On Fri, Nov 06, 1998 at 10:14:02AM -0800, Andreas Ramos wrote:
> Rich is so eager to contradict me that he contradicts everything.
Rich is not eager to contradict you or agree with you. Rich is eager
to get the facts straight, something you're having considerable
difficulty with here. Given that Rich has worked in the open source
world for 15 years, and the Unix world full-time for 18 (and part time
for 21) he feels rather qualified to talk about both issues with a
considerable degree of expertise.
> Read it again, Rich.
I've read it twice, so far. I probably *will* read it again.
> Eric Raymond's comments are mostly annoying or irrelevant.
His comments may be annoying (which is a matter of opinion) but
they're also factually accurate (which is not).
> Why was this document written?
I don't know. I'm not the author or the one who authorized
its creation. If you're asking for my best guess, it's because
Microsoft is aware that the freeware movement is a far bigger
threat to their existence that Sun/IBM/Apple/DoJ combined.
> Why was it send to Eric Raymond (and especially him, of all people?)
Why don't you ask Eric? His address is given on the site. My guess
is that it was leaked to him because he is well-known for his efforts
supporting open source, and is respected around the 'net for his work --
which goes back a long way.
> Why has Microsoft not bothered to demand it
> removed (on basis of copyrights, etc.)?
Because (among other possible reasons) then they would have to
admit in public that this really, REALLY, came from them. At the
moment, they have a certain degree of deniability. (Not that anyone
with a lick of sense is buying that story, of course, but there
are a heck of a lot of people out there without a lick of sense.)
> Have you ever worked in software development?
Yes. On small and large projects, including those with complex
user interfaces. I was clueful enough to keep those interfaces decoupled
from the applications so that I could change them without having to
touch the underlying code. So when the day came -- and it did, on
one project -- that nearly half a million lines of code had to
stop running under Open Windows and start running with Motif,
it was relatively easy.
By the way: what has this got to do with the discussion? Or do you
want to review my entire work history, publications, etc.?
> He is no longer a grad student in Finland. He works here in Silicon Valley
> for a company. Rich, you're wrong.
No, you're wrong. He had a job when he wrote it. He has a different
one now. There's no significant relationship between his work history
and the development of Linux.
> His primary job is not at developing Linux. Rich is wrong again.
No, you're wrong. His primary job was *never* developing Linux.
Neither is that of most of the people who work on it. This does
not mean that he doesn't work on it, that his work isn't significant
or even crucial, or that he has relinquished control of it. If you
doubt this, why don't you ask him?
> Oh, c'mon. Intel, IBM, and Red Hat are distributing Linux. They are not
> doing this for charity.
Did you know that all Linux distributions are free for the downloading?
They *have* to be. It's part of the licensing process. Oh, you can
buy them from, say, Red Hat, bundled on CD with manuals and all
that -- and they charge a nominal price for all that -- but they are
compelled to freely distribute it by the licensing terms. If IBM and/or
Intel issue a distribution (which to date, they have not done) then they will
have to do the same thing.
Do I think they're doing it for charity? Of course not.
> Tell me, Rich, are you going to spend several hundred hours to improve Linux
> and thereby improve the stock price for IBM and Intel?
I've worked on freeware projects since 1983 -- when I read the original
GNU announcement from Richard Stallman. Some of my code wound up in
SunOS and Solaris and Ultrix; some of it is published on the 'net;
some of it's in Linux applications; some of it's in other places.
"Several hundred hours"? I've spent *thousands* over nearly two
decades working on code that I've given away.
If you knew anything about the open source world, you'd know that this
is the norm, not the exception.
> Rich, read the Microsoft memo. It shows that developer interest at Mozilla
> fell dramatically. This is quantified.
Microsoft's memo is wrong on this point (among many others). How do I know
that? Because I'm on the Mozilla developer's mailing list and therefore
connected to the primary source of information. Are you? And has it occured
to you that Microsoft might (gasp!) fabricate numbers or (horrors!) just
flat-out get it wrong?
After all, they're not known for ethics or accuracy.
> And make Jim Clark yet richer? You're willing to work for free to make a
> mega-millionaire yet richer?
Sigh. I'm not working for Jim Clark. I'm working on something that
I think is useful. If Jim Clark makes money at it, I really *don't care*.
Why should I? I make plenty of money doing other things. For that
matter, why do *you* care?
> Magic Johnson needs someone to mow his lawn. For free. Go for it, Rich.
You clearly don't understand this at all. Go read Raymond's paper
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" until you do. Or join a freeware
project and learn about it from the inside. But please do something
to educate yourself about it.
> Silicon Graphics (it was once a UNIX computer company) clung to their
> workstations and their flavor of UNIX. Intel machines with Windows NT were
> faster and cheaper; in two years, SGI lost 50% of their market to NT/Intel.
SGI lost their market to Intel, not to NT/Intel. The OS mattered far
less than the hardware cost, and while Sun was in a position to keep
pace with the PC price/performance curve by building faster/cheaper
hardware, SGI -- whose machines have always been pricey -- wasn't.
It had little or nothing to do with the OS -- mostly because people
*never* bought SGI for the OS, they bought them for the raw horsepower
and their graphics capabilities/applications.
> Here's an interesting thought: what if the Linux crew starts a OSS version
> of Java?
What makes you think they haven't already done so?
> >> Microsoft itself points out that Linux performs better than other UNIX
> >
> >Wrong.
>
> Read the document, Rich.
I *know* that's what the document says. It's wrong. Frankly, Microsoft
has about as much chance of correctly measuring Unix system performance
as I do of becoming the Pope.
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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