Linux-Advocacy Digest #715, Volume #25 Mon, 20 Mar 00 18:13:08 EST
Contents:
Re: What are the limitations of using Linux on your server (if there is one)?
("Drestin Black")
Re: Another Box Dominated by Linux! ("Drestin Black")
Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic) (Stefan Ohlsson)
Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic) (Stefan Ohlsson)
Re: Linux Virus Info Enclosed (mlw)
Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic) (Stefan Ohlsson)
Re: seeUthere.com switches from Linux to Windows DNA for Web site ("Mr. Rupert")
Re: LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY (Ilya Grishashvili)
Re: C2 question (B1 on Linux & Free B1) ("Drestin Black")
Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic) (George Marengo)
Re: Producing Quality Code (mr_organic)
Re: Producing Quality Code (mlw)
Re: Giving up on NT (Bob shows his lack of knowledge yet again) (George Marengo)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What are the limitations of using Linux on your server (if there is one)?
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:22:20 -0500
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:8b5pro$mks$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> My company is planning on hosting roughly 200 web sites on a single
> Linux box (I am unsure as to which flavor), using Apache server. The
> server will have roughly between 500 megs ~ 1 gig of memory. These
> sites will by dynamic and primarily database driven on a separate
> server which will be using MYSQL as the back end and Perl to access the
> data. Is this a feasible notion, can a single Linux box coupled with a
> database server with the previous stats be capable of hosting and
> handling approximately 200 dynamic web sites?
Nope.
(besides, I've heard you could run that on a 486 with 4 megs of ram and a
EDSI drive right?)
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Another Box Dominated by Linux!
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:23:52 -0500
it took you 2 hours to install Linux?
Shit, using a network push I install W2K pro including all of Office 2000
pro in about 15 minutes all configured to fire up with DHCP and a user name.
Put machine into suspend mode and have it wake by lan all from Active
Directory. Yawn...
"Nico Coetzee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I just dumped my last NT box for Linux!
>
> W H A T A R U S H ! !
>
> NT crashed after the registry grew out os it's allotted 11MB! Can you
> believe it... I thought the OS should at least warn before kicking the
> bucket. Obviously that did not happen.
>
> Luckily I had my Profile on a VFAT partition (I was dual booting with 95
> previously) so I could backup everything and easily migrate to Linux.
>
> Interesting facts:
>
> How long did it take me to install NT complete with all my apps and do
> all configurations? About two days (a weekend).
>
> How long did a similar Linux install took? Under two hours!
>
> I'm a bit scheptic, but M$'s W2K must really rock before I ever touch a
> M$ box again (home environment).
>
> Cheers all!
>
> Nico
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefan Ohlsson)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic)
Reply-To: Stefan Ohlsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 20 Mar 2000 23:34:59 +0100
John Sheehy wrote:
>In message <8b33ap$gfl$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>"Stephen S. Edwards II" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote :
>
>>I often wonder why AmigaDOS was never considered for an embedded solution.
>>I mean, it's tiny, runs on 68000 hardware (which is still a very popular
>>architecture for some applications, (please, no Z80 vs. 68k arguments :-),
>>and it's awfully fast.
>
>Perhaps it offers little or nothing, and is therefore bloat, in an
>embedded environment.
>
For an embedded system I agree that AmigaOS is a bit big. However,
exec (the AmigaOS multitasking kernel) by itself is beautifully slim
and would fit nicely. Exec, for those who don't know, runs the basic
multitasking system with exception handling, message passing, semaphores,
memory/library/device management and other small goodies. It's small and
it's fast.
/Stefan
--
[ Stefan Ohlsson ] � http://www.mds.mdh.se/~dal95son/ � [ ICQ# 17519554 ]
Ace: If I'm not back in five minutes... just wait longer!
/Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefan Ohlsson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic)
Reply-To: Stefan Ohlsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 20 Mar 2000 23:41:27 +0100
abraxas wrote:
>In comp.os.linux.advocacy Stephen S. Edwards II <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Could you be more specific? After, one thing I can think of that AmigaDOS
>> has is a built-in GUI engine. Would this not be useful in an embedded
>> environment?
