"Then, for the flags, you could have them use the same names "
Then again, the stupidness of looking it from the end user point of view... The end user won't EVER use but the flags someone programmed; it's plain obvious. Now, go and tell the programmer it should use GNU-like long options when he (for whatever reason) dislike them.
I really don't know the syntax for yum, but let's say for the shake of the argument it goes like yum -install package where apt-get goes apt-get install package. Are *you*, as an end user, magically make yum accept "install" or apt-get "-install"? Sure not. It takes a programmer to do the trick. Now, both yum and apt-get have their own programming comunities. From time to time you may convince some group that the other's way is better, but in the general case scenario, they will have very valid reasons (at least for them) to go the path they follow and they are the ones that make it happen, so if they like "potaitos", "potaitos" you will have no matter how much you tell them "potatos" is much better.
And even if you managed to convice them, nothig stops a third party to start anew with "tomaitos" just because "tomaitos" is the way he feels the best. And his is programming efforts are of some value, you started with "potaitos" and "potatos" and will end up with "potaitos" and "tomaitos" after so much struggling.
"it's entirely possible to do something like that and have it become something universal"
Yeah, sure, enterli possible... the day you can imprission people that deffies your standard, or something like this.
"The FTP protocol gets standardized?"
That's plain stupid. Of course "The FTP protocol" is a standard, or else you wouldn't be able to talk about "The FTP protocol" -just the same you can talk about "The Qt4 API" but then, what purpouse serves "The FTP protocol"? Yeah, moving files from here to there... Surprise! just like TFTP, HTTP, WebDAV, CIFS, NFS, scp, plain old rcp and probably another dozen protocols I can't recall right now. From your very point of view is not the protocol, but the service (why should nobody have to learn a dozen different ways to move files from here to there?) so see, even "Standards" is not good enough.
"and make all the stuff in between completely modular"
I promise I'll send you the first grandma' usable version of the Hurd packaged with a copy of Duke Nukum Forever; just hold your breath.
"things are changing, modular programming is becoming more and more popular thankfully"
Modular programming? Maybe. Modular "toolizing"? It's decades old. What do you think `ls -l | less` or `echo time > out.txt` means? But then, there comes some guru deciding that piping, IPC, POSIX system calls... are too cumbersome and there's the need for some "high level abstraction" or "service oriented" monolithic approach and, guess what? As long as he puts his effort where his mounth is you end with some people thinking the KDE-way is the best while others abash it in favour of Gnome, some people CORBA and then some RMI.
On square 1 again.
"Programs and companies should compete, but everyone's freedom should not suffer because of it"
That's all well and good... as long as you see that company's (or even individual hackers') freedom to look for their way shouldn't suffer either (and it won't, since you can't forbid it), and since *they* (the producers) not *you* (the end user) are the ones that "make it happen" is no wonder it's *their* freedom the one that you see pushed forward in the wild instead of yours.
"Open source is all about working together"
Yes. It's quite all about WORK and then some mumblemumble. Do you WORK? See point four on my previous poster. You don't? See points one to three and don't wonder the outcoming.
"Huge corporations aren't fond of capitalism. They're fond of profits, which isn't the same thing."
Well said.
And then, on its way to maximize profit they always turn to use communist methods on its own internal organization (planified economy, freezing competition niche creation, banning individual property and free speech, top-down rewarding schemes, fixed price internal "markets", artificial creation and definition of such "markets"... just look for a meme about "soviet russia" and you'll find it's directly applied on private corporations).
"That doesn't mean, of course, that there aren't exception to the rule. Some corporations in fact institute models of internal competition and purchasing/selling services to between departments"
That's, I think, a flawed "exception", since those departments are not free to decide if they want to compete or not; there's no freedom to create new competing units ("hey, I know I'm on the R&D department, but I think I can do better than our financials department so I'll offer my financial services to the company to see if I can gain market share"... no way); there's no freedom to stablish their (internal) market prices and profit margins; there's no freedom to stablish the rewarding schemes (try "selling" your chief engineer must earn more than your CFO even if you can demonstrate the engineer brings more to the bottom line than the CFO).
Generally speaking, the most similar body to a board of directors is "soviet russia's" politbureau.
""...Microsoft and Yahoo have contracted for a combined 90 megawatts of electricity -- MORE THAN THE WORLD TRADE CENTER HUMMING AT PEAK POWER ON A HOT SUMMER DAY."
Perhaps Harpers is just a little bit behind on current events."
I don't think so. 90MW certainly *is* more that current world trade center humming, or is it?
