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He also once wrote a horrendous little childish play on the Halloween thing, with him as a character, also put up on the OSI site.

Apparently public pressure has made him delete both of these. The only controversial thing left for people to see is only his Gun nut page.

Hehehe. I guess this will start Yet Another Gun Control Flamewar.

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If trolling were a word it would not be used in the context you used it.. Do yourself a favor troll an read the dictionary.

While you're at it shatter your illusions of MS-DOS.

In response to your opinion that the IBM PC was far more advanced than the Apple ][. I respectfully disagree. The Apple had much better graphics capabilities, BASIC in the shell and was cooler overall. The PC took off not because of DOS, which, let's face it, is a no brainer of an OS, but because of programs like VisiCalc and because the bare exposure of the hardware made it easy to write games. Microsoft is right in one thing, apps attract users and users attract apps. Too bad that doesn't work in the server environment where far fewer apps are needed and the big costs are support and downtime. For a server you need a real OS

If trolling were a word it would not be used in the context you used it.. Do yourself a favor troll an read the dictionary.

While you're at it shatter your illusions of MS-DOS.

In response to your opinion that the IBM PC was far more advanced than the Apple ][. I respectfully disagree. The Apple had much better graphics capabilities, BASIC in the shell and was cooler overall. The PC took off not because of DOS, which, let's face it, is a no brainer of an OS, but because of programs like VisiCalc and because the bare exposure of the hardware made it easy to write games. Microsoft is right in one thing, apps attract users and users attract apps. Too bad that doesn't work in the server environment where far fewer apps are needed and the big costs are support and downtime. For a server you need a real OS

If trolling were a word it would not be used in the context you used it.. Do yourself a favor troll an read the dictionary.

While you're at it shatter your illusions of MS-DOS.

In response to your opinion that the IBM PC was far more advanced than the Apple ][. I respectfully disagree. The Apple had much better graphics capabilities, BASIC in the shell and was cooler overall. The PC took off not because of DOS, which, let's face it, is a no brainer of an OS, but because of programs like VisiCalc and because the bare exposure of the hardware made it easy to write games. Microsoft is right in one thing, apps attract users and users attract apps. Too bad that doesn't work in the server environment where far fewer apps are needed and the big costs are support and downtime. For a server you need a real OS

If trolling were a word it would not be used in the context you used it.. Do yourself a favor troll an read the dictionary.

While you're at it shatter your illusions of MS-DOS.

In response to your opinion that the IBM PC was far more advanced than the Apple ][. I respectfully disagree. The Apple had much better graphics capabilities, BASIC in the shell and was cooler overall. The PC took off not because of DOS, which, let's face it, is a no brainer of an OS, but because of programs like VisiCalc and because the bare exposure of the hardware made it easy to write games. Microsoft is right in one thing, apps attract users and users attract apps. Too bad that doesn't work in the server environment where far fewer apps are needed and the big costs are support and downtime. For a server you need a real OS

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/h acker-howto.html
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- Sean

ITS was open source. It is now dead.

Linux has not died because it hasn't had the chance to; it's only been around a couple of years.

When it gets obsolete, as it will, all the free code in the world will not save it.

A few generations, a few upgrades, perhaps.

But sooner or later, it will surely die.
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- Sean

Minix also isn't exactly as technically worthy as Linux.

But I agree that a large component of Linux's success is due to the GPL.

On the other hand, don't make the mistake of assuming that just because the GPL got it this far, it will carry it forever. It may prolong Linux's life, but if Linux does not get any mainstream, commercial, "suit" support, it will die.

As surely as all the "alternative" OS's that came before it have.

Linux has only been around for 8 years. In a real sense (outside of Linus' bedroom), less even than that. It is still very young.

The source code to ITS was available, yet the system itself is long gone (realistically).

I repeat: Open Source will not carry Linux forever.

Sooner or later, we need the support from the suits. Not a fun prospect, but one that must be faced.
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- Sean

It is in the Jargon file:

Double Bucky

This link has more information than you would ever want to know.

Surely you mean BiCapitalization. Though I tend to call 'em StUdLyCaPs if they look stupid enough, even when not applied at random.

I listen to a lot of music from mp3.com. Here are my Python scripts to manage my MP3 collection: http://wildgoose.tandu.com/~zooko/ PythonHacking/

Of course, 90% of the music on mp3.com is crap, but then, 90% of everything is crap..

Among the best mp3 selections are Goss amer and Manifest Vision.

Regards,

Zooko

"No one was depending on Robin Hood to make the trains run on time ..."

Bad metaphor, Ed, given the last famous person who was reputed to "make the trains run on time".

(for you ./er's who aren't up on ancient history, that person was Benito Mussolini. Hmmm ... I guess someone should add Ed's image to the background of The Halloween Nightmare)

Sadly, a lot of them seem to believe that's what hacking is. A few might even be both, if they're somehow bright enough to crack machines using real ingenuity and writing their own code but not smart enough to do something worthwhile with their talents.

I was ready to cringe when I saw this -- some already consider ESR a bit too daffy for the spokesperson role.

However, the story turned out to be hilarious, well written & has a nice plot twist at the end (cliché, but hey, it's a fairy tale!). I hope this gets passed around by email.

Why be boring? The world doesn't need more 'Nightline'-friendly talking heads, it needs millenial pranksters with a serious message.

Friar Eric seems to get all the best lines for some reason, though. :)