RMS is not an "advocate"
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RMS Responds
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· Score: 1
Posted by The Famous Brett Watson:
I think RMS is advocating
the most natural and normal form of human interaction.
I believe you are correct in describing the sharing of intellectual property as natural, since in the absence of all laws on the subject there would be no restriction on it other than what you personally choose to share or not to share.
RMS is not an advocate of this kind of "natural" freedom, however. The GPL quite deliberately eliminates a very specific right: the natural right to distribute a program in a binary-only form. In the absence of law, this would be quite possible; it is "natural". The GPL very deliberately restricts this freedom because it can be used to restrict the freedom of others. If you distribute a program in a binary-only form, then you do an "end run" around the rights of others to read and modify your program.
RMS is more correctly described as a crusader than an advocate in any case. An advocate merely points out the correctness of a particular cause or ideal; a crusader dons his battle gear and fights the enemy. The GPL is a sword, and it has always been Stallman's intention to use that sword to advance his cause.
Advocates of non-coercive licences (such as the X licence or no license at all) lack this kind of coercive weapon, which is one of the reasons RMS prefers the GPL. You do good, in his estimation, if you write software and place it in the public domain, but you would do better to copyleft it so that it can be used as a weapon to further his cause.
Re:Informal Logical Fallacies
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RMS Responds
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· Score: 1
Posted by The Famous Brett Watson:
It seems I wasted my efforts, since you've taken much the same approach to my post as you did to the original. I do read Slashdot sufficiently to encounter bad logic with some frequency; it just so happens that I thought your example was quite outstanding in that it wasn't a flame, just pure bad logic.
You believe that your definition of "Statist" coincides with that of the original poster, whereas it is apparent to me (a third party) that this is not the case. You dismiss the notion that Stallman is a statist on the grounds that he is critical of the government, yet the original point was that he believes in the application of law to enforce sharing of intellectual property. This enforced sharing of property could reasonably be described as collectivist, and the use of law to enforce it introduces the element of statism. I'll agree that Stallman is not a statist by your definition (which would require that he refrain from criticising government of any kind), but not in the sense the original poster was using the word.
I believe the original poster's analogy of conscription is faulty, but I recognise it as analogy. I'm surprised that you don't recognise it as such, and that would suggest you aren't really interested in constructing a reasonable counterargument. That being so, I'm wasting my breath, but for the moment I'll assume it was just a lack of imagination on your part rather than intellectual dishonesty.
I'll address one final point: replacing copyright with copyleft. I am quite aware that copyleft uses copyright as a means of enforcement, thank you very much. My post was quite long enough without adding the necessary verbiage to protect against that particular misunderstanding. Are you sure you are not deliberately trying to misunderstand the arguments of others?
Stallman's ideal is not to abolish copyright on software as some may believe. The abolition of copyright on software would only be a net gain in his opinion if it were accompanied by consumer protection legislation which obliged companies to provide the source code in the same way that copyleft licenses do. The restrictions of the GPL constitute his ideal state of law, and if it were in his power, I don't doubt that he would "replace copyright with copyleft" in the way I have described, although he may not do it overnight.
If you have an honest disagreement with my assessment here, then I'm willing to debate it, because I have questioned RMS directly via email on his position; I have first-hand evidence that what I say is a fair representation of his views (whether I agree with them or not).
Please at least try to understand the intent of these posts rather than deliberately misinterpreting them and then attacking the straw man.
Many "illegal drugs" have had medical uses (and some are just finding new ones)
THC was found to be a great antioxident...many times better than vitiman E (mostly due to its lower toxicity so more can be taken) - this may be an explanation for why pot smokers show the inital lung damage from smoking but the damage generally doens't evolve into a cancer
The legal drug melatonin also protects from radiation exposure (ref: TiHKAL by Alexander Shulgin).
Heroin was sold as a pain reliever and a cough medication (so was codeine).
Cocaine still does have some medical uses (I forget what).
LSD and more recently ibogain have been used to treat addictions (Ibogain was made illegal before it could ever really be tested, however it is still researched outside the USA). (also neither LSD nor ibogain is addictive. However some individuals can develop a dependance on LSD...they are far and few between and in my experiance already have extreme addictive personailites to begin with)
Even MDMA (ecstacy) has been used by psycologists during treatment sessions in some studies.