"I don't think I need to say anything about the relationship between predatory behaviour and capitalism, do I?
If only people could look at the history of socialist and communist countries they could see for themselves that predatory behaviour is eliminated. "
Difference being that while predatory behaviour is a flaw on socialist theories (they didn't take it properly into account) is a key concept -and main force, on capitalist ones.
"I tend to disagree because of the numerous laws that prevent competition such as the DMCA"
It might have not a (perfect) free market then. But certainly it *is* capitalist. Or is it now that USA people can't own goods by and for themselves and are not able to incoporate into groups that share a common economical vest?
"So, a business that commits violence can have only one among two possible status: either there's nobody above it that can legitimately and legally punish it for doing so, meaning for all practical purposes it is a government-like entity"
No. You forget the very basic notion that for a given bunch of people on a given land extension there can only be one government while you can have more than a company that by any practical means cannot be punished. You are mistaking "government" with plain old "power". Just to put on a glaring example: slavery companies in west africa did go its way without peril nor opposition; did that make them the "government" or "equal-to-government" of the area? They just had overwhelming power but not the slightest resemblance to government. In fact, the power were on the slavery companies side while the "government-equivalent" were where expected: the tribal chiefs on each town. Given the limited power a tribal chief can have (you just could flee by night and that's all), here you see both extremes at the same time: government without power and power without government.
"In a democracy there are clear legal limits on what businesses can do so far as violent acts go."
Just because there's a common agreed upon body to state those clear limits. Such a body is called, oh surprise, "government". The fact that the government mandates the law have really nothing to do with it being elected by people, by god or by martians: it mandates the law... because it's the government.
"Excluding support by the owner of the means of violence (the government), a business or business group has only one way to avoid competition from arising: providing goods and/or services at a quality and service level that makes it uninteresting for any would-be competitor to try"
That makes *two* ways, at least. There always will be "the one reason": now that government doesn't hold the legal monopoly to violence, anyone else is free to use it. That's not just a theoretical issue: history is plenty of examples where private indiviuals and incorporated organizations have used violence (and I'm meaning well-thought organized violence) as a means to reach their bussiness goals.
"If there's a region where an entity that elsewhere is called "a company" is the effective ruling power (thus, "government-like"), then that entity is that region's government, even if nominally the "actual", "official" government is another entity."
Then, the one you answer to is right: you are playing with words. You are trying to look libertarian when you are just playing the "true Scotish" falacy.
" a market with a minimal government, limited to enforcing contract and property law, is indistinguishable from a market with one or more private defense organizations and no government."
You are partly right, but you forget an implicit assertion made regarding free markets and goverment. The implicit part is "for a country" (for a country to have a free market...). As soon as you have a country, the issue of the defense of the *countrie's* borders, of the *countrie's* internal security, etc. rises. Certainly for the absolute libertarian, you could go with no government at all, as long as there would be no country either.
On the other hand, a portion of land with a risen monopoly on defense organization (and it would reach for sure such a monopoly) without government and one named "country" where the defense organization monopoly is handed by a government are indistinguishable too. Well, they would be distingusihable after all: one would have "government" and the other would have "government co.".
then millions and millions of partially-knowledgeable people reacting almost instantly to fast changes happening "around them ends up necessarily producing a better outcome than a bunch of partially-knowledgeable central planners"
Why the heck, then, all known corporations opt by the so-ill "comunist" strategies? If they are so fond of capitalism, why is it that they don't promote it within their own bussiness?
"Rubbish. A pure free-market capitalist system would have no copyright or patent monopolies. Hence, no microsoft."
Bullshit. Who says a copyright/patent-based monopoly is the one that can be? Of course you have natural monopolies an strongarmed monopolies (if you control, say, the delivery bussiness you can use that to force shops to sell your stuff).
In fact, there were no problem -at all, with Microsoft being a monopoly, but *abusing* its monopoly position to force its entry on other markets.
I didn't say you were lying because I didn't believe you managed to get someone through the steps to modify some registry entry. I said you were lying because there's no chance you really directed people over the phone both on a GUI and a text command line and found the former easier.
"I'll sure as hell have an easier time explaining how to do that to my mom than "adding the driver to the kernel" if its not there already."
I'm sure you are talking out your expectation or directly lying. I know because I literally did they both.