>It would indeed not be useful in most modern embedded environments, which
>include specialized console managers, robotics command queue programming
>and management, fuel injection systems (petrol to rocket), etc. The majority
>of embedded systems do not exist inside the home.
>
For realtime systems AmigaOS won't do the trick as it isn't a realtime kernel.
(Neither, of course, is Linux, Solaris, NT/W2000/98/95, etc, etc)
/Stefan
--
[ Stefan Ohlsson ] � http://www.mds.mdh.se/~dal95son/ � [ ICQ# 17519554 ]
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux Virus Info Enclosed
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:41:30 -0500
Drestin Black wrote:
>
>
> making it up as you go along ... so like you...
Like what? Have any examples where I have made anything up? I have been
wrong a couple times, and I have admitted it, I doubt you can say the
same. Given a balance, my right/wrong ration is about 99% right, with
occasional human error. I have never tried to mislead or lie here.
> is windows 95 really as current as you get? it's YOUR .sig - I didn't make
> it up - but it sounds belivable
There is little or no difference between 95 and 98. I have not bothered
to even look at my sig in over a year, for you, I have changed it. BTW I
am very current, just not impressed.
--
Mohawk Software
Windows 9x, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
Visit http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefan Ohlsson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic)
Reply-To: Stefan Ohlsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 20 Mar 2000 23:45:48 +0100
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>AmigaDOS's GUI-engine was based on heavily proprietary (albeit
>fairly-well documented) hardware. Parts of it might be
>extractable, but the Intuition display was quite dependent
>on the various Coprocessor(s) -- one of which was the Blitter,
>a (relatively) fast data mover.
>
Have a look at AROS, www.aros.org for a really interesting project regarding
the extraction of AmigaOS from its original hardware and more.
>It was a beautiful design, all around, for its time. Sigh. :-)
>
Still is :)
>I'm not sure where the hardware design is now, though. Last I heard,
>Gateway had it...or was it a firm in Germany?
>
AFAIK Gateway still holds it, but has licensed the patents to another
company with Amiga-"fanatics" wanting to make THE new Amiga. Will it
work this time? Only time will tell :)
/Stefan
--
[ Stefan Ohlsson ] � http://www.mds.mdh.se/~dal95son/ � [ ICQ# 17519554 ]
Distephano: I thought you were dead!
Ripley: Yeah, I get that a lot.
/Alien: Resurrection
------------------------------
From: "Mr. Rupert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: seeUthere.com switches from Linux to Windows DNA for Web site
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 16:46:27 -0600
Drestin Black wrote:
>
> "Mr. Rupert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >
> >
> > Drestin dear boy, think for a minute what the above URL contains...
> > It contains the domain, 'microsoft.com'.
> >
> > I will hand you this, you are the laziest corporate shill fudster
> > I have ever come across on USENET.
> >
> > --
>
> So, the facts are accurate but you are taking me to task because I was lazy
> and didn't wait for this to be reposted elsewhere and give that URL. I can
> live with that.
I wouldn't know whether the facts are accurate or not since I have not, and
will not, read MS sites for information.
Although, there are two MS sites I do like:
http://www.microsoft.com/dancing_baloney/
http://www.microsoft.com/smoke_n_mirrors/
--
Mr Rupert
------------------------------
From: Ilya Grishashvili <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 14:48:41 -0800
Sorry, Tim, I was in a very bad mood a couple of hours ago.
