I don't know what the fsck you are smoking but it must be damned strong to ever coe to the conclusion that *any* release Win95 is more stable than the MacOS?
For me, the issue is not strictly one of crash rates, but also of the likely consequences of a given crash. Even if early versions of the MacOS did crash more often than Win9x (and I'm far from certain of that), the worst consequence of a Mac crash was generally a quick reboot. Win9x has a pretty good chance of devouring itself in the course of crashing, or of recovering from a crash.
MacOS seems to be stable enough to use as a web server (as witness this site), but even if it isn't, at least it's not a self-eating OS.
PBS is an anachronism these days, since you can get the same types of programming over a number of widely available channels (Discovery, A&E, etc..)
This is false. The Discovery Channel in particular is prone to pseudoscience programming -- lots of credulous specials on ghosts, etc. It is Nova and Bill Nye who bring us James Randi and other voices of reason, for the most part.
When a network is constrained to chasing dollars from philistines, it's likelier to produce a thin simulacrum of educational TV than it is to educate anyone.
First off, yeah, I work for the same site, so of course I'm going to defend Mark.
This is not a given among intellectually honest people.
But even if I didn't work for ABC, Mark's crystal ball is one of the better ones in this unpredictable biz.
We are discussing the value of a specific article. The article contains major errors in logic and substance. His reputation in your eyes will no more cure that problem than Shockley's admirable technological achievements validated his racism.
People buying Linux WILL buy RedHat over the $1.99 version, and I'll tell you why: RedHat's customers are major corporations, and they want the support that comes with paying $80.
Thanks for validating my objection to Anderson's clueless comments. It is odd that you present your concession as a rebuttal, but perhaps you didn't realize what you were doing.
Anderson says that the "open source freaks" were wrong to assume that support was a moneymaker for Red Hat. I say it was. You say the same thing.
Care to sit down and think through your argument again?
And calling someone an oaf isn't exactly elevating the debate to the next level, now is it?
I notice you didn't have any problem with your colleague dumping on "open source freaks"...or if you did, you allowed your partisanship to override your honesty. For shame.
Anderson's crude baiting of the open-source community on the shakiest of grounds was an oafish act. It was inept, stupid, and wrong. Anderson is, therefore, an oaf.
If you want to elevate the debate, you can either:
demonstrate that Anderson did not imply that support was not a moneymaker for Red Hat,
admit that Anderson was wrong and that your partisanship owed more to juvenile side-taking than to honest criticism, or
Mark Anderson makes several claims in his article, and by my reckoning he gets them all dead wrong.
First, he asserts that the market success of Red Hat's $80 boxed distribution implies that their revenue comes from software rather than sales. This is difficult to justify in view of the fact that the same software is sold for $1.99 by Cheapbytes. The difference between the boxed set and the Cheapbytes disk is some rather unhelpful manuals -- and support. Anderson's own evidence gives him the lie.
He also asserts that Red Hat funding Linux development would be "a new software business model". I disbelieve. Red Hat's success is the validation of the very theory that Anderson professes to hate: the open source business model.
Tahe that, Anderson, you closed-source oaf.
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Re: BSOD crap is getting old
on
Digital VCRs
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· Score: 1
Huh? What does Linux have to do with open source?
That statement, all by itself, demonstrates your idiocy.
Be off with you, buffoon.
No one ever said the hardware manufacturers are going to release their specs or drivers as open source.
Their Linux drivers will have to be open source -- GPL'ed, in fact. I do not expect you to understand why, given the ignorance you've displayed above...but perhaps you could ask a smart person to explain it to you -- if you know of one who will tolerate you.
I agree. This BSOD is getting old.
If you are getting tired of BSOD's, you might want to consider switching operating systems. If you are tired of people complaining about BSOD's, that sounds like a personal problem. Take it up with your doctor.
That's all for you tonight. Back in the basement you go!
