> Microsoft's Second Response to Department of Justice Civil Investigative
> Demand No. 10300 (excerpts attached as Exh. 21) at C001309-11.) Other OEMs
> with no such exception in their per processor licenses nonetheless offered
> non-Microsoft operating systems with their computers during the term of
> their per processor licenses. (See, e.g., Fade Dep. (Exh. 7) at 111-13;
> Roberts DOJ Decl. (Exh. 11) at C005864; Lieven Dep. (Exh. 12) at 187.)
Now, search through that testimony and tell us what the cost difference
was between per copy licenses and per processor licenses. Check the
testimony of Microsoft's competitors and tell us what they said about
why they "chose" per processor licenses.
Also tell us how a per processor license would allow any other OS to be
shipped without paying for the second OS, if that second OS is allowed
to be shipped at all.
=========
"Kempin offered to undercut DRI's price ($13) with a per processor
license. His price for Vobis selling half of its shipments with MS-DOS
would be $18. Twice as much.
When Lieven protested that he wanted to kepp selling DR-DOS in addition
to Windpws, Kempin told him that he would have to pay a higher price for
just DOS than for a DOS/Windows combination. He threatened that that if
lieven did not take s per processor license, with DOS at $9 a copy and
windows at $15 a copy, then his price for Windows alone would be $35.
(Under oath, Lieven would later say that that threat was the reason he
agreed to the deal).
The Microsoft File. Page 73.
"Under the terms of the current per procesor contract, Vobis paid $28
per DOS&Windows license. 'Microsoft offred us for DOS & Windows under
the terms of a per-copoy license $23.50 for DOS and $39.95 for Windows.
This increases our cost by $35,45. Obviously we cannot agree to these
prices, as we consider these price increases to be a penalty for not
accepting per system licenses".
The Microsoft File. Page 204.
"In our opinion the per-system license means in effect the same as the
per-processor license" Lieven said. "We believe that the majority of
manufacturers will avoid the above described risks and license all
their systems exclusively for Microsoft. As a result no other operating
system will get a chance in the marketplace."
The Microsoft File. Page 205.
Tell us again how vendors were... "free to choose".
--
Rick
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Exploit devastates WinNT/2K security
Reply-To: bobh = haucks dot org
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 16:43:48 GMT
On Mon, 30 Apr 2001 14:06:50 GMT, T. Max Devlin
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Said Bob Hauck in alt.destroy.microsoft on Sun, 29 Apr 2001 21:43:45
> >On Sun, 29 Apr 2001 18:27:37 GMT, T. Max Devlin
> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm not concerned with your lack of understanding of NFS,
> >
> >And I'm getting real tired of talking to your asshole. It keeps telling
> >me that I have "no understanding" of whatever it is we're discussing at
> >the time.
>
> Nonsense. I said you have a lack of understanding, not that you have
> 'no understanding'. Get a grip.
Max, I am quite sure that I have much more understanding of NFS than
you do. For one thing, I actually use and administer it. You are the
one who needs to "get a grip".
BTW, this is not the first time you have incorrectly told me that I
have "a lack understanding". You seem to have a very high opinion of
your knowledge that is not borne out by what you say here.
> >I'm done with this now. Feel free to spout whatever nonsense you want
> >about NFS while I'm gone.
Note: I forgot to say that I was going on a business trip.
> Why? I wasn't saying anything about NFS until you started spouting
> nonsense about why MS didn't use it.
See my post to Jim Richardson about how to hack NFS (if you can call
such a simple thing a hack). SMB has security problems, NFS _is_ a
security problem. Which isn't to say that it is useless or shouldn't
be used, but only that you shouldn't use it in hostile environments
without modification.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
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 12:49:52 -0400
"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Said JS PL in comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri, 4 May 2001 12:34:15 -0400;
> [...]
> >I don't care what the problem is. I prefer an OS that works well without
all
> >the hours of configuration.
>
> I prefer an OS that works consistently without all the hours of
> reconfiguration.
So do I, that's probably why I mainly use WINNT. And I assume it's why you
ONLY use Win95. Because only a complete ass would use an OS that they
*don't* prefer.
> >On the plus side, setting up connection sharing was a no-brainer.
> >
> >I'll keep it around despite some of the cosmetic flaws. It is worthy of
my
> >limited hardware resources.
>
> Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha. I think
"Thinking", was your first mistake, so I snipped the rest.
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.linux,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: The long slow slide to Microsoft.NOT
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 19:54:17 +0200
"JVercherIII" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:ADVI6.297$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Civility people! I use both Linux and Windows, and both have their places
> (IMHO). I make a living right now writing VB programs so I'm kind of
living
> off the Microsoft gravy train. That being said, they do some things which
> are very unpleasing. My main complaint with Microsoft is that they stifle
> innovation. They never have come up with an original idea.
