Linux-Advocacy Digest #843, Volume #34 Tue, 29 May 01 17:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("Daniel Johnson")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("Daniel Johnson")
Re: SourceForge hacked! (mlw)
Re: sorry NT... (mlw)
Re: ease and convenience (Nigel Feltham)
Re: ease and convenience (Peter Hayes)
Re: INTEL"S ITANIUM DUE OUT TUES !!!!! ("Jon Johansan")
Re: Windows makes good coasters ("Jon Johansan")
Re: Businessweek: 'Rah Rah Microsoft!' ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft (Chris Hedley)
Re: Just when Linux starts getting good, Microsoft buries it in the dust! ("Jon
Johansan")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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: Tue, 29 May 2001 20:44:54 GMT
"Dan Pidcock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Tue, 29 May 2001 14:33:50 GMT, "Daniel Johnson"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
> >Is that "free software"? I guess so- it's free-as-in-beer,
> >but, you know, so is Internet Explorer.
>
> I was under the impression that you could use code released under GPL
> in your own commercial product as long as you supplied source code to
> the stuff you nicked from GPL: not necessarily your stuff. Any GPL
> experts care to confirm/deny this?
I don't think so; it would be pretty pointless to simply
demand you provide sources that FSF et al already
provide anyway.
I think the idea is that your *new* code has
to be made public too, and not just the
old stuff that is already public anyway.
[snip]
> >Kinda hard to do when you don't tell me what
> >it is I should research.
>
> You could try searching for statistical or mathematical or model(l)ing
> at those places.
I don't know what products Rick is thinking of.
[snip]
> >> Yes. that has been noticed ans is being vchanged in Open Office.
> >
> >"Has been noticed"?
> >
> >You'd think they'd have noticed it when
> >they wrote it!
>
> Well maybe they didn't have time to sort it out before release?
> Unlike MS apps where they are all released completely bug free and
> working just how everyone wants them to first time.
It must have taken quite some time to duplicate
so much of Explorer. You'd think they'd have had
time to deal with it then. :D
I'm not talking about bugs here; they've duplicated
big chunks of MS Explorer. It's not a question of
being "completely bug free".
[snip]
> >I'm sure that's true; but the fact remains that
> >the faux-explorer in StarOffice is not
> >up the the standard of the real one.
>
> Well it's not had as many man hours spent on it as Windows Explorer.
That's true. I don't really expect it to be, but
what I did expect what that they would integrate
into the real Explorer, rather than rolling
their own.
[snip]
> >Had the StarOffice developers not had to
> >waste their time on this, they might have
> >produced a more stable product- or one
> >with a better featureset that MS Office.
>
> This is true. I'm not really sure why they bothered when there are
> other file managers around (xfm, kfm, konqueror). I never like the SO
> explorer/file manager.
I suspect they felt they couldn't rely on the
presence of any of those, and they felt that
such a tool was needed (which, IMHO, it is);
so they included it right alongside the word
processor and the spreadsheet.
[snip]
> >Create a word processing document; go to
> >"Insert" then "Object" then "Ole Object";
> >from the dialog that appears select
> >"Further objects"; voila!
>
> Sounds like you two are comparing Linux/Unix and Windows versions of
> StarOffice to me.
Maybe. But in a way it's not fair
to ask the Linux version of StarOffice to
be able to equal MS Office- the underlying
infrastructure is just not there in some
cases.
OLE is such a case.
StarOffice on Windows does take
advantage of OLE, but it isn't as good
at it as Office is.
[snip]
> >Yeah, Clippy gives me grief over my
> >whining too. :D
>
> "It looks like you're writing a whiny news posting. Do you want me to
> help you with it?"
:D
[snip]
> >I'm sure it is. I've seen far worse than
> >StarOffice. But I think it's clear that
> >the StarOffice people put a lot of effort
> >into duplicate functionality included
> >in Windows.