No, the correct response to an assertion that Windows CE can do something that Linux can't is to provide proof that Linux can indeed do that, thus refuting the original argument.
No, the correct response to a nasty little troll is to give it to him with both barrels.
Just as the response to a hypocritical pseudo-pedant who won't do his own research is to point out the shortcomings of his own arguments, as I have done with you.
You may have the last word -- I'm done with you for now.
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Re: BSOD crap is getting old
on
Digital VCRs
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· Score: 1
NT BSODs about the same as Linux does it's lovely kernel panics.
Interesting. Do you have some extraordinary evidence to back this extraordinary claim? If you don't, are you ready to retract it?
Most 'crashes' in windows are caused by bad programmers.
Nobody disputes that. The questions is whether the "bad programmers" in question were the Windows design team or the writers of apps.
The nice thing about Linux is that user apps have nowhere near the opportunity to blow up the OS that they have in Windows. This tends to put the blame squarely on the writers of Windows.
Windows catches these and terminates the application before it goes and does bad things.
In the same sense that headaches are cured by decapitation, yes, I suppose so. Linux also catches and terminates apps that do bad things, but it doesn't need to shut down the whole damned OS to do it!
It's very rare to catch a crash that's solely the fault of MS or Windows
I hadn't realized BSOD's came with a "Mea Culpa" field.
since Windows' architechture allows 3rd parties to make kernel plugins with drivers and vxds.
As if Linux's open source nature didn't allow third parties to write drivers. Bah. Had I the moderation of this thread, your post would appear only to those who set their threasholds to "Yes, Really, Absolutely Everything". You display not the least vestige of a clue about the operating systems you discuss.
Just wait till hardware manufacturers start abusing the linux kernel.
Ah, a little FUD to make Linux advocates fearful of winning. If hardware manufacturers make poor additions to the kernel, the matter will be corrected quickly if the hardware itself is good enough to justify the effort. That's how open source works.
Two clueless trolls in one day is enough. Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs.
That's not an excuse; that's an admission of guilt. [emoticon deleted by HAPPYCLOWN]
why would I know about this HOWTO?
God, you're pathetic. I know all sorts of things about OS's I'm not currently running...and if I were going to berate some VMS advocate for failing to give a pointer to relevant help, I do believe I'd exercise my brain (you may substitute another organ, if required) and find the damned link, were it available. Linux documentation is certainly Web-available.
I was just pointing out that "fuck you dumbass linux can do it" is not a very helpful way of pointing out how to use the multiple modems under Linux.
The most obnoxious sentences in any language begin with the equivalent of the words "I was just". If you find yourself tempted to say such a thing in future, take a deep breath -- and hold it for half an hour.
The original claimant was not requesting Linux information, but was rather making a would-be triumphant claim about Windows CE's effulgent capabilities. The appropriate response to such a troll is not an FAQ, but rather the response Beethoven gave to an unesteemed critic: "Ass! Double-barrelled ass!"
If it is "unhelpful" to level such a justified criticism without providing pointers to help, it is still less justifiable to whine like a schoolmarm about someone doing same without being willing to get off your ass and do it yourself.
Stercor stercoriaris! You have offended sufficiently for one day. Go and ponder the error of your ways.
Rather than acting like an elementary school student and going around using gratuitous pejoratives, perhaps you could've actually pointed out a URL of the HOWTO.
Rather than acting like an elementary school teacher and going around patronizing random strangers, perhaps you could have posted such a URL yourself.
The EQL device name is `eql'. With the standard kernel source you may have only one EQL device per machine. EQL provides a means of utilizing multiple point to point lines such as PPP, slip or plip as a single logical link to carry tcp/ip. Often it is cheaper to use multiple lower speed lines than to have one high speed line installed.
Kernel Compile Options: Network device support ---> [*] Network device support EQL (serial line load balancing) support
To support this mechanism the machine at the other end of the lines must also support EQL. Linux, Livingstone Portmasters and newer dial-in servers support compatible facilities.
The author of this article frequently fails to distinguish between problems that are inherent to a philosophy and those that inhere in the selection of an OS. For example, he tries to hang the albatross of Linux's emphasis on user-as-administrator on the open source movement, which is silly. He seems to be making excuses for BeOS's development model, which hasn't proven nearly as successful as Linux's. Count the apps, folks.
Of course, Neal Stephenson's essay has the same problem, but not to the same degree. Stephenson can be forgiven his tendency to hang the impossibility of low-level adminstration of the Macintosh on the GUI paradigm; he is, after all, partly right. However, the author of this piece of BeOS special pleading has no such excuse.
Following his reasoning, one might as well use Windows. After all, open source is inherently hard to use, according to his argument; one might as well pick the most closed, dumbed-down OS out there.
I hope he goes unheeded. He deserves nothing better.
This is hardly the first time a researcher from SRI has generated an "irreproducible result". Anyone remember the Targ and Puthoff tests of Uri Geller's alleged psychic powers?
When the scientific community listens politely to someone's theory and then fails to dissolve in a chorus of hosannas, it's unsound to assume that they're in a conspiracy of silence. If they really wanted to suppress McKubre, why let him give his presentation at a prestigious physics conference? Did Plotkin even try to find out what criticisms exist of McKubre's work? I see no evidence of that in his article. The man positively drips indignation and credulousness; I wouldn't be surprised if McKubre is embarrassed by his partisanship.
If McKubre is on to something, he'll have some noteworthy results to report after a while. Let the media feeding frenzy begin then. Until that time, let's not lose our heads.
What you're advocating would mean Novell having to listen to every
geek out there on the web, wether they are customers or not.
Well, good heavens! Those geeks couldn't possible have any good ideas, could they.
That basically means their customers would have a smaller voice, in the sea of any wannabe who had a copy of their code. That's the opposite of listening to their customers.
To answer the point behind the persiflage (and my, is there a lot of it in your post), it is not inconsistent to listen to technically educated people and to one's customers. Most companies manage this trick without difficulty.
Perhaps you need to work on your listening skills.
> Indeed it is...and I am not aware of any respected security authority within it who supports your views
You obviously are not aware of whomever is the securty authorities in charge at Novell. Or you don't respect them.
They have given me no reason to respect them...nor have you even begun a defense of your bizarre views. It is an inadequate defense to claim that company $foo does things in such and such a way; have you never known a company to do a foolish thing?
In other words, semantic tricks based on religious beliefs.
No, just a judgment based upon well-understood principles of security. If you doubt this, then either cite a source to support your views which contains an addressable rationale, or defend the point yourself. I will cite O'Reilly's Practical Unix and Internet Security in defense of my views, and will happily quote chapter and verse at you if you so desire.
Kevin Mitnick is in custody right now in part because he was in posession of a stolen copy of the Solaris source code. He supposedly was using it to read through the code to look for exploits.
This points out the fact that when criminals (or potential criminals) can get their hands on source code they'll sift through it looking for exploits.
It even more obviously points out the fact that hiding your source code doesn't mean that crackers won't see it. It is a fatal flaw in your argument that you fail to recognize this fact.
We've all heard the OpenSource(tm) Doxology, and eveything I've typed above is another creed that serves as a counter-arguement.
Many people who do not generally subscribe to the open-source model for all software understand its value for cryptography. Your attempted counterargument is unsupported and, I strongly suspect, insupportable. If you can come up with a solid counterargument to the accepted view, that would be interesting. However, merely making an assertion and citing irrelevant evidence does not constitute such an argument.
It's a big world out there, guys.
Indeed it is...and I am not aware of any respected security authority within it who supports your views.
Your patronizing tone is inappropriate for someone who has displayed no understanding of security theory.
"Novell will use open-source publishing when it makes sense," says Brian Faustin, Novell's director of product marketing for NetWare. "It doesn't make sense for the network operating system because we need to maintain our value-add through security and reliability features. Our customers don't want us to give away source code."
