David Fotland wrote:
It irks me a little that Linux people refuse to consider porting their
programs to Windows :) With cygwin, it's pretty easy to port Linux
programs. Since these programs work on CGOS they have a gtp interface, so
they don't even need cygwin. Just recompile using gcc and use a free GTP
windows GUI. It's pretty trivial.
Not trolling for flames, just expressing an opinion. If someone is not
willing to put in one day effort to port from Linux to Windows, why should
they expect anyone else to put in one day effort to make Linux available as
a platform? It seems Linux people are just as chauvinistic as Windows
people :)
This is not the case however. Windows in the dominate desktop OS and
as a result it has become like societies dominated by one race - they
tend to call the shots and dismiss the needs of the "other" - it seems
to be what human beings gravitate to. If Linux was the dominant OS
you would see it working the opposite way and the Windows users would be
dismissed as irrelevant. I'm not commenting on the morality of the
users of each system - just a statement of how things are.
You would never see a tournament set up such as this with only Linux
machines and with the requirement that windows users must bring their
own machines. Even though many Windows user assume that only Windows
is important, Linux users don't make that assumption - we are used to
living in your world, so to speak, even if we feel our OS is superior.
I don't fault anyone for believe they work with the best OS, whatever
that may be, but it irks me when they show the dismissive attitude.
Even though you attached a smiley face to your first statement, it
basically reveal the attitude of most Windows users, the belief that
everyone else should accommodate them. Of course it doesn't matter
if the price must be paid several times by the Linux people. One
person could set up the memory stick solution 1 time, or you could
require EACH and every Linux person to do the port to a system they may
not understand that well. That's where the chauvinism comes in,
it probably seems like a perfectly reasonable solution to require
several people to do work instead of just one when it's not YOU
required to do the work. That's chauvinism.
I noticed that a LOT of programmers have been able to distribute BOTH a
windows and linux version of their program. I see this with Chess and
GO. I very strongly suspect that in most cases, if BOTH versions
are available you will find that the developer is a Linux programmer -
not a Windows programmer. I know there are a few exceptions to this,
but the general mentality of many Windows programmers is not such that a
Linux version is likely to happen.
Just one last thing to give you a sense of where I am coming from. A
while back I had a network problem and called up my service provider to
see if there was an outage or whether I had some problem in my own
configuration. The guy wanted to help me fix it and started
hammering me with questions, such as "is the modem plugged in",
etc. Probably working from some default troubleshooting list he was
trained to use, he asked me to do some Windows thingy, "please click
your mouse on the control panel ..."
I told him my computer was running Linux. He asked me, "what's linux?"
I informed him that it was a different operating system and then he
immediately blurted out gleefully, "Well that's your problem!!!" The
genius on the other end thought he had solved the problem and suggested
that I go out and purchase windows and then it would work. Of course
I remained cool, and even saw some humor in this. This poor sucker
was another victim of the whole marketing propaganda machinery of the
Microsoft Corporation, and probably believed that Bill Gates invented
the internet. He was certainly ignorant of the fact that the
internet is Unix based and "windows connectivity" is an oxymoron.
Throughout the years I have always had problems with service providers
and the internet. My connection has always worked just find on Linux
boxes, but there was one case where I had to argue with a DSL provider
to get him to sell me the DSL connection - he was 99% sure it just
wouldn't work on Unix. So David, this is what I mean by chauvinism
- not a moral statement but a general uphill battle that Windows users
don't know a thing about. A basic ignorance and unwillingness to
yield that we have had to fight from time to time. Despite what you
may think, it can't just be dismissed with a hand wave and by saying
we are the ones unwilling to yield.
- Don
David
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:computer-go-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Don Dailey
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 9:18 AM
To: computer-go
Subject: Re: [computer-go] Computer Go tournament at EGC, Leksand,
Sweden
Erik van der Werf wrote:
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 3:53 PM, Nick Wedd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Steenvreter no yes
Hi Nick,
I never said yes. At this point it is rather unlikely that
Steenvreter
will participate. Steenvreter only runs on linux. Since the machines
in Leksand run windows and remote computation is not allowed (which
is
funny considering the tournament is on KGS) I pretty much have to be
present myself.
That always irks me when I hear this kind of thing. The world is
basically windows "chauvinistic" and it's common to find little
consideration given to any other platform.
Did you know that you can create your own linux environment without
having to "touch" the machine you will be using? My wife has her own
windows machine that she doesn't want me "touching", but I have a
complete linux install via an external hard drive that leaves her
machine "untouched." Although the install is specific to that
machine, it is easy to build "universal" setups that will boot on any
modern PC into Linux, without touching the hard drive of that
machine. This would require that you bring a memory stick of some
kind or perhaps an external USB hard drive. You can get big ones
really cheap now, and they are very compact. You plug it into the
USB port and then boot into Linux.
In my opinion, the tournament organizers should do this for you and the
other potential Linux participants since Linux is becoming more and
more
popular and apparently it is already very popular with Go
programmers. There are several possibilities for setting up
machines
that could use either Windows or Linux that would not require major
effort on their part - just one good Linux guy helping them.
I also feel for the Mac people and also people that have built programs
that run on networks of workstations or other potential supercomputer
programs that would not be able to participate.
- Don
I did not find cheap flights for a short visit and I
probably won't have time to attend the EGC for a full week, also
housing seems to be getting difficult.
So for now better assume that Steenvreter will *not* participate in
Leksand.
Erik
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