Linux-Advocacy Digest #881, Volume #34 Thu, 31 May 01 22:13:03 EDT
Contents:
Re: WinXP gains 160 official advocates ("Paolo Ciambotti")
Re: Linux dead on the desktop. ("Les Mikesell")
Re: Why Linux Is no threat to Windows domination of the desktop (Ray Fischer)
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! (Bob Hauck)
Re: Opera (Bob Hauck)
Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft (Bob Hauck)
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! (Chris Ahlstrom)
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! (Chris Ahlstrom)
Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft ("Paolo Ciambotti")
Re: ease and convenience (Terry Porter)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Paolo Ciambotti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: WinXP gains 160 official advocates
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 18:18:27 -0700
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Terry Porter"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hey Flattie, next time go as a Linux supporter, just post your name and
> address here and we will send you your free t-shirt :)
Hmmm... I wonder if Linuxmall still has one of those six-foot Tux costumes
for sale?
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux dead on the desktop.
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 01:28:05 GMT
"Fred K Ollinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:9eeiur$ctu$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Mart van de Wege ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> : In article <9ee7sc$f9s$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Ayende Rahien"
> : <don'[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> : > http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/3387/1/
> : >
> : > I can't say I don't agree.
> : >
> : > Some points:
> : > A> The linux desktop company he's talking about is likely Mandrake. B>
> : > He agrees with Daniel about users getting computer/OSes/shells not for
> : > the sake of the computer/OS/Shell, but for the applications that it
run.
> : > C> He seems to agree with me that you can't offer a slightly-less or
> : > equal product in order to convice people to switch, you need something
> : > vastly sueprior.
>
> So what did windows do that was vastly superior to system 7 on the mac?
It came pre-installed on enough different vendors' hardware that everyone
else had to keep a copy around for file compatibility.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ray Fischer)
Crossposted-To: soc.men,soc.singles,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: Why Linux Is no threat to Windows domination of the desktop
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 01:36:46 GMT
Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Ray Fischer wrote:
>> Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >it's one way that gays and their anal-sex
>>
>> You sure do obsess on anal sex.
>
>No.
denial: An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to
acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings.
> I merely mention it
again and again and again and again...
>because it's the crux of the fucking PROBLEM
>under discusion.
No, it isn't. The problem is that you've got problems with minding
your own damn business. If you're so interested in anal sex then go
find some guy and have at in your own bedroom.
--
Ray Fischer When you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks
[EMAIL PROTECTED] into you -- Nietzsche
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Reply-To: bobh = haucks dot org
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 01:45:49 GMT
On Thu, 31 May 2001 21:32:05 GMT, Daniel Johnson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "Bob Hauck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > On Thu, 31 May 2001 15:08:06 GMT, Daniel Johnson
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > It appears to be the path of least resistance for
> > > Unix apps- they implement their controls internally,
> > > anyway,
> >
> > Really? They don't use Motif or Qt or GTK or Athena? Interesting, I
> > didn't know that all Unix GUI apps were written directly on xlib.
>
> Well, things like Motif can be dynamically linked, yes. That
> is true of almost anything in plain C, though.
You claimed that Unix *apps* implement their controls internally,
implying that GUI Unix apps are hard to write because you have to write
your own buttons and sliders and so on. That's false. Hardly anybody
does that, probably on the same order as the number of people writing
Win32 apps in assembler.
There is not much difference between dynamically linking to libXm or
linking to USER.DLL. What is different is that there is not "one true
toolkit". Having one of those is a two-edged sword. You get
consistency, and you also get stuck with dumb design decisions
essentially forever.
> This is a substantial difference both in theory
> and in practice. It is the reason why there is
> no X-Windows equivalent of Kaldioscope or
> WindowBlinds.
Again, what you are saying is that there is no "one true Unix GUI". I
don't know how you would enforce such a thing on an open platform. You
apparently consider consistency more important. I disagree.
In any case, most new GUI development, at least in the open source
world, seems to be converging on KDE and Gnome.
> > > But it's a quality issue. These apps aren't
> > > as good as those which do use the local widget
> > > set.
> >
> > Depends on how you define "good". They may not implement the native
> > look and feel as much as you would like. They may function perfectly
> > fine.
>
> It depends on how the customers define good. But
> inter-application consistancy is widely seen as
> a good thing.
I guess that's why so many companies go out of their way to not use the
standard Win32 controls. Have you used TaxCut lately? I think they
call that "product differentiation". It also explains why users seem to
like "skinning" so much.