You can buy almost pure caffeine over the counter in pill form as "NoDoz". If it was controlled then they aould have to either make it prescription only or add other chemicals to it (like acetominiphen or guifenison) which will have very adverse side effects if you try to take too much (and screw up the chemistry if you had other ideas for extracting it)
I would bet that one of 2 things would happen if you ordered it: 1) You would get it. No questions asked (the catalog would say you need a DEA licence to order it if it was controlled) 2) They would laugh at you and tell you that they don't sell in small quantity to individuals and that you need to find some retail outlet place.
Check out www.sigma.com and search for lysergic acid dethylamide yup LSD...they sell it. However only to licenced persons. If you have no licence you don't get it no matter how many 'reasons' you come up with. if you have one...they sell it to you no questions asked.
Anyway...I wouldn't pay more than $3/gram for it (also remember...most caffeine is a byproduct of decaffinated coffee production...simple extraction and yeilds salable product on both ends...)
If Linux is to succeed? I think you're confusing succeed with "beat MS". Linux has already succeeded, it's a very stable solution, a very powerful solution, and does it's job very well for many, many tasks.
Linux just needs to continue improving, and adding new support for newer greater things (as long as it doesn't sacrifice any of it's stability or power to do so), and that's what it is doing.
Linux has succeeded as far as Linus' original goals for it already.
Microsoft understands that Linux is a threat. They are allocating resources to deal with it. Don't turn your back on them.
And this is exactly what will give linux the edge to catch up in any area's it's lacking. MS has one objective: Destroy competition. They can't have that, it's too hard on them to actually compete fairly. This is not good. They must do away with the competition.
Linux, on the other hand, has no such ideal - the developers working on it, don't give a rat's ass about trying to "destroy MS" (however a lot of slashdotter's, various trolls from each side, and the likes, seem to have that as a target). While MS is expending resources and wasting time trying to do in Linux, Linux continually improves right under all the pressure.
Like I've said before, neither should "win"; a marketplace without competition stagnates. However by taking this stance, they're just giving Linux the time it needs to narrow any gaps.
Hardware manufacturers have come to the conclusion that they don't like it when competing companies(read Microsoft) have them by the gonads. So, because Microsoft can't play nice, they entire computer manufacturing community has decided to rid themselves of the Windows liability.
And of course, the software community has jumped on the bandwagon because Micrsoft poses a direct threat to their markets.
Linux will win through strategic importance, NOT through technical superiority.
Hear you hear you! I totally agree with this point. As an sidenote, as far as this generation of computer titans hasn't retired, there are always some company will went out their ways to stick it up Bill Gates ass just because they hate each other personally. What's he name in Sun for example.
"Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?"
"The future, Mr. Gitts, the future."
Nah! I doubt any of these Billianires will go politic. They will be more facinated by going at each other. And Liunx is a very good candidate to be choisen as the weapon. That's one up for Linux besides the quality.
IE5 render my homepage's javascript at least 3 times faster than N4.6. I won't use IE though. However, what you are saying has nothing to do with the discussion. They are talking about dymanically generating the webpage, which should be more important when javascript, xml are standardized.
>>so I have the choice of totally uninstalling IE >>or trying to get version 5 to do work.
>Seems like a nobrainer to me.
Actually not quite. Ever tried to uninstall IE5? It's not an easy task. Go under add/remove programs and select IE 5. Notice there's absolute no option to uninstall it? There's just options to "fix it" and another I forget.
Go to the directory it's installed in, and you notice there is _no_ uninstall information - closer look reveals that the uninstall information is in a hidden directory that any average user will never know exists.
Great job guys, next thing you know Office, and other such applications won't be able to be removed once you have them on a windows system.
I don't know that linux should ever become as widespread as windows. One of the reasons I think it's so stable is that its not so damned all inclusive as windows. It doesn't have to have rehashed code so johnny keypad can run his dos games from the late eighties.
>You know, it's really funny to see all these >Linux Advocates tossing out FUD just like their >MS adversaries do.
It's a common occurrence here on slashdot, as I'm sure you already know. =)
Yup, it's true NT beat linux, but NT beat linux in benchmarks only; How long was each server up? A few minutes or hours before they ran each benchmark? What would happen if they ran the same after each had been up for a few weeks? What about after intensive use for a few weeks, the same kind a high traffic server might undergo? What about if halfway through you decided to install some new software? How'd they turn out then?