The registry was first: go start programs, look for execute, write down regedt32 and press enter (it was quite a time ago); look at the left pane (I don't see any pane); expand HKLM (what's that?) expand this branch, then this one then... (heck, I don't remember the very exact name, and I'm directing her out of my memory) hemm... can you read me what you see? No, no, no, can you repeat that last one again? Oh! you meant [whatever] Ok! that was the entry; click on it; you see on the right pane an entry named "whatever" which hold a "1" value? Right; then overwrite it to "0". Ok, now enter-enter-enter-enter and reboot.
The add a kernel module was some years after that: Open the "K" menu, look for system, then root console (hey my son, it opens a window that say's "password:" I know mum) type in [root password spelled] (but son, I don't see it written down... -I know mum, just stay typing slowly and carefully); you see a "pound" sign don't you? Yes. Now write modprobe [whatever] and enter.
Well, you were lying and I was lying too. The about-the-registry is true; the Linux is only half true. I did it with friends and some clients and indeed I always found easier to handtake them by spelling them the commands than leading them through graphic windows I can't see (specially when they "don't see" the button I tell them to press and I can't know if that's because they just look but don't see -so many times, or because they mistook some previous step and now they are glazing at a blank Word document instead of the registry editor). I told I didn't have to do that with my mum... because her PC has an ssh daemon and an iptables rulesets so I can reach its box and fix it for her without her even notizing! Yeah, so much difficult for her.
"that would mean MSFT could end up with some UNIX copyright ownership"
That's a cute machiavellic plan, Brain. It only has a little petty "but"...
Why didn't Microsoft tried that path as soon as 1979 nor any time later? (Hint: look for Microsoft Xenix - I remember seeing the "Microsoft TM" on HP-Ux boot up screens in early nineties). A funny thing is Microsoft paying royalties to SCO when we all positively know they don't have to: they payed for that right directly to AT&T the very year SCO was founded.
"This is not capitalism at work, it's predatory behavior and something anti-trust lawyers should sink their teeth into."
Then it *is* capitalism at work by its very definition. Why do you think you need anti-trust laws but because growing monopolies is a known ill-effect of capitalism in action?
I don't think I need to say anything about the relationship between predatory behaviour and capitalism, do I?
"I disagree. Myself, I would try more distros, if I didn't have to spend the time learning a new way of thinking each time."
Two points: 1) If you think learning a new distribution is "learning a new way of thinking" then you are still to rooky (it's only a matter of learning some specific tools, not much more). 2) Again, if they worked the same, why loosing time testing the same?
"For example, yum and apt-get are pretty close in what they you can do with them. Why not try to unify the interface?"
For once, yum is newer than apt-get so why do you think yum looks and acts like, ahem, yum instead of copycat apt-get? Exactly: both because yum authors thought their way was better and because if yum felt and acted like apt-get it wouldn't be yum, it would be apt-get. On this basis it's clear that in your effort for unification is not yum the one that should go towards apt-get. But then, yum has been around for sometime, so we can expect that if apt-get developers show something interesting in yum they'd already go for it (after all, it's open source). But then, why do you think this didn't happen? Exactly: again two reasons. One, because apt-get developers already thought about it and they still thougth their way was better (so no point trying to convince them to converge towards yum) or because they thought it wasn't worth the effort, in which case you'd better put your own hands on the problem than whine because, again, you'll get nothing just whining.
"What really matters is what's under the hood."
That's open source: define, please, "under the hood". Is it program names and options? Certainly yes. Is it APIs? Probably not for you but certainly a developer would say just like you "why do I have to learn so many different APIs? can't they try to unify them?". And then we are again at square 1. Or they could just define and implement the same, but this would be quite idiotic since they could just *use* and *modify* the old codebase, probably within the very same project, wouldn't they?
"The community, preformance etc etc."
On one hand, you *already* can have different communities with the same distro (think LUGs, only over the Internet: if you don't like "fedorafans", just go to "friendsoffedora"). On the other, do you think performance comes out of thin air? implementation decisions obviously affect it, so it's very probably it will affect APIs too (see my previous paragraph) and finally they probably would affect outer interfaces. After all, if you like apt-get but i.e. you feel it slow, you don't start a new program, you go and summ up the hackers group of apt-get itself.
In the very end while I understand you, I can see your opinion is *very* naive and failing the "reality check". I already said that I enjoy current variety and feel it useful but even if not, it's obvious things in real world can't go otherwise. You can expect minor victories from your point of view, but the overall landscape is doomed to be one of diversity.
In order for your naivety to vanish, just change your mindpath from current "I don't like the way things are, so I whine" to this: "I don't like the way things are, so I'll change them myself" and see what happens.