--
================================================
Ilya Grishashvili
Computer Systems Group
Ph.D. CS Department
Marlan & Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering
University of California, Riverside
Office: Bourns Hall B246
Phone: (909) 787-2893
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: mirage.cs.ucr.edu/~elias/
================================================
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: C2 question (B1 on Linux & Free B1)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:41:32 -0500
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8b67ho$1ds$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Argus will also be launching a new program called the Argus Revolution
> that will be giving away free non-commercial licenses to our PitBull
> product. These licenses are currently available for Sparc and x86. We
> will be officially launching this program at SANS and during the first
> Bay Area PitBull Users Group (BAPUG - www.bapug.org). Information on
> the Revolution will be found at http://www.argusrevolution.com/
> Using PitBull allows individuals to protect their home systems from
> attack and can change your chance of system wide penetration due to
> application exploits from 99% to almost 0%.
Sounds like products like BlackICE Defender...
------------------------------
From: George Marengo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 22:51:36 GMT
On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 14:13:22 -0600, Tim Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>George Marengo wrote:
>>
>> On 20 Mar 2000 08:31:43 +0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Terry
>> Porter) wrote:
<snip>
>> >But dont listen to me, tell us why MS is NOT utter crap ???
>>
>> Are you starting to get confused already? The issue isn't whether
>> "MS is NOT utter crap" but whether everything from MS is utter crap.
>
>Well, that assertion is more or less personal, and has little to
>do with stability, security and the usual issues.
Yes, a personal issue with Microsoft that clouds judgement about
their individual products.
>Though most of M$' stuff is insecure and unstable.
I don't find it to be any more insecure or unstable than similar
products. For instance, Netscape on Linux has been far more
unstable for me than InternetExplorer on WindowsNT. I find
Access to be faster and more stable than Paradox.
>Then there's the release churning just to drive profits.
They do release churning on products that they give away;
e.g., MoviePlayer and InternetExplorer.
>Incompatibilities. Sometimes different apps, both from MS,
>will break each other or break windows.
True.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mr_organic)
Subject: Re: Producing Quality Code
Date: 20 Mar 2000 22:15:08 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:38:12 -0300, mr_organic pronounced:
>> As readers of my previous rants probably know by now, I have emarked
>> on something of a Jihad against sloppy programming. The target of my
>
><long rant cut>
>
>I was wondering, you talk a lot about programming, but you don't mention
>design methodology at all. Now, do you ever abstract from the programming
>level? If so, what methodology do you use?
>
I tend to be quite old-fashioned in this respect; I start with a Proposal,
move on to a Preliminary Spec, get feedback, refine the spec, move on to
the Design Document (which is usually composed of *many* smaller documents),
and then code from the Design Documents. We tend also to make use of UML
and ER diagramming tools (although I feel that these tools often obscure
rather than illuminate the problem at hand).
I've had some Federal projects I've worked on go through five or six
spec/design document revisions before a line of code was written. I'm not
saying this is the best way to do it, but it does tend to focus the mind
on what is necessary.
I also encourage my programmers to write pseudocode before doing the
real thing (and I mean *pseudocode*, not real code disguised as
pseudocode). We do a lot of code-reviews, and on a democratic level; my
code receives the same treatment as anyone else's. I'm a stickler
for coding correctly, too; I've made people re-code things that worked
but were coded badly.
>
>A lot of people in the open source community seem to believe that software
>design is equivalent to coding ("hacking"). What happened to the distinction
>concept / algorithm / code? Where can a find a high-level, but *formal*,
>specification of, say, Linux?
>
>Francis.
>
I'm sure a high-level specification (didn't Addison-Wesley produce one?)
exists, but it was probably done after-the-fact, which sort of reduces
its usefulness. Still, UNIX is a well-specified system architecture,
so re-implementations don't really have to re-invent the wheel. But I
agree that lots of Open Source projects would benefit greatly from formal
design.
I think this goes back to my point that many programmers are simply
never taught how to *engineer* code, but rather to simply sit down
and write it. That's how we get into those deadly wash-rinse-repeat
debug cycles.
Regards,
mr_organic
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Producing Quality Code
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:54:43 -0500
<RANT>
I more or less agree with you. I have been interviewing people for the
last few months and can't find a decent guy in the bunch.
Just one freaken person should know about SMP performance issues with
shared data.
Qsort issues with ordered vs random files.
