Linux-Advocacy Digest #144, Volume #35 Tue, 12 Jun 01 00:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Mail Order Brides? Check this place out! (Dave Martel)
Re: What language are use to program Linux stuff? (mlw)
Re: More micro$oft "customer service" (Woofbert)
Re: A Browser is a Browser ("Paolo Ciambotti")
Re: The usual Linux spiel... (was Re: Is Open Source for You?) ("Chad Myers")
Re: More micro$oft "customer service" (Dave Martel)
Re: More funny stuff. ("Interconnect")
Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft ("Bill Todd")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("Christopher L. Estep")
Re: Windows XP Ushers in New Era of Communications (Colin Day)
Re: Argh - Ballmer ("Paolo Ciambotti")
Re: MS at it again (Colin Day)
Re: Windows makes good coasters ("Christopher L. Estep")
Re: Windows makes good coasters ("Christopher L. Estep")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dave Martel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mail Order Brides? Check this place out!
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:20:07 -0600
On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 01:50:40 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Has everything you need to know about "buying" the perfect Russian wife.
>These men are the hardcore losers and if you read some of the messages you'll begin
>to see why.
Hey, let's all chip in and get Aaron one!
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What language are use to program Linux stuff?
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 22:32:42 -0400
Bob Hauck wrote:
>
> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001 00:57:15 -0600, Robert Morelli
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > There was an opinion piece on OS opinion a few months ago about
> > why so few Linux developers use C++ rather than C. From the
>
> I think the biggest reason is that there hasn't been much portability
> between Unix C++ compilers, and GCC was behind the times. Those things
> are going away, but you still have issues of binary compatibility
> between libraries compiled with different compilers or even different
> versions of the same compiler.
That is a huge problem. I wish name mangling was part of the C++ spec.
>
> > responses, it was clear that a lot of Linux developers haven't
> > made an informed judgement about this. They just think C++
> > is "complicated" because they aren't willing to tax their lazy
> > brains enough to learn about object oriented programming, one of
> > the standard concepts in computer programming.
>
> No, they think C++ is complicated because it is. There's a _lot_ more
> in there than just OO. C++ has enough concepts in it to do about three
> regular languages. I use Python's OO features just fine, but still
> don't care for C++ all that much (although I do use it).
>
> Qt/KDE seem to use a fairly restricted subset of C++, BTW. Mostly only
> the OO features. "C with classes" if you will. That seems to be the
> safest thing to do as far as what compilers are out in the field.
C++ as "C with classes" is the sweetest languge. While it does require self
control, it makes software that is easier to follow and modify. It doesn't
suffer the pure obfuscation that OO enthusiats seem to like, yet it isn't a
complte roll your own environmnet as pure C would be.
>
> > This is probably part of the reason GNOME is progressing so slowly
> > despite having a rather large community of developers.
>
> Yes, implementing an OO design in a non-OO language is working harder
> than you need to. Been there, done that.
>
> --
> -| Bob Hauck
> -| To Whom You Are Speaking
> -| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: Woofbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: More micro$oft "customer service"
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 02:26:02 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Charles Lyttle
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Actually, I just heard about a new technology becomming available that
> > will allow a TV network or station to substitute objects in the
> > background of a movie or program. For instance, that can of Coke on
> > the
> > table can suddenly become a can of Pepsi...
> > --
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> That has been available for some time and there have been cases in court
> for doing just that. I think one was last New Year where a Pepsi
> billboard was placed over a Coke billboard in Times Square. Most have
> been at ball games where the broadcaster has placed adds over the ones
> that are posted around the ball park. Broadcasters have taken to buying
> blank panels in the park to have places to put their ads without being
> sued.
The owners of the programs where this is done own the programs (duh!)
and sell the ad space. The Times Square one is iffy.
But this is notthe same thing as Micorosft adding links to things on
other people's web pages.