What's the implication? That Novell's security would be reduced if they gave away source code?
That sounds like a certain discredited theory of security to me.
>According to redhat, they upped the price to >deal with the fact that pretty much well everyone >who bought a boxed set wanted more technical >support than what was previously offered.
If that's the case, then I think they failed to justify the price increase. I got a supported version of Red Hat 6.0 to see how useful it'd be compared to my previous Cheapbytes purchases. When I had a problem with the upgrade and couldn't solve it promptly, I submitted an incident to Red Hat's support page.
They made no reply after three days, so I solved my own problem instead...just like I'd do with an unsupported Cheapbytes purchase. In my case, Red Hat's support system failed significantly, and I could have saved my money. Next time I need an upgrade, I'll do it the cheap way.
Note to Telsa: The author of Bears Discover Fire is Terry Bissom. It is both a short story (it appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine -- can't recall which issue) and a collection of short stories, in which the eponymous story is far and away the best.
>Microsoft appears to be very serious with this project.
Enough with the "serious" nonsense. "Serious" is for the note-monkeys in high school who substitute ambition and drudgework for intelligence. I'll take brilliance over seriousness any day.
You can pretend to be serious. You can't pretend to be witty.
>Be afraid. Very afraid.
Fear is not a good word. Fear is a word to lose by. If we want to win this fight, we will have to overcome our fear. One alternative is anger; it is very easy to convert fear to anger, and much more productive in a fight.
>Well if someone created an AD that advertised your product in a manor
Advertisements are out of place in manors, as any English lord could tell you.
"Ads in the manor! Damned cheek!"
>that you felt might get you in problems with certain segments of the population,
Hint: As you grow more prolix, the weakness of your argument becomes more obvious, not less. LinuxCare's only obligation was to distort RedHat's logo in some way in order to comply with fair use laws. If they did, they're within bounds. If they didn't, they'll know better next time. However, it is not incumbent upon RedHat to bash LinuxCare for displaying a better sense of humor than you yourself possess.
>I believe you would be mad also.
You believe quite a bit about someone you do not know. Is that why they call you "Mindstalker"?
>Red Hat is a trademark that they have to protect.
There is a useful distinction between "protect" and "act like children".
>The law, unfortunately, has not room for witty.
This is false. Parody is specifically protected in the law. I grant that LinuxCare should have altered the logo in some way in order to qualify as "fair use", but RedHat needn't have jumped on it with all four feet.
>And from the sounds of them, these ads do not parody.
This is also false. They are very effective parodies of the PalmPilot ads.
Red Hat suing LinuxCare? God. I know it's been said at many points during Linux's evolution, but for me, this is the end of the innocence.
Commercial Linux distributions didn't bother me, since nobody violated Linux's GPL in the process. Fractiousness didn't bother me -- where's a programmer who won't argue? Non-open-source tools for Linux bothered me a bit, but I wasn't being forced to buy them and preferred the open-source alternatiuves on their own merits.
However, the Linux community always had an appealing irreverence. People in general are far too serious nowadays; you can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty. The LinuxCare spoof ads are witty. They should have been left alone.
The last version of StarOffice used some undocumented glibc2.0 calls that disappeared in 2.1, which meant that StarOffice was broken for users of some recent distributions, including RedHat 6.0. Does anyone know if they resolved this problem in the new release?
>This article makes a number of very valid >points. Certainly linux performance on low-end >hardware is markedly superior to NT, but >the question is, how many people deploy such >hardware in production?
You're begging the question. Many companies use hardware that's far more "low-end" than a four-processor system. Many other companies choose not to put all their eggs in one basket, preferring to distribute power among several smaller computers rather than one huge machine. You may want to look at the Extreme Linux project for an example of such a use.
