The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Miles Lane]

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Rik van Riel]

On 20 Jun 2001, Miles Lane wrote:

> http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html

Yes, he sure knows how to bring Linux to the attention
of people ;)

Rik
--
Executive summary of a recent Microsoft press release:
   "we are concerned about the GNU General Public License (GPL)"


		http://www.surriel.com/
http://www.conectiva.com/	http://distro.conectiva.com/

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Daniel Phillips]

On Wednesday 20 June 2001 23:33, Rik van Riel wrote:
> On 20 Jun 2001, Miles Lane wrote:
> > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html
>
> Yes, he sure knows how to bring Linux to the attention
> of people ;)

Not to mention the GPL, which I can guarantee you, before today my mom had 
*never* heard of.

--
Daniel

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Rob Landley]

On Wednesday 20 June 2001 18:31, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> On Wednesday 20 June 2001 23:33, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > On 20 Jun 2001, Miles Lane wrote:
> > > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html
> >
> > Yes, he sure knows how to bring Linux to the attention
> > of people ;)
>
> Not to mention the GPL, which I can guarantee you, before today my mom had
> *never* heard of.
>
> --
> Daniel

Ooh, do I get to say "I told you so"?  (LinuxToday buried my submission way 
back under a blurb about caldera, but still...)

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-05-10-002-20-PS

Rob

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Henning P. Schmiedehausen]

Rob Landley <landley@webofficenow.com> writes:

>Ooh, do I get to say "I told you so"?  (LinuxToday buried my submission way 
>back under a blurb about caldera, but still...)

And the quote of "stealing the TCP stack from BSD" is still wrong. 

And the web browser they have today derives from NCSA Mosaic as
prominently displayed in the "About" box of every single IE version
out. No TBL here. 

	Regards
		Henning

-- 
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen       -- Geschaeftsfuehrer
INTERMETA - Gesellschaft fuer Mehrwertdienste mbH     hps@intermeta.de

Am Schwabachgrund 22  Fon.: 09131 / 50654-0   info@intermeta.de
D-91054 Buckenhof     Fax.: 09131 / 50654-20   

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Rob Landley]

On Thursday 21 June 2001 04:50, Henning P. Schmiedehausen wrote:
> Rob Landley <landley@webofficenow.com> writes:
> >Ooh, do I get to say "I told you so"?  (LinuxToday buried my submission
> > way back under a blurb about caldera, but still...)
>
> And the quote of "stealing the TCP stack from BSD" is still wrong.

Everybody took the BSD tcp stack, including VMS and OS/2.  It was the first 
major lump of code they separated when AT&T started making legal threats 
around 1983.

Did I say stealing?  The berkeley people gave it away for free...

> And the web browser they have today derives from NCSA Mosaic as
> prominently displayed in the "About" box of every single IE version
> out. No TBL here.

You take microsoft's word for things?

Read this:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/january/new0122d.htm

Various other coverage:

http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/news/0120/22aspy.html
http://www4.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_587.html

And two years later, spyglass still hadn't learned their lesson:

http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,1014310,00.html

Rob

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Alan Cox]

> http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html > 

Of course the URL that goes with that is :
	http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/features.asp

Yes., Microsoft ship GNU C (quite legally) as part of their offerings...

Alan

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 11:09:10PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html > 
> 
> Of course the URL that goes with that is :
> 	http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/features.asp
> 
> Yes., Microsoft ship GNU C (quite legally) as part of their offerings...

Which brings up an interesting question for us all.  Let's postulate, for
the sake of discussion, that we agree on the following:

    a) Linux (or just about any Unix) is a better low level OS than NT
    b) Microsoft's application infrastructure is better (the COM layer,
       the stuff that lets apps talk to each, the desktop, etc).

I know we can argue that KDE/GNOME/whatever is going to get there or is
there or is better, etc., but for the time being lets just pretend that
the Microsoft stuff is better.

What would be wrong with Microsoft/Linux?  It would be:

    a) the Linux kernel
    b) the Microsoft API ported to X
    c) Microsoft apps
    d) Linux apps

Since Microsoft is all about making money, it doesn't matter if they
charge for the dll's or the OS, either one is fine, you can't run Word
without them.  If you don't need the Microsoft apps, you could strip
them off and strip off the dlls and ship all the rest of it without
giving Microsoft a dime.  If you do need the apps or you want the app
infrastructure, you have to give Microsoft exactly what you have to give
them today - money - but you can run Word side by side with Ghostview
or whatever.  Microsoft could charge exactly the same amount for the
dll's as they charge for the OS, none of the end users can tell the
difference anyway.