Hint: to follow your own example, just try indeed to go for a universal package manager; what would you do? 1) Go to yum people and convince them to abandon it in favour of apt-get. Do you really think you will success? See my previous paragraphs. 2) Go to apt-get people and convince them to abandon it in favour of yum. Do you really think you will success? See my previous paragraphs. 3) Start your new and revolutionary universal package manager, so wonderful everybody will jump to it. Do you really think you will success? Well, probably yum people thought it too when they started but please, think a little about the possibility of ending up with *three* package managers instead of neither one nor two. 4) Have a look at yum and apt-get and then jump into either hackers community and
"It's the computer engineers that are doing the lower level development."
Of course!
"a large number of CS majors apparently believe that [...] both memory and [CPU] cycles are infinite.'"
That's the difference between a computer ENGINEER and a computer SCIENTIST. After all, complete turing machines *do* have infinite memory and cpu cycles./me fastly ducks away
"In a year's time we'll probably have a winner... or, let them be two years."
Yes, of course. SysV vs BSD has been there, how much? 25 years? But, of course, it'll settle now in a year of two. Yes, of course: Red Hat will throu away their years of development and fine tunning of their init scripts because it will settle. Debian... well, even if they decided it (and they won't) you probably won't see Lenny's succesor in such a timeframe.
You forget that: 1) There are not such a terrible differences between SysV and BSD (nor anyone of their more modern successors) so that one could mean a terrible advantage over the other. 2) The init system layout is not so terrible important anyway, but it's quite complex and positioned on a place that it is critical to the system so there's not so strong pushing to change it: if ain't broken, don't change it. 3) Not being such an important subsystem by itself, being quite delicate to change (lot of corner cases), and not showing anyone terrible advantages over the others, inertia mandates: you can bet that, for the most part, current Unix and unix-like systems that use SysV init systems will retain its use, while BSD-related will do the same too on the foreseeable future.
"There is no point in using a completely different interface for two things that do the same thing though"
Unless, of course, I really think my way it's better (on the other hand, why would I try a different path if I didn't think it's better?).
"I believe Linux could be completely seamless between most all distros"
If they were so seemless among, what would be the segregating factor to choose one over the other?
"I hope one day us Linux users will actually have the freedom to use whatever system we prefer"
Yeah, the kind of freedom that arises from choosing among things that in reality are just the same.
"reducing "distros" to mere package and configuration "groups"."
*I* already can choose among different packages and configuration groups. You don't really think I install the same packages and configuration groups on my servers than on my desktops, do you? Freedom to choose means exactly the oposite you try to defend: choosing among *different* things, the more different, the more freedom on my choice. What's the point in choosing among things that are equal? I think you'd better prefer not to have the time and effort to analyse those different things: of course the more similar the choices the lesser risk to be wrong. But that's not freedom; it's lazyness.
"I happened to be interested in this, so took the opportunity to see what man had to say about update-rc.d."
So Debian *does* have SysV-style init scripts, doesn't it? And Debian *does* have simple tools to add and remove programs from a runlevel (that's exactly what update-rc.d does), doesn't it?
"When I moved from Red Hat to Debian (remember Bruce Peren's UserLinux ?) and to Ubuntu the thing I missed was the clarity of SysV init and the simple tools to add and remove programs from a runlevel."
The problem is just your ignorance; don't put the blame on anyone else.
Debian and Ubuntu *use* SysV init scripts by default and they have *one* single tool to add and remove programs from a runlevel (update-rc.d).
"Yes, there are sections like "go and smite thine enemy, to the last one" and such, but you have to read those in the context in which they were written."
Of course, you know what the "proper" context is. Or is it per chance that "context" can change with time? Is it the same context when a Pope tells to burn people than when celebrate Jesus' love?
You can't be wrong: it's only a matter to choose the proper context.
"You say that it is fair to say that information 'influences' people."
But... Who can deny that!!!???
Imagine you and I meet with a friend of mine: Scenario 1: -Hi, AC, this is my friend Mike. -Hi, Mike. Scenario 2: -Hi, AC, this is my frind Mike that just killed your mum this morning -Hi, Mike.
Do you think these two scenarios are the same? Do you think the information that Mike killed your mother won't influence you? Of course yes! That's the basic point of the "yeah, but let's hear the other side before making a judgement"
Slashdot Mirror
"Then, for the flags, you could have them use the same names "
Then again, the stupidness of looking it from the end user point of view... The end user won't EVER use but the flags someone programmed; it's plain obvious. Now, go and tell the programmer it should use GNU-like long options when he (for whatever reason) dislike them.