How to write a good algorithm.
When to use and when not to use recursion.
Just once give me a guy that knows how to write a decent hash table.
Can't anyone discuss pros/cons of using trees, hashtables, and
array+bsearch?
Doesn't anyone know what a histogram is used for anymore?
Every time I see a Windows guy app guy come in, they don't know squat
about how to code decently.
And, if you know these things, drop me an e-mail, we need good people.
</RANT>
mr_organic wrote:
>
> THE PROBLEM
> -----------
>
> As readers of my previous rants probably know by now, I have emarked
> on something of a Jihad against sloppy programming. The target of my
> ire at the moment is the seething mass of Windows "developers", most
> of whom know next to nothing about good software design. However, my
> previous posts are unfair in that they give the impression that
> Windows programmers are stupid, lazy, and incompetent. This is unfair
> and prejudicial, and I apologize.
>
> However, I think many points I raised in my posts are valid. A recent
> article in The Atlantic (find it at
> http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/digicult/dc2000-03-15.htm) detailed
> some of the concerns cropping up about the quality of software in
> general. It seems clear that software is dropping in quality overall,
> not improving. And this is probably as true of Linux as of any other
> mass-market operating system. By *why* is this happening?
>
> It's easy to blame Microsoft (but accurate, since they espouse methods
> and designs to contribute to bad code); they have the hightest profile
> in the industry. More people come into contact with their software,
> so more people are exposed to the bugs. The various Unixes have their
> fair share of bugs, but they tend to escape wider notice because they
> are not as widely deployed. However, this is changing as Linux
> charges into the homes and offices of millions of people. Now, when
> Linux has a significant bug, it bites a lot of people.
>
> At base, the problem is a cultural one -- we are not training
> programmers correctly, regardless of the platform they use. The
> software industry today does not reward stable, carefully-crafted
> programs; it rewards newness, whiz-bang features, and layers of
> eye-candy. In short, *potential* is rewarded, not *execution*.
> Programmers are mercilessly ridden to meet marketing-driven deadlines,
> which means that they tend to focus on things like slick GUIs and less
> on architecture and maintainability.
>
> Unix tends to have less of a problem than Windows in this regard for a
> couple of reasons: one, Unix programmers are generally more
> technically adept than Windows programmers, and consequently produce
> better code; two, the architecture of Unix tends to promote "correct"
> code more than Windows does. Complexity leads to instability (in
> computer systems as in so much else in life), so a good rule of thumb
> is "simpler is better". However, modern operating systems are almost
> unbelieveably complex. Windows 2000 is reputed to have between thirty
> and sixty million lines of code. Linux has nowhere near that kind of
> bloat, but it still weighs in at several million lines of code (if you
> include things like the X Window system and essential system
> utilities).
>
> One place where Unix has a leg up on Windows is in terms of system
> calls. Generally, the fewer system calls you expose, the more stable
> the operating system will be (because simpler tends to be better).
> The *BSD's and Linux expose a few hundred system calls; Windows 2000
> exposes several *thousand*. It's not hard to see why this can lead to
> trouble.
>
> Compounding the problem is the proliferation of GUIs. It's no
> accident that software quality has been declining in direct proportion
> to the popularity of GUIs. Graphical environments are notoriously
> hard to "get right" -- there is no commonly-agreed-upon basis for
> their design or implementation. A graphical environment is by its
> very nature less precise than a command-line interface -- when a user
> sees an icon of a painter's palette, for example, he or she usually
> assumes that this icon is in some way related to a graphics or drawing
> program. While this works for most folks, other people in the world
> would be baffled by such a thing -- say aborigines or Eskimos, who
> have a totally different conception of artistic endeavor than do other
> people. What would a meaningful icon be to them? Or is a GUI even
> appropriate? The whole "desktop metaphor" makes a lot of assumptions
> that aren't necessarily valid.