I'm unimpressed with what Microsoft calls an operating system and
I'm equally unimpressed with what Unix calls an application layer.
For the last 10 years, Unix has gotten the OS right and the apps wrong
and Microsoft has gotten the apps right and the OS wrong.  Seems like
there is potential for a win-win.

You can scream all you want that "it isn't free software" but the fact
of the matter is that you all scream that and then go do your slides for
your Linux talks in PowerPoint.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm 

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Alan Cox]

> What would be wrong with Microsoft/Linux?  It would be:
> 
>     a) the Linux kernel
>     b) the Microsoft API ported to X
>     c) Microsoft apps
>     d) Linux apps

Providing they follow the standards, the GPL and work with the community I
certainly have no problems with it. Its not really any different to using 
Wine.

It is clearly possible for a company to reform over time. IBM were the 
microsoft of a past age, and they seem to have somewhat improved since.

Alan

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Jonathan Morton]

>You can scream all you want that "it isn't free software" but the fact
>of the matter is that you all scream that and then go do your slides for
>your Linux talks in PowerPoint.

Or AppleWorks (Mac), in my case.  Or, if I wanted to be flashy, I'd 
make the slides up in CorelXARA (which originated on the Acorn and 
would probably run under WINE today) and move them to 
GraphicConvertor (Mac) for display.  I daresay it's possible to do 
all that under Linux, but I haven't found such readily-available 
solutions staring me in the face yet.

Incidentally, you don't need a flashy presentation to make an impact. 
I won a prize this month largely based on a presentation I did - the 
content was king, the slides were white-on-black text, and I 
stammered my way through the actual presentation (I'm not good at 
public speaking).  The close runner-up had done a big flashy 
PowerPoint presentation, was better at public speaking, but hadn't 
researched his material quite so thoroughly.

I use Linux for programming and servers.  I still use my Macs for 
regular day-to-day workstation duty.  That's the status quo, and it 
will only change slowly and with much effort.
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------
from:     Jonathan "Chromatix" Morton
mail:     chromi@cyberspace.org  (not for attachments)
website:  http://www.chromatix.uklinux.net/vnc/
geekcode: GCS$/E dpu(!) s:- a20 C+++ UL++ P L+++ E W+ N- o? K? w--- O-- M++$
           V? PS PE- Y+ PGP++ t- 5- X- R !tv b++ DI+++ D G e+ h+ r++ y+(*)
tagline:  The key to knowledge is not to rely on people to teach you it.

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[William T Wilson]

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Larry McVoy wrote:

> For the last 10 years, Unix has gotten the OS right and the apps wrong
> and Microsoft has gotten the apps right and the OS wrong.  Seems like
> there is potential for a win-win.

I've been hoping for this ever since the rumors of "Microsoft
Linux" started popping up.  The thing is that it'll probably never happen
because Microsoft wouldn't be able to stand having any portion of the
system out of their control.

We have VMWare, I doubt you'll ever do any better than that...

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Khalid Aziz]

Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> You can scream all you want that "it isn't free software" but the fact
> of the matter is that you all scream that and then go do your slides for
> your Linux talks in PowerPoint.

At the Linux SuperClusters 2000 Conference, MadDog and I were the the
only ones with slides done on Linux. Pretty sad!
 
====================================================================
Khalid Aziz                             Linux Development Laboratory
(970)898-9214                                        Hewlett-Packard
khalid@fc.hp.com                                    Fort Collins, CO

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Henning P. Schmiedehausen]

Khalid Aziz <khalid@fc.hp.com> writes:

>Larry McVoy wrote:
>> 
>> You can scream all you want that "it isn't free software" but the fact
>> of the matter is that you all scream that and then go do your slides for
>> your Linux talks in PowerPoint.

>At the Linux SuperClusters 2000 Conference, MadDog and I were the the
>only ones with slides done on Linux. Pretty sad!

The only sad thing here is the state that Office applications for
Linux are in.  

Before the last talk I did, I was wrestling for a whole sunny and
really nice saturday, where I could've done many better things that
sitting in front of a computer, with KPresenter and StarOffice on my
notebook to get at least some slides done. At 8pm I gave up, fired the
Win NT box of my wife and had about twenty slides done with PP in just
under two hours (I had the text and images ready on paper and had just
to create slides). They looked well on screen, on the presentation
beamer and printed in colour _and_ black and white. SO and KPresenter
both were able to do two of these four things.