Bullshit, and a big one.
To name a few of the top of my head:
COM
COM+
MTS
IE (No other browser can come even close, Mozilla can't render yahoo.com
properly, and crash when you try to send a bug report)
Just to note:
COM was copied by many applications. Mozilla's XPCOM, Bonobo & RNA are few
examples.
MTS was copied by Sun, IBM, BEA and 25 other vendors, in EJB.
No one has been successful in copying IE so far, sadly.
COM+ is also uncopied to my knowledge.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 06 May 2001 03:06:31 +1000
From: Ian Pulsford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Article: Linus Torvalds Replies to Mundie's Attack on Open Source
Dave Martel wrote:
> "What's ours is ours. What's yours is ours."
Are you talking about M$ or the GPL?
IanP
------------------------------
From: "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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, 05 May 2001 17:11:32 GMT
"Rick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Daniel Johnson wrote:
> > "Rick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > Being a "better DOS than MS-DOS" is damning it with
> > > > faint praise. MS-DOS was *terrible*; DR-DOS was
> > > > only slightly less terrible.
> > >
> > > Note: no response. I will ask again:
> > > Since Windows ran on top of DOS. And DR-DOS was a better DOS than
> > > MS-DOS, how can you support your point? (See above point)
> >
> > I have already supported it; I do so by poitned
> > to important features that Windows has and DR-DOS
> > has not.
>
> Ther you go AGAIN. WAS not IS. What did Windows/DOS have that
> Windows/DR-DOS did not?
MS-DOS and DR-DOS were *both* lousy things
to saddle Windows with. I'm not endorsing MS-DOS
over DR-DOS; I'm endorsing Windows with as little
of either as can be managed.
[snip]
> > They may have done, for all the good it did them. But
> > it isn't what landed MS in trouble, as far as I can
> > see.
>
> Thats becasue you refuse to see.
Guess that's one way to look at it.
------------------------------
From: "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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, 05 May 2001 17:19:24 GMT
"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Said Daniel Johnson in comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri, 04 May 2001
> >Oh yes. Most certainly. Even Windows 3 was
> >an orthodox DOS program, when in real
> >mode.
>
> It is still a DOS program, if unorthodox (known as a "DOS extender")
> when in protected or enhanced mode.
I suppose you could say that, but it's really a semantic
question. It's not a DOS program like other DOS programs
except when in real mode. And it doesn't have real mode
anymore. :D
[snip]
> >I have already supported it; I do so by poitned
> >to important features that Windows has and DR-DOS
> >has not.
>
> These features are the 'DOS extender' I was talking about. Very similar
> to EMM386, if quite a bit more complex to provide a 'middleware
> platform', or whatever you call the 'enhanced GUI' thing that is
> Windows, sans all of the OS traits attributed to Windows, which are
> actually DOS.
Well, it's not *just* a "DOS extender" it replaces major DOS
services.
You can say that it is DOS that provides the memory
management, disk access, multitasking, program loading,
and other "OS traits", but it still won't be true of current
version of Windows.
[snip]
> Your commentary seems like pathetic squirming by a sock puppet or a
> troll.
Could you make up your mind as to which I am? :D
[snip]
> >> They also had inside info. Thats waht landed M$ in trouble.
> >
> >They may have done, for all the good it did them. But
> >it isn't what landed MS in trouble, as far as I can
> >see.
>
> It was the PPL; the FTC tried to figure out just what was illegal about
> it. It was obvious to any anti-trust lawyer you looked that it was
> illegal, since it resulted in monopoly, but there wasn't any
> codification of law or precedent that precisely explain why it had no
> competitive merits.
So now you are saying that it *wasn't* illegal, but
the DoJ reallyreallyreally *wanted* it to be, because
Microsoft was successful and we can't have that?
I think that's a change of position on your part.
Nevertheless, you seem to agree that none of this
had anything to do with "inside info"
> You know how gullible judges are, and the case was
> very hard to put together. Almost five years of investigation didn't
> lead to a trial. Meanwhile, the DoJ took an interest in Microsoft's
> force bundling of Windows with DOS, and took over the case. A couple
> years later, MS signed a consent decree to avoid prosecution, promising
> not to do either ever again. They broke both promises within the year,
> of course.
I do not think your summary of the consent decree
is accurate; I think it permitted MS to integrate DOS and
Windows.
The DoJ later tried to pretend otherwise, but nobody
was fooled. That is wh they had to base the current
case on the Sherman Act.
> Now do you see why you don't get the benefit of the doubt, smiling while
> you defend these thieves?
I don't get the benefit of the doubt from *you* because
you hate Microsoft and all its works for some odd reason.
>From *other* people I sometimes *do* get the benefit
of the doubt.
------------------------------
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