>But for high volume dynamically generated >content, for example, or commerce, or >databases, NT is more mature
I hope you're joking. Linux draws from a much deeper well of experience than NT ever did. Can you say "reverse-encryptable password file"?
>and benefits from being developed by >engineers rather than hackers. DEC, from >whence Cutler came, are very serious about this.
You are confusing seriousness with excellence. You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be intelligent. This is a common error among the technically unproficient.
>I seem to recall Linus himself stating that >he believed OS design was well understood by >the 1970s, and he considers microkernels to be >"stupid", plan9 to be "stupid" etc etc.
Do you have a specific reason to think he was wrong? Anyway, what's the relevance? Which of {NT, Solaris} is a microkernel?
Your argument doesn't flow well. About all you can argue from your premises is that Linux as it stands does not do well on high-end PC compatibles. Your attempt to claim that Linux is "crippled" or inherently flawed is quite a reach -- you have some filling in to do. Get cracking.
>Thats what 2200 hits/sec gets you. You'll >be doing 190 million hits/day. Pretty damn >impressive. I'd like to work for you, >considering the monster bw you'll have.
You fail to distinguish between peak load and average load. One tests at a theoretical peak load in order to ensure functionality in the worst case. This is a basic principle of design in any engineering field.
Of course, PC Week tested only for speed; a more interesting peak load parameter is reliability. As other people have pointed out, NT would suffer in such a comparison.
Sadly, many technology managers seem to regard web servers (and computers and the web in general) as toys, so they judge them like they'd judge a sports car or a speedboat: Speed matters, reliability doesn't.
The issue we face is educating these managers, not some particular benchmark.
If we're going to get worked up about languages, why aren't we worrying about Haskell, which doesn't seem to have a licensing scheme and in which Microsoft has taken an altogether too intense interest?
Encourage the Haskell folks to settle on a good license -- PAL, GPL, whatever they can stomach. ANYTHING but a Microsoft hegemony.
Rebol is just another offspring of the LISP family. Haskell is something different and interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
For me, the issue is not strictly one of crash rates, but also of the likely consequences of a given crash. Even if early versions of the MacOS did crash more often than Win9x (and I'm far from certain of that), the worst consequence of a Mac crash was generally a quick reboot. Win9x has a pretty good chance of devouring itself in the course of crashing, or of recovering from a crash.
MacOS seems to be stable enough to use as a web server (as witness this site), but even if it isn't, at least it's not a self-eating OS.
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This is false. The Discovery Channel in particular is prone to pseudoscience programming -- lots of credulous specials on ghosts, etc. It is Nova and Bill Nye who bring us James Randi and other voices of reason, for the most part.
When a network is constrained to chasing dollars from philistines, it's likelier to produce a thin simulacrum of educational TV than it is to educate anyone.
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This is not a given among intellectually honest people.
We are discussing the value of a specific article. The article contains major errors in logic and substance. His reputation in your eyes will no more cure that problem than Shockley's admirable technological achievements validated his racism.
Thanks for validating my objection to Anderson's clueless comments. It is odd that you present your concession as a rebuttal, but perhaps you didn't realize what you were doing.
Anderson says that the "open source freaks" were wrong to assume that support was a moneymaker for Red Hat. I say it was. You say the same thing.
Care to sit down and think through your argument again?
I notice you didn't have any problem with your colleague dumping on "open source freaks"...or if you did, you allowed your partisanship to override your honesty. For shame.
Anderson's crude baiting of the open-source community on the shakiest of grounds was an oafish act. It was inept, stupid, and wrong. Anderson is, therefore, an oaf.
If you want to elevate the debate, you can either:
Good luck with your decision.
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Mark Anderson makes several claims in his article, and by my reckoning he gets them all dead wrong.
First, he asserts that the market success of Red Hat's $80 boxed distribution implies that their revenue comes from software rather than sales. This is difficult to justify in view of the fact that the same software is sold for $1.99 by Cheapbytes. The difference between the boxed set and the Cheapbytes disk is some rather unhelpful manuals -- and support. Anderson's own evidence gives him the lie.