My last LinuxExpo talk was also made with PP, but I did't have the
courage to boot up a notebook with Windows in front of all the Free
Software guys to do a "migrate from Windows to Unix" talk. So I took
printed slides. Yeah, call me a chicken. :-)

	Regards
		Henning

-- 
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen       -- Geschaeftsfuehrer
INTERMETA - Gesellschaft fuer Mehrwertdienste mbH     hps@intermeta.de

Am Schwabachgrund 22  Fon.: 09131 / 50654-0   info@intermeta.de
D-91054 Buckenhof     Fax.: 09131 / 50654-20   

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Daniel Phillips]

On Thursday 21 June 2001 10:46, Henning P. Schmiedehausen wrote:
> My last LinuxExpo talk was also made with PP,

This makes about as much sense as going to a cocktail party with nose glasses 
on.

--
Daniel

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Miles Lane]

On 21 Jun 2001 15:48:11 +0200, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> On Thursday 21 June 2001 10:46, Henning P. Schmiedehausen wrote:
> > My last LinuxExpo talk was also made with PP,
> 
> This makes about as much sense as going to a cocktail party with nose glasses 
> on.

One of the mantras that get hammered into Microsoft employees
is "Eat your own dogfood."  Which means that people working
at Microsoft should attempt to use the company's products throughout
the day in order to surface problems and give incentive to those
folks to make things better.  Obviously, the "EYODF" work doesn't
kick in until there is some minimal level of functionality.

It may be that Linux/OSS office applications simply aren't 
useful enough yet for anyone to stomach using them throughout
the day.  It would be nice to see more Linux folks eating the
dogfood and making those applications better, though.

For my part, I test Enlightenment, Gnome, XFree86 and Mozilla,
in addition to Linux kernels.

	Miles

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Richard Gooch]

Larry McVoy writes:
> On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 11:09:10PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html > 
> > 
> > Of course the URL that goes with that is :
> > 	http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/features.asp
> > 
> > Yes., Microsoft ship GNU C (quite legally) as part of their offerings...
> 
> Which brings up an interesting question for us all.  Let's postulate, for
> the sake of discussion, that we agree on the following:
> 
>     a) Linux (or just about any Unix) is a better low level OS than NT
>     b) Microsoft's application infrastructure is better (the COM layer,
>        the stuff that lets apps talk to each, the desktop, etc).
> 
> I know we can argue that KDE/GNOME/whatever is going to get there or is
> there or is better, etc., but for the time being lets just pretend that
> the Microsoft stuff is better.
> 
> What would be wrong with Microsoft/Linux?  It would be:
> 
>     a) the Linux kernel
>     b) the Microsoft API ported to X
>     c) Microsoft apps
>     d) Linux apps
> 
> Since Microsoft is all about making money, it doesn't matter if they
> charge for the dll's or the OS, either one is fine, you can't run Word
> without them.  If you don't need the Microsoft apps, you could strip
> them off and strip off the dlls and ship all the rest of it without
> giving Microsoft a dime.  If you do need the apps or you want the app
> infrastructure, you have to give Microsoft exactly what you have to give
> them today - money - but you can run Word side by side with Ghostview
> or whatever.  Microsoft could charge exactly the same amount for the
> dll's as they charge for the OS, none of the end users can tell the
> difference anyway.
> 
> I'm unimpressed with what Microsoft calls an operating system and
> I'm equally unimpressed with what Unix calls an application layer.
> For the last 10 years, Unix has gotten the OS right and the apps wrong
> and Microsoft has gotten the apps right and the OS wrong.  Seems like
> there is potential for a win-win.
> 
> You can scream all you want that "it isn't free software" but the
> fact of the matter is that you all scream that and then go do your
> slides for your Linux talks in PowerPoint.

Actually, it wouldn't bother me at all if they did that. If they
didn't violate the GPL (i.e. didn't make proprietary changes to the
kernel and libc and various utilities). I guess they could make
proprietary hacks to X, which I wouldn't want, otherwise I expect that
normal X apps would become 2nd class citizens. If people want to pay
for M$ office I'd much rather see them using Linux underneath. That
way they have a decent OS and the chances of them being slowly weaned
away from M$ products as free alternatives become available (or they
get comfortable with the idea of free alternatives). Trying to get
people to change wholesale is a lot harder.

I suspect M$ doesn't want to do this, because while they could keep
flogging Office for a long time (I hear it's better than the
alternatives), they would find it harder to flog all the smaller
ancillary programmes, as there would be more viable alternatives.  I
expect M$ will hang on to the bitter end. There's also a lot of
emotional attachment to their OS which is driving their policy, I bet.

				Regards,

					Richard....
Permanent: rgooch@atnf.csiro.au
Current:   rgooch@ras.ucalgary.ca

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Daniel Phillips]

On Thursday 21 June 2001 00:33, Larry McVoy wrote:
> You can scream all you want that "it isn't free software" but the fact
> of the matter is that you all scream that and then go do your slides for
> your Linux talks in PowerPoint.

