Linux-Advocacy Digest #420, Volume #25 Sun, 27 Feb 00 22:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: Busy sites Re: Windows 2000: flat sales (Jim Richardson)
Re: IE on UNIX (Jim Richardson)
Re: Enemies of Linux are MS Lovers ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? ("Jeffrey B. Siegal")
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? ("Jeffrey B. Siegal")
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? ("Mark Christensen")
Re: IE on UNIX (Craig Kelley)
Re: IE on UNIX (Craig Kelley)
Re: 3 out of 4 PCs do not need browsers (Craig Kelley)
Re: Giving up on NT - Hmmm... ("Todd")
Re: Giving up on NT ("Todd")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: 28 Feb 2000 01:56:41 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Jeffrey B. Siegal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
:> We don't see companies write things like OpenSource word processors
: You mean StarOffice StarOffice doesn't exist? (yeah, I know SCSL isn't open
: source, but it is close).
I don't consider SCSL as open source, but there are nonetheless at
least 2 genuinely open source word processors: KWord and AbiWord.
More if you count LyX and KLyX (although it's a stretch calling these
"word processors," as they're really more accurately described as
front ends to LaTeX).
Joe
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Busy sites Re: Windows 2000: flat sales
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 17:32:17 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sun, 27 Feb 2000 16:27:20 -0500,
Drestin Black, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>
>"Anthony Ord" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> On Thu, 24 Feb 2000 18:25:09 -0500, "Drestin Black"
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >"Timothy J. Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> >news:893s51$cta$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> >> "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> >> |
>> >> |"Timothy J. Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> >> |news:891sae$a13$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> >> |> "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> >> |> |MS runs www.microsoft.com, one of the busiest sites in the world
>> >entirely
>> >> |> |off of NT.
>> >> |>
>> >> |> But can their 42 software download servers compete with the one
>> >> |> computer at ftp.cdrom.com?
>> >> |
>> >> |Well, when you consider that downloads at MS during peaks (release of
>IE4
>> >or
>> >> |IE5) far exceed that of anything cdrom.com has ever supplied, sure.
>> >>
>> >> What is Microsoft's record download volume for a day?
>> >> ftp.cdrom.com has had its own busy record breaking days, like when
>> >> Red Hat 6.1 was put up there for download.
>> >>
>> >
>> >I am trying to find the link for the date, but it was a 7.7 terrabyte
>day.
>> >Back in early '99
>>
>> This is - as far as I know - cdrom.com's record-breaking day
>> http://www.cdrom.com/press/wcarchive_milestone.phtml
>>
>
>so they finally had a single terrabyte day ...
>
>
On a single machine... How many machines does M$ take to hit
1TB/Day?
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: IE on UNIX
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 18:03:35 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sun, 27 Feb 2000 20:17:13 GMT,
Chad Myers, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>
>"Donovan Rebbechi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> On 27 Feb 2000 10:02:53 -0700, Craig Kelley wrote:
>>
>> >Oh please, Eric.
>> >
>> >If NTFS was so good, why NTFS5?
>>
>> You know the answer to that Craig. NTFS was real good, but NTFS5 is gonna
>> be even more good.
>
>Heh, you guys are such arrogant, hypocritical assholes.
>
>Why is there a need for Linux kernel 2.3.48? If everyone says Linux is
>so great, stable, reliable, etc. Why do they keep coming out with new
>versions?
>
>Because there's always room for improvement. NTFS is solid, stable, reliable,
>etc etc. However, there is room for improvement. New features, added
>reliability,
>added functionality to existing features.
>
>Whereas, with Ext2, which started this sub thread, a major overhaul is in
>need, thus the umpteen replacement filesystems in the work.
>
>Let the (market) fragmentation begin.
What you call fragmentation, we call choice, the terminology
difference is instructive...
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: alt.microsoft.sucks,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Enemies of Linux are MS Lovers
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 02:24:50 GMT
Hey there.
I am on a mac; can your gui work on one? And what is it called?
Matthias Warkus wrote:
> It was the Sat, 26 Feb 2000 22:55:21 GMT...
> ...and [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > -linux is free, and completely malleable. It is simply a matter of
> > time before an appealing GUI is placed on top of it to allow
> > neophytes to comfortably make use of it.
>
> We've got that GUI. Come and develop applications for it!
>
> www.gnome.org
>
> mawa
> --
> I think the OS market will rather be like the Maglite market than the
> Ford market.
> -- mawa
------------------------------
From: "Jeffrey B. Siegal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 18:31:46 -0800
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> >industry. There are a lot of problems with the current system, including both
> >the fact that there are vanishingly few financially successful software
> >publishers (basically only Microsoft),
>
> This is simply wrong. Here are some software companies that are profitable:
First, note that I said financially successful, not profitable. The
discinction is that a company can be profitable at a particular time, but
still not particularly successful over time. (Corel would be a good example.)