He also asserts that Red Hat funding Linux development would be "a new software business model". I disbelieve. Red Hat's success is the validation of the very theory that Anderson professes to hate: the open source business model.
Tahe that, Anderson, you closed-source oaf.
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That statement, all by itself, demonstrates your idiocy.
Be off with you, buffoon.
Their Linux drivers will have to be open source -- GPL'ed, in fact. I do not expect you to understand why, given the ignorance you've displayed above...but perhaps you could ask a smart person to explain it to you -- if you know of one who will tolerate you.
If you are getting tired of BSOD's, you might want to consider switching operating systems. If you are tired of people complaining about BSOD's, that sounds like a personal problem. Take it up with your doctor.
That's all for you tonight. Back in the basement you go!
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No, the correct response to a nasty little troll is to give it to him with both barrels.
Just as the response to a hypocritical pseudo-pedant who won't do his own research is to point out the shortcomings of his own arguments, as I have done with you.
You may have the last word -- I'm done with you for now.
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Interesting. Do you have some extraordinary evidence to back this extraordinary claim? If you don't, are you ready to retract it?
Nobody disputes that. The questions is whether the "bad programmers" in question were the Windows design team or the writers of apps.
The nice thing about Linux is that user apps have nowhere near the opportunity to blow up the OS that they have in Windows. This tends to put the blame squarely on the writers of Windows.
In the same sense that headaches are cured by decapitation, yes, I suppose so. Linux also catches and terminates apps that do bad things, but it doesn't need to shut down the whole damned OS to do it!
I hadn't realized BSOD's came with a "Mea Culpa" field.
As if Linux's open source nature didn't allow third parties to write drivers. Bah. Had I the moderation of this thread, your post would appear only to those who set their threasholds to "Yes, Really, Absolutely Everything". You display not the least vestige of a clue about the operating systems you discuss.
Ah, a little FUD to make Linux advocates fearful of winning. If hardware manufacturers make poor additions to the kernel, the matter will be corrected quickly if the hardware itself is good enough to justify the effort. That's how open source works.
Two clueless trolls in one day is enough. Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs.
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That's not an excuse; that's an admission of guilt. [emoticon deleted by HAPPYCLOWN]
God, you're pathetic. I know all sorts of things about OS's I'm not currently running...and if I were going to berate some VMS advocate for failing to give a pointer to relevant help, I do believe I'd exercise my brain (you may substitute another organ, if required) and find the damned link, were it available. Linux documentation is certainly Web-available.
Stercor stercoriaris! You have offended sufficiently for one day. Go and ponder the error of your ways.
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Rather than acting like an elementary school teacher and going around patronizing random strangers, perhaps you could have posted such a URL yourself.
From section 6.6 of the NET-3-HOWTO, available to Internet users worldwide:
The author of this article frequently fails to distinguish between problems that are inherent to a philosophy and those that inhere in the selection of an OS. For example, he tries to hang the albatross of Linux's emphasis on user-as-administrator on the open source movement, which is silly. He seems to be making excuses for BeOS's development model, which hasn't proven nearly as successful as Linux's. Count the apps, folks.
Of course, Neal Stephenson's essay has the same problem, but not to the same degree. Stephenson can be forgiven his tendency to hang the impossibility of low-level adminstration of the Macintosh on the GUI paradigm; he is, after all, partly right. However, the author of this piece of BeOS special pleading has no such excuse.
Following his reasoning, one might as well use Windows. After all, open source is inherently hard to use, according to his argument; one might as well pick the most closed, dumbed-down OS out there.
I hope he goes unheeded. He deserves nothing better.
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This is hardly the first time a researcher from SRI has generated an "irreproducible result". Anyone remember the Targ and Puthoff tests of Uri Geller's alleged psychic powers?