Bad example Larry, most of us do our talks with MagicPoint.  I'll probably 
use KPresenter for the next one, it's pretty slick.

I haven't booted Window in almost 2 years, not because I'm forcing myself to 
stay away, but because I haven't had the need.  And yes, I do word 
processing, make spreadsheets, charts, send emails, you name it.

--
Daniel

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Michael Bacarella]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 03:33:45PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:

> You can scream all you want that "it isn't free software" but the fact
> of the matter is that you all scream that and then go do your slides for
> your Linux talks in PowerPoint.

I think this is an unfair generalization.

I'm not even all that clear about what PowerPoint is (I've never
seen it, ever). I'm guessing that it lets you display slides in
sequence, but that's just from what I've seen of MagicPoint, which
someone said at a user meet was a clone of PowerPoint.

(And yes, the talk given that day was in fact done with MagicPoint)

-- 
Michael Bacarella <mbac@nyct.net>
Technical Staff / System Development,
New York Connect.Net, Ltd.

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[chuckw]

> > You can scream all you want that "it isn't free software" but the fact
> > of the matter is that you all scream that and then go do your slides for
> > your Linux talks in PowerPoint.
>
> I think this is an unfair generalization.

Not really. In Linus's book he describes that his presentations used to be
(and possibly still are?) done in powerpoint. In fact at one point he says
"thank god for Microsoft". Given the context, I'm not sure if he was
joking or not. Not that it matters. I share Linus's opinion that it's not
an issue of hating Microsoft. It's an issue of keeping your energies
focused on progress because Microsoft will be irrelevant in the very near
future.

The momentum is on our side...

-- 

Chuck Wolber		| steward: "Are you the pilot?"
System Administrator	| pilot: "Yes, why?"
AltaServ Corporation	| steward, handing box to pilot: "Then this is for you."
(425)576-1202		| pilot, looking inside box: "Oh, it's a new altimeter."
ten.vresatla@wkcuhc	| 	--Chris Kennedy

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Henning P. Schmiedehausen]

Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> writes:

>What would be wrong with Microsoft/Linux?  It would be:

Nothing, but...

>    a) the Linux kernel
>    b) the Microsoft API ported to X
>    c) Microsoft apps
>    d) Linux apps

>Since Microsoft is all about making money, it doesn't matter if they
>charge for the dll's or the OS, either one is fine, you can't run Word
>without them.  If you don't need the Microsoft apps, you could strip

... I would bet, they will try to give you a binary-only kernel module
that must be loaded or else the M$ Word .NET for Linux will not
run. Because they can not license check or something...

>For the last 10 years, Unix has gotten the OS right and the apps wrong
>and Microsoft has gotten the apps right and the OS wrong.  Seems like
>there is potential for a win-win.

3:1 that M$ thinks along the same ways. The (now probably called off)
split-up of M$ into an OS and an applications company would've
accelerated this move very much.

It's BTW, what I tell people around me since four years on a more or
less regular base... :-) (check older mails, you'll see that I got
lots of heat for thinking so).

I, personally, would love to see Office, Outlook and Quicken for
Linux. No, not clones. The real thing. Those are about the only
reasons I have to keep a blown up typewriter (aka NT Server) as a
pet. And getting these applications as competition, it would boost the
development and quality (!) of the free alternatives as well. I'd love
to see IE5.5 for Linux, too.

Devils' advocate position: If Linux would not be under GPL but under
BSD license, M$ may have already done so. But consider them porting
one of their monster applications and release it just to find out that
they've linked to GNU readline somewhere because of an QM oversight. 

I'd guess, to them, the risk of having their core code base (their
source of revenue) "infected by the GNU virus" is just too high.

Hmmm. After all, they're already using FreeBSD. Maybe they will
release "Windows for FreeBSD" with Office. Now that would be an
interesting impact on Linux (I would be over there in seconds =:-) )

	Regards
		Henning

-- 
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen       -- Geschaeftsfuehrer
INTERMETA - Gesellschaft fuer Mehrwertdienste mbH     hps@intermeta.de

Am Schwabachgrund 22  Fon.: 09131 / 50654-0   info@intermeta.de
D-91054 Buckenhof     Fax.: 09131 / 50654-20   

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Rob Landley]

On Thursday 21 June 2001 04:37, Henning P. Schmiedehausen wrote:
>
> Devils' advocate position: If Linux would not be under GPL but under
> BSD license, M$ may have already done so. But consider them porting
> one of their monster applications and release it just to find out that
> they've linked to GNU readline somewhere because of an QM oversight.