Point being, benchmarks, although they give you an outward look at things, don't give you the real picture. They're only a very small part of the equation, and they cannot compare stability, or anything of the like.
They can however show some areas where Linux needs improvement; good for them - because the developers working on Linux actually take heed to such things and do their best to improve areas that are lacking.
Are you trying to tell me that nanotech research is in the quarter billion dollar range? Or that the dollar amount we are spending on nanotech research is in that range? Keep in mind that "nanotech research" is not a number so it can't fall into a numerical range. --- Put Hemos through English 101!
It's kinda funny, all this to do over Caldera's distribution. easyIT (http://www.eit.de) has had a GUI based installation for months, with KDE as the windowing enviroment.
I dont get it anymore. Now I will say that speed is a major part in choosing an OS. I work for a company we run all BSDI systems, and unfortunately 1 NT box. That NT box only hosts approx 75 web sites. Everytime someone publishes a page to that thing I can hear the drive grind from across the room. It has 256 megs of ram. It has what I like to call the spiraling windows syndrome. Where its really fast when you first install it and then it justs keeps getting slower and slower. However I am getting away from my main point. I have never judged NT to be a good operating system. For a server you need good Remote administation (Linux excellent NT virtually none). You need support (Linux excellent NT 1900 billme). I run Linux personally and I have no complaints I like it much better then the $1000 BSDI I also use. However older unix lovers are hard to sway from there personal choice. Now Im not a C expert, but if the major kernel developers would pull together I think we could have a kick ass os by the end of the year but thats in a perfect world. Instead be will sit here and cry about it for a few more weeks.
It really looks nice, but the help text is a little clunky and wordy. It could be a lot more clear and concise.
And about it looking like Windows...
A button is a button, it's a rectangle with text in it. I don't know how you'd make it look very different.
The interface is the same as a Windows wizard, but what is a wizard? It's just pages that you can go back and forth in. You could call almost anything a wizard. Web pages, a typical text-based install, most anything.
That's not to say I like it looking like Windows, but I don't really know what they could do differently. Everyone knows how to use a Windows-style wizard. New users will find this easy.
Informal Logical Fallacies
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RMS Responds
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· Score: 1
Posted by The Famous Brett Watson:
I don't wish to mount a personal attack, but I've chosen to reply to this particular post because I've rarely seen so many informal logical errors in one place at one time. To the author of this post and any others who can't pick the errors, I highly reccommend a course in logical argument or a book on the same. But now, to the matter at hand.
I disagree that RMS is a Statist. He rarely addresses the Government in his writings, much less the Will of the Government.
Here you have attacked a point not raised by the original poster. The original poster used "Statist" as an alternative term for "Collectivist". You seem to be working on your own definitions of these terms, and there can be no stasis in the argument if you haven't agreed on definitions.
Where he does address the Government, he is critical of them, particularly how they handle the topic of Intellectual Property. Would a Statist be so critical?
Even if we use your defintion of Statism, this would seem to be false. A Statist could well be critical of the incumbent system of government. Perhaps you were thinking of a patriot?
You bring up the conscription of soldiers, in what way can anything RMS is doing be tied into the draft?!?!
Here you dismiss an analogy by arguing that it is not the same issue. That fact is inherent in analogy, and it cannot therefore be used as a valid counterargument. What you must do is demonstrate that the analogy is faulty or irrelevant. One could argue, for instance, that the analogy is faulty because nobody is obliged to write software, whereas they are obliged to become a soldier if conscripted.
I can see how the non-productive benefit from what RMS is doing, but that is a costless side effect. How is anything he is doing penalizing the productive?
Once again, you fail to address the point raised by the original poster. The original point was that RMS "wishes to establish a system where everyone is obligated to give away their property." If you are suggesting that RMS giving away his own software does not penalise the productive, then your point is true but irrelevant. On the other hand, it is clear that if copyright were to be replaced overnight with copyleft then many software authors would be deprived of earnings they might otherwise have reasonably expected to receive. That being so, we could reasonably describe this as penalising the productive, or at least a certain subset of "the productive".
