Linux-Advocacy Digest #221, Volume #32 Thu, 15 Feb 01 19:13:03 EST
Contents:
Re: Microsoft says Linux threatens innovation (Tim Hanson)
Re: This is astonishing (MS/DRM/Hardware Control) (Tim Hanson)
Re: This is astonishing (MS/DRM/Hardware Control) (Nigel)
Re: Interesting article (Chris Ahlstrom)
Re: This is astonishing (MS/DRM/Hardware Control) (Nigel)
Re: How Microsoft Crushes the Hearts of Trolls. (Chris Ahlstrom)
Re: Interesting article (Chris Ahlstrom)
Re: The Windows guy. (mlw)
Re: Interesting article (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: The Windows guy. (Nigel)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Tim Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft says Linux threatens innovation
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 23:33:18 GMT
Speaking of chasing taillights, Microsoft announced its revolutionary
package for clustering up to (sit down for this, please) up to
thirty-two (gad, my heart) nodes. $3,000 per node.
Adam Warner wrote:
>
> Hi Bob,
>
> > news.cnet.com/investor/news/newsitem/0-9900-1028-4825719-RHAT.html?tag=ltnc
> >
> > Poor Microsoft! They're running to the government to protect their
> > business model against those property-stealing anti-American
> > open-sourcers. Boo-hoo-hoo!
>
> Well Jim Allchin of Microsoft has managed to deeply offend me.
>
> I wonder if Allchin would be able to respond to this (Raymond, endnote
> extract from "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"):
> http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/x438.html
>
> ---Begin Endnote Quote---
>
> [IN] An issue related to whether one can start projects from zero in the
> bazaar style is whether the bazaar style is capable of supporting truly
> innovative work. Some claim that, lacking strong leadership, the bazaar
> can only handle the cloning and improvement of ideas already present at
> the engineering state of the art, but is unable to push the state of the
> art. This argument was perhaps most infamously made by the Halloween
> Documents, two embarrassing internal Microsoft memoranda written about the
> open-source phenomenon. The authors compared Linux's development of a
> Unix-like operating system to ``chasing taillights'', and opined ``(once a
> project has achieved "parity" with the state-of-the-art), the level of
> management necessary to push towards new frontiers becomes massive.''
>
> There are serious errors of fact implied in this argument. One is exposed
> when the Halloween authors themseselves later observe that ``often [...]
> new research ideas are first implemented and available on Linux before
> they are available / incorporated into other platforms.''
>
> If we read ``open source'' for ``Linux'', we see that this is far from a
> new phenomenon. Historically, the open-source community did not invent
> Emacs or the World Wide Web or the Internet itself by chasing taillights
> or being massively managed -- and in the present, there is so much
> innovative work going on in open source that one is spoiled for choice.
> The GNOME project (to pick one of many) is pushing the state of the art in
> GUIs and object technology hard enough to have attracted considerable
> notice in the computer trade press well outside the Linux community. Other
> examples are legion, as a visit to Freshmeat on any given day will quickly
> prove.
>
> But there is a more fundamental error in the implicit assumption that the
> cathedral model (or the bazaar model, or any other kind of management
> structure) can somehow make innovation happen reliably. This is nonsense.
> Gangs don't have breakthrough insights -- even volunteer groups of bazaar
> anarchists are usually incapable of genuine originality, let alone
> corporate committees of people with a survival stake in some status quo
> ante. Insight comes from individuals. The most their surrounding social
> machinery can ever hope to do is to be responsive to breakthrough insights
> -- to nourish and reward and rigorously test them instead of squashing
> them.
>
> Some will characterize this as a romantic view, a reversion to outmoded
> lone-inventor stereotypes. Not so; I am not asserting that groups are
> incapable of developing breakthrough insights once they have been hatched;
> indeed, we learn from the peer-review process that such development groups
> are essential to producing a high-quality result. Rather I am pointing out
> that every such group development starts from -- is necessarily sparked by
> -- one good idea in one person's head. Cathedrals and bazaars and other
> social structures can catch that lightning and refine it, but they cannot
> make it on demand.
