Linux-Advocacy Digest #507, Volume #34 Mon, 14 May 01 09:13:05 EDT
Contents:
Re: Good Tex Pdf Files was Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office
97/2000? (Bob Tennent)
Re: Linux is paralyzed before it even starts (Pete Goodwin)
Re: What does Linux need for the desktop? (Pete Goodwin)
Re: LOMAC shocks Microsoft! (Pete Goodwin)
Re: W2K/IIS proves itself over Linux/Tux (Donn Miller)
Re: W2K/IIS proves itself over Linux/Tux (Donn Miller)
Re: Richard Stallman what a tosser, and lies about free software (Stefaan A Eeckels)
Re: To Erik: What is Wordperfect missing? ("~¿~")
Re: The Economist and Open-Source (Charles Lyttle)
Re: Richard Stallman what a tosser, and lies about free software (Roberto Alsina)
Re: Richard Stallman what a tosser, and lies about free software (Stefaan A Eeckels)
Re: Why Linux Is no threat to Windows domination of the desktop (Roberto Alsina)
Re: Microsoft "Windows for Linux" ("William R. Cousert")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Tennent)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.advocacy,alt.solaris.x86,comp.unix.solaris
Subject: Re: Good Tex Pdf Files was Re: Is StarOffice 5.2 "compatible" w/MS Office
97/2000?
Date: 14 May 2001 12:03:38 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Mon, 14 May 2001 13:31:04 +0100, Edward Rosten wrote:
>>
>> This is false. Dvips has the power to use outline versions of the cm
>> fonts. For the TeX distribution we have installed all it takes is doing
>> dvips -Pcms foo.dvi
>
>Mine doesn't do that :-(
>
>However, it is still not useful for PDF since PDF doesn't have outlined
>versions of the cmr fonts avaliable.
PDF is a format, not a program. There are many ways to produce PDFs with type 1
cm fonts embedded. Here are some of the possiblities:
pdf(la)tex
dvi to pdf using dvipdfm
dvi to ps to pdf using dvips and Adobe distiller
dvi to ps to pdf using dvips and ghostscript (ps2pdf)
Check out
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/publ-tips.html#type1
http://www.yandy.com/download/pdf_from.pdf
http://www.phy.hw.ac.uk/~peckham/programming/pdf/385e.htm
http://tug.org/applications/pdftex/
http://www.math.uakron.edu/~dpstory/latx2pdf.html
http://www.babinszki.com/distiller/
http://www.pdfzone.com/rich/distillersettings1.html
http://www.pdfzone.com/rich/fonts1.html
Bob T.
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux is paralyzed before it even starts
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 08:58:43 +0100
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
> >What spanking? You were led by the nose down into the water and soaked in
> >another thread T Max.
>
> Yea, you keep saying that.
What's this? The worm wiggling on the hook?
--
---
Pete Goodwin
All your no fly zone are belong to us
My opinions are my own
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What does Linux need for the desktop?
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 09:09:33 +0100
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
You need decent fonts first.
> Over half of small business here in OKC is 100 % linuxfied as of now.
> You need a word application so they use either Star Office or Word Perfect.
> Mainly Word Perfect.
OK, I'll accept Star Office.
> You need a web browser, Linux has netscape and Mozilla.
Browsing on Windows seems a little better.
> You need an SQL database. Linux has Postgres.
Don't use SQL.
> You need a web server. Linux has the industry standard Apache!
Don't need a web server, but Apache does the job.
> You need E-mail handing. Linux has so many it's hard to count.
I use KMail.
> You write in VB. Use Kylix!
Got $1000? The free version isn't out yet.
> Linux has built in compilers, perl, python, and java.
gcc is ok.
> Linux has built in version control.
Does it have file versions? As in x.a;1, x.a;2, x.a;3 ?
> Linux has dozens of HTML authoring tools.
Where?
Blimey Charlie! You actually managed to write a reasonable post without
your usual rants and raves.
--
---
Pete Goodwin
All your no fly zone are belong to us
My opinions are my own
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: LOMAC shocks Microsoft!
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 09:04:25 +0100
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
> This is why Linux is kicking Microsoft's ass.
In the server market, maybe.
In the desktop market, Linux is hardly to be seen.
--
---
Pete Goodwin
All your no fly zone are belong to us
My opinions are my own
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 08:22:37 -0400
From: Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: W2K/IIS proves itself over Linux/Tux
Ayende Rahien wrote:
> Ahm, not that hard.
> Office will be .NET.