A well-formed counterargument to this particular point could have challenged the premises of the original argument. The original argument implicitly assumes that software is property, for example. One can validly question whether "intellectual property" (including software) is justly "property" at all.
When faced with a challenge to demonstrate the validity of "intellectual property" (or indeed software as property), most proponents will themselves fall into one of several informal logical errors. One popular answer, for example, is that copying is stealing. This happens to be true only because of intellectual property laws, and if the question is whether intellectual property laws should exist, then this answer constitutes begging the question. Another popular answer is that "in the absence of a legal means to extract payment, no software (or no good software) would be written". This is also demonstrably false, since if it were true, then Linux, Perl, Apache, EMACS, BIND (etc etc) would not exist because they lack said means. Alternatively, they could soften the statement to "less good software would be written", but that is just speculation and would require something like a parallel universe experiment to have its accuracy tested.
Why bring all this name calling and false representation into it?
I have no error to point out here, but I would like to draw your attention to the benefits of ridding your own eye of planks before pointing out the speck in the eye of another, so to speak.
I agree... This whole benchmarking shit is very annoying... The only thing Linux can claim now is stability. And can someone tell me who let the world know that Linux is faster than NT before testing and benchmarking it. Our (Linux) ass is kicked just because we claimed to be faster and now M$ is "proving" that it's not the case... Maybe it's time to focus more on tuning.
Linux hasn't lost anything. Last time I checked I wasn't running Linux because it had the fastest web server, and I could care less how fast Samba is. We need to stop chasing Microsofts tail here! Microsoft is just trying to pull linux into their overbloated Marketing/benchmark/it don't matter if it works as long as it looks good on paper world! Linux is a good, free, stable and open minded/open source operating system. Its OK if they clean up some problems in the code, but not without forgetting what Linux is all about!!
I think before we get a bunch of./'ers yelling about how this is more Micro$oft FUD we should step back and realize how good this will be for linux. Ever heard the saying, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?" I think that applies great here. Micro$oft is now convinced that they are #1, and Linux will never be able to compete. But, if we take this as a learning experience (I know, I know, you thought you were done with that in college...:) We can improve on our weakness', turn around with the upgrades (much faster than Redmond could) and blow them out of the water down the road, w/out them even expecting it. So I think its important we don't just think of this as more FUD, but as a chance to find out where we need to improve, and to implement those improvements. --just MHO
>Man what's the deal with this Linux? I can't even >view half the websites I usually go to with this >crappy Communicator web browser. And my desktop >looks shitty ( hence turd )
So, because you haven't a clue what you're doing, suddenly it all sucks?
It's sad to see, but Windows is making idiots out of people if the above is any example. "Let's go breed some more laziness guys.."
Here we have a case study in "Hello, I am either extremely uninformed, or talking out of my..".
Don't mean to be crude in my wording there, but frankly, you are talking out of your backside. Windows won't die; not unless Bill Gates up and dissolves the company (Do you really think that's going to happen?).
As far as I'm concerned, Linux isn't going anywhere either, except for further evolution. You're missing the point entirely if you think Linux was made, or is worked on now, only to demolish MS. That was not, nor is, the intention at all.
Both will survive, and I hope they both thrive. The market for anything, software, and the likes, stagnates without competition. Enter the competition, you have people going head to head, trying to outdo the other, continually advancing, continually improving on their old product. MS may get it right one day, but as they continue to try to squash and destroy Linux, instead of simply learning from it, as Linux is learning from MS, they're going to lag behind.
This by no means, means they're going to dissapear, and if you think they will, you're living in dreamland, along with Bob, and the rest of them. =)
>You are essentially saying no AC posts are valid.
Good for him! I completely agree. AC posts aren't valid; they're space filler. Anybody who can't be troubled to post their name, or even a nick and email for that matter, doesn't have an opinion obviously. They're just that, cowards. =)
And you will notice most of the flaming, pro/anti what not does come from AC's.. most of the people with names seem to actually put some thought into their posts, though I can't say that applies to everybody.
>How mature. You're just as guilty of labeling as >those jerks in MS marketing. those jerks in MS >marketing.
Yup. Human nature, kiddo, everybody does it. Get used to it.