>
> Therefore the root problem of innovation (in software, or anywhere else)
> is indeed how not to squash it -- but, even more fundamentally, it is how
> to grow lots of people who can have insights in the first place.
>
> To suppose that cathedral-style development could manage this trick but
> the low entry barriers and process fluidity of the bazaar cannot would be
> absurd. If what it takes is one person with one good idea, then a social
> milieu in which one person can rapidly attract the cooperation of hundreds
> or thousands of others with that good idea is going inevitably to
> out-innovate any in which the person has to do a political sales job to a
> hierarchy before he can work on his idea without risk of getting fired.
>
> And, indeed, if we look at the history of software innovation by
> organizations using the cathedral model, we quickly find it is rather
> rare. Large corporations rely on university research for new ideas
> (thus the Halloween Documents authors' unease about Linux's facility at
> coopting that research more rapidly). Or they buy out small companies
> built around some innovator's brain. In neither case is the innovation
> native to the cathedral culture; indeed, many innovations so imported end
> up being quietly suffocated under the "massive level of management" the
> Halloween Documents' authors so extol.
>
> That, however, is a negative point. The reader would be better served by a
> positive one. I suggest, as an experiment, the following;
>
> Pick a criterion for originality that you believe you can apply
> consistently. If your definition is ``I know it when I see it'',
> that's not a problem for purposes of this test.
>
> Pick any closed-source operating system competing with Linux, and a
> best source for accounts of current development work on it.
>
> Watch that source and Freshmeat for one month. Every day, count the
> number of release announcements on Freshmeat that you consider
> `original' work. Apply the same definition of
> `original' to announcements for that other OS and count them.
>
> Thirty days later, total up both figures.
>
> The day I wrote this, Freshmeat carried twenty-two release announcements,
> of which three appear they might push state of the art in some respect,
> This was a slow day for Freshmeat, but I will be astonished if any reader
> reports as many as three likely innovations a month in any closed-source
> channel.
>
> ---End Quote---
>
> I'd really suggest checking out the whole of this famous document. It is superb.
>
> Regards,
> Adam
--
WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:
Firings will continue until morale improves.
------------------------------
From: Tim Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: This is astonishing (MS/DRM/Hardware Control)
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 23:36:23 GMT
Nigel wrote:
>
> > They already have encryption-in-the-monitor in the works, why not the
> > same for speakers?
> >
>
> How do you stop anyone opening the speakers, removing the wires from the
> speakers inside and connecting them to a tape recorder - any audio system
> has to drive the speaker cones with an analogue signal so has a place to
> record from.
>
> same with the monitor - tap a signal from the RGB drive to the tube (and
> scancoils) and convert this into a recordable video signal (not as easy as
> modifying speakers but still possible).
I think they're working on encryption at the retina and inner ear. It's
all those pirates' fault, darn it.
--
Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter
of wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund
is astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman --
unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who is
careful not to make any poultry jokes ...
-- Woody Allen
------------------------------
From: Nigel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: This is astonishing (MS/DRM/Hardware Control)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:40:52 +0000
> The Reality of the situation is that most home systems are dictated
> by whatever the adults use at work.
>
The more likely reality is that many home systems are running whatever
software they could copy from work - when MS makes this impossible and
users face the choice of wasting hard-earned cash on extra copies of MS
office for home or switching to Linux what will they do?
> When the workplace goes Linux....the households will soon follow.
>
Could be other way round - when home users become unable to copy ms apps
from work and try linux and find it easier to use and more stable they will
want to use the same software at work.
------------------------------
From: Chris Ahlstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Interesting article
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 23:42:08 GMT
"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
>
> Said David Brown in alt.destroy.microsoft on Thu, 15 Feb 2001 15:49:31
> [...]
> >But Linux has come from being a
> >system that looked about as friendly as DOS to a system comparable to W2K
> >for the desktop user, in the space of around 4 years max. Windows took 20
> >years to make the same changes.