> * Microsoft ( as you mention )
> * Oracle ( fortune 100 company )
Oracle has a *huge* services business (in fact larger than the software
business by most measures). It is entirely unclear
> * Adobe ( not as wildly profitable as MS but still doing quite well )
> * Corel
These companies have both been inconsistenly profitable. I would guess that
Adobe has been profitable overall but I'm not sure about Corel.
> * ID Software ( small but wildly succesful )
> * Several small game companies
In fact games--for computers at least--are a really bad argument for the
financial success of software copyright. There are a very few successes in
games (small games companies like ID that are able to ship a hit without
giving all that back in duds), but mostly the game market is littered with
failures, including some very high profile money losers (such as 3DO both
before and after they exited the hardware business). It would not suprise me
if the game industry has been money-losing overall.
In game consoles, the record is better, but not because of copyright. In game
consoles the number of titles is artificially limited to by the console
vendors' control over "authorized developers," making it impossible to view
the software end of the business independently of the entire platform.
> > and the fact that most software is of
> >extremely poor quality.
>
> This is an entirely subjective statement.
It is largely, but not entirely subjective. I suspect that most people having
the necessary technical expertise to make such a judgement would agree. Do
you disagree? In fact there have been a few objective studies of the relative
quality of open source software compared to proprietary software. For
example, there was a study that fed random input into proprietary Unix
utilities and open source replacements to see if they would crash, and found
that the open source versions crashed less. Obviously this is not realistic
usage, but given the difficulty of objectively measuring software quality,
this seems like a reasonable way to look at such things as handling boundary
conditions. I think this used to be at
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/Dienst/UI/2.0/Describe/ncstrl.uwmadison/CS-TR-95-1268
but that link doesn't work any more.
Logically it seems pretty clear that the peer review and colaboration benefits
of open source should result in higher quality.
> A lot of people will play by the rules even if they know they can cheat
> and get away with it.
>
> One model the developers are effectively forced to panhandle for donations,
> the other way there's a legal obligation to pay up. A lot of people at least
> in the US ( I believe it's more than 50% ) will honor their legal obligations
> even if they can get away with dishonesty.
Interestingly, if this is what you are advocating, I suspect that we basically
agree (though others in this forum certainly would not). I find nothing wrong
with having a law that is mostly unenforcable, but exists to establish social
norms. At the same time the law does not excessively restrict the freedom of
people who choose to ignore it, and its distortion of the marketplace is
limited in those areas where it is sufficiently worthwhile for people to
ignore the law. The existince of illegal copies of software as important
competition for publishers is often an cites example of this.
------------------------------
From: "Jeffrey B. Siegal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 18:36:10 -0800
"Joseph T. Adams" wrote:
> The idea that ALL software should be collectively owned is not,
> because, aside from being patently absurd (most software is actually
> written and deployed in-house), it implies that force and/or fraud
> should be initiated against those who try to write software without
> contributing it to the public domain. Even if socialists could live
> with that notion, libertarians quite obviously could not.
I'm not aware of any free software or open source supporter who advocates the
idea that it should be the case that software written in-house must be
distributed externally. Free software and open source is about what happens
after the software is distributed. I suspect a strict libertarian position
would be that software authors are responsible for their own profitability by
using technical anti-piracy measures, contracts, or non-distribution-based
revenue models such as sponsorship, and should not rely on state
protection/subsidy in the form of copyright. But I can't really say since I'm
not particularly a libertarian.
------------------------------
From: "Mark Christensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 02:38:29 GMT
Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Sat, 26 Feb 2000 14:31:55 +0800, witra wrote:
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi) wrote:
> >>snip...
> >>The existence of *free* software is a public good. But I don't see why
> >>developers should be forced to give up the fruits of their labor. Noone
> >>else is expected to freely give away their productive labor on the
grounds
> >>that it's a "public good".
> >>snip...
> >
> >Perhaps "share" might be a better word than "give away"?
>
> Perhaps.
There is no doubt in my mind that share is a better word for the act in
question. "Give away" implies that the origonal owner no longer has access
to the item, which in this case is entierly false.
> Still , the notion that anyone is obliged to share anything has
> no place under the assumptions of capitalism.
Capitalism does not stand opposed to civic duty, at least not clasical
capitalism. The kind espoused by Ayn Rand is another story. Manditory
military service is a longstanding practice of many capitalist countries.
Civilized countries also requires that we "share" public spaces (even ones
which are privately owned, like malls and restaraunts) with minorities.