--
Woofbert: Chief Rocket Surgeon, Infernosoft
email <woofbert at infernosoft dot com>
web http://www.infernosoft.com/woofbert
------------------------------
From: "Paolo Ciambotti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Browser is a Browser
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 19:40:16 -0700
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Ian Pulsford"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This crap the M$ is intending to introduce into browsing software is a
> greater threat to editorial comment than anything I can think of, short
> of facism. Browsing software was invented to display work that authors
> put on the web in html. Now I cannot trust that the work that I put on
> the web is that which I intended to publish. If I intend to publish a
> piece, and a microsoft product dynamically overwrites it with links, is
> it what I published (made public)? No it isn't!
Somebody elsewhere today questioned whether or not MSFT's alterations to a
webpage might constitute an unauthorized derivative work of copyrighted
material, which of course would be a copyright violation. There is a good
chance it could be, mainly because of the recent bastardization of the
copyright laws by publishers.
Suppose I take a photograph of the notable attendees at a Linux conference
like ESR and MadDog and Linus, and then post my copyrighted photo to the
web, and when you display it all the faces on the bodies have been
converted by your image viewer to the face of Bill Gates. That would
clearly be a violation of my copyright, and MSFT would get bitchslapped by
a federal court in a heartbeat. What smarttags would do to your web page
text is really not that different.
MSFT's defense will be that they've provided a mechanism for you, the
author, to defeat it. It'll just involve extra effort on your part to
protect your intellectual property from MSFT.
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: The usual Linux spiel... (was Re: Is Open Source for You?)
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 02:35:51 GMT
"Mark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <x1QU6.11547$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Chad Myers wrote:
> >
> >"Mark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> In article <EhLU6.13627$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Chad Myers
wrote:
> >> >
> >> >"Ayende Rahien" <don'[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> >news:9fvbkh$5n$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> >>
> >> >> "GreyCloud" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> >>
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> > LOL!! :-)) I was looking at the other companies' software lineup...
> >> >> > they'll recompile the same product for a new o/s and charge more for
it.
> >> >>
> >> >> It wouldn't surprise me at all.
> >> >> I just wonder how compelling 64bits really is, enough to make ISV
develop
> >> >> for it?
> >> >> Win64 info is still on its way to me, so I can't tell you if there is
> >> >> anything there that is good enough to make an ISV lock its product from
> >> >> IA32.
> >> >> Databases will certainly use it, and servers, I suppose, but other than
> >> >> that?
> >> >
> >> >Graphics or 3D apps? Anything that's heavily (x) intensive probably
> >> >will. (x) being IO, graphics, memory, etc.
> >> >
> >>
> >> ah, I can hear it all again - 640k is enough for anyone.
> >
> >huh? What does that have to do with anything?
> >
>
> See the Greycloud post for yet another reminder of 640k is enough
> for anyone. Aka why would anyone want 64bit systems, etc. etc.
>
> You can summarise it as "we don't support this so no-one will want it",
> as a kind of marketing mantra.
I still don't get where you got this from. No one is saying that
64-bit won't catch on eventually, we were just saying it won't
be immediate. Just like people didn't jump to 32-bit immediately.
Many of the first apps for Win95 were still 16-bit. It'll just take
awhile.
You guys are so jumpy. Anything you can say to be negative or bash,
you say it. It's quite unbecomming. Perhaps you should relax
and close the curtains for once. No, the black heliocopters won't
get you tonight.
-c
------------------------------
From: Dave Martel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: More micro$oft "customer service"
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:49:51 -0600
On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 01:25:29 GMT, Woofbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dave Martel
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:46:38 GMT, Woofbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, drsquare
>> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Well, it's not like they're being redirected there from my site, so
>> >> I'm not too concerned
>> >
>> >Unlike some people, I can look at this problem from more points of view
>> >than only my own. They may be redirected from my customers' web sites,
>> >so I am concerned.
>>
>> Personally I think this is all much ado about nothing,
>
>I'm amazed at how staunchly you defend nothing.
One for and one against hardly counts as a staunch anything.
>> "'That makes it a new work (and) you are not allowed to do that under
>> copyright law,' Gross said. While Gross said she would need to see the
>> Smart Tags in action to determine whether they cross the "derivative
>> work" threshold, she warned that Microsoft is, at the very least,
>> dancing dangerously close to the line.
>>
>> "And even if the Smart Tags don't violate copyright law, Gross said,
>> they could put Microsoft on the wrong side of regulations preventing
>> deceptive trade practices."