I really don't know the syntax for yum, but let's say for the shake of the argument it goes like yum -install package where apt-get goes apt-get install package. Are *you*, as an end user, magically make yum accept "install" or apt-get "-install"? Sure not. It takes a programmer to do the trick. Now, both yum and apt-get have their own programming comunities. From time to time you may convince some group that the other's way is better, but in the general case scenario, they will have very valid reasons (at least for them) to go the path they follow and they are the ones that make it happen, so if they like "potaitos", "potaitos" you will have no matter how much you tell them "potatos" is much better.
And even if you managed to convice them, nothig stops a third party to start anew with "tomaitos" just because "tomaitos" is the way he feels the best. And his is programming efforts are of some value, you started with "potaitos" and "potatos" and will end up with "potaitos" and "tomaitos" after so much struggling.
"it's entirely possible to do something like that and have it become something universal"
Yeah, sure, enterli possible... the day you can imprission people that deffies your standard, or something like this.
"The FTP protocol gets standardized?"
That's plain stupid. Of course "The FTP protocol" is a standard, or else you wouldn't be able to talk about "The FTP protocol" -just the same you can talk about "The Qt4 API" but then, what purpouse serves "The FTP protocol"? Yeah, moving files from here to there... Surprise! just like TFTP, HTTP, WebDAV, CIFS, NFS, scp, plain old rcp and probably another dozen protocols I can't recall right now. From your very point of view is not the protocol, but the service (why should nobody have to learn a dozen different ways to move files from here to there?) so see, even "Standards" is not good enough.
"and make all the stuff in between completely modular"
I promise I'll send you the first grandma' usable version of the Hurd packaged with a copy of Duke Nukum Forever; just hold your breath.
"things are changing, modular programming is becoming more and more popular thankfully"
Modular programming? Maybe. Modular "toolizing"? It's decades old. What do you think `ls -l | less` or `echo time > out.txt` means? But then, there comes some guru deciding that piping, IPC, POSIX system calls... are too cumbersome and there's the need for some "high level abstraction" or "service oriented" monolithic approach and, guess what? As long as he puts his effort where his mounth is you end with some people thinking the KDE-way is the best while others abash it in favour of Gnome, some people CORBA and then some RMI.
On square 1 again.
"Programs and companies should compete, but everyone's freedom should not suffer because of it"
That's all well and good... as long as you see that company's (or even individual hackers') freedom to look for their way shouldn't suffer either (and it won't, since you can't forbid it), and since *they* (the producers) not *you* (the end user) are the ones that "make it happen" is no wonder it's *their* freedom the one that you see pushed forward in the wild instead of yours.
"Open source is all about working together"
Yes. It's quite all about WORK and then some mumblemumble. Do you WORK? See point four on my previous poster. You don't? See points one to three and don't wonder the outcoming.
"Huge corporations aren't fond of capitalism. They're fond of profits, which isn't the same thing."
Well said.
And then, on its way to maximize profit they always turn to use communist methods on its own internal organization (planified economy, freezing competition niche creation, banning individual property and free speech, top-down rewarding schemes, fixed price internal "markets", artificial creation and definition of such "markets"... just look for a meme about "soviet russia" and you'll find it's directly applied on private corporations).
"That doesn't mean, of course, that there aren't exception to the rule. Some corporations in fact institute models of internal competition and purchasing/selling services to between departments"
That's, I think, a flawed "exception", since those departments are not free to decide if they want to compete or not; there's no freedom to create new competing units ("hey, I know I'm on the R&D department, but I think I can do better than our financials department so I'll offer my financial services to the company to see if I can gain market share"... no way); there's no freedom to stablish their (internal) market prices and profit margins; there's no freedom to stablish the rewarding schemes (try "selling" your chief engineer must earn more than your CFO even if you can demonstrate the engineer brings more to the bottom line than the CFO).
Generally speaking, the most similar body to a board of directors is "soviet russia's" politbureau.
""...Microsoft and Yahoo have contracted for a combined 90 megawatts of electricity -- MORE THAN THE WORLD TRADE CENTER HUMMING AT PEAK POWER ON A HOT SUMMER DAY."
Perhaps Harpers is just a little bit behind on current events."
I don't think so. 90MW certainly *is* more that current world trade center humming, or is it?
"I don't think I need to say anything about the relationship between predatory behaviour and capitalism, do I?