-- Mark Waterous http://linux.revision3.com/ -- Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
Slashdot Mirror
I believe you are correct in describing the sharing of intellectual property as natural, since in the absence of all laws on the subject there would be no restriction on it other than what you personally choose to share or not to share.
RMS is not an advocate of this kind of "natural" freedom, however. The GPL quite deliberately eliminates a very specific right: the natural right to distribute a program in a binary-only form. In the absence of law, this would be quite possible; it is "natural". The GPL very deliberately restricts this freedom because it can be used to restrict the freedom of others. If you distribute a program in a binary-only form, then you do an "end run" around the rights of others to read and modify your program.
RMS is more correctly described as a crusader than an advocate in any case. An advocate merely points out the correctness of a particular cause or ideal; a crusader dons his battle gear and fights the enemy. The GPL is a sword, and it has always been Stallman's intention to use that sword to advance his cause.
Advocates of non-coercive licences (such as the X licence or no license at all) lack this kind of coercive weapon, which is one of the reasons RMS prefers the GPL. You do good, in his estimation, if you write software and place it in the public domain, but you would do better to copyleft it so that it can be used as a weapon to further his cause.
It seems I wasted my efforts, since you've taken much the same approach to my post as you did to the original. I do read Slashdot sufficiently to encounter bad logic with some frequency; it just so happens that I thought your example was quite outstanding in that it wasn't a flame, just pure bad logic.
You believe that your definition of "Statist" coincides with that of the original poster, whereas it is apparent to me (a third party) that this is not the case. You dismiss the notion that Stallman is a statist on the grounds that he is critical of the government, yet the original point was that he believes in the application of law to enforce sharing of intellectual property. This enforced sharing of property could reasonably be described as collectivist, and the use of law to enforce it introduces the element of statism. I'll agree that Stallman is not a statist by your definition (which would require that he refrain from criticising government of any kind), but not in the sense the original poster was using the word.
I believe the original poster's analogy of conscription is faulty, but I recognise it as analogy. I'm surprised that you don't recognise it as such, and that would suggest you aren't really interested in constructing a reasonable counterargument. That being so, I'm wasting my breath, but for the moment I'll assume it was just a lack of imagination on your part rather than intellectual dishonesty.
I'll address one final point: replacing copyright with copyleft. I am quite aware that copyleft uses copyright as a means of enforcement, thank you very much. My post was quite long enough without adding the necessary verbiage to protect against that particular misunderstanding. Are you sure you are not deliberately trying to misunderstand the arguments of others?
Stallman's ideal is not to abolish copyright on software as some may believe. The abolition of copyright on software would only be a net gain in his opinion if it were accompanied by consumer protection legislation which obliged companies to provide the source code in the same way that copyleft licenses do. The restrictions of the GPL constitute his ideal state of law, and if it were in his power, I don't doubt that he would "replace copyright with copyleft" in the way I have described, although he may not do it overnight.
If you have an honest disagreement with my assessment here, then I'm willing to debate it, because I have questioned RMS directly via email on his position; I have first-hand evidence that what I say is a fair representation of his views (whether I agree with them or not).
Please at least try to understand the intent of these posts rather than deliberately misinterpreting them and then attacking the straw man.
Posted by MaverickPl:
to much Big Lewbosky for you buddy...
Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:
Many "illegal drugs" have had medical uses (and
some are just finding new ones)
THC was found to be a great antioxident...many
times better than vitiman E (mostly due to its
lower toxicity so more can be taken) - this
may be an explanation for why pot smokers
show the inital lung damage from smoking
but the damage generally doens't evolve into
a cancer
The legal drug melatonin also protects from
radiation exposure (ref: TiHKAL by Alexander
Shulgin).
Heroin was sold as a pain reliever and a cough
medication (so was codeine).
Cocaine still does have some medical uses (I forget what).
LSD and more recently ibogain have been used to
treat addictions (Ibogain was made illegal before
it could ever really be tested, however it is
still researched outside the USA).
(also neither LSD nor ibogain is addictive.
However some individuals can develop a dependance
on LSD...they are far and few between and in my
experiance already have extreme addictive
personailites to begin with)
Even MDMA (ecstacy) has been used by psycologists
during treatment sessions in some studies.
-Steve
Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:
No way.