>>
>> <snip>
>
>Well, there you go. I guess itwas something after all.
It'll be fun to watch what happens, but legal or not you can be sure
that Microsoft's army of lawyers has already examined all the legal
angles and concluded they can delay any lawsuits until hell freezes
over.
------------------------------
From: "Interconnect" <mark###@logichip.com.au>
Subject: Re: More funny stuff.
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 13:23:02 +1000
Ayende Rahien <don'[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:9g2k9u$t05$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> "Edward Rosten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:9g2hce$1ga$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > In article <9fvdtv$2pt$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Ayende Rahien"
> > <don'[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/6174/com_lite.htm
> > >
> > > Just to note, I did 8 myself. The keyboard is just as good as ever.
But
> > > *damn* was it dirty.
> > >
> > > 6 & 9 & 11 are even more hilarious than the rest.
> >
> >
> > Might I reccomend the "Computer stupidities" page. It has many more liek
> > this. I can't remember the link, but I think google picks up on it
pretty
> > easily.
>
> http://rinkworks.com/stupid/
> Is this it?
>
> On first glance, this doesn't seem as funny, but I'll take a deeper look.
>
OMG this is so funny. I can see why so many people *need* Windows.
------------------------------
From: "Bill Todd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.arch,misc.invest.stocks
Subject: Re: The beginning of the end for microsoft
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 23:16:22 -0400
"Maynard Handley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <9fodg2$aeh$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Bill Todd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> I've been reading the followup to my message in bizarre amazement.
> Did no-one actually understand my point?
I did, and responded to it. I also understood some points others brought up
along the way, and responded to them.
> The issue is NOT "how do I back up the system and then restore it to the
> same or an equivalent system"?
> The issue is, imagine I have a system that I've used for 4 years. It has
> on it maybe two hundred app, perhaps twenty of them commercial, the rest
> free/shareware. The apps have installed shared libs in various places,
> prefs in various places, help files and dictionaries and file translator
> plugins in various places. In addition various pieces of hardware (NTSC
> capture card eg) have installed their crud in various places.
>
> I want to take this whole mess and have my new, four years later computer
> with substantially different internals (no serial, ADB, SCSI, but new USB
> and 1394) just work the same way.
>
> NOTHING you people are arguing about has any relevance to solving this
> problem. Giving me a fscking break---you think XCOPY from a win95 machine
> onto a new machine that comes with Win ME is going to have any useful or
> pleasant effect?
> Neither is Partition Magic in any way relevant to the problem.
You need to read more carefully. What I suggested in my original answer was
first to get a copy of your old system onto the new machine (which is where
XCOPY or PM *are* indeed useful), and then to install your new system over
it as an upgrade.
I don't have any experience with WinME, but I do know that one could install
upgrade versions of Win95 over Win3.1 and have it port over all user state
and applications to the new environment (well, I'm sure there may have been
exceptions that it had trouble with, but most of the environment *was*
ported over). Similarly for upgrading Win95 to Win98. I don't know what
Windows was doing under the covers during such activities, but I assume it
involved making judgements about the upward-compatibility of later versions
of its own DLLs and possibly accommodating non-upward-compatible elements by
allowing multiple versions of some DLLs to exist (in separate directories) -
plus possible special-casing for popular applications with other
idiosyncracies.
An additional wrinkle involved when moving the whole shebang to a new
machine might be upgrade-time requests for driver disks (I don't remember,
but this may have been true even when upgrading an existing machine). Of
course, newer versions of Windows ship with a pretty complete set of drivers
included for normal uses of common hardware, so in many cases this might not
be a problem anyway.
My main reservation (which I pointed out) was whether the OEM OS version one
obtains with a new machine would work as an 'upgrade' or instead insist on a
'clean' install - but that problem could be fixed for under $100 by buying a
upgrade version.
Neither is
> this boneheaded article that recommends separating your data onto a
> separate drive. Well duh---now how exactly does that help with my two
> hundred apps, installed drivers and DLLs etc?