>
> That's the danger when you try and clone stuff on other platforms.
There's some truth to that. But it's rather
odd that StarOffice 'clones' Windows widgets
*on Windows*; you'd think they'd use the
genuine article when available.
I don't quite understand that one.
[snip]
> >MS products are not infrequently the best
> >available. Like MS Office being better
> >than StarOffice.
>
> Hmm hardly a great comparison: commercial application developed by
> massive corporation with huge resources for over 10 years and has had
> about 10 major releases vs application started by some small German
> company about 4 years ago then bought by Sun, but never really sold in
> numbers to make significant money.
StarOffice isn't bad considering- I don't mean to
slam it, but it illustrate a point with it.
It's not as good as MS Office, and that's because
it targets an OS that doesn't offer the services
that Windows does; this means that to match
Office it must (and it does) duplicate a lot of
stuff that Office does not need to.
> How about comparing Windows 3.0 and OS 2/2.1.
These are not in the same timeframe. You mean Windows 3.1
and OS/2 2.0, perhaps. IMHO Windows 3.1 wins out
because it can run on cheaper hardware, because it
has outline font support, and because it has OLE 1.
But this one is not as as clear-cut as some
comparisions would be; Windows 3.1 still
had rather nasty segmentation, no threads,
and a primitive file manager (compared
to WPS). In these areas OS/2 had the
advantage.
OS/2 might have made more of these
advantages had not the Mac been
around. The Macintosh also offered
a good file manager and 32-bit
address spaces at this time, and
it had been around longer and
built up more developer support.
In a way, OS/2 didn't offer anything
an older platform couldn't, except
for threading and memory protection
and the like- things that just weren't
all that important to desktop users
or developers on the desktop.
> Or Internet explorer 3
> with Netscape at the time. They start crap and lumber their way along
> to good enough, hustling competition out of the way.
I disagree. They start crap, yes, but they sometimes get
it to more than good enough- somtimes all the way
to "the best".
Sometimes, on the other hand, they don't. MS has
a huge number of product, and by no means are
all of them best of breed. But some of them are.
[snip]
> >> They had "weak" GUI alternatives? compare to what m$ was offering at
the
> >> time?
> >
> >Sure. Consider- the Amiga did not have
> >device indepedent printing at that time.
>
> IIRC win 3.0 had some issues with fonts. Truetype didn't come in till
> 3.1 didn't it?
That's right. The Macintosh had a similar
problem, and also adopted TrueType at
the same time.
The basic problem is that you *can't*
do WYSIWYG if your printer has
outline font rendering and your screen
renderer does not. You can't even get
particularly close.
Win3 could give you the metric that
the printer was going to use, but using
them with an unscaled font was
terribly ugly.
Fortunately for Windows, even the
Mac didn't adopt this technology
very much before they did.
[snip]
> >The good news, though, was the reason *why*
> >it didn't. Windows was a very forward-looking
> >design (in 1985); it anticipated a large part of
> >the changes that it would have to undergo over
> >the next decade. The level of abstraction in
> >the API was high enough to pose performance
> >problems MS could not overcome- but it
> >also the reason why so many improvements
> >have been possible with so little disruption.
>
> The hardware abstraction was a good forward-looking idea. I'm not
> convinced the implementation of it was very good though.
It wasn't good enough- it was too slow, and
couldn't use the additional memory the 286
offered.
> I'm not sure about little disruption too. Have you looked at all the
> layers of the API? They tell a little of the kludging story.
Yes, I have. You'd be surprised how much of what
was present in Windows 1 hasn't changed.
What 'layers' do you have in mind?
> Also the general unresponsiveness and bloat.
How do you mean?
[snip]
> >Control how? DOS was fairly straightforward
> >to clone, and it was also encumbered by agreements
> >with IBM.
>
> Yes but the DOS clone makers couldn't bully/bribe hardware suppliers
> into pre-installing their OS.