>
> The problem is that programmers are trying to solve problems that are
> not well-defined, using operating systems that themselves are overly
> complex and ambiguous. This problem has been snowballing for years,
> until today we have an enormous base of code that is neither stable,
> robust, nor easily fixable. And this problem will continue to fester
> until something dramatic is done to arrest it.
>
> The solution must begin with us -- software engineers. Notice that I
> use the word "engineer" rather than "programmer" or "developer". This
> is deliberate. We must recognize that our craft requires the skills
> of an engineer as well as an artist. We must realize that careful
> design and rigorous attention to detail is as important (or more so!),
> than working on "sexy" problems. But at the same time we need to take
> pride in ourselves as artisans, and produce code that not only
> *works*, but is as elegant, maintainable, and clean as we can make it.
>
> This will not be an easy thing to do; most of us are employed by
> companies that only pay lip-service to software quality. They will
> sacrifice stability in a second if it means gaining market advantage.
> Marketers and salespeople will continue to define software in terms of
> feature-lists and gee-whiz graphics. What can we do, short of
> revolting entirely? We have to make a living, don't we?
>
> My suggestion is this: realize your power. Software engineers are the
> most sought-after asset in the world today. Entire companies rise or
> fall depending on the quality of their software engineers. If each of
> us, individually, makes it a point to produce good, quality code, then
> the effect will propagate quickly. But to do it ourselves is not
> enough; we must insist on it from others as well. And this is the
> difficult part. We must stop accepting lousy software and hold the
> developers responsible. If a company produces software with bugs,
> they should be held as accountable as any company that produces a
> defective good. (Which is why UCITA is such an evil thing, but that's
> a topic for another thread.)
>
> The "Open Source" revolution of recent years has shown people that
> peer-review is an excellent way to get quality software. To be sure,
> much Open Source software is buggy; but relentless peer-review
> produces software that is demonstrably less buggy than most commercial
> alternatives. And don't be fooled by "performance tests" -- a faster
> product is not necessarily better, if the slower one is of higher
> quality. All pure speed means is that a buggy product will crash
> faster than ever before.
>
> The odd thing about all this is that you'd think companies like Apple
> and Microsoft would *want* this focus on quality code regardless of
> marketing or sales pressure. Better code means lower supoort costs
> later (and better customer relations!). Still, vendors seem to be
> stuck in a "get the code out the door at any cost" mentality. This is
> most prevalent in the Windows space, where competition is very hot.
> However, this problem is also emerging in the Internet space; it is
> evident in the badly-written Javascript, VBScript, PHP, or CGI scripts
> that infest the web. E-commerce sites assure us that our information
> is private, then mutter red-faced when crackers crack their sites and
> steal credit-card information.
>
> In the coming century, the consequences of bad software design are
> going to be more impactful than ever before. We bet our very lives on
> software -- it controls airplanes (and air traffic control centers);
> it controls nuclear reactors and utility companies; it controls water
> delivery and waste-disposal; it controls all finance and securities
> movement. In fact there is no major part of our life that software
> does not have a critical part in. Technologies like Jini and
> Bluetooth promise to make software an even-more-integral part of our
> lives, so much that it will become essentially invisible and
> ubiquitous.
>
> But this scenario shows how calamitous bad software can be -- it's
> only an annoyance when we lose a corporate memo or a PowerPoint
> presentation; it means the loss of life if a medial system goes down
> or two airplanes cannot determine each other's position in the skies.
>
> THE ENGINEER'S PART
> -------------------
>
> The upshot is that we need to take our craft *seriously*. Hackers we
> may be, and proud of it, but we need to embrace the *true* hackish
> nature, not just the faux-geek trappings. A true hacker knows that
> producing good code is often boring, repetitive, and unexciting; it
> means hours and hours of groveling over code to find a misplaced comma
> or missing semicolon; it means being open-minded enough to know when
> your approach is wrong and allow others to help fix your code. It
> means valuing correctness and stability over all other things, period.
>
> One of the central tenets of the Hippocratic Oath that doctors must
> take is, "First, do no harm." I think this is a superb rule for
> software engineers to follow as well.