If only people could look at the history of socialist and communist countries they could see for themselves that predatory behaviour is eliminated. "
Difference being that while predatory behaviour is a flaw on socialist theories (they didn't take it properly into account) is a key concept -and main force, on capitalist ones.
"But do you think that the US is capitalist?"
Yes, it is.
"I tend to disagree because of the numerous laws that prevent competition such as the DMCA"
It might have not a (perfect) free market then. But certainly it *is* capitalist. Or is it now that USA people can't own goods by and for themselves and are not able to incoporate into groups that share a common economical vest?
"So, a business that commits violence can have only one among two possible status: either there's nobody above it that can legitimately and legally punish it for doing so, meaning for all practical purposes it is a government-like entity"
No. You forget the very basic notion that for a given bunch of people on a given land extension there can only be one government while you can have more than a company that by any practical means cannot be punished. You are mistaking "government" with plain old "power". Just to put on a glaring example: slavery companies in west africa did go its way without peril nor opposition; did that make them the "government" or "equal-to-government" of the area? They just had overwhelming power but not the slightest resemblance to government. In fact, the power were on the slavery companies side while the "government-equivalent" were where expected: the tribal chiefs on each town. Given the limited power a tribal chief can have (you just could flee by night and that's all), here you see both extremes at the same time: government without power and power without government.
"In a democracy there are clear legal limits on what businesses can do so far as violent acts go."
Just because there's a common agreed upon body to state those clear limits. Such a body is called, oh surprise, "government". The fact that the government mandates the law have really nothing to do with it being elected by people, by god or by martians: it mandates the law... because it's the government.
"Excluding support by the owner of the means of violence (the government), a business or business group has only one way to avoid competition from arising: providing goods and/or services at a quality and service level that makes it uninteresting for any would-be competitor to try"
That makes *two* ways, at least. There always will be "the one reason": now that government doesn't hold the legal monopoly to violence, anyone else is free to use it. That's not just a theoretical issue: history is plenty of examples where private indiviuals and incorporated organizations have used violence (and I'm meaning well-thought organized violence) as a means to reach their bussiness goals.
"If there's a region where an entity that elsewhere is called "a company" is the effective ruling power (thus, "government-like"), then that entity is that region's government, even if nominally the "actual", "official" government is another entity."
Then, the one you answer to is right: you are playing with words. You are trying to look libertarian when you are just playing the "true Scotish" falacy.
" a market with a minimal government, limited to enforcing contract and property law, is indistinguishable from a market with one or more private defense organizations and no government."
You are partly right, but you forget an implicit assertion made regarding free markets and goverment. The implicit part is "for a country" (for a country to have a free market...). As soon as you have a country, the issue of the defense of the *countrie's* borders, of the *countrie's* internal security, etc. rises. Certainly for the absolute libertarian, you could go with no government at all, as long as there would be no country either.
On the other hand, a portion of land with a risen monopoly on defense organization (and it would reach for sure such a monopoly) without government and one named "country" where the defense organization monopoly is handed by a government are indistinguishable too. Well, they would be distingusihable after all: one would have "government" and the other would have "government co.".
then millions and millions of partially-knowledgeable people reacting almost instantly to fast changes happening "around them ends up necessarily producing a better outcome than a bunch of partially-knowledgeable central planners"
Why the heck, then, all known corporations opt by the so-ill "comunist" strategies? If they are so fond of capitalism, why is it that they don't promote it within their own bussiness?
"Rubbish. A pure free-market capitalist system would have no copyright or patent monopolies. Hence, no microsoft."
Bullshit. Who says a copyright/patent-based monopoly is the one that can be? Of course you have natural monopolies an strongarmed monopolies (if you control, say, the delivery bussiness you can use that to force shops to sell your stuff).
In fact, there were no problem -at all, with Microsoft being a monopoly, but *abusing* its monopoly position to force its entry on other markets.
"Im actually not lying."
I didn't say you were lying because I didn't believe you managed to get someone through the steps to modify some registry entry. I said you were lying because there's no chance you really directed people over the phone both on a GUI and a text command line and found the former easier.
"I'll sure as hell have an easier time explaining how to do that to my mom than "adding the driver to the kernel" if its not there already."
I'm sure you are talking out your expectation or directly lying. I know because I literally did they both.
The registry was first: go start programs, look for execute, write down regedt32 and press enter (it was quite a time ago); look at the left pane (I don't see any pane); expand HKLM (what's that?) expand this branch, then this one then... (heck, I don't remember the very exact name, and I'm directing her out of my memory) hemm... can you read me what you see? No, no, no, can you repeat that last one again? Oh! you meant [whatever] Ok! that was the entry; click on it; you see on the right pane an entry named "whatever" which hold a "1" value? Right; then overwrite it to "0". Ok, now enter-enter-enter-enter and reboot.