Neither could MS; any clone maker who didn't
like MS's terms could turn to IBM to get
the exact same product, or buy a clone of DOS.
It was not like Windows is today, where
there simply is no adequate substitute.
Microsoft's position is vastly more
secure now than it was then.
------------------------------
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: Tue, 29 May 2001 20:44:55 GMT
"Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I'm probably just demonstrating my ignorance here, but isn't StarOffice a
> Java application - with the primary purpose being that it could run on
> *any* platform that supported Java? As such, they -couldn't- use the
> Windows GUI toolkit, or the Mac toolkit, or any of the common X toolkits,
> because then it wouldn't be cross-platform.
>
> Or did I miss the point completely?
According to Sun's website:
"StarOffice 5.2 software includes components written in the Java
language, and provides the Java Virtual Machine for running software
based on Java technology. However, the majority of the StarOffice 5.2
code is written in C++. Sun does not intend to rewrite StarOffice 5.2 in
Java technology. The Sun Webtop architecture relies heavily on Java
technology for the interaction between the browser-enabled client and
the application services running on the portal."
Which probably explains why StarOffice's
performance is comparable to MS Offices, ant not
like (say) Forte's.
Being cross-platform is rather difficult, and
Suns decision to duplicate big hunks of stuff
that comes with Windows is defensible in that
sense- but it does give you a second-class
product compared to one that *isn't* putting
portability first.
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SourceForge hacked!
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 16:48:55 -0400
Pete Goodwin wrote:
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/8/19255.html
>
> After all the bleating about IIS, now I see an Apache server has been
> hacked. SourceForge uses SSH... hmmm...
You misread the article. I looks more like someone was able to find a password
log on through ssh.
It made NO mention of what was cracked. I highly doubt that it was Apache. I
suspect someone had a very good guess at an SSH password.
--
42 was the answer, 49 was too soon.
========================
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: sorry NT...
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 16:55:46 -0400
pip wrote:
>
> "." wrote:
> >
> > But youve been replaced, yet again.
> >
> > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2761566,00.html
>
> How interesting! Now this is a real indicator to the doubters here that
> Linux can provide a superb platform for graphics work.
Yea, some idiot window zealot will say he can't use it just because it doesn't
have MS-Office. lol
--
42 was the answer, 49 was too soon.
========================
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: Nigel Feltham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ease and convenience
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 22:07:47 -0400
> IE isn't half the OS. Stop exaggerating. It is just an app... and it
> isn't 80MB either.
>
> Stop your whining.
>
Look - A web brower and a newsreader are 2 entirely different things and
users should have the option of upgrading one without being forced to
replace the other at the same time - this it like buying new tyres for your
car and being told the tyres and the engine come in one box and cannot be
replaced individually.
------------------------------
From: Peter Hayes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ease and convenience
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 21:48:59 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Mon, 28 May 2001 13:49:48 +0800, "Todd"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> "Nigel Feltham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:9epcqk$hftr$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
<...>
> > Lets see, I live in the UK and access the web via a 56k modem (same as
> most
> > of the UK) and could be paying around 1p per minute so why should I be
> > forced to spend maybe 6 hours online (at a potential cost of 36ukpounds)
> > just to upgrade a program which should be around 1 to 2mb and take around
> > 15 minutes to download (costing an acceptable 15p).
> >
> > Only a monopoly can get away with this kind of bullshit - why be forced to
> > effectively replace half the OS just to upgrade your newsreader / email
> > package.
>
> IE isn't half the OS. Stop exaggerating. It is just an app...
Now isn't that odd... I thought IE was supposed to be so integrated into the
OS that to remove it would break the entire system. At least that's what I
recall Mickey$oft was hoping Judge Jackson would believe.
So what is it? An app separate from the OS or part *of* the OS. Can't be
both.
Peter
------------------------------
From: "Jon Johansan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,misc.invest.stocks
Subject: Re: INTEL"S ITANIUM DUE OUT TUES !!!!!