>
> THE CORPORATE PART
> ------------------
>
> But we as engineers can only effect so much change; the corporations
> which employ us have got to do their part. Unfortunately, the
> situation today is not promising. Most corporations do not answer to
> their customers at all, but rather their shareholders; and today's
> shareholder is interested in only one thing: short-term monetary
> gain. The quality of the product in question is only important
> insofar as it furthers the goal of making money. Software is only as
> good as it needs to be to make money (which unfortunately isn't very
> good).
>
> There are no easy answers for companies. The only way to produce
> stable, robust software is to *take time* and do it right. But
> companies do not want to spend the time -- lost time is lost money and
> lost opportunity. Better to produce a shoddy hack quickly than a
> robust solution later. Let the users be your beta-testers and make
> them pay for the privilege. Patent everything and threaten to sue
> anyone who treads upon your domain. Using this tactic, they ensure
> that lousy software *stays* lousy because no one can legally fix it.
>
> We have arrived at a time when a company must produce bad software to
> prosper; writing good software takes too much time and effort.
> Shareholder value is not enhanced by producing robust code; therefore
> they will not produce robust code. Money, in this as in so much else
> in the modern world, is king.
>
> WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US?
> -------------------------
>
> Were it not for projects like Linux and the *BSDs, the situation would
> be grim indeed. The Windows platform is for all intents and purposes
> a lost cause -- Microsoft has no intention of opening the source, and
> no real incentive to fix the numerous problems themselves. Apple is
> in a similar situation, but they benefit somewhat from the fact that
> their new OS is based on FreeBSD, and can benefit from review of that
> code. (Whether they will give back to the community in the same
> measure they have taken from it remains to be seen.) The only other
> viable commerical OS -- BeOS -- is just as closed as Windows is and
> presents the same essential problems.
>
> We, as software engineers, must commit to making the Open Source
> operating systems -- whether Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, or other
> -- as robust and well-designed as we possibly can. We must not let
> money rule our release schedules or feature-sets. We must not get
> drawn off into feature-wars with commercial packages. In the best of
> all possible worlds, there would be a Good Engineering Seal of
> Approval and no piece of software would make it into a distribution
> without it. The GESA (as I call it) would encompass areas like
> stability (no buffer overruns!), security, and "correctness" of code.
>
> In many ways we are the architects of the new century. The decisions
> we make -- and do not make -- will profoundly impact the society of
> which we are a part. We need to realize this and act accordingly.
>
> Submitted for your consideration.
>
> Regards,
>
> mr_organic
--
Mohawk Software
Windows 9x, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
Visit http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: George Marengo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Giving up on NT (Bob shows his lack of knowledge yet again)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 22:57:41 GMT
On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 18:54:23 GMT, Forrest Gehrke
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>
>> George Marengo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
>>
>> >Nope -- my only point was that anyone who is actively trying to kill off OS/2
>> >is a nut... IBM did that themselves.
>
>Even if that were granted, what did MS do? IBM management may
>have been after only a good sized niche, one that MS would
>never have missed. Why when analyzing IBM's "failure" you
>do not question what MS did to totally freeze them out?
>Why act as if there had been no Finding of Fact by Judge Jackson?
I'm not acting as if their had been no finding... IBM knew what the
terms of their OS bundling contract was; i.e., if they preloaded OS/2
in preference to Windows, they would lose preferential treatment
and pricing status. That wasn't hidden from them, and was in fact
part of the reason why MS was found guilty.
Given MS's history, even to that point, there were NO indications
that they would ever concede anything... they want it all. If IBM
thought that MS wouldn't miss "a good sized niche", they failed.
>MS would not have been in the dock today had they refrained
>from preventing PC vendors from selling a PC with anything
>but MS OS and had they done the very simple thing of providing
>ports of their Office Suite for OS/2 as they did for the Mac.
True, but was any of that a secret that was kept from IBM? Of
course not, they knew MS's terms.
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