I said as much in an article to LinuxToday.  (They buried it under a page of 
commentary about Ransom Love, but they did post it.)

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-05-10-002-20-PS

BSD forked to death in the 80's.  Everybody from AT&T to Sun to IBM who saw 
money in it spun off their own incompatable, proprietary version.

If MS was currently facing BSD rather than LInux, they would have "embrace 
and extend"ed it long ago.  Hide half of office in the system libraries (just 
like windows), come out with a closed-source version, loot the open 
competition for any advances but don't share yours...

> I'd guess, to them, the risk of having their core code base (their
> source of revenue) "infected by the GNU virus" is just too high.

The GPL was designed to block embrace and extend.  It embraces and extends 
right back.  And it's torquing microsoft off big time.

> Hmmm. After all, they're already using FreeBSD. Maybe they will
> release "Windows for FreeBSD" with Office. Now that would be an
> interesting impact on Linux (I would be over there in seconds =:-) )

Just like AT&T did to free Unix in ~1984.  How long before it's "Office for 
BSD incidentally distributed with a closed-source copy of BSD" mutated into 
"yet another incompatable proprietary operating system, just with lots of 
unix code."

That wouldn't solve anything.  We've been through a few years with netscape 
as our only viable web browser on linux, how much fun was that?

Rember the ben franklin quote about exchanging liberty for safety.  Buying 
short-term gains with long-term sacrifices is a dumb idea.  Been there.  Done 
that.  Came here to recover.

> 	Regards
> 		Henning

Rob

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Michael Bacarella]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 12:25:15PM -0400, Rob Landley wrote:
> If MS was currently facing BSD rather than LInux, they would have "embrace 
> and extend"ed it long ago.  Hide half of office in the system libraries (just 
> like windows), come out with a closed-source version, loot the open 
> competition for any advances but don't share yours...

Apple's doing it right now.

Except that Apple keeps the old code open. Probably because
they'll gain nothing from it, and at best, they can appeal to
the techies.

And it worked. For months, I heard nothing but how much butt
MacOS X would kick and that it'd be like Linux, but have a
better application layer.

Whatever.

No one says that now that it's out. As if Apple would
really try to appeal to us. :)

-- 
Michael Bacarella <mbac@nyct.net>
Technical Staff / System Development,
New York Connect.Net, Ltd.

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Alan Cox]

> Apple's doing it right now.

Hardly..

> Except that Apple keeps the old code open. Probably because
> they'll gain nothing from it, and at best, they can appeal to
> the techies.

A company that seems to write 'you shall not work on open source projects
in your spare time' into its employment contracts is not what I would call
friendly or want to work for. Im sure its only a small step to 'employees
shall not snowboard' 'employees shall not go skiing' - all of course argued
for the same reason as being essential to the company interest

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Rob Landley]

On Thursday 21 June 2001 18:49, Alan Cox wrote:

> > Except that Apple keeps the old code open. Probably because
> > they'll gain nothing from it, and at best, they can appeal to
> > the techies.
>
> A company that seems to write 'you shall not work on open source projects
> in your spare time' into its employment contracts is not what I would call
> friendly or want to work for. Im sure its only a small step to 'employees
> shall not snowboard' 'employees shall not go skiing' - all of course argued
> for the same reason as being essential to the company interest

This IS the company that had the "I work 90 hours all the time" club with 
t-shirts and everything back under Jobs in the early 80's.  And far more 
recently, where at least one employee got in trouble for "thinking different' 
with a parody site involving famous serial killers.

The "Proprietary frosting" model is fine for leaf-node projects like games.  
But if the new layer is infrastructure other people are expected to build on 
top of, then what you're really saying is "I want slaves".

Rob

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Kai Henningsen]

landley@webofficenow.com (Rob Landley)  wrote on 22.06.01 in <01062207084202.00692@localhost.localdomain>:

> On Thursday 21 June 2001 18:49, Alan Cox wrote:
>
> > > Except that Apple keeps the old code open. Probably because
> > > they'll gain nothing from it, and at best, they can appeal to
> > > the techies.
> >
> > A company that seems to write 'you shall not work on open source projects
> > in your spare time' into its employment contracts is not what I would call
> > friendly or want to work for. Im sure its only a small step to 'employees
> > shall not snowboard' 'employees shall not go skiing' - all of course
> > argued for the same reason as being essential to the company interest
>
> This IS the company that had the "I work 90 hours all the time" club with
> t-shirts and everything back under Jobs in the early 80's.  And far more
> recently, where at least one employee got in trouble for "thinking
> different' with a parody site involving famous serial killers.
>
> The "Proprietary frosting" model is fine for leaf-node projects like games.
> But if the new layer is infrastructure other people are expected to build on
> top of, then what you're really saying is "I want slaves".

Hmm. This *is* the company that has at least one guy full-time working on  
merging their changes back into gcc (with the right Copyright  
assignments), and where the guy in question does discuss how to make gcc  
work nice with both Apple's application framework and the GPL clone of it.

Oh, and one intern working right now to improve gcc's errors-and-warnings  
code, because that's what the gcc list came up with as a task.

Sure, that's not many people in such a large company, but it's a vast  
difference from MS, and it's also a vast difference from the earlier Apple  
from the look-and-feel lawsuit age.

For a while, they also paid someone for working on Debian's packaging tool  
(dpkg) which they now use for Darwin; at the time, that guy was  
practically the dpkg lead developer.

And don't forget MkLinux.

Apple is not another Red Hat, but they're not a Black Hat either.

MfG Kai

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> Hmm. This *is* the company that has at least one guy full-time working on  
> merging their changes back into gcc (with the right Copyright  
> assignments), and where the guy in question does discuss how to make gcc  
> work nice with both Apple's application framework and the GPL clone of it.
> 
> Oh, and one intern working right now to improve gcc's errors-and-warnings  
> code, because that's what the gcc list came up with as a task.
> 
> Sure, that's not many people in such a large company, but it's a vast  
> difference from MS, and it's also a vast difference from the earlier Apple  
> from the look-and-feel lawsuit age.

Take a look at themes.org. They are basicaly trying to sue anyone who
makes something similar to their aqua.
								Pavel
-- 
I'm pavel@ucw.cz. "In my country we have almost anarchy and I don't care."
Panos Katsaloulis describing me w.r.t. patents at discuss@linmodems.org

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Helge Hafting]

Larry McVoy wrote:

> You can scream all you want that "it isn't free software" but the fact
> of the matter is that you all scream that and then go do your slides for
> your Linux talks in PowerPoint.

Never used powerpoint.  If I need slides I use a (linux-based) word
processor and a bigger font than for paper.  Or html if I need something 
more fancy than text.  Html works great, and is also nifty if I need to 
put the stuff on the web for later reference.  No conversion needed,
and readers don't need anything but the browser they're using.

Helge Hafting

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Alan Olsen]

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Alan Cox wrote:

> > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html > 
> 
> Of course the URL that goes with that is :
> 	http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/features.asp
> 
> Yes., Microsoft ship GNU C (quite legally) as part of their offerings...

As well as:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2000/Apr00/WinUNIXPR.asp

where they announce distributing ActiveState's Perl 5.6 as part of their
toolset. (Which they funded the development of...)

Seems they are willing to use Open Source if it suits their purposes...

alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply
Alan Olsen            | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys.
 "All power is derived from the barrel of a gnu." - Mao Tse Stallman

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Paul Flinders]

Alan Cox wrote:

> > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html >
>
> Of course the URL that goes with that is :
>         http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/features.asp
>
> Yes., Microsoft ship GNU C (quite legally) as part of their offerings...

Do they include the source? There's a CD of source that you can buy
for $20 but gcc isn't listed

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Rik van Riel]

On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Paul Flinders wrote:
> Alan Cox wrote:
>
> > > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5092935,00.html >
> >
> > Of course the URL that goes with that is :
> >         http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/features.asp
> >
> > Yes., Microsoft ship GNU C (quite legally) as part of their offerings...
>
> Do they include the source? There's a CD of source that you can buy
> for $20 but gcc isn't listed

I'm not sure if they are allowed to do that.  See clause 1 (c):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdn-files/027/001/516/eula_mit.htm


Rik
--
Executive summary of a recent Microsoft press release:
   "we are concerned about the GNU General Public License (GPL)"


		http://www.surriel.com/
http://www.conectiva.com/	http://distro.conectiva.com/

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[Alan Cox]

> > Do they include the source? There's a CD of source that you can buy
> > for $20 but gcc isn't listed
> 
> I'm not sure if they are allowed to do that.  See clause 1 (c):
> 
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdn-files/027/001/516/eula_mit.htm

Slight oops on their part, but then that license is fairly new. I don't
think it is aimed at the Linux world though. Microsoft are trying to prevent
something else - and its all about lock in again.

If they prohibit people from linking free software with their own libraries
it allows them to prevent cost effective applications becoming available on
their platform so they can continue to inflate their prices. In paticular
I suspect this is aimed much more at things like OpenOffice, MySql on Windows,
Mozilla and friends.