>Only if you're prepared to
> forgo those assumptions and capitalism itself are you in a position to
> suggest that sharing should be mandatory.
You keep saying this, but it seems to me to beg the question. Perhaps you
could define the "basic assumptions of capitalism itself" and explain how
they mandate a belief in the sanctity of intellectual property in all of its
current forms. Otherwise capitalism is much too vague a term to be used
with any precision in a debate like this one. And it will function to do
nothing more than mask the real areas of disagreement, and cloud the logic
of both sides.
--
Mark Christensen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
People understand me so little that they do not even understand me when I
complain of being misunderstood.
--Kierkegaard
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: IE on UNIX
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 27 Feb 2000 19:44:09 -0700
"Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > And, if ext2 is so wonderful, why are there 5 projects going for next
> > > generation filesystems?
> >
> > Oh please, Eric.
> >
> > If NTFS was so good, why NTFS5?
>
> Are there 5 new versions of NTFS in the works?
>
> The original poster was insinuating that ext2 was all anyone needed. NTFS5
> is really just an enhancement, ext3 and the like are pretty much completely
> new filesystems.
You can mount ext3 filesystems with an ext2 module; it isn't a
completely new filesystem.
> > I doubt it. They want people to pay for upgrades, which is why USB
> > and DirectX>3 are missing in NT4.
>
> No, USB requires WDM support, since it's built on the WDM code that MS wrote
> for Windows 98. A totally new driver model is not something just patch into
> an OS.
>
> DirectX probably could have been added, but again.. the hardware 3D was
> pretty low-level and wasn't just a simple patch.
>
> > > It's a chicken and egg scenario. At first they wouldn't move
> > > because there weren't very many 32 bit applications (in 1993-1995),
> > > so MS created Windows 95 to get users to move to a 32 bit OS so that
> > > developers would start writing 32 bit apps.
> >
> > Remember Win32s?
>
> What about it? It didn't work particularly well.
It shows that Win32 was in Windows 3.1; they didn't *need* to release
Windows 95 in order to facilitate it.
> > > Next, the reason was because NT couldn't support Win95 device
> > > drivers and hardware. So, MS created Win98 and Windows 2000 which
> > > merged device drivers. With Windows 2000, corporate users (which
> > > were the majority of Win9x's desktop sales) will likely be moving
> > > finally. For home users, Win2k is still much too complex, thus
> > > they'd probably stay with Win98, so MS needs an interim OS until
> > > Whistler ships (the so called consumer NT). That's Windows
> > > Millenium Edition.
> >
> > You give Microsoft too much credit. They want money, and you get that
> > by charging for bug fixes; pretty simple really, and not "evil" or
> > "bad" either.
>
> You seem to attribute anything they do to screwing their customers. The
> fact is one of the major reasons people did not move to NT was because of
> device support. You cannot deny that WDM was designed to help remove that
> obstacle.
I didn't say anything about screwing customers; I'm simply saying that
that's how Microsoft works. It seems to work just fine for them too.
> > NT5 was supposed to be this operating system. Windows98 was going to
> > be the last bugfix in the DOS line; then 98se came out, and now
> > Millenium will follow.
>
> Not everything that's planned get's done.
>
> > I wonder if they will call the final DOS version "Windows 2001" or
> > something along those lines.
> >
> > The simplist explanation is usually the correct one, after all.
>
> Then explain the existance of WDM, if not to get hardware vendors writing
> drivers that will work in NT?
They were already doing that anyway. 99% of the drivers available for
Windows 95 were also available for NT...(discounting USB, for obvious
reasons).
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: IE on UNIX
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 27 Feb 2000 19:45:29 -0700
"Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> "Donovan Rebbechi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > On 27 Feb 2000 10:02:53 -0700, Craig Kelley wrote:
> >
> > >Oh please, Eric.
> > >
> > >If NTFS was so good, why NTFS5?
> >
> > You know the answer to that Craig. NTFS was real good, but NTFS5 is gonna
> > be even more good.
>
> Heh, you guys are such arrogant, hypocritical assholes.
Hey, go back and read the thread. *I* was being sarcastic because
Eric was complaining that there are new filesystems for Linux.
[snip irrelevent post]
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.microsoft.sucks,alt.conspiracy.microsoft
Subject: Re: 3 out of 4 PCs do not need browsers
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 27 Feb 2000 19:48:31 -0700
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine) writes:
> Yeah, well, when Java works, it works well. Unfortunately,
> Netscape's version of Java -- on Linux / Redhat 6.1, anyway --
> seems to be somewhat less than stellar, and ends up going into
> an "infinite compute" loop.
>
> I do hope that Mozilla or Mnemonic have Java support, of some sort.