> As will be VS.
Dude, your Haiku sucks. 8-)
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Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 08:24:19 -0400
From: Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: W2K/IIS proves itself over Linux/Tux
Tom Wilson wrote:
> around. Linux needs a bit of work and coaxing to get to where we want to go
^^^^^^^^
> with it.
Not true. Linux will work with 10 Base-T cables as well as 10 Base 2.
8-)
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------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefaan A Eeckels)
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman what a tosser, and lies about free software
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 12:24:02 +0200
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Jeffrey Siegal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Stefaan A Eeckels wrote:
>> I don't think CPU cache qualifies for the definition of "copy"
>> in the statutes.
>
> It is arguable but it is not obvious how the courts would decide.
>
>> Due to the extremely transient nature of data in the cache,
>
> It isn't necessarily extremely transient. With today's large cache
> sizes (sometimes 1 MB or more), it is entirely plausible that an entire
> program could be copied to cache while it is being executed. Certainly
> large enough portions are copied which could otherwise constitute
> copyright infringement.
It could be, but you'd need to evaluate each instance to
see if the program was "sufficiently" cached to represent
a statutory copy (which is something you cannot do, given
that loading a debugger would flush the cache, and so
destroy the potential problem. A case of Heisenberg's cat,
so to speak.
>> and the inability to address it specifically (unlike RAM or a
>> disk), one cannot "perceive, reproduce or otherwise communicate"
>> the program being executed.
>
> The statute says "either directly or with the aid of a machine or
> device." You could certainly use specialized test equipment to read the
> contents of cache, even if you couldn't do so directly from the CPU.
Not in your average machine, because it lacks the wiring to
connect such a device. And because the statute decided to
dabble in technology, it seems plausible to me that the framers
intended to describe real capabilities, not hypothetical
laboratory setups.
>
>> And because the cache is all on-chip,
>> it's not identifiable as a separate device
>
> That's only true for L1 cache (though I'm not convinced this matters).
> In many cases, L2 cache is off chip. On the Pentium, for example, the
> L2 cache uses a separate component which was either soldered to the
> motherboard or in some cases was in a SIMM socket. Almost identical, in
> that sense, to ordinary DRAM.
Which leads to the (arguably) absurd result that a PIII with 256KB
cache on-chip doesn't make a statutory copy, whereas a PII with 512KB
cache off-chip does.
>> so there can't possibly
>> be a copy, unless you want to argue that the data in the CPU's
>> registers
>
> There is a huge difference between many kilobytes or possibly megabytes
> of cache memory and a few bytes of registers.
Agreed, but over time, and using the appropriate (hypothetical)
instruments, one _could_ make a statutory copy of a program by
recording the contents of the CPU registers, but it's about
as impractical as reading the contents of a cache, if it's
large enough, and if the OS happens to have loaded the program
in a copyable state...
I think this indicates that the way the copyright act was amended
to include software (by arbitrarily dividing a computer in the
sub-systems that were current at that moment) is flawed.
In case of a typical late 1970 microcomputer, it's a pretty
close match:
8080/Z80 CPU without cache
RAM
Program on 8" or 5.25" floppy disk.
where indeed the program code is copied from a removable medium
into RAM, where (apart from CP/m) it's the only resident, executed
by a processor that fetches a byte at a time from RAM, no paging,
no cacheing, no network, etc.
In the case of a modern system, with cache in the hard disk, on
the disk controller, L2 cache, on-chip cache, pre-fetch queues
a multi-tasking OS that routinely maps hundreds of processes
into its address space per second, programs that can call
(through RPC, DCOM or CORBA) on services of routines
residing on a number of other systems, it's just baloney
(if enough pages are written to the swap device, is that
yet another statutory copy?). And what about the typical
multi-tasking system, where lots of people are running
the same program, but the OS only keeps one image of the
code in memory (something impossible in the early micros
without MMU). According to the description in the statutes,
this is only _one_ statutory copy, but lots of people run
it simultaneously. And as long as they don't modify any
data, they might even share all the data segments.
So should be adapt the law to state that in case of a
computer program, a separate stack means a separate copy?
--
Stefaan
--
How's it supposed to get the respect of management if you've got just
one guy working on the project? It's much more impressive to have a
battery of programmers slaving away. -- Jeffrey Hobbs (comp.lang.tcl)
------------------------------
From: "~¿~" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: To Erik: What is Wordperfect missing?
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 12:37:04 GMT
While the adults had left the house .....
> > I wish you would stop telling me what I mean.