>
> Let's be reasonable; Windows took closer to 10 years. But, of course,
> it had the 'benefit' of a monopoly from the get-go, so it hasn't really
> "developed" AT ALL. Though it has *changed* quite a bit.
Actually, since UNIX was around before MS-DOS, I think you have to start
the Microsoft timeline with MS-DOS. Ignoring that Gates bought that
product to start his little bizzness.
Chris
------------------------------
From: Nigel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: This is astonishing (MS/DRM/Hardware Control)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:43:53 +0000
> If the newbie has never seen Windoze, they'll be more than happy with
> Linux and KDE2, or even KDE1. There are no drawbacks for SOHO users, for
> home users it's games.
The launch of the Indrema console (plus the increasing number of Loki
conversions of windows games to linux) will help in this department.
The use of linux for developing playstation2 games may also help.
------------------------------
From: Chris Ahlstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: How Microsoft Crushes the Hearts of Trolls.
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 23:43:47 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> |||
> / | \
Man, I miss my old Atari ST!
Chris
------------------------------
From: Chris Ahlstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Interesting article
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 23:50:13 GMT
Chad Myers wrote:
>
> No, really, what has changed dramatically in Unix in the
> last 10 years?
>
> We still use telnet
No, we use Secure Shell.
> We still use crappy old XWindows
Which Microsoft is trying to mimic with their terminal
service.
> Unix still has the brain-dead permission bits security.
Which works out of the box.
> Even though many Unix vendors have implemented DAC, many
> people still insist on using permission bits.
Must work well for them.
> Nothing's really changed.
Like your crap posts.
God, what an idiot troll.
Chris
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The Windows guy.
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 18:55:21 -0500
Todd wrote:
> >
> > Maybe so, but at one company we had NT with a SCSI HP burner using Adaptec
> > burner software. It could burn 4 or 5 CDs in a row, then would blue screen
> on
> > the next leaving a coaster. We had to reboot every few CDs to avoid this.
>
> I work for HP. We have zillions of SCSI HP burners and IDE CD-RWs and such.
> Never have we ever had NT bluescreen after 5 writes.
>
> That is just plain BS from the linux advocates.
This is not BS, it is my real experience with NT and a burner. You may not have
seen it, and I will not be particularly impressed if you insist that you
hadn't.
For years we have been getting Windows advocates claiming stability of NT, and
a test sponsored by Microsoft and used in Microsoft advertisements verified
what we have been saying all along. I use Linux because I used to use Windows,
while I still keep up with kernel changes, NT and DOS Windows can't compare to
Linux for stability.
If you tell me you have never had a blue screen after using a cd burner on NT,
I am skeptical, at best.
>
> If you'd like me to prove it, why don't you we arrange a demonstration. If
> I can burn more than 5 CDs in a row successfully under NT with an HP SCSI
> CD-RW, you will agree to give me 10000 dollars. Otherwise, I will give you
> 10000 dollars.
>
> This is with a standard HP system with a standard HP SCSI CD-RW running NT
> SP6.
>
> Will you accept my offer?
I no longer have access to the machine, it was a previous job. I don't care
about "any" Windows NT machine, I care about the particular NT machine I was
using. You know as well as I do that NT's alleged stability depends largely on
what software is installed.
Chances are an NT machine set up and working may be stable for extended periods
of time. (weeks) It is when you start installing many pieces of software that
all this stuff starts to crumble.
>
> > Conversely, my system has the CDR hanging off an IDE bus, I have not made
> one
> > coaster yet.
> >
> > The buffer size is only important if your system can not respond to
> interrupts
> > quickly enough.
>
> Well, duh. You need *some* buffer even if a few bytes.
A smaller one is less expensive.
>
> > RAM is expensive
>
> Are you *kidding*???
>
> I just paid $140 for **128 MB** of LAPTOP memory.
>
> Sheesh. And that is *retail* rates.
You have no idea how hardware production works.
