Linux-Advocacy Digest #904, Volume #34 Sat, 2 Jun 01 00:13:03 EDT
Contents:
Re: Mozilla project, is Linux "important" (Terry Porter)
Re: Just when Linux starts getting good, Microsoft buries it in the dust!
("green")
Re: Why Linux Is no threat to Windows domination of the desktop (Ray Fischer)
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Just when Linux starts getting good, Microsoft buries it in the dust!
("green")
Re: SourceForge hacked! (Terry Porter)
Re: Just when Linux starts getting good, Microsoft buries it in the ("Patrick Ford")
Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft (John Bayko)
Ballmer tells another bald-headed lie. (Ray Chason)
Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft (John Bayko)
Re: Just when Linux starts getting good, Microsoft buries it in the dust! ("Jan
Johanson")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Terry Porter)
Subject: Re: Mozilla project, is Linux "important"
Reply-To: No-Spam
Date: 02 Jun 2001 03:09:11 GMT
On Fri, 01 Jun 2001 22:03:52 +1000,
Chris Sherlock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Maybe this isn't from one of the Netscape developers, but have a look at
> the bottom of the page in this bug report for Mozilla 0.9.x and image
> scaling issues:
>
> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74313
>
> I quote:
>
> ------- Additional Comments From [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2001-05-30 19:31
> -------
>
> Actually Asa the 0.9.0 release was much worse than this.
>
> libpr0n on Unix was basically completely unusable when it went in.
> Progress from
> there is slow, and Pav has other priorities.
>
> Is Linux an important platform for Mozilla? The 0.9.0 release says "No"
> and a
> lot of people heard it.
I compile Mozilla and there seems to be a lot of occurrences of 'GNU' and
Linux throught the source.
It compiles fine, but doesnt seem to be specifically targeted towards
Linux ?
>
> If this is the case, (and I sorely hope that it isn't and I'm missing
> the point, taking this out of context) then wtf??? Lets raise a big
> stink if it **is** the case.
>
> Chris
--
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 **
------------------------------
From: "green" <[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: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 13:14:19 +1000
"Edward Rosten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:9f7r5q$44i$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > once a long time ago (386 days)...
> >
> > mice has a switch underneath pc or ms. pc made 3 buttons work , ms made
> > 2 buttons work and a different protocol.
> >
> > Reasoning being that if you / I switched it after the mouse driver
> > loaded it would go all funny and jump all over the screen.
>
> That `switch' still exists in one form or another. The Linux 3-button
> mouse HOWTO is chock full of wonderful trivia on 3 button mice.
>
> Some of the mics have a solder contact (or in rare cases jumper) inside
> to serve the purpose of this switch.
>
> Others also will go in to this mode if you hold the middle button down
> during a power on, and often during when a reset code is sent to the
> mouse.
>
> The very cheap 3 button mice will often work flawlessly when put in to
> the proper mode, but in standard MS mode, they do broken things like not
> sending button up events when the middle button is released.
>
> These are the kind of really cheap mice one has hanging around, with no
> idea where they came from and certainly naver had a driver disk mfor the
> 3rd button in Windows.
>
because when ms was selling 2 button mice win 3.1 was their champion product
(msdos 5 - 6.22)
and win 3.1 didn't even use the second button. (unless it was set up for
left hand use then it didn't use the first.
------------------------------
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: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 03:08:59 GMT
You've got MALE.. sex organs! <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I'll have to bow to Aaron's expertise on the subject of penises in
>anuses..
But when you bow, make sure you're _facing_ him. Don't want to bend
over with your back to him, after all. Might be more than he can
resist.
>"Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
>> drsquare wrote:
>> >
>> > On Wed, 30 May 2001 20:04:08 -0400, in comp.os.linux.advocacy,
>> > ("Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) wrote:
>> >
>> > >Ray Fischer wrote:
>> >
>> > >> LOL! What assinine propaganda! There aren't "numerous people" who
>> > >> get hpatitis from gay restaurant employees. It's just you're stupid
>> > >> hatred again.
>> >
>> > >Fag gets Hepatitis from anal sex.
>> > >Fag contaminates food with Hepatitis.
>> > >Hepatitis infects customer
>> >
>> > Straight person gets Hepatitis from sex.
>> > Straight person contaminates food with Hepatitis.
>> > Hepatitis infects customer
>>
>> However, even though gays are a VERY small minority of the population,
>> you find Hepatitis contaminated food correlates VERY well with
>> the level of male heterosexual activity in the community.
