Incoming from Andrew Graupe: > s. keeling wrote: > > > >- I won't have to throw away my machine when my vendor releases a new > > version of his product. I upgrade on my schedule, not his. > > Why would you now? Do you mean a new version of Windows?
That's what I meant but it can happen with any software. Given the range of choices in free software, this is far less likely to happen. When NT 4.0 came out, a whole bunch of hardware was instantly obsoleted; NT no longer bothered to support them and NT drivers for them didn't exist. That sort of thing doesn't happen with free software. If something ever becomes supported, you can pretty much expect it will always be supported. > >- The software I use isn't a magnet for malware. > > It will be soon, but that will all be fixed due to its free nature. Irrelevant. The huge number of viruses and worms designed to attack Windows is not due to the ubiquitous installed base of Windows. It's due to Windows' pathetic security model. If all the virus writers changed over to writing free software based viruses, the number of owned systems would not go through the roof overnight. It would inconvenience the Lindows crowd who are ignorant enough to login and do everything as root. The proof of this is the number of exploits out there for IIS vs. apache. Apache's installed base is much bigger than IIS, yet it's IIS that's been repeatedly cornholed over the years. MS' security model sucks. > >- I essentially own my software. You are licenced to run X number of > > copies of your software on Y number of systems supporting Z number > > of users. > > <sarcasm>I would NEVER directly disobey a EULA. That would be > unethical</sarcasm> It is unethical. It's theft. There are few things I hate more than watching software professionals run pirated code. I met a guy just the other day who owns NO legally obtained commercial software. He offered me a cracked version of a commercial firewall in case I wanted to boot to Windows and put it on the net. I told him no thanks; the only reason WinME is on this thing is in case Dell wants to know if potential problems I have with the hardware are really hardware or just software based. I never boot my WinME. Why would I? > I am a steadfast linux user. I find it offensive that you would refer > to commercial software authors as "mine". [snip] > > Some things improve. FS2004 was a huge improvement over FS2002. Just > because you pick examples of the worst proprietary software, doesn't When you lie with dogs, you get fleas. :-) Just to be clear, I'm not condemning "proprietary software." I own a copy of Applix. I've bought lots of commercial software over the years. I have no problem whatever with people selling the fruits of their efforts. I'm condemning MS and Windows. They're the ones with the predatory business practices, the proprietary file formats, and their "embrace and extend" vendor lock-in development and marketing. That they do all that with shoddy software is just another nail in their coffin for me. > >- The fact that it _never_ shoots itself in the head _is expected > > behaviour_, not simply an added benefit. > > Gentoo (etc-update, specifically), nearly made my system unbootable. It > was easy to fix, but a bit of a headache. Could someone explain why it > would be set to overwrite /etc/fstab with a copy that is SURE not to work? Ask Gentoo? Anytime I've installed Linux, when the installer says it's time to reboot, I always get to another console and look around, making sure what it's done is sane. Why wouldn't you? It's just a complicated hammer, after all. It's not artificial intelligence. It's unrealistic to think that in systems as complex as this, things are not going to fall through the cracks from time to time. That's what we're here for; to provide the human element, and to sign off on the result. And to make choices. :-) I choose not to use crappy software from unethical distributors, no matter how pretty it is, especially when those distributors act like MS has over the years. -- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. (*) http://www.spots.ab.ca/~keeling - - _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca
