12 Jan
2001
12 Jan
'01
7:19 a.m.
Whew...sorry Richard, there's just so much flame bait in here I'm just
going to pretend I didn't read it. And I'm not even a Linux fanatic.
-Dave McGuire
On January 12, Richard Erlacher wrote:
All these complaints about how things are won't
fix a thing!
If the LINUX community were interested in providing a service, that is, a
service for anyone other than themselves, they'd have done the up-to-now
missing 90% of the work and cleaned up and documented their software.
Instead, you have a terrible mess of code with comments that hve been
irrelevant and incorrect for the last 25 revisions, yet nobody's been
willing to delete them. Generally, design and coding is about 2% of the
job, debugging is another 3%, cleanup is about 5% and thorough and accurate
documentation is about 90.
invent
From what I've seen so far, the LINUX
community, though well-intentioned,
has done little to provide tools useable by the
masses.
Instead of lighting that "one candle" they'd rather personalize their
frustration, resulting, BTW, from their own lack of application effort,
targeting Bill Gates, whose policies are really no different from those of
any corporate leader. They're supposed to outdo the competition, trip them
up, confound their efforts to acquire market share, and just generally try
to do them in. Gates and Co have done well. What's more, for every LINUX
user who's even remotely satisfied with what he has, there are thousands of
Windows-users out there who love their OS. One difference, however, is that
they (the Windows users) don't have to spend their lives stroking the OS
just to keep it alive.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Tinker" <jtinker(a)coin.org>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 7:25 AM
Subject: Re: Nuke Richmond
"W.B.(Wim) Hofman" wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Can you expect to say to a housewife : This is a Linux cd. Install it on
> this computer and I expect you to have looked at these Internet sites by
> tomorrow morning? It would have to be some housewife!! Linux needs far
to
much work
still to make it fit for the masses.
Wim
Don't forget the opportunity lost due to M$ predations. Gates didn't software. He pulled the rug out from under a lot
of good effort, using
everyone else's work, but trying to protect his own. He poked his finger
in
the eye of standards wherever possible. Standard
layers will be the
foundation
of future system elaboration. The fundamental
contradiction Gates had to
get
around, was that between "information
age" and "proprietory software". It
is
the "rising tide lifts all boats"
problem. What is the value of wealth,
unless
you are richer than the next guy? If everybody is
rich, who will pick up
the
> garbage? When people started passing around copies of his BASIC, Gates
> realized the problem, and the solution.
>
> -- John Tinker
>
>
> 
12 Jan
12 Jan
7:39 a.m.
You know, I just noticed that---aside from this thread being utterly
tiresome and pointless---somebody has a bizarre vendetta against the
capital of Virginia.
'nuff said.
ok
r.
12:30 p.m.
Someone obviously concluded that nuking Richmond might actually do some good
... particularly if it missed a mite and hit the capitol building with about
25 MTons during the state of the union address.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "r. 'bear' stricklin" <red(a)bears.org>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 11:39 AM
Subject: Re: Nuke Richmond
You know, I just noticed that---aside from this thread being utterly
tiresome and pointless---somebody has a bizarre vendetta against the
capital of Virginia.
'nuff said.
ok
r.
12:43 p.m.
Just keep in mind, that I've no axe to grind, except that I think the
discussion of LINUX is OT. After all, it's not 10 years old yet, right?
My real point is that there's no benefit to anyone in all this complaining.
People will decide what they prefer. Their reasons aren't always clear, but
they don't have to be. Microsoft products seem to meet the needs of the
masses, and that, in itself is a benefit to us all, since they (the masses)
are happy to buy millions of identical computers and try to make them do
what each of them wants.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave McGuire" <mcguire(a)neurotica.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: Nuke Richmond
Whew...sorry Richard, there's just so much flame bait in here I'm just
going to pretend I didn't read it. And I'm not even a Linux fanatic.
-Dave McGuire
On January 12, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> All these complaints about how things are won't fix a thing!
>
> If the LINUX community were interested in providing a service, that is,
a
> service for anyone other than themselves,
they'd have done the up-to-now
> missing 90% of the work and cleaned up and documented their software.