>
> And the Linux crowd don't seem to have anything useful to ad either beyond
> "Windows sux". I've not read anything that indicates the problem is better
> on Linux. I could believe that some parts of the problems are
> easier---presumably PER USER prefs files are limited in how far they can
> go. But a linux box used as a personal box---what about all the apps? What
> about drivers installed after the OS? What about OS-wide prefs that you
> set?
Though I don't know squat about Linux, I guess it would surprise me if they
had put as much effort into making an OS upgrade easy as MS did: MS has
had, at least in the past, apparently significant profit motive to do so and
encourage people to purchase OS upgrades even if their equipment doesn't
change (remember the Win95 debut?).
Linux does seem to keep user-specific stuff better-segregated from the base
OS. This should make everything that is pretty independent of the machine
configuration (email comes to mind in this category - though MS may now keep
it in a user-specific area as well) easily portable by simple copying.
I know that if I were developing a Windows application I'd try to make sure
that it retained control of its own environment as much as possible (rather
than, e.g., using the Registry or public DLLs without real need) - but at
some point any application *has* to start dealing with the system and/or
public interfaces to other cooperating applications and I'm not sure that
any upgrade-transparent solutions exist for this that work well in all
cases. This may be one reason MS created the Registry: it's a place where
potentially intransigent problems can at least be centrally identified (and
possibly then dealt with on a case-by-case basis during an upgrade).
- bill
>
>
> Maynard
------------------------------
From: "Christopher L. Estep" <[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, 12 Jun 2001 03:14:29 GMT
"Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:7zST6.66643$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> "Christopher L. Estep" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:rHQT6.62133$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:v%vT6.6328$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> [snip]
> > > This I find quite surprising. As I understand it *only* Microsoft's
> > > Java compiler and VM can use WFC, because only they support
> > > MS's "delegates" feature, upon which WFC depends rather
> > > heavily.
> >
> > That is only because Symantec's Java machine (which Netscape licenses)
for
> > some strange reason does *not* support the WFC delegates feature (even
> > though Symantec could have done so, as they are one of WFC's creators).
>
> This seems rather weird to me. If Symatec thought
> highly enough of delegates to build WFC on them,
> why not support them in their own JVM?
>
> Perhaps MS insisted.
Microsoft *couldn't*. Symantec and Microsoft *jointly* own the major code
in the Windows Foundation Classes (and the Microsoft Foundation Classes from
which they sprung). Also, witness the fact that Visual Cafe, Symantec's
Java development toolset, supported MFC (in fact, it supported MFC before
Microsoft's own Visual J++ did) in addition to JavaBeans
>
> > > Nor do I see how WFC could benefit DB/2 Universal. I
> > > understand that one could write a Java program that
> > > emits a DB/2 database file, but I don't see why you'd
> > > want to, or why using WFC would make that easier.
> >
> > To mirror the same functionality provided by Enterprise JavaBeans (which
> > Sun, among others, has been hawking) but in a more memory-efficient
> manner.
>
> Oh, I misunderstood you. But I don't see what
> in WFC would be useful for this purpose..
>
> ... well, except one thing. Delegates would be
> a nice way to do some things JavaBeans do, or
> at least MS says so.
>
> Does IBM's Java VM support delegates?
>
> [snip]
> > > Why not? So far you've claimed that MS partnered with others
> > > to produce MFC and WFC, but this hardly suggests that it would
> > > have been prohibitively difficult to do it themselves.
> >
> > I'm not saying that it would have been prohibitively difficult; I'm
simply
> > saying it wouldn't have made smart business sense. Also, there was
> already
> > a hue and cry (largely from IBM) about Microsoft's development tools
being
> > Windows-only (at the time this was going on, Windows 95 was in
> development,
> > and if you were talking about 32-bit Windows, you were referring to NT).
>
> That seems a rather strange thing for IBM to cry about. Why
> should anyone expect Microsoft to product development
> tools for other platforms?
>
> > The core MFC creators/licensees (Microsoft and Symantec) also licensed
MFC
> > to other development tool creators (Borland, Powersoft, Sybase, and IBM,
> > among others).
>
> Were any of them dumb enough to actualy use it? :D
>
> I know Borland came up with their own thing, at least.