When the scientific community listens politely to someone's theory and then fails to dissolve in a chorus of hosannas, it's unsound to assume that they're in a conspiracy of silence. If they really wanted to suppress McKubre, why let him give his presentation at a prestigious physics conference? Did Plotkin even try to find out what criticisms exist of McKubre's work? I see no evidence of that in his article. The man positively drips indignation and credulousness; I wouldn't be surprised if McKubre is embarrassed by his partisanship.
If McKubre is on to something, he'll have some noteworthy results to report after a while. Let the media feeding frenzy begin then. Until that time, let's not lose our heads.
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But "Mr. Novell" to us, huh?
Well, good heavens! Those geeks couldn't possible have any good ideas, could they.
To answer the point behind the persiflage (and my, is there a lot of it in your post), it is not inconsistent to listen to technically educated people and to one's customers. Most companies manage this trick without difficulty.
Perhaps you need to work on your listening skills.
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They have given me no reason to respect them...nor have you even begun a defense of your bizarre views. It is an inadequate defense to claim that company $foo does things in such and such a way; have you never known a company to do a foolish thing?
No, just a judgment based upon well-understood principles of security. If you doubt this, then either cite a source to support your views which contains an addressable rationale, or defend the point yourself. I will cite O'Reilly's Practical Unix and Internet Security in defense of my views, and will happily quote chapter and verse at you if you so desire.
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It even more obviously points out the fact that hiding your source code doesn't mean that crackers won't see it. It is a fatal flaw in your argument that you fail to recognize this fact.
Many people who do not generally subscribe to the open-source model for all software understand its value for cryptography. Your attempted counterargument is unsupported and, I strongly suspect, insupportable. If you can come up with a solid counterargument to the accepted view, that would be interesting. However, merely making an assertion and citing irrelevant evidence does not constitute such an argument.
Indeed it is...and I am not aware of any respected security authority within it who supports your views.
Your patronizing tone is inappropriate for someone who has displayed no understanding of security theory.
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What's the implication? That Novell's security would be reduced if they gave away source code?
That sounds like a certain discredited theory of security to me.
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>According to redhat, they upped the price to
>deal with the fact that pretty much well everyone
>who bought a boxed set wanted more technical
>support than what was previously offered.
If that's the case, then I think they failed to justify the price increase. I got a supported version of Red Hat 6.0 to see how useful it'd be compared to my previous Cheapbytes purchases. When I had a problem with the upgrade and couldn't solve it promptly, I submitted an incident to Red Hat's support page.
They made no reply after three days, so I solved my own problem instead...just like I'd do with an unsupported Cheapbytes purchase. In my case, Red Hat's support system failed significantly, and I could have saved my money. Next time I need an upgrade, I'll do it the cheap way.
--
Note to Telsa: The author of Bears Discover Fire is Terry Bissom. It is both a short story (it appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine -- can't recall which issue) and a collection of short stories, in which the eponymous story is far and away the best.
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>Microsoft appears to be very serious with this project.
Enough with the "serious" nonsense. "Serious" is for the note-monkeys in high school who substitute ambition and drudgework for intelligence. I'll take brilliance over seriousness any day.
You can pretend to be serious. You can't pretend to be witty.
>Be afraid. Very afraid.
Fear is not a good word. Fear is a word to lose by. If we want to win this fight, we will have to overcome our fear. One alternative is anger; it is very easy to convert fear to anger, and much more productive in a fight.
--
>Well if someone created an AD that advertised your product in a manor
Advertisements are out of place in manors, as any English lord could tell you.
"Ads in the manor! Damned cheek!"
>that you felt might get you in problems with certain segments of the population,
Hint: As you grow more prolix, the weakness of your argument becomes more obvious, not less. LinuxCare's only obligation was to distort RedHat's logo in some way in order to comply with fair use laws. If they did, they're within bounds. If they didn't, they'll know better next time. However, it is not incumbent upon RedHat to bash LinuxCare for displaying a better sense of humor than you yourself possess.