UI consistency is overrated, IMO. Everybody nods their head when Bill
or Steve talks about it, and then goes off and differentiates their
product.
> When I say that functionality is missing,
> I am presenting that as a fact, because it *is*
> a fact. There is no real dispute on the point.
Some functionality for certain classes of desktop apps is missing, I
agree. The main reason for this is that Unix was for a long time
marketed as a server and as a scientific and engineering workstation
rather than as a platform for Office-style apps.
I claim that these lacks aren't severe enough to have caused Unix to
lose out to Windows on the desktop. The reasons for that are mostly
non-technical. In any case, since the advent of Linux these lacks are
being addressed with surprising speed.
> So, ignoring the silly crack about Win95, you
> are saying that GNOME is done; it is ready
> for deployment now.
I don't know, not having a current version of Gnome installed. KDE2 is
surely "ready" though. My daughter seems to have customized the hell
out of her desktop, in spite of not having Windowblinds.
> > > I do wonder why they did not use
> > > KDE for what it can do, though.
> >
> > Maybe because it was written before KDE became popular.
>
> Why does this matter? They can ship the needed
> libs with the product, can they not?
Only if they exist. At the time SO was in development, KDE was in it's
infancy. I didn't say that very well.
> > I guess OpenOffice is going with the Gnome libraries.
>
> Oh?
OpenOffice is supposedly going to be the Gnome Office suite (as opposed
to KOffice for KDE).
> > My understanding is that MS Office for Windows and Mac are almost two
> > separate products.
>
> I believe they do share some code. But it's certainly
> not like StarOffice, where most of the UI code can be
> shared.
And this makes perfect sense, given how much smaller Star Division is
than Microsoft. They didn't have nearly the resources MS does. No, Sun
did not write StarOffice, they bought it.
> > > It does not seem to have a lot to recommend
> > > it over MS Office, except the price tag.
> > Well, that adds up pretty fast so it isn't something you can dismiss
> > out of hand.
>
> I do not mean to dismiss it. For some people it
> matters quite a lot. But you can't expect to
> overturn MS Office on this advantage alone;
> MS can always lower prices if they must.
You ought to be able to carve out quite a nice niche though. I don't
care if MS is "overturned" so much as I care that they can't use their
file formats to squeeze out systems they don't control. Just having a
free alternative with 20 or 30 percent of the market would ensure that.
This is the same theory that says that Mozilla and Opera and such are
important because they prevent MS from turning the web into an MS-only
place. They don't have to "overturn" MS to accomplish this.
> > The other thing it will offer, when OpenOffice becomes
> > more mature, is an open file format with a reference implementation that
> > you can borrow from. That is far more important in the long run.
>
> IHMO, nobody cares about this except for people who
> have it in for MS anyway; everybody else just uses Word
> format or Excel format or whatever, and does not care if it
> is "open" or not.
There's a bigger picture here. Lots of people care if they can read
and modify archived documents 10 or 20 years from now. Even MS can't
guarantee this. Can you read a Word for DOS document in WordXP? How
about a Multiplan spreadsheet or an AutoCAD v1.0 drawing in the
successor versions of those products? I guess you're really out of
luck if you have old Wordstar2000 documents. Proprietary vendors can
and do abandon products. Platform changes do happen. This is a real
worry for some companies with long-lived products, aerospace for
example.
You _can_ read LaTeX documents that are fifteen years old, and Xfig
drawings, and so on. It seems that open formats have better
longevity. They can even survive the companies that made them.
> I do not see that it has any importance at all.
Of course you don't. You speak for the vendor, not the customer.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Subject: Re: Opera
Reply-To: bobh = haucks dot org
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 01:45:59 GMT
On Wed, 30 May 2001 17:19:55 +0800, Todd
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> But many posts here say that Opera is causing a lot of crashes under
> Linux...
I've had betas of Opera crash a few times. It never crashed Linux.
> Only tried opera once and didn't like the GUI format nor the adverts.
One guy at work likes it just because of the "magnify" feature.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Subject: Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft
Reply-To: bobh = haucks dot org
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 01:46:12 GMT
On Thu, 31 May 2001 06:53:46 GMT, Greg Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> For god's sake, you can buy 128MB of memory for $45. Splurge a
> little...
Unless you're talking about a laptop.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: Chris Ahlstrom <[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: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 01:56:17 GMT
Bob Hauck wrote:
>
> You claimed that Unix *apps* implement their controls internally,
> implying that GUI Unix apps are hard to write because you have to write
> your own buttons and sliders and so on. That's false. Hardly anybody
> does that, probably on the same order as the number of people writing
> Win32 apps in assembler.