Borland also licensed MFC (for both Delphi and Visual dBase). You could go
in either direction (decidedly so in Delphi; I built both MFC-based and
non-MFC based databases entirely in Delphi).
>
> > > Who knows? MFC might have sucked less had MS done it
> > > entirely on their own. :D
> >
> > Symantec was part of MFC from the beginning. In fact, Central Point
> > Software used Symantec development tools to create PC Tools for Windows.
>
> If you say so. I was speculating about what might
> have been, that's all.
>
> > Microsoft was also sensible enough to realize that some developers
didn't
> > want any part of Microsoft development tools for reasons having nothing
to
> > do with their quality (or perceived lack of it). Microsoft concentrated
> > mostly on the higher-order languages (C++, Cobol. Fortran, etc.).
>
> I am having difficulty thinking of a development tools
> vendor that does not do that. Though most don't promote
> BASIC. :D
For a long time, Sybase didn't promote C++ (and it largely still doesn't
today, though it acquired Powersoft, who had the long-acknowledged king of
the non-MS C++ compilers, Watcom C++, in its arsenal).
Exactly how much do you hear about Sybase and C++ today? (Powersoft and
Watcom, which Powersoft bought in the early 1990s, are
class-library-agnostic as companies, and licensed both ObjectWindows and
MFC.) Watcom C++, even with MFC, was known for producing tighter code than
Microsoft's own compiler. (Even Microsoft doesn't dispute this.)
>
> > It took
> > Windows 95 for Microsoft to release Visual Basic upon an unsuspecting
> > planet.
>
> I'm sure there were 16-bit versions of VB. Didn't
> they predate 1995?
Yes. And by and large they *stunk*. Worse, you could get decent C++
compilers (not only Borland C++, but even the largely MFC-driven Watcom C++)
for less than VB cost.
>
> I was under the impression that OCX controls
> were an effort to 'clean up' VBX controls and make
> them language-neutral and 32-bit compatible.
The biggest use for OCXes is in connecting VB programs (and later, C++
programs) to databases smaller than SQL Server or other similarly large
databases without the need for still largely unwieldy ODBC drivers.
However, OCXes need not be written in a high-order language (I've written
three myself entirely in Delphi, and other have written far more). You can
also write OCXes for SQL databases as well, but an OCX is even more unwieldy
for a SQL database than an ODBC driver is.
>
> [snip]
> > > Yes, but MS can handle the development tool end of it
> > > *themselves*. They cannot handle more than a small fraction
> > > of the applications.
> >
> > True, they *could* handle it all themselves. They now have development
> > tools *across* the spectrum of tool users (newbies to enterprise). But
> why
> > *do* it alone if you don't have to?
>
> Mostly to keep all the goodies on your own platform,
> I should think.
However, you pointed out that MS *couldn't* handle more than a small
fraction of the apps. The rest of those applications needed to be
developed, and also, for various reasons, needed non-MS development tools.
Hence the efforts of Watcom and Symantec (and later Sybase).
Christopher L. Estep
------------------------------
From: Colin Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Windows XP Ushers in New Era of Communications
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 19:21:46 -0400
drsquare wrote:
> >I'm still hoping that the appeals court will come through soon,
> >essentially supporting en toto the conviction and remedy, and Linux
> >desktops will be *the* Christmas gift to give in 2001!
>
> Yeah, but if you did that everyone would think you were a cheapskate!
SuSE 7.1 Professional is about $70 US. Besides, one could always include
some Linux games as well.
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: "Paolo Ciambotti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Argh - Ballmer
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:21:09 -0700
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "The Ghost
In The Machine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I would submit that software developed with tax dollars should be
> copyrighted, much like any other software. Granted, one might require
> that the copyright comes with a rider clause requiring that everyone can
> use this software and have free access to the source code thereof; this
> is somewhat like GNU in that respect.
Unfortunately, the federal government can't copyright anything. And that
would include GPL'ing it.
"17 USC §105, Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works:
Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the
United States Government, but the United States Government is not
precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by
assignment, bequest, or otherwise."
A lot of the federally funded stuff gets released into the public domain
without any protection whatsoever. It doesn't get copyrighted by
somebody else, due to the provable lack of originality, but the material
can be cited in a patent application without fear of infringement.