>>
>> >
>> > I take it then you are also against heterosexuality. Unless of course
>> > you can prove that Hepatitus can only be transmitted through
>> > homosexual sex.
>>
>> The LARGEST risk to contracting hepatatitis is by letting another
>> man stick his penis in your anus.
>>
>> Hope that helps.
>>
>> >
>> > >> What a stupid asshole you are.
>> >
>> > >No..the stupid asshole is the one getting reamed by some fag's penis.
>> >
>> > Like you dad's.
--
Ray Fischer When you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks
[EMAIL PROTECTED] into you -- Nietzsche
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <don'[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, 2 Jun 2001 06:08:25 +0200
"Chris Ahlstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Daniel Johnson wrote:
>
> I don't know shit about Macintosh. I'm talking about
> Microsoft ignoring some pretty useful UNIX conventions.
Such as?
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <don'[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, 2 Jun 2001 06:11:11 +0200
"Chris Ahlstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Daniel Johnson wrote:
> > >
> > > No, just a fair number of window managers!
> >
> > That does let you do a *small* part of what
> > Kalidioscope does- you can change the way
> > window frames look, and the widgets in the
> > title bar.
> >
> > That's something. But it's not very much.
>
> Can you tell me what Kaleidoscope does? (Feel
> free to tell me to f*ck off and research it
> on my own, I won't be offended).
It change the look of Mac's widget set.
Go here http://www.stardock.com and check the Windows equilent.
It can be very amusing. I used to use QNX UI for a long while.
They've a set of products that allow you to do amazing stuff on Windows.
------------------------------
From: "green" <[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: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 13:16:29 +1000
"Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> green wrote:
> >
> > > No, the software should be flexible to allow devices to function in
> > > their own form for whatever purpose they serve. Defaults are fine,
> > > but there should be no assumption anywhere that "middle button =
> > copy/paste".
> >
> > but in windows the middle button can be used (with the right driver) to
> > scroll around the screen.
>
> not all 3-button mice have scroll-wheels.
>
> that's a rather LATE invention.
>
>
Ive seen honey well mice (the ones with the wheels at the bottom) use the
middle button not wheel to
scroll around the screen.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Terry Porter)
Subject: Re: SourceForge hacked!
Reply-To: No-Spam
Date: 02 Jun 2001 03:18:31 GMT
On Fri, 1 Jun 2001 17:31:35 +0100,
Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
>> You are a troll, and even worse... a moron. You can't even backup your
>> arguments and just repeat dalsehoods over and over again.
>
> What's a dalsehood?
A 'dalsehood' is a new term, and Pip is beta testing it, before its release
to the world at large.
The term 'dalsehood' combines the term 'dolt' ie someone who asks for
information over and over again, aparently unable to remember anything,
and the term 'falsehood' which means simply 'a lie'.
Personally I'd say Pip has used this new word correctly in your case
Pete.
>
> I am not a troll.
So you keep saying.
<snip>
--
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 **
------------------------------
From: "Patrick Ford" <[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
Date: 2 Jun 2001 15:29:29 +1200
Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> Chad Myers wrote:
> >>
> > But what about the people who don't have two fingers? Or NO fingers at all?
>
> Yeah! How can they do a Ctrl-Alt-Del ????
They should use an OS that doesn't require that set of keys for rebooting,
or even better, one that doesn't need rebooting all the time.
--
--
My domain contains .co, not .com as appears in the header.
Patrick Ford Auckland, Aotearoa (New Zealand)
------------------------------
From: John Bayko <"jbayko "@sk.sympatico.ca>
Reply-To: jbayko, @sk.sympatico.ca
Crossposted-To: comp.arch,misc.invest.stocks
Subject: Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft
Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 03:49:06 GMT
>>> Sun,
>>
>> will probably keep Solaris around for a while. They're not in danger
>> of marginalization for a while. I'm not entirely sure what Compaq
>> will do, probably let their Unix stuff become marginalized, and push
>> Linux as an alternative on their PeeCees.
>
> Slowy, but surely, Sun is incorporating more linux software packages
> into their lineup. Take a look at their recent bundles... Gnome WM...
> gcc... GIMP... etc. And they take it the necessary step further to add
> documentation to those that they do support.
I've even seen Sun officials refer to Solaris as "Sun's version of
the Linux kernel".
------------------------------
From: Ray Chason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Ballmer tells another bald-headed lie.
Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 03:56:08 -0000
http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-fin-micro01.html
"The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software,
you have to make the rest of your software open source....Linux is not
in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an
intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way
that the license works."
Classic FUD. OK, this is true if "use" means "use the source code in
another product." It's not true if "use" means "run the compiled
software," an act which the GPL specifically says is unrestricted.
--
--------------===============<[ Ray Chason ]>===============--------------
PGP public key at http://www.smart.net/~rchason/pubkey.asc
Delenda est Windoze
------------------------------
From: John Bayko <"jbayko "@sk.sympatico.ca>
Reply-To: jbayko, @sk.sympatico.ca
Crossposted-To: misc.invest.stocks,comp.arch
Subject: Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft
Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 03:58:07 GMT
>> While the bloated giant Microsoft is buying favorable publicity in
>> News-fluff magazines with promises of big chunks of advertising for the
>> X-flop video game, smart firms are realizing the truth - Microsoft is in
>> serious trouble.
[...]
>> But they are not capturing the hearts and minds of the techno- savvy,
>> and their standards are going over like the proverbial turd in a
>> punchbowl. Active directory, the MS proprietary version of XML, and the
>> .net initiative, all are seeing adoption rates down around 1/5th
> <snipping the rest as the point should be clear by now>
>
> I had a discussion on this topic just last night with a friend. The major
> problem MS is facing is that their software has reached feature
> saturation, ie it is becoming progressively harder to add features that
> can be marketed as a value addition. This means that competitors now will
> have a static target to compete against.
[...]
> With their software turning into a commodity product, MS's corporate
> strategy, until now based on a manufacturing model, *must* turn to a
> service model in order to maintain profit growth
[...]
This is precisely what I said in an email earlier today, but in a
fair bit more detail. What the heck, I'll just add it here - skip it now
if you aren't interested:
This is true. Office 2000 has been a bust, in Microsoft terms. So
has many of their recent launches - in fact, ever since Windows 94
(renamed Windows 95 cause - well, you know Microsoft and schedules...)
was introduced with a $250M+ USD marketing budget, and sold almost
exactly as many copies as new computers that year (ie. nobody but a few
nerds upgraded), each new Microsoft introduction has been met with less
enthusiasm than the one before. Most press articles I've seen about
Office XP have been "Yawn, more features I won't use, but clippy the
office assistant is dead. Upgrade if you have to, I've got better things
to do."
Software has long since ceased to provide any added value with new
releases. It is reaching the point Microsoft instinctively fears, but
can't seem to put its finger on - a commodity. You can get 95-98% of
Microsoft Office for free, from Software602, a company which provides it
as a loss-leader to get publicity for its more interesting products.
Historically, software has always been this way. Until PCs,
operating systems and system software was simply stuff companies tossed
in with the hardware customers bought. An anomaly in performance growth
and price reduction made this unprofitable, and third party companies
were able to use volume markets to cover development costs, and as a
side effect sell additional software which integrates with their system
software (Microsoft's product tying - IE with Windows to cut out
Netscape, for example).
The improvement in technology is what made new applications
possible, and these new applications created a new, chaotic industry
which simply couldn't be followed. Nobody knew what the heck a computer
fundamentally was anymore. The Late Douglas Adams (sniff) pointed this
out (I'm sure you can find the quite for yourself - roughly it traces "a
computer is really a..." perceptions from calculator, to typewriter, to
television, to sales brochure). But the computer industry parallels the
chemical industry of the beginning of the 20th century, surprisingly
closely (except personal chemical refineries never caught on).
Once "Chemistry" settled down into "Fields of chemistry", each of
which could be designed for and optimized, it became mature. If you
wanted to make stretchy polymers, you know roughly what the factory is
going to look like before you've even settled on the chemical formula to use.
I reckon that about 2/3 of the possible uses for computers have been
discovered. Once the majory of the other 1/3 have been found,
programming will change from an art to an engineering discipline. Each
application will have its set of standard algorithms, user interfaces,
storage formats, and links to other systems.
Many areas already have this. Word processors are all the same.
Spreadsheets are essentially identical. They differ cosmetically.
And operating systems have been mature for twenty years, more or
less. There have been conceptual improvements (two extremes are the
Amoeba operating system by Tannenbaum, which took OS principles to their
most elegant limits - and left them there, and Plan 9, by Thompson,
Pike, Ritchie, and the other Unix creators, which takes it to its most
practical). Some of those ideas are very, very slowly percolating
through the current software mess, but the profit is still in discovery
of the rest of the 1/3 computer uses, there is practically no profit in
refining the current 2/3, except in the high-performance cases (where
Windows does extraordinarily badly, incidentally).