Of course in two years time no doubt "in the customers interest" it will be
Microsoft approved developers only , and a while after that nobody else will
be allowed to make apps for their product.

Alan

Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

[watermodem]

Alan Cox wrote:
> 
> > > Do they include the source? There's a CD of source that you can buy
> > > for $20 but gcc isn't listed
> >
> > I'm not sure if they are allowed to do that.  See clause 1 (c):
> >
> > http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdn-files/027/001/516/eula_mit.htm
> 

Minor note:
     1) The above link is now gone...
     2) The above EULA was examined very closely by various
communications manufactures.  If the wording remains the same when the
library gets out of BETA there may be some interesting counter EULAs.

> Slight oops on their part, but then that license is fairly new. I don't
> think it is aimed at the Linux world though. Microsoft are trying to prevent
> something else - and its all about lock in again.
> 
> If they prohibit people from linking free software with their own libraries
> it allows them to prevent cost effective applications becoming available on
> their platform so they can continue to inflate their prices. In paticular
> I suspect this is aimed much more at things like OpenOffice, MySql on Windows,
> Mozilla and friends.
> 
> Of course in two years time no doubt "in the customers interest" it will be
> Microsoft approved developers only , and a while after that nobody else will
> be allowed to make apps for their product.
> 
> Alan
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

IP_ALIAS in 2.4.x gone?

[Alan Olsen]

Has the IP_ALIAS functionality been replaced by something else in the
2.4.x kernels?

Documentation/networking/alias.txt seems to imply that it still does, but
the string IP_ALIAS does not exist anywhere else in the entire source
tree. (Unless you count the default configs for non-i86 architectures.

There is a "virtual server" option in the kernel that ships with Redhat,
but I assume that this is a patch for something Redhat specific.  (It is
not an option in 2.4.5, unless I am missing something.)

How is binding multiple IPs to a single ethernet card *supposed* to be
handled under 2.4.x?  If the IP_ALIAS option is no longer valid, then the
alias.txt doc should be changed to reflect the new option.

Thanks!

alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply
Alan Olsen            | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys.
 "All power is derived from the barrel of a gnu." - Mao Tse Stallman

Re: IP_ALIAS in 2.4.x gone?

[Alan Olsen]

I found the problem...

IP_ALIAS is no longer needed in the config.  I screwed up the init script
configs for it so it did not work as expected.

The documentation does not reflect that the alias behaviour is on by
default.

I will submit a patch for the docs that reflects this so others will not
get confused by that.

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Alan Olsen wrote:

> 
> Has the IP_ALIAS functionality been replaced by something else in the
> 2.4.x kernels?
> 
> Documentation/networking/alias.txt seems to imply that it still does, but
> the string IP_ALIAS does not exist anywhere else in the entire source
> tree. (Unless you count the default configs for non-i86 architectures.
> 
> There is a "virtual server" option in the kernel that ships with Redhat,
> but I assume that this is a patch for something Redhat specific.  (It is
> not an option in 2.4.5, unless I am missing something.)
> 
> How is binding multiple IPs to a single ethernet card *supposed* to be
> handled under 2.4.x?  If the IP_ALIAS option is no longer valid, then the
> alias.txt doc should be changed to reflect the new option.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply
> Alan Olsen            | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys.
>  "All power is derived from the barrel of a gnu." - Mao Tse Stallman
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply
Alan Olsen            | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys.
 "All power is derived from the barrel of a gnu." - Mao Tse Stallman

Re: IP_ALIAS in 2.4.x gone?

[Erik Schoenfelder]

Hi,

>>>>> "Alan Olsen" == Alan Olsen <alan@clueserver.org> writes:

Alan Olsen> I found the problem...
Alan Olsen> IP_ALIAS is no longer needed in the config.  [...]
Alan Olsen> The documentation does not reflect that the alias
Alan Olsen> behaviour is on by default.

yes and sorry, you are absolutely right.  


Alan Olsen> I will submit a patch for the docs that reflects this so
Alan Olsen> others will not get confused by that.

great, this will surely help.  i've appended a first try how the
changes could be clarified.  please take this as a hopefully helpful
proposal (HHP for short ;-).

							Erik



--- linux-2.4.5/Documentation/networking/alias.txt-245	Tue Apr 28 23:22:04 1998
+++ linux-2.4.5/Documentation/networking/alias.txt	Thu Jun 21 01:41:45 2001
@@ -2,40 +2,43 @@
 IP-Aliasing:
 ============
 
+IP-aliases are additional IP-adresses/masks hooked up to a base 
+interface by adding a colon and a string when running ifconfig. 
+This string is usually numeric, but this is not a must.
+
+IP-Aliases are avail if CONFIG_INET (`standard' IPv4 networking) 
+is configured in the kernel.
 