You can buy almost pure caffeine over the counter
in pill form as "NoDoz". If it was controlled
then they aould have to either make it prescription only or add other chemicals to it
(like acetominiphen or guifenison) which will
have very adverse side effects if you try
to take too much (and screw up the chemistry if
you had other ideas for extracting it)
I would bet that one of 2 things would happen if
you ordered it:
1) You would get it. No questions asked
(the catalog would say you need a DEA licence
to order it if it was controlled)
2) They would laugh at you and tell you that
they don't sell in small quantity to individuals
and that you need to find some retail outlet place.
Check out www.sigma.com and search for
lysergic acid dethylamide yup LSD...they
sell it. However only to licenced persons.
If you have no licence you don't get it
no matter how many 'reasons' you come up with.
if you have one...they sell it to you no
questions asked.
Anyway...I wouldn't pay more than $3/gram for it
(also remember...most caffeine is a byproduct
of decaffinated coffee production...simple
extraction and yeilds salable product on both
ends...)
Posted by Synsthe:
If Linux is to succeed,
If Linux is to succeed? I think you're confusing succeed with "beat MS". Linux has already succeeded, it's a very stable solution, a very powerful solution, and does it's job very well for many, many tasks.
Linux just needs to continue improving, and adding new support for newer greater things (as long as it doesn't sacrifice any of it's stability or power to do so), and that's what it is doing.
Linux has succeeded as far as Linus' original goals for it already.
Now it's just going to keep getting better.
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
Posted by Synsthe:
Microsoft understands that Linux is a threat. They are allocating resources to deal with it. Don't turn your back on them.
And this is exactly what will give linux the edge to catch up in any area's it's lacking. MS has one objective: Destroy competition. They can't have that, it's too hard on them to actually compete fairly. This is not good. They must do away with the competition.
Linux, on the other hand, has no such ideal - the developers working on it, don't give a rat's ass about trying to "destroy MS" (however a lot of slashdotter's, various trolls from each side, and the likes, seem to have that as a target). While MS is expending resources and wasting time trying to do in Linux, Linux continually improves right under all the pressure.
Like I've said before, neither should "win"; a marketplace without competition stagnates. However by taking this stance, they're just giving Linux the time it needs to narrow any gaps.
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
Hardware manufacturers have come to the conclusion that they don't like it when competing
companies(read Microsoft) have them by the gonads. So, because Microsoft can't play nice, they
entire computer manufacturing community has decided to rid themselves of the Windows liability.
And of course, the software community has jumped on the bandwagon because Micrsoft poses a
direct threat to their markets.
Linux will win through strategic importance, NOT through technical superiority.
Hear you hear you! I totally agree with this point. As an sidenote, as far as this generation of computer titans hasn't retired, there are always some company will went out their ways to stick it up Bill Gates ass just because they hate each other personally. What's he name in Sun for example.
"Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?"
"The future, Mr. Gitts, the future."
Nah! I doubt any of these Billianires will go politic. They will be more facinated by going at each other. And Liunx is a very good candidate to be choisen as the weapon. That's one up for Linux besides the quality.
CY
This is OT but... of course you are right.
IE5 render my homepage's javascript at least 3 times faster than N4.6. I won't use IE though. However, what you are saying has nothing to do with the discussion. They are talking about dymanically generating the webpage, which should be more important when javascript, xml are standardized.
CY
Posted by Synsthe:
>>so I have the choice of totally uninstalling IE
>>or trying to get version 5 to do work.
>Seems like a nobrainer to me.
Actually not quite. Ever tried to uninstall IE5? It's not an easy task. Go under add/remove programs and select IE 5. Notice there's absolute no option to uninstall it? There's just options to "fix it" and another I forget.
Go to the directory it's installed in, and you notice there is _no_ uninstall information - closer look reveals that the uninstall information is in a hidden directory that any average user will never know exists.
Great job guys, next thing you know Office, and other such applications won't be able to be removed once you have them on a windows system.
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
Posted by Lo-Rez:
I don't know that linux should ever become as widespread as windows. One of the reasons I think it's so stable is that its not so damned all inclusive as windows. It doesn't have to have rehashed code so johnny keypad can run his dos games from the late eighties.
Posted by Synsthe:
>You know, it's really funny to see all these
>Linux Advocates tossing out FUD just like their
>MS adversaries do.