> Instead, you have a terrible mess of code with comments that hve been
> irrelevant and incorrect for the last 25 revisions, yet nobody's been
> willing to delete them. Generally, design and coding is about 2% of the
> job, debugging is another 3%, cleanup is about 5% and thorough and
accurate
> documentation is about 90.
>
> >From what I've seen so far, the LINUX community, though
well-intentioned,
> has done little to provide tools useable by the
masses.
>
> Instead of lighting that "one candle" they'd rather personalize their
> frustration, resulting, BTW, from their own lack of application effort,
> targeting Bill Gates, whose policies are really no different from those
of
> any corporate leader. They're supposed to
outdo the competition, trip
them
> up, confound their efforts to acquire market
share, and just generally
try
> to do them in. Gates and Co have done well.
What's more, for every
LINUX
> user who's even remotely satisfied with what
he has, there are thousands
of
> Windows-users out there who love their OS. One
difference, however, is
that
> they (the Windows users) don't have to spend
their lives stroking the OS
> just to keep it alive.
>
> Dick
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Tinker" <jtinker(a)coin.org>
> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 7:25 AM
> Subject: Re: Nuke Richmond
>
>
> > "W.B.(Wim) Hofman" wrote:
> >
> > > Folks,
> > >
> > > Can you expect to say to a housewife : This is a Linux cd. Install
it on
> > > this computer and I expect you to have
looked at these Internet
sites by
> > > tomorrow morning? It would have to be
some housewife!! Linux needs
far
> to
> > > much work still to make it fit for the masses.
> > >
> > > Wim
> >
> > Don't forget the opportunity lost due to M$ predations. Gates didn't
> invent
> > software. He pulled the rug out from under a lot of good effort, using
> > everyone else's work, but trying to protect his own. He poked his
finger
> in
> > the eye of standards wherever possible. Standard layers will be the
> foundation
> > of future system elaboration. The fundamental contradiction Gates had
to
> get
> > around, was that between "information age" and "proprietory
software".
It
> is
> > the "rising tide lifts all boats" problem. What is the value of
wealth,
> unless
> > you are richer than the next guy? If everybody is rich, who will pick
up
the
> garbage? When people started passing around copies of his BASIC, Gates
> realized the problem, and the solution.
>
> -- John Tinker
>
>
>
4:46 p.m.
Well, one could argue that since the system's newly built each time it's
been installed, there are probably fewer than a dozen that are more than a
year or two old. It's those differences that make the *nix versions
difficult.
The problem, really, is likely to subside somewhat. I perceive the problem
to have been associated more with the rapid growth of the personal computer
market than anything else.
Normally, if you buy a FORD and are substantially dissatisfied with what
you've got, when it's time to replace it, you buy from someone else. Well,
that's not so easy in this market, but, if times are tough, and FORD is the
only vendor you can afford, you hang onto what you've got, since it's the
devil you know, versus the devil you don't, and wait for a significant
change in what's available. With the swift uptake of computers and their
software as the industry grew, people had little choice but to buy what was
out there. Now that the market's nearing saturation, lots of folks will be
more judicious about what they buy, and, in fact, whether they buy at all.
Consequently, fewer people will be willing to buy the "new" stuff from the
vendor who provided the buggy stuff they don't like but can get by with,
until patches/other-fixes are offered. We inherited this tendency to buy
defective software product on defective software product from Big Blue,
which sold the hardware and leased the software. You weren't even allowed
to fix it yourself. Those days are gone, God be thanked!
Eventually, people will wise up and make the vendors fix the products
they've already sold, if they are defective. That's one reason I still use
the 10-year-old OrCAD for schematics. The newer stuff was not as capable
and orders of magnitude more costly. If I weren't able to get my licenses
for the basic Windows and Office stuff gratis, I'd continue to use the old
stuff. At least I'll have learned how to work around the bugs.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Buckle" <geneb(a)deltasoft.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: Nuke Richmond
Just keep in
mind, that I've no axe to grind, except that I think the
discussion of LINUX is OT. After all, it's not 10 years old yet, right?
Actually, I think Linux first arrived in 1991. :)
g.
4:48 p.m.
Just keep in
mind, that I've no axe to grind, except that I think the
discussion of LINUX is OT. After all, it's not 10 years old yet, right?
Actually, I think Linux first arrived in 1991. :)
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6 comments
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edick＠idcomm.com -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
red＠bears.org