>
> >, so for all these CDRs with huge buffers, just
> > so Windows can burn a CD, we users of real operating systems have to pay
> the
> > bill for your crappy OS.
>
> Having more ram is *better* for any OS because you could potentially make
> use of this fact and use DMA instead of requiring massive interrupt usage
> (which slows down any OS).
Why does having more or less ram affect using DMA or not?
>
> > When I finish burning a CD, I never see a buffer low point of less than
> 89%,
>
> I burn CDs with W2k at 12x speed, and never get below 96% buffer usage
> unless I am using WMP... still, it never goes below about 90%.
My 89% was under full load, so what? I also have a cheap IDE CDR with a small
buffer.
>
> > that means I could probably get away with only 25% of the total buffer
> space
> > and still never burn a coaster, even under heavy load.
>
> You could get away with it, but the more buffer space, the more reliable
> your transfer under any OS...
Well, that may be true, but running a UPS on a UPS is probably more reliable
than just a single UPS, but what's the point? Why pay for it?
>
> Hypothetically, you could have a 1G buffer space, and the drive could do
> error correction *before* burning and after transfering the data... that
> would be ideal and limit CPU interaction and interrupt usage the most.
Again, why pay for that? I'd rather get a better video card or more system RAM.
>
> > So, I am paying much more than I should for RAM buffering I don't need,
> just
> > because Windows sucks and OEMs have to support it.
>
> Nope. The amount of RAM you are talking about is probably 2 bucks for the
> manufacturers (probably less), and the more buffer, the better.
The $2 dollar unit cost of the RAM, probably translates to $20 dollars.
--
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Interesting article
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:07:03 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Bob Hauck
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Thu, 15 Feb 2001 02:43:44 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 18:41:43 GMT, Mike Byrns
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Casting aspersions on and categorical dismission of Windows sysadmins
>> (or "assholes" as Kuklis, ... termed them) ...
>
>If you want to tar all Unix admins with the same brush, please pick
>somebody more representative than Kulkis. If you do that, I promise to
>not compare you all with Myers.
I would think some admins are using bru, cpio, or pax now... :-)
[.sigsnip]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- well, *somebody* had to say it...
EAC code #191 10d:08h:37m actually running Linux.
The Usenet channel. All messages, all the time.
------------------------------
From: Nigel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The Windows guy.
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 01:10:39 +0000
Edward Rosten wrote:
> > The buffer size is only important if your system can not respond to
> > interrupts quickly enough. RAM is expensive, so for all these CDRs with
> > huge buffers, just so Windows can burn a CD, we users of real operating
> > systems have to pay the bill for your crappy OS.
>
> Not true. I have a P133 and can happily burn CDs at 8x (under Linux, of
> course). I probably wouldn't be able to do much reliably without burning
> coasters if the CD-RW didn't have a reasonable buffer. But, I'll admit
> that this is an unusual case.
>
Wow, I'm impressed - the machine we use at work is a Cyrix P166 ( actually
it's really an overclocked P133 - may reduce it back soon as it's recently
started intermittently locking up being overclocked for over 2 years) with
HP 7000 series 2x speed IDE burner. Buffer never drops below 89% full for
local writes and 65% full for burns over network ( only drops below 89% if
other workstations cause high-ish network traffic during burn).
Our original burner was a large external philips 2x speed SCSI with 256k
buffer and on it's original PC ( 386DX33 with 4mb ram) under DOS the buffer
rarely dropped below 50% full. Same burner under win9x or NT on a P90
buffer stays around 5 to 10% full during burn and often buffer under-runs
yet under linux on same PC buffer rarely drops below the same 89% fill
value I get with more modern burner.
Out of curiosity, this old burner still works after roughly 8 years use yet
it's replacement (a ricoh 1420) only lasted 2 years - the HP has also
lasted over 2 years so far (apart from needing to be taken apart to have
laser cleaned) so maybe there is some truth in the saying that 'they don't
make things like they used to'
------------------------------
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