The add a kernel module was some years after that:
Open the "K" menu, look for system, then root console (hey my son, it opens a window that say's "password:" I know mum) type in [root password spelled] (but son, I don't see it written down... -I know mum, just stay typing slowly and carefully); you see a "pound" sign don't you? Yes. Now write modprobe [whatever] and enter.
Well, you were lying and I was lying too. The about-the-registry is true; the Linux is only half true. I did it with friends and some clients and indeed I always found easier to handtake them by spelling them the commands than leading them through graphic windows I can't see (specially when they "don't see" the button I tell them to press and I can't know if that's because they just look but don't see -so many times, or because they mistook some previous step and now they are glazing at a blank Word document instead of the registry editor). I told I didn't have to do that with my mum... because her PC has an ssh daemon and an iptables rulesets so I can reach its box and fix it for her without her even notizing! Yeah, so much difficult for her.
""user friendliness" as usually discussed, allows users with no experience to do something quickly. "
Including shooting off their feet. That's the part user-friendliness advocates tend to forget so commonly.
"that would mean MSFT could end up with some UNIX copyright ownership"
That's a cute machiavellic plan, Brain. It only has a little petty "but"...
Why didn't Microsoft tried that path as soon as 1979 nor any time later? (Hint: look for Microsoft Xenix - I remember seeing the "Microsoft TM" on HP-Ux boot up screens in early nineties). A funny thing is Microsoft paying royalties to SCO when we all positively know they don't have to: they payed for that right directly to AT&T the very year SCO was founded.
"This is not capitalism at work, it's predatory behavior and something anti-trust lawyers should sink their teeth into."
Then it *is* capitalism at work by its very definition. Why do you think you need anti-trust laws but because growing monopolies is a known ill-effect of capitalism in action?
I don't think I need to say anything about the relationship between predatory behaviour and capitalism, do I?
"I disagree. Myself, I would try more distros, if I didn't have to spend the time learning a new way of thinking each time."
Two points:
1) If you think learning a new distribution is "learning a new way of thinking" then you are still to rooky (it's only a matter of learning some specific tools, not much more).
2) Again, if they worked the same, why loosing time testing the same?
"For example, yum and apt-get are pretty close in what they you can do with them. Why not try to unify the interface?"
For once, yum is newer than apt-get so why do you think yum looks and acts like, ahem, yum instead of copycat apt-get? Exactly: both because yum authors thought their way was better and because if yum felt and acted like apt-get it wouldn't be yum, it would be apt-get. On this basis it's clear that in your effort for unification is not yum the one that should go towards apt-get. But then, yum has been around for sometime, so we can expect that if apt-get developers show something interesting in yum they'd already go for it (after all, it's open source). But then, why do you think this didn't happen? Exactly: again two reasons. One, because apt-get developers already thought about it and they still thougth their way was better (so no point trying to convince them to converge towards yum) or because they thought it wasn't worth the effort, in which case you'd better put your own hands on the problem than whine because, again, you'll get nothing just whining.
"What really matters is what's under the hood."
That's open source: define, please, "under the hood". Is it program names and options? Certainly yes. Is it APIs? Probably not for you but certainly a developer would say just like you "why do I have to learn so many different APIs? can't they try to unify them?". And then we are again at square 1. Or they could just define and implement the same, but this would be quite idiotic since they could just *use* and *modify* the old codebase, probably within the very same project, wouldn't they?
"The community, preformance etc etc."
On one hand, you *already* can have different communities with the same distro (think LUGs, only over the Internet: if you don't like "fedorafans", just go to "friendsoffedora"). On the other, do you think performance comes out of thin air? implementation decisions obviously affect it, so it's very probably it will affect APIs too (see my previous paragraph) and finally they probably would affect outer interfaces. After all, if you like apt-get but i.e. you feel it slow, you don't start a new program, you go and summ up the hackers group of apt-get itself.
In the very end while I understand you, I can see your opinion is *very* naive and failing the "reality check". I already said that I enjoy current variety and feel it useful but even if not, it's obvious things in real world can't go otherwise. You can expect minor victories from your point of view, but the overall landscape is doomed to be one of diversity.
In order for your naivety to vanish, just change your mindpath from current "I don't like the way things are, so I whine" to this: "I don't like the way things are, so I'll change them myself" and see what happens.