And we should all know by now how wonderful software patents are.
------------------------------
From: Colin Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: MS at it again
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 19:32:36 -0400
Larry Rosen wrote:
>
> AT&T FILES SUIT AGAINST MICROSOFT - [The Wall Street Journal, B18.] AT&T
> claims in a lawsuit that Microsoft is distributing software programs through
> its Windows operating systems in violation of a patent AT&T holds on a
> digital speech coder. AT&T contends Microsoft's TrueSpeech program, which
> decodes voice signals, and its NetMeeting program, which allows users to
> hold video and audio conference calls over the Internet, infringe a speech-
> coding patent issued to AT&T in 1984. The programs are included in
> Microsoft's current version of Windows for consumers, Windows Me, and
> Microsoft's Windows NT Internet information server. AT&T maintains it
> notified Microsoft in April 1999 that the software giant was infringing
> AT&T's patent. Although AT&T has offered to license the patent, Microsoft
> has refused a licensing arrangement, the suit claims. The suit, filed
> Monday in Manhattan federal court, seeks a permanent injunction barring
> Microsoft from "continued acts of infringement" and an unspecified amount in
> damages. AT&T also seeks an assessment from the court that Microsoft
> willfully infringed AT&T's patent, which would triple damages under federal
> statutes. [Print, wire, broadcast and online coverage elsewhere.]
>
Is a patent still for 17 years? If so, Microsoft could have just waited
till
the end of the year.
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: "Christopher L. Estep" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows makes good coasters
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 03:33:19 GMT
"drsquare" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2001 01:12:08 -0400, in comp.os.linux.advocacy,
> ("JS \\ PL" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) wrote:
>
> >"Chad Everett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> >> >> >[a lot of troll-shit snipped]
> >> >> >
> >> >> >Guys, Steve here is obviously trolling.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >> Yes, crashing out of X-Windows back to a console is pretty
routine.
> >>
> >> Of course, that is an outright lie.
> >
> >Come on. It's usually the first experience people have with X Windows.
> >Watching X crash back to a console prompt that is.
>
> Whereby you can simply type "startx" to get going again. Meanwhile,
> the Windows user has to restart the entire OS!!!!
That depends on how bad X crashed. In most *modern* cases, when X falls
down, even "startx" won't get it going again (notice that XFree86 V.4.x now
has a Unified Server Architecture for accelerated hardware (and NVidia, in
order to get their GeForce cards to run right, *had* to write a proprietary
X server) with minidrivers, ala *DirectX* in MS Windows).
Christopher L. Estep
------------------------------
From: "Christopher L. Estep" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows makes good coasters
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 03:41:04 GMT
"drsquare" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2001 14:18:55 GMT, in comp.os.linux.advocacy,
> ("Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) wrote:
>
> >> > >> >> Yes, crashing out of X-Windows back to a console is pretty
routine.
> >> >
> >> > Of course, that is an outright lie.
> >>
> >> Come on. It's usually the first experience people have with X Windows.
> >> Watching X crash back to a console prompt that is.
> >
> >No, the FIRST experience is editing that rediculous config file and
> >trying to get your drivers and the clock rate and the resolution and
> >all the other parameters set correctly.
>
> Well, you must have done something severely wrong. Whenever I set X
> up, it installs and configures all by itself, no drivers needed.
> Windows on the other hand requires delving into the big pile of
> floppies looking for obscurely placed drivers just to get out of
> 640x480 mode.
What version of Windows (and what hardware) forced you into that sort of
grief?
Since Windows 95, I have *once* had to download new video drivers for a
particular video card I've owned (ATI Rage for Windows NT 4) and *those*
were included with Service Pack 4.
With *every* version of Windows since, the drivers were either included with
the OS, or included with the hardware.
My curent video card (ATI All-In-Wonder RADEON) *requires* XFree86 4.x to
work *at all* in Linux; and the acceleration is *still* broken with regard
to VIA Apollo Pro 133A AGPsets.
Windows XP *included* basic drivers, and the card's *Windows 2000* drivers
(included with the card) are even better.
Christopher L. Estep
------------------------------
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