It's a common occurrence here on slashdot, as I'm sure you already know. =)
Yup, it's true NT beat linux, but NT beat linux in benchmarks only; How long was each server up? A few minutes or hours before they ran each benchmark? What would happen if they ran the same after each had been up for a few weeks? What about after intensive use for a few weeks, the same kind a high traffic server might undergo? What about if halfway through you decided to install some new software? How'd they turn out then?
Point being, benchmarks, although they give you an outward look at things, don't give you the real picture. They're only a very small part of the equation, and they cannot compare stability, or anything of the like.
They can however show some areas where Linux needs improvement; good for them - because the developers working on Linux actually take heed to such things and do their best to improve areas that are lacking.
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Check the sig. God Himself says we should be using good grammar and spelling.
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Are you trying to tell me that nanotech research is in the quarter billion dollar range? Or that the dollar amount we are spending on nanotech research is in that range? Keep in mind that "nanotech research" is not a number so it can't fall into a numerical range.
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
Posted by Orblivion:
It's kinda funny, all this to do over Caldera's distribution. easyIT (http://www.eit.de) has had a GUI based installation for months, with KDE as the windowing enviroment.
Posted by grabes:
I dont get it anymore. Now I will say that speed is a major part in choosing an OS. I work for a company we run all BSDI systems, and unfortunately 1 NT box. That NT box only hosts approx 75 web sites. Everytime someone publishes a page to that thing I can hear the drive grind from across the room. It has 256 megs of ram. It has what I like to call the spiraling windows syndrome. Where its really fast when you first install it and then it justs keeps getting slower and slower. However I am getting away from my main point. I have never judged NT to be a good operating system. For a server you need good Remote administation (Linux excellent NT virtually none). You need support (Linux excellent NT 1900 billme). I run Linux personally and I have no complaints I like it much better then the $1000 BSDI I also use. However older unix lovers are hard to sway from there personal choice. Now Im not a C expert, but if the major kernel developers would pull together I think we could have a kick ass os by the end of the year but thats in a perfect world. Instead be will sit here and cry about it for a few more weeks.
Posted by Fleeno:
It really looks nice, but the help text is a little clunky and wordy. It could be a lot more clear and concise.
And about it looking like Windows...
A button is a button, it's a rectangle with text in it. I don't know how you'd make it look very different.
The interface is the same as a Windows wizard, but what is a wizard? It's just pages that you can go back and forth in. You could call almost anything a wizard. Web pages, a typical text-based install, most anything.
That's not to say I like it looking like Windows, but I don't really know what they could do differently. Everyone knows how to use a Windows-style wizard. New users will find this easy.
I don't wish to mount a personal attack, but I've chosen to reply to this particular post because I've rarely seen so many informal logical errors in one place at one time. To the author of this post and any others who can't pick the errors, I highly reccommend a course in logical argument or a book on the same. But now, to the matter at hand. Here you have attacked a point not raised by the original poster. The original poster used "Statist" as an alternative term for "Collectivist". You seem to be working on your own definitions of these terms, and there can be no stasis in the argument if you haven't agreed on definitions. Even if we use your defintion of Statism, this would seem to be false. A Statist could well be critical of the incumbent system of government. Perhaps you were thinking of a patriot? Here you dismiss an analogy by arguing that it is not the same issue. That fact is inherent in analogy, and it cannot therefore be used as a valid counterargument. What you must do is demonstrate that the analogy is faulty or irrelevant. One could argue, for instance, that the analogy is faulty because nobody is obliged to write software, whereas they are obliged to become a soldier if conscripted. Once again, you fail to address the point raised by the original poster. The original point was that RMS "wishes to establish a system where everyone is obligated to give away their property." If you are suggesting that RMS giving away his own software does not penalise the productive, then your point is true but irrelevant. On the other hand, it is clear that if copyright were to be replaced overnight with copyleft then many software authors would be deprived of earnings they might otherwise have reasonably expected to receive. That being so, we could reasonably describe this as penalising the productive, or at least a certain subset of "the productive".
A well-formed counterargument to this particular point could have challenged the premises of the original argument. The original argument implicitly assumes that software is property, for example. One can validly question whether "intellectual property" (including software) is justly "property" at all.
When faced with a challenge to demonstrate the validity of "intellectual property" (or indeed software as property), most proponents will themselves fall into one of several informal logical errors. One popular answer, for example, is that copying is stealing. This happens to be true only because of intellectual property laws, and if the question is whether intellectual property laws should exist, then this answer constitutes begging the question. Another popular answer is that "in the absence of a legal means to extract payment, no software (or no good software) would be written". This is also demonstrably false, since if it were true, then Linux, Perl, Apache, EMACS, BIND (etc etc) would not exist because they lack said means. Alternatively, they could soften the statement to "less good software would be written", but that is just speculation and would require something like a parallel universe experiment to have its accuracy tested.
I have no error to point out here, but I would like to draw your attention to the benefits of ridding your own eye of planks before pointing out the speck in the eye of another, so to speak.Posted by Gates of Borg:
In you face
Posted by saberk:
I agree... This whole benchmarking shit is very annoying... The only thing Linux can claim now is stability. And can someone tell me who let the world know that Linux is faster than NT before testing and benchmarking it. Our (Linux) ass is kicked just because we claimed to be faster and now M$ is "proving" that it's not the case... Maybe it's time to focus more on tuning.
Posted by The Technical Revolutionary:
Linux hasn't lost anything. Last time I checked I wasn't running Linux because it had the fastest web server, and I could care less how fast Samba is. We need to stop chasing Microsofts tail here! Microsoft is just trying to pull linux into their overbloated Marketing/benchmark/it don't matter if it works as long as it looks good on paper world! Linux is a good, free, stable and open minded/open source operating system. Its OK if they clean up some problems in the code, but not without forgetting what Linux is all about!!
Posted by hurstdawg:
./'ers yelling about how this is more Micro$oft FUD we should step back and realize how good this will be for linux. Ever heard the saying, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?" I think that applies great here. Micro$oft is now convinced that they are #1, and Linux will never be able to compete. But, if we take this as a learning experience (I know, I know, you thought you were done with that in college... :) We can improve on our weakness', turn around with the upgrades (much faster than Redmond could) and blow them out of the water down the road, w/out them even expecting it. So I think its important we don't just think of this as more FUD, but as a chance to find out where we need to improve, and to implement those improvements.
I think before we get a bunch of
--just MHO
Posted by Synsthe:
>Man what's the deal with this Linux? I can't even
>view half the websites I usually go to with this
>crappy Communicator web browser. And my desktop
>looks shitty ( hence turd )
So, because you haven't a clue what you're doing, suddenly it all sucks?
It's sad to see, but Windows is making idiots out of people if the above is any example. "Let's go breed some more laziness guys.."
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
Posted by Synsthe:
>Windows will die.
>
>Like a bug.
Here we have a case study in "Hello, I am either extremely uninformed, or talking out of my..".
Don't mean to be crude in my wording there, but frankly, you are talking out of your backside. Windows won't die; not unless Bill Gates up and dissolves the company (Do you really think that's going to happen?).
As far as I'm concerned, Linux isn't going anywhere either, except for further evolution. You're missing the point entirely if you think Linux was made, or is worked on now, only to demolish MS. That was not, nor is, the intention at all.
Both will survive, and I hope they both thrive. The market for anything, software, and the likes, stagnates without competition. Enter the competition, you have people going head to head, trying to outdo the other, continually advancing, continually improving on their old product. MS may get it right one day, but as they continue to try to squash and destroy Linux, instead of simply learning from it, as Linux is learning from MS, they're going to lag behind.
This by no means, means they're going to dissapear, and if you think they will, you're living in dreamland, along with Bob, and the rest of them. =)
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
Posted by Synsthe:
>You are essentially saying no AC posts are valid.
Good for him! I completely agree. AC posts aren't valid; they're space filler. Anybody who can't be troubled to post their name, or even a nick and email for that matter, doesn't have an opinion obviously. They're just that, cowards. =)
And you will notice most of the flaming, pro/anti what not does come from AC's.. most of the people with names seem to actually put some thought into their posts, though I can't say that applies to everybody.
>How mature. You're just as guilty of labeling as >those jerks in MS marketing. those jerks in MS
>marketing.
Yup. Human nature, kiddo, everybody does it. Get used to it.
--
Mark Waterous
http://linux.revision3.com/
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)