Hint: to follow your own example, just try indeed to go for a universal package manager; what would you do?
1) Go to yum people and convince them to abandon it in favour of apt-get. Do you really think you will success? See my previous paragraphs.
2) Go to apt-get people and convince them to abandon it in favour of yum. Do you really think you will success? See my previous paragraphs.
3) Start your new and revolutionary universal package manager, so wonderful everybody will jump to it. Do you really think you will success? Well, probably yum people thought it too when they started but please, think a little about the possibility of ending up with *three* package managers instead of neither one nor two.
4) Have a look at yum and apt-get and then jump into either hackers community and
"It's the computer engineers that are doing the lower level development."
/me fastly ducks away
Of course!
"a large number of CS majors apparently believe that [...] both memory and [CPU] cycles are infinite.'"
That's the difference between a computer ENGINEER and a computer SCIENTIST. After all, complete turing machines *do* have infinite memory and cpu cycles.
"Fortunately I don't have anything invested in either side (I mostly use qemu"
Then you are doubly fortunate since KVM userspace tools and even the "native" disk image format are those from qemu.
"In a year's time we'll probably have a winner... or, let them be two years."
Yes, of course. SysV vs BSD has been there, how much? 25 years? But, of course, it'll settle now in a year of two. Yes, of course: Red Hat will throu away their years of development and fine tunning of their init scripts because it will settle. Debian... well, even if they decided it (and they won't) you probably won't see Lenny's succesor in such a timeframe.
You forget that:
1) There are not such a terrible differences between SysV and BSD (nor anyone of their more modern successors) so that one could mean a terrible advantage over the other.
2) The init system layout is not so terrible important anyway, but it's quite complex and positioned on a place that it is critical to the system so there's not so strong pushing to change it: if ain't broken, don't change it.
3) Not being such an important subsystem by itself, being quite delicate to change (lot of corner cases), and not showing anyone terrible advantages over the others, inertia mandates: you can bet that, for the most part, current Unix and unix-like systems that use SysV init systems will retain its use, while BSD-related will do the same too on the foreseeable future.
"There is no point in using a completely different interface for two things that do the same thing though"
Unless, of course, I really think my way it's better (on the other hand, why would I try a different path if I didn't think it's better?).
"I believe Linux could be completely seamless between most all distros"
If they were so seemless among, what would be the segregating factor to choose one over the other?
"I hope one day us Linux users will actually have the freedom to use whatever system we prefer"
Yeah, the kind of freedom that arises from choosing among things that in reality are just the same.
"reducing "distros" to mere package and configuration "groups"."
*I* already can choose among different packages and configuration groups. You don't really think I install the same packages and configuration groups on my servers than on my desktops, do you? Freedom to choose means exactly the oposite you try to defend: choosing among *different* things, the more different, the more freedom on my choice. What's the point in choosing among things that are equal? I think you'd better prefer not to have the time and effort to analyse those different things: of course the more similar the choices the lesser risk to be wrong. But that's not freedom; it's lazyness.
"I happened to be interested in this, so took the opportunity to see what man had to say about update-rc.d."
So Debian *does* have SysV-style init scripts, doesn't it? And Debian *does* have simple tools to add and remove programs from a runlevel (that's exactly what update-rc.d does), doesn't it?
What was your point, again?
"When I moved from Red Hat to Debian (remember Bruce Peren's UserLinux ?) and to Ubuntu the thing I missed was the clarity of SysV init and the simple tools to add and remove programs from a runlevel."
The problem is just your ignorance; don't put the blame on anyone else.
Debian and Ubuntu *use* SysV init scripts by default and they have *one* single tool to add and remove programs from a runlevel (update-rc.d).
"Yes, there are sections like "go and smite thine enemy, to the last one" and such, but you have to read those in the context in which they were written."
Of course, you know what the "proper" context is. Or is it per chance that "context" can change with time? Is it the same context when a Pope tells to burn people than when celebrate Jesus' love?
You can't be wrong: it's only a matter to choose the proper context.
"You say that it is fair to say that information 'influences' people."
But... Who can deny that!!!???
Imagine you and I meet with a friend of mine:
Scenario 1:
-Hi, AC, this is my friend Mike.
-Hi, Mike.
Scenario 2:
-Hi, AC, this is my frind Mike that just killed your mum this morning
-Hi, Mike.
Do you think these two scenarios are the same? Do you think the information that Mike killed your mother won't influence you? Of course yes! That's the basic point of the "yeah, but let's hear the other side before making a judgement"