Date: 29 May 2001 15:59:06 -0500
"J Perrimato Fectuzo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> windows xp runs on itanium but it does not run in 64-bit mode. at least
not
> a production version!
Perhaps because there isn't a production version out yet?
AND there are beta versions of XP that DO run Itanium in 64-bit mode.
But those are beta, JUST like the rest of XP.
There has been a version of Windows 2000 64-bit that has been demoed running
itanium. I can't say the progress/status of that one cause I just don't know
but I've been told from my reliable source that "you will be able to run W2K
on Itanium the day of it's release." I'll have to question him if he meant
in emulation or natively.
------------------------------
From: "Jon Johansan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux,alt.linux,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows makes good coasters
Date: 29 May 2001 16:03:06 -0500
"Major Dondo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I was asked to look at the network for a hospital. They are entirely
> windows based; now they have to compy with the new privacy laws coming
> into effect.
>
> Because windows has no real remote management tools, EVERY vendor
> installs a modem and PC Anywhere on every custom box they provide. And
> in a hospital, just about every piece of equipment is tied to a
> vendor-provided PC, which is then networked to the rest of the system.
> Theere are not chicken shit DIY vendors; these are major players who do
> this for a living. If better tools existed, they'd use them. The remote
> management stuff that MS provides simply does not work over a limited
> bandwith connection.
Well - lessee... these "major players" are ignorant.
There ARE better tools available. Let me suggest Remotely Anywhere.
It works on Win9x through W2K and even on XP in beta.
You can use any browser with java to connect to the box. You can do full
desktop remote control. You can do complete administration. It can be
installed remotely without touching the destination machine. And it's cheap.
I guess this just about says what I need to know about your scenario.
p.s., If that hospital is not using NT or W2K on it's workstations (i.e.,
using Win9x) I would run, not walk, away from there. And if they have
vendors that are ignorant of the plethora of tools available to remotely
manage their devices of low bandwidth TCP/IP connections - I'd get new
vendors.
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Businessweek: 'Rah Rah Microsoft!'
Date: 29 May 2001 21:05:55 GMT
pip <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
:> What the world needs is a powerful, flexible, interoperable
:> platform for computing. The Object Group's vision for CORBA was beautiful
:> and way ahead of its time. Perhaps something more viable could have (can
:> it still?) be born from the open source movement.
: Welcome to today! Gnome uses CORBA based technology and is developing
: it's own component model (bonobo). This is one of the key reasons that
: the Gnome architecture is the way forward, and the opensource community
: is united behind it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I would have to respectfully but strongly disagree.
I like both GNOME and KDE, but there are pretty large and vocal
minorities within the community who are firmly committed to one or the
other of these.
And there's still a fairly large group of folks who don't particularly
care for either environment, preferring either a lighter-weight WM, or
possibly avoiding X altogether.
: Many, many companies use CORBA. It _is_ a standard here and now. Not the
: likes of M$, but big companies that are interested in large systems and
: real interoperability. For the likes of M$ we will have a component
: model that is better deigned and much more powerful (and is in fact
: inspired by their COM technology rather ironically)
Actually, from what I understand, both were inspired by previous
technology from IBM, Sun, and others.
Both are likely to remain useful in situations where performance is
critical, but for lots of other applications, particularly distributed
applications, I believe that both the M$ and non-M$ worlds are
gradually moving toward XML-based protocols for as much interprocess
communication as possible.
Joe
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Chris Hedley)
Crossposted-To: comp.arch,misc.invest.stocks
Subject: Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 22:06:28 +0100
According to unicat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> SGI is hardly a market leader, but their realization of the detrimetnal
> effect of supporting windows
Just to focus on this one point, it is apparent that the various "collaborations"
with Microsoft are almost inevtiably extremely detrimental to the partner
company. The fallout between MS and IBM is the stuff of which legends are
made, and years later, whilst at DEC, although the MS alliance most likely
wasn't instrumental in DEC's downfall, I thought that it was certainly a nail
in the coffin, something I also observed in various other companies which had
dealings with MS.