> Since I can get the source code, I have a fighting chance. :-)
No worries. Mozilla will (supposedly) allow you to use whatver jvm
you like (ie, the 100% pure Java jvm written by Blackd^h^h^h^h^hSun
Microsystems).
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
From: "Todd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Giving up on NT - Hmmm...
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 10:59:07 +0800
"Lars Tr�ger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Joseph, (why is it that only your messages don't get automatically
quoted?
> > :)
>
> He uses
>
> X-Newsreader: Mozilla/3.0 (compatible; StarOffice/5.1; OS/2)
>
> and you use
>
> X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600
>
> I've noticed this before, for some reason OE has problems with posts
> made with StarOffice. And before somebody (again) puts the blame on SO,
> no other newsreader seems to have these problems.
Actually, wasn't blaming anything. However, I did notice that Joseph's
message endings has some weird characters at the end of his line's which no
other posts have.
Hmmm... I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
-Todd
> Lars T.
------------------------------
From: "Todd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Giving up on NT
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 11:02:31 +0800
"Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Todd wrote:
> >
> > "Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > The real problem is that sony won't be able to show any real
performance
> > > gains when they make the PS3 (yes they have already published their
> > > plans for it!!). They hope to make the PS3's EmotionEngine2 around
100x
> > > faster than the original EE. Good luck is all I can say about that
since
> > > they will only have around 5 years to develop it. Just remember though
> > > that the reason why consoles have sold so much better to the public is
> > > that they are far easier to setup than any computer, even a mac.
> >
> > Actually, they could make console game engines a *billion* times faster
than
> > a PC for all they want, yet it still isn't going to provide the gaming
> > experience that a PC can...
> >
> > I just do *not* want to play a game at TV resolutions... Yeck.
> >
> > -Todd
> >
> > >
> > > Todd wrote:
> > > >
> > > > "Jim Frost" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > > Todd wrote:
> > > > > > So, 20 million polygons per second.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Now, take this into account: The *slowest* new Voodoo product
(the
> > > > voodoo4)
> > > > > > will do 333 *mega* pixels per second. That's the slowest. I'm
not
> > even
> > > > > > going to mention their other products capable of performing
*over*
> > the
> > > > > > *giga* pixel limit.
> > > > >
> > > > > This is an apples/oranges comparison. You're comparing polygons
to
> > the
> > > > fill
> > > > > rate.
> > > >
> > > > Hehe... I was wondering if someone was going to notice :)
> > > >
> > > > > I haven't been able to find polygon rates for the Voodoo4,
perhaps
> > > > > because it would not compare well to the GeForce (which has a 15M
> > polygon
> > > > > rate, still well below that of the PS2 although it's doing that
rate
> > with
> > > > T&L
> > > > > functionality too).
> > > >
> > > > Actually, the GeForce fill rate is about 540 million pixels per
> > second...
> > > > but that's with all of its 'special features'... whereas the PS2
goes
> > from
> > > > 75M polygons to just under 20M while using 'its' special features.
> > > >
> > > > Note also that polygons on TV resolution will probably have far
fewer
> > > > pixels per polygon than somebody running in 1024x768, for example.
> > > >
> > > > If the GeForce only had to render with a 240x160 pixel resolution,
it
> > would
> > > > probably blow away a PS2... which is while fill rates are generally
> > measured
> > > > in millions of pixels / sec... since the average size of polygons
would
> > > > change when the resolution changes. For a TV, it is fixed at a
very,
> > very
> > > > low resolution compared to even the lower resolution for most PC
> > games...
> > > > 640x480 (which, probably almost noone uses anymore) - I generally
play
> > in
> > > > 1024x768...
> > > >
> > > > -Todd
> > > > >
> > > > > jim
> > >
> > > --
> > > You say it's cool to be yourself,
> > > but you want me to be like you
> > > and that is not being myself
> > > http://digitalheresy.tripod.com
> Sony plans to use digital tv when it becomes mainstream. That will be a
> problem for computer gamers because digital tv can achieve the same
> resolutions that a computer monitor can. Then again with the standards
> feud I doubt it will become mainstream for another 5-10 years at which
> rate I will already have a 22' LCD for my Linux-based PC :)
How high can HDTV's go in terms of resolution? PC gamers are now pushing
1600x1280 with GeForce based cards... the new Voodoo's will go even
higher...
I find it hard to believe that HDTV's are going to have this kind of
resolution *and* be as clear as computer monitors need to be.
-Todd
> --
> You say that it is cool to be yourself
> But you want me to be like you
> And that is not being myself
> http://digitalheresy.tripod.com
------------------------------
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.advocacy) via:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
ftp.funet.fi pub/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
******************************