A strong factor in this is the fact that software is persistent.
Once you write a program, it will function forever. You only need to
improve it once, and those improvements can be distributed immediately -
you do not need to recall it for a refit as if it were a Ford Pinto.
This is why a software project like Linux can be incrementally improved
by independent developers, in very, very small pieces - the pieces add
up eventually. The Internet helps, but this was done for years before it
existed, because of software's persistent nature.
These two factors - the maturity of certain software fields that
Microsoft depends on for growth, and the incremental improvements
possible to software without "ownership" of property - are seriously
eating into Microsoft's future. It's really a dead-end future, depending
on growth, so Microsoft must encourage upgrades to generate revenue. The
word "subscription" has come up (they do that now for large businesses,
they want to extend that service to smaller companies, possibly
eventually individuals).
Ultimately, Microsoft will need to change to a service company. I
think they know that. They can use their software to leverage their
services, but not forever - once competing software (both open and
proprietary - BeOS and Amiga aren't dead yet, they have both built up a
software commodity base that enables them to be used for complete
product - one from Sony, the other from an unnamed PDA company) provides
the equivalent functionality of Microsoft's "Intellectual Property" (a
misnomer :), their leverage will disappear, and may even become a
hindrance. A good comparison is banking machines - any bank trying to
set up and support their own network of banking machines that work only
for its own customers will be unable to compete with the network of
machines that all interact using the industry standard, and many banks
did try just that when the technology was introduced. Even with a bigger
individual network than the others, which performed exactly the same
function, they simply couldn't compete because of non-technology factors.
Fundamentally, I usually describe it as "it's a new industry, people
don't know any better, it will get sorted out in time". That's a simpler
way of putting it, but isn't as informative.
------------------------------
From: "Jan Johanson" <[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: 1 Jun 2001 22:59:12 -0500
"Perry Pip" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> On 29 May 2001 16:21:04 -0500,
> Jon Johansan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > p.s., there are several free SSH servers available for Windows NT and
W2K/XP
> > by the way.
>
> Oh that's right!! There's another advantage of SSH over TS, it's
> portable and interoperable across multiple platforms. TS is windows
> only, and thus useless on heterogenous networks.
again - who cares? The idea is if you are using TS then you are on a Windows
machine, you are not on a hetrogenoous netork. AND if you ARE on such a
network, then _obviously_ you use whatever tool is necessary to access the
other lesser OSes. But that doesn't mean you should use the lowest common
denominator. I mean, we could use telnet to access pretty much anything but
why do that if something better is available on some platform?
You are suggesting using SSH on Windows ONLY because you don't have TS on
unix? that's silly and pointless.
>>In case you just can't live without the CLI.
>
> Of course the CLI is next to useless on Windows anyways, no matter
> what shell you use. There's now way to administrate the machine from a
> CLI.
Yes there is.
> No registry editor,
Yes there is. Ain't pretty but there is. THEN AGAIN, you weren't meant to.
> no task/process managament,
yes there is
>no access to the
> event logs,
hmm, never looked. never needed/wanted to.
>no disk management,
yes there is. but who'd want to?
>no hardware management,
some, never looked, nevered needed to.
>no management
> of most appiclations.
probably because they weren't DESIGNED/intended to be controlled from the
CLI.
You are critisizing a GUI OS for not having full CLI support when it's not
meant to and didn't try to and doesn't care to.
With Unix, administration is easy: you write
> automated scripts and go off and do other things. With Windows, you're
> stuck trudging you're way along pointing and clicking.
>
First, you CAN write very elaborate scripts in Windows that can access the
API at many levels. There is little you can't control from a script in
various languages. So, forget this no scripting in Windows FUD.
Next - Windows, suprise, is a GUI OS - it's designed to be run and managed
from the ... suprise... GUI! Even though it has extensive CLI support that's
a secondary thought and I'm very happy with that. I don't even care if it
was a tiertiary thought cause I almost never use it or need to.
Get over it - windows will never be as masterful a CLI based OS as Unix.
Why? Cause it doesn't try to or want to be!
Your argument sounds like: That fire hose isn't a very good straw even
though you can suck some water fromit. Ummm. DUH!
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
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