>I believe you would be mad also.
You believe quite a bit about someone you do not know. Is that why they call you "Mindstalker"?
--
>Red Hat is a trademark that they have to protect.
There is a useful distinction between "protect" and "act like children".
>The law, unfortunately, has not room for witty.
This is false. Parody is specifically protected in the law. I grant that LinuxCare should have altered the logo in some way in order to qualify as "fair use", but RedHat needn't have jumped on it with all four feet.
>And from the sounds of them, these ads do not parody.
This is also false. They are very effective parodies of the PalmPilot ads.
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Red Hat suing LinuxCare? God. I know it's been said at many points during Linux's evolution, but for me, this is the end of the innocence.
Commercial Linux distributions didn't bother me, since nobody violated Linux's GPL in the process. Fractiousness didn't bother me -- where's a programmer who won't argue? Non-open-source tools for Linux bothered me a bit, but I wasn't being forced to buy them and preferred the open-source alternatiuves on their own merits.
However, the Linux community always had an appealing irreverence. People in general are far too serious nowadays; you can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty. The LinuxCare spoof ads are witty. They should have been left alone.
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The last version of StarOffice used some undocumented glibc2.0 calls that disappeared in 2.1, which meant that StarOffice was broken for users of some recent distributions, including RedHat 6.0. Does anyone know if they resolved this problem in the new release?
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>This article makes a number of very valid
>points. Certainly linux performance on low-end
>hardware is markedly superior to NT, but
>the question is, how many people deploy such
>hardware in production?
You're begging the question. Many companies use hardware that's far more "low-end" than a four-processor system. Many other companies choose not to put all their eggs in one basket, preferring to distribute power among several smaller computers rather than one huge machine. You may want to look at the Extreme Linux project for an example of such a use.
>But for high volume dynamically generated
>content, for example, or commerce, or
>databases, NT is more mature
I hope you're joking. Linux draws from a much deeper well of experience than NT ever did. Can you say "reverse-encryptable password file"?
>and benefits from being developed by
>engineers rather than hackers. DEC, from
>whence Cutler came, are very serious about this.
You are confusing seriousness with excellence. You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be intelligent. This is a common error among the technically unproficient.
>I seem to recall Linus himself stating that
>he believed OS design was well understood by
>the 1970s, and he considers microkernels to be
>"stupid", plan9 to be "stupid" etc etc.
Do you have a specific reason to think he was wrong? Anyway, what's the relevance? Which of {NT, Solaris} is a microkernel?
Your argument doesn't flow well. About all you can argue from your premises is that Linux as it stands does not do well on high-end PC compatibles. Your attempt to claim that Linux is "crippled" or inherently flawed is quite a reach -- you have some filling in to do. Get cracking.
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>190,080,000
>Thats what 2200 hits/sec gets you. You'll
>be doing 190 million hits/day. Pretty damn
>impressive. I'd like to work for you,
>considering the monster bw you'll have.
You fail to distinguish between peak load and average load. One tests at a theoretical peak load in order to ensure functionality in the worst case. This is a basic principle of design in any engineering field.
Of course, PC Week tested only for speed; a more interesting peak load parameter is reliability. As other people have pointed out, NT would suffer in such a comparison.
Sadly, many technology managers seem to regard web servers (and computers and the web in general) as toys, so they judge them like they'd judge a sports car or a speedboat: Speed matters, reliability doesn't.
The issue we face is educating these managers, not some particular benchmark.
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If we're going to get worked up about languages, why aren't we worrying about Haskell, which doesn't seem to have a licensing scheme and in which Microsoft has taken an altogether too intense interest?
Encourage the Haskell folks to settle on a good license -- PAL, GPL, whatever they can stomach. ANYTHING but a Microsoft hegemony.
Rebol is just another offspring of the LISP family. Haskell is something different and interesting.
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