Chris.
--
//USENET01 JOB (CBH,ISA),'TALKING BOLLOCKS',REGION=4000K,CLASS=F,
// MSGCLASS=A,PASSWORD=WIBBLE,USER=CBH,COND=(04,LT)
------------------------------
From: "Jon Johansan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Just when Linux starts getting good, Microsoft buries it in the dust!
Date: 29 May 2001 16:08:06 -0500
"Chad Everett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On 27 May 2001 23:07:06 -0500, Jan Johanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >"Chad Everett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> On Tue, 22 May 2001 14:09:25 -0400, JS \\ PL
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >wrote:
> >> >I have to say, Linux Mandrake 8 was looking real damn good. Support
for
> >all
> >> >my hardware (for once) easy set-up, even seting up networking and
> >connection
> >> >sharing was painless. Good newsreader - Knode, pretty stable OS. I
even
> >> >liked the fact that it stayed connected to the Internet when switching
> >users
> >> >(unlike Win2K) I was actually contemplating using it much more often
and
> >> >only using Windows for apps I need to use that aren't available on
Linux.
> >> >But....
> >> >Well after half a day checking out the new XP OS, I have to say IT
KICKS
> >> >MANDRAKE ASS!!
> >> >
> >>
> >> Can I setup Windows XP at home so that I can log into it via ssh and
have
> >> a server running that acts as a proxy web browser, allowing me to
> >> browse the web from my machine at work over an encrypted channel and
> >> bypassing the filters on my company's firewall? And do all this with
> >> out-of-the-box free software?
> >
> >SSH? No. There isn't a built in SSH server so the answer is no. There are
> >SSH servers available though and some are free so... a half no/half yes
> >answer.
> >
> >>
> >> Can I use Windows XP to redirect it's output over an encrypted network
> >> port so that I can run applications on my home machine from my machine
> >> at work, complete with GUI features? And do all this with
out-of-the-box
> >> free software?
> >
> >Sure, free terminal services now included with XP home/pro versions too.
> >
>
> XP is still in beta. Last time I looked I couldn't get Windows XP
> out of any box. Will it allow this sort of access from a non-Windows
> machine?
yes still in beta
No, you'll need a 3rd party client for non-windows access but that's be
design.
>
>
> >>
> >> Can I use Windows XP as a NAT server and firewall and allow the
machines
> >> on my LAN to all share a single internet connection? And do all this
with
> >> out-of-the-box free software?
> >
> >Yes.
> >
>
> I hope you're not talking about ICS. Chad Meyers tried to tell us that
ICS
> in Win 2K Pro could do this too. Check out this from my Win2K Pro
> Resource Kit:
>
> "Do not enable ICS in an existing network that has DNS servers, gateways,
> DHCP servers, or computers configured with static IP addresses.
> If your Windows 2000 Professional-based computer is in a network
> where one or more of these conditions exist, you MUST use
> Windows 2000 Server network address translation."
I do not talk about ICS. ICS is what you use when you can't think past a
wizard setup program. ICS is a simple to use NAT. It does DHCP, DNS and uses
fixed IPs to perform it's limited nat functions. It's a basic product.
W2K Server NAT is a full featured NAT, everything you'd expect from a NAT.
>
> >>
> >> Can I use Windows XP as a software development platform with the
software
> >> that it comes with, without the need to purchase additional software
for
> >> lots of money?
> >
> >Yes.
> >
>
> What compilers and IDE software does Windows XP come with?
Other than the scripting tools (including an IDE), none. But then again, I
am no fan of one price buys everything. I prefer to only pay for what I
want. Why get a copy of a language you don't want bundled in when you can
buy exactly what you want seperately.
------------------------------
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