> > Personally, I think any word processing app, even Star Office, is
probably
> > fine for most people and don't see the NEED to have Office, however I do
> > prefer Office and would certainly WANT to have it.
> >
> > So please, stop trying to speak for me.
> So you do agree? PRAISE THE LORD! finally, progress in the "Accepting
> the fact that I'm a wintroll" course. (just joking).
> btw, I have used Office since 4.3, and yes, in the early days, it was
> probably the best, most intergrated suite avail. however, since
> Wordperfect got it's act together, and Lotus Smart Suite cleaned up,
> there are viable alternatives. I would like to see in the near future a
> port of Lotus Smart Suite to Linux. Unlike Word, Lotus Wordpro uses
> hardly any memory, loads quickly and is very stable.
By WordPerfect I'm assuming you mean Corel.
When did WordPerfect "get it is act together"
Lotus SmartSuite died with version 4. There is no market for it.
They were basically giving it away during version 3.1's life cycle.
As for Wordpro, hardcore users preferred Ami-Pro.
Even WordPerfect uses VBA at this point. What does that tell you?
They can't give WP away ... same with Star. Why?
Because the desktop market for Linux isn't on the freaking radar screen,
that's why Hymie.
It's (it is) not a lucrative market. Read 'no money to be made' at this
point.
If you think that IBM is going to port Lotus to Linux... well, hold on -- I
take that back.
Their marketing dept. is about as sharp as a ball bearing. It could happen.
And guess what?
The same thing will happen there as did in windows land. It will flounder
and die.
The desktop computer user is something the OS-Zealots will never understand
because their jaundiced eye has them blinded. They use what they use and
they're happy with what they use.
Any market evolution will take place of its (not it is) accord, not because
the LinZealots scream & shout about the evils of MS.
------------------------------
From: Charles Lyttle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The Economist and Open-Source
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 12:52:51 GMT
Matthew Gardiner wrote:
>
> > >You can't detect the bug unless you're looking for it.
> > ----------------------^-------------------------------
> > |
> > BINGO
> >
> > Regression tests look for bugs just like all other tests. You just don't
> > run the full suite of tests and concentrate on the area changed *and its
> > interactions with other software components*. You can't possibly test
> > every path through a program affected by a change. I always try to
> > include in the subset chosen for testing some remote and subtle paths
> > through the program. I am very happy if the test result clears the fixed
> > bug and finds a new one, not introduced by the fix. If the fix
> > introduces a new bug it is rejected.
>
> Isn't that what testing is about? the point of testing is to look for
> bugs, try to confuse the program and cause problems by trying things in
> different ways, isolate the bugs, fix the problem, then repeat the test
> again. If you have written out a program, and you have no bugs, you
> have obviously not tested the program properly.
>
> Matthew Gardiner
You and I agree, Erik and Microsoft do not. Because there isn't enough
time in the world to exhaustively test every path through a program,
only a subset of all possible paths are checked. Often automated test
suites generate random paths through the program and test those. I like
to test additional specific paths that, in my experience, often contain
bugs.
--
Russ Lyttle
"World Domination through Penguin Power"
The Universal Automotive Testset Project at
<http://home.earthlink.net/~lyttlec>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Roberto Alsina)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman what a tosser, and lies about free software
Date: 14 May 2001 12:54:20 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Mon, 14 May 2001 01:14:02 GMT, Isaac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Mon, 14 May 2001 00:50:04 GMT, Les Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>Yes, licensing with usage restrictions on the library would be
>>straightforward
>>and would indicate that in fact the usage restriction was desired by the
>>copyright holder. RMS and the FSF are associated with the GPL, but
>>there is no reason to think that their fanatic interpretation on this point
>>represents any of the many other authors of GPL'd code.
>
>While that's true, I have seen a few authors of GPL'd code say that they
>agree with RMS and I have yet to see one weigh in on the opposite side.
here. I have written GPL'd code, and I disagree with almost everything
RMS says about the license. Hope that helps ;-)
>It's important to note the the FSF's position is born of necessity.
>It is the only remotely plausible way to claim that the current
>license doesn't allow compiling their code into dlls and plug-ins to
>be called by proprietary software.
>
>Most people who after careful consideration decide to GPL their code
>rather than to use another free license, probably don't want their
>code used without permission in non free software.
Most people who decided to GPL their code simply didn't consider
carefully. At least most of those I know didn't.
>> Isaac wrote
>>> I might feel differently if I didn't find out about his
>>> position before I had invested time and money, but I cannot argue
>>> that I've been tricked when I know his position ahead of time.