>
> There is not much difference between dynamically linking to libXm or
> linking to USER.DLL. What is different is that there is not "one true
> toolkit". Having one of those is a two-edged sword. You get
> consistency, and you also get stuck with dumb design decisions
> essentially forever.
In Win32, you don't always get consistency either.
> > This is a substantial difference both in theory
> > and in practice. It is the reason why there is
> > no X-Windows equivalent of Kaldioscope or
> > WindowBlinds.
No, just a fair number of window managers!
> Again, what you are saying is that there is no "one true Unix GUI". I
> don't know how you would enforce such a thing on an open platform. You
> apparently consider consistency more important. I disagree.
>
> In any case, most new GUI development, at least in the open source
> world, seems to be converging on KDE and Gnome.
GTK+ seems pretty cool. Good C code, object-oriented in style,
a lamentable number of casting requirements, and easy to use
layouts and auto-sizeing. And it's been ported to Windows, too.
(Proof of concept is the GIMP and gvim for Windows.)
> UI consistency is overrated, IMO. Everybody nods their head when Bill
> or Steve talks about it, and then goes off and differentiates their
> product.
Bill wants all apps to look like Windows apps. He wants everything
to /be/ Windows.
> > When I say that functionality is missing,
> > I am presenting that as a fact, because it *is*
> > a fact. There is no real dispute on the point.
>
> Some functionality for certain classes of desktop apps is missing, I
> agree.
Yeah, like VBA! Whew!
> I don't know, not having a current version of Gnome installed. KDE2 is
> surely "ready" though. My daughter seems to have customized the hell
> out of her desktop, in spite of not having Windowblinds.
Gnome is ready. In many ways, it is superior to the Win GUI.
Chris
--
Please enter your Microsoft Client Access Code now,
or rat on your system administrator
at http://www.bsa.org/intnatl/report.phtml or
at http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/reporting/
------------------------------
From: Chris Ahlstrom <[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: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 01:59:39 GMT
Daniel Johnson wrote:
>
> Well, things like Motif can be dynamically linked, yes. That
> is true of almost anything in plain C, though.
>
> However, there is typically no layer between
> xlib and the framework you use. You do not see
> (say) Qt implemented on top of Motif; Qt
> implements its own widgets.
>
> This is a substantial difference both in theory
> and in practice. It is the reason why there is
> no X-Windows equivalent of Kaldioscope or
> WindowBlinds. It is the reason why thee
> user interface Unix systems present is so
> uncoordinated.
Knowledge of X-Windows, window managers, and
Xlib wrappers doesn't seem to be your strong suit.
Chris
--
Please enter your Microsoft Client Access Code now,
or rat on your system administrator
at http://www.bsa.org/intnatl/report.phtml or
at http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/reporting/
------------------------------
From: "Paolo Ciambotti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 19:04:42 -0700
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "longhaul"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This is all well and good for you techy's who understand computers. I
> don't. MSFT is user friendly to me. Sorry. Just my opinion. I hate
> to go counter with millstox but us non-techies owe our computers to
> MSFT.
And I'm not an automotive engineer, but I know how to check all the fluids
in my vehicles, and put air in the tyres and petrol in the tank. I suppose
I could drive a car without knowing any of that, and just call the garage
for a towtruck everytime I have a problem. It would certainly be more
convenient, wouldn't it?
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Terry Porter)
Subject: Re: ease and convenience
Reply-To: No-Spam
Date: 01 Jun 2001 01:57:26 GMT
On Thu, 31 May 2001 22:02:14 +0100, drsquare <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 May 2001 17:17:33 +0800, in comp.os.linux.advocacy,
> ("Todd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) wrote:
>
>>"Terry Porter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>
>>> Paste the Windows help for 'ping' here Todd ?
>
>>OK, but there are about 15 pages... i'm only pasting the first one. I juse
>>typed 'ping' in the index and got about 10 responses with lots of
>>documentation.
>>
>>Here is the first page...
>
> That's funny, when I type 'ping', nothing shows up.
Todd is running Win2k I believe, whats the Windows variant your running ?
--
Kind Regards
Terry
--
**** ****
My Desktop is powered by GNU/Linux.
1972 Kawa Mach3, 1974 Kawa Z1B, .. 15 more road bikes..
Current Ride ... a 94 Blade
Free Micro burner: http://jsno.downunder.net.au/terry/
** Registration Number: 103931, http://counter.li.org **
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