-o For IP aliasing you must have IP_ALIAS support included by static
-  linking.
 
 o Alias creation.
-  Alias creation is done by 'magic' iface naming: eg. to create a
+  Alias creation is done by 'magic' interface naming: eg. to create a
   200.1.1.1 alias for eth0 ...
   
     # ifconfig eth0:0 200.1.1.1  etc,etc....
                    ~~ -> request alias #0 creation (if not yet exists) for eth0
-    and routing stuff also ...
-    # route add -host 200.1.1.1 dev eth0:0  (if same IP network as
-					    main device)
-   
-    # route add -net 200.1.1.0 dev eth0:0   (if completely new network wanted
-					    for eth0:0)
+
+    The corresponding route is also set up by this command. 
+    Please note: The route always points to the base interface.
+	
 
 o Alias deletion.
-  Also done by shutting the interface down:
+  The alias is removed by shutting the alias down:
 
     # ifconfig eth0:0 down
                  ~~~~~~~~~~ -> will delete alias
 
   		   		   
-Alias (re-)configuring
+o Alias (re-)configuring
 
-  Aliases are not real devices, but programs` should be able to configure and
+  Aliases are not real devices, but programs should be able to configure and
   refer to them as usual (ifconfig, route, etc).
 
-Relationship with main device
------------------------------
 
-  - the main device is an alias itself like additional aliases and can
-    be shut down without deleting other aliases.
+o Relationship with main device
+
+  If the base device is shut down the added aliases will be deleted 
+  too.
+
 
 Contact
 -------

problem with select() - 2.4.5

[Thomas Speck]

Hi !
I have a problem with reading from a serial port using select() under
2.4.5. What I am doing is basically the following: 

fd_set readfds;
struct timeval timeout;
int s;

serialfd = open("/dev/ttyS0", O_RDWR );

init_serial(B9600);

timeout.tv_sec = 2; /* ! */
timeout.tv_usec = 0;
FD_ZERO(&readfds);
FD_SET(serialfd,&readfds);

s=select(serialfd+1, &readfds, NULL, NULL, &timeout);
...

But s is always equal to 0 even when I am sure there are data to read.
If I use 

s=select(serialfd+1, NULL, &writefds, NULL,  &timeout);

(with the corresponding initialisation of writefds) it returns s=1 and I
can write to the serial port. I can see that since the lights of the modem
are flashing. 
I noticed that behavior since I tried to send some "ATZ" with the
write-function but I never got the "OK" back.

However, the same programme works under 2.2.19.

Any help, please ?

--
Thomas

Re: problem with select() - 2.4.5

[Thomas Speck]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, Thomas Speck wrote:

> 
> Hi !
> I have a problem with reading from a serial port using select() under
> 2.4.5. What I am doing is basically the following: 
> 
> fd_set readfds;
> struct timeval timeout;
> int s;
> 
> serialfd = open("/dev/ttyS0", O_RDWR );
> 
> init_serial(B9600);
> 
> timeout.tv_sec = 2; /* ! */
> timeout.tv_usec = 0;
> FD_ZERO(&readfds);
> FD_SET(serialfd,&readfds);
> 
> s=select(serialfd+1, &readfds, NULL, NULL, &timeout);
> ...
> 
> But s is always equal to 0 even when I am sure there are data to read.
> If I use 
> 
> s=select(serialfd+1, NULL, &writefds, NULL,  &timeout);
> 
> (with the corresponding initialisation of writefds) it returns s=1 and I
> can write to the serial port. I can see that since the lights of the modem
> are flashing. 
> I noticed that behavior since I tried to send some "ATZ" with the
> write-function but I never got the "OK" back.
> 
> However, the same programme works under 2.2.19.

Probably I should have given the init_serial() as well; So here it is:
(it is basically the one from the serial-programming-howto)

int init_serial(tcflag_t baud)
{
        struct termios tio;
        tcgetattr(serialfd,&tio);
        tio.c_cflag = baud | CLOCAL;
        tio.c_iflag = IGNPAR;
        tio.c_oflag = 0;
        tio.c_lflag = 0;
        tio.c_cc[VTIME] = 0;
        tio.c_cc[VMIN] = 1;
        tcflush(serialfd, TCIFLUSH);
        tcsetattr(serialfd,TCSANOW,&tio);
        return 0;
}

Thank you for any help
--
Thomas

Re: problem with select() - 2.4.5

[Edgar Toernig]

Thomas Speck wrote:
> 
>         tio.c_cflag = baud | CLOCAL;

How about adding CREAD?

Ciao, ET.