>>
>>Can you read the GPL and arrive at that position yourself? If not,
>>how can you avoid saying it is deceptive?
>>
>
>No I can't find the RMS's position in the GPL by reading it. I
>don't consider the GPL to be deceptive because I believe it was
>written without considering the implications of dynamic linking,
>and thus I don't find an intent to deceive. Ironically because
>it's obvious that the FSF's current interpretation has been tacked
>onto the text after the fact, it's clear to me that it was never
>intended to deceive.
Well, if I take a document, and try to use it to justify something
the document didn't intend, it may not be deceiving, but it's at least
intentionally confusing.
>For me personally, it cannot be deceptive because I know of the
>FSF's interpretation now. It can no longer deceive you either.
>
>I will agree that the GPL is misleading and can trap the unwary,
>but simply changing the wording of the GPL won't solve the problem
>because the change in license wouldn't cover previously released
>code. I think the next best thing would be for the FSF to include
>an explanation of their position with their libraries.
Actually, for the code owned by the FSF, it will solve the problem,
and for the code licensed "under v2 or later" it will solve
the problem.
Solving the problem for some code is better than solving the problem
for no code, IMHO.
--
Roberto Alsina
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefaan A Eeckels)
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman what a tosser, and lies about free software
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 14:56:05 +0200
In article <9doh9p$esk$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lee Hollaar) writes:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefaan A Eeckels)
>writes:
>>So why did the people who coined the current copyright statute
>>find it necessary to ignore the underlying function to concentrate
>>on describing a particular technology (disk/RAM without any cache)?
>
> Why do you think they did? They put in a section that they though
> specifically addressed the intermediate copies necessary to run a
> computer program -- Section 117. They just didn't see that most
> software copies wouldn't be owned, but instead licensed, or maybe
> they didn't consider shrink-wrap licenses as being valid with
> respect to copyright.
That makes sense. It's not the first time that a law is
written based on an oversimplification of technical concepts.
I remember a law in Belgium that was so clumsiliy worded that
-if not read with charitable intent- made water into a medicine
that could only be sold in pharmacies. Needless to say, this
law was based on lobbying by the Order of pharmacists to
prevent vitamins and other "health" preparations from being
sold in supermarkets.
--
Stefaan
--
How's it supposed to get the respect of management if you've got just
one guy working on the project? It's much more impressive to have a
battery of programmers slaving away. -- Jeffrey Hobbs (comp.lang.tcl)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Roberto Alsina)
Crossposted-To: soc.men,soc.singles,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: Why Linux Is no threat to Windows domination of the desktop
Date: 14 May 2001 13:00:17 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sun, 13 May 2001 22:36:58 -0400, Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Roberto Alsina wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 11 May 2001 18:48:36 -0400, Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >Burkhard Wölfel wrote:
>> >>
>> >> "Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
>> >> > Judging someone on the basis of their LETHAL-DISEASE-TRANSMITTING
>***BEHAVIOR***
>> >> > is common sense evaluation, not bigotry.
>> >>
>> >> This idea is very common indeed, but has not much to do with sense.
>> >> It doesn't matter _where_ you put your Aaron in, Aaron. It has to do
>> >> with condoms, testing and confidence.
>> >
>> >Gay-male sex leads to AIDS...especially when a condom breaks.
>> >Hope that helps.
>>
>> The above statement is true.
>> So is this one: "Heterosexual intercourse leads to AIDS... especially
>> when a condom breaks".
>
>Only in Africa.
Aaron, do you know how many heterosexual men and women have contracted
AIDS outside Africa?
>You see, the female reproductive tract is MADE to deal with foreign genetic material.
Oh, sure. That explains why women are immune to syphilis, gonorrhea, and
any other contagious disease.
>The rectum is not.
Perhaps you never heard this, but anal sex is not an exclusively
male-heterosexual habit.
>Hope that helps.
It does help see you are clueless, and will probably catch some
nasty disease sooner than later.
--
Roberto Alsina
------------------------------
From: "William R. Cousert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine
Subject: Re: Microsoft "Windows for Linux"
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 13:06:05 GMT
"Windows for Linux" could be used to gradually ween someone off of Wnidows.
"Brian Craft" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <HEfK6.28541$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Robert Kent"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> With all due respect to your idea..........my motivation is to get rid of
> Microsoft completely. With the exception of games, currently, I have no
> use for MS anyway.
>
> Brian
------------------------------
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