Hi,

sorry again for a long post. But I would highly appreciate comments.
This is first draft. I basically wrote down what came to my mind.
The final version will certainly be quite different.
I already got many ideas from this news group - thanks for them.

So if you have time to spare please contribute.

The paper I am working would need corrections from native English
speakers. If you can help on that - please contact me privately.
My work on this document will take several weeks because I am scouring
an immensely big list of sources for ideas. And I am will not be able to
do this full time.

Best Regards
Kari Laine



GET THE FACTS

This name was selected because Microsoft did run a campaign with that
name when it tried to combat Linux and Open Source after it got worried.
The campaign contained few facts and some big lies. More it contained
things that were half true. And naturally it did not mention why Linux
is good. Now the facts about Linux.

1. Linux has become easy to install and supports nearly all hardware.
With Windows, installing it to any machine older than three years means
typically that not all hardware is supported. In Linux if some hardware
is supported then it will supported in future also.

2. Linux is much more secure than Windows. This is because it builds on
the foundation of more than 30 years. Do not think that Linux is old
fashioned because of this.   The whole Linux (UNIX) concept have
transformed in the times course but if something is good - it is not
changed only for the joy of doing it. In the Windows environment
developers have been forced to learn totally new way in every couple of
years. And naturally Linux system is totally immune to viruses and worms
and other harmful things making the Internet insecure these days.

3. Linux and Open Source development has blossomed in the past ten years
and it is not slowing down. Think about the good Internet Browser
Firefox, good email program  Thunderbird,  Web server  that rules the
Internet - Apache, GIMP and lot of others.

4. Very big part of worlds super computers are running Linux. Which is
in some way amusing is that Microsoft Corp�s Internet servers are
provided by the Akamai, which runs Linux. Several financial powerhouses
are dependent on their Linux servers. Last I know is the London Stock
Exchange, which transferred from Windows to Linux and reported very good
savings and much better transaction capacity. Actually they were not
able to operate with Windows based system, which ignited the transfer.

5. Desktop Linux dominance is every Open Source advocate wet dream. It
has not happened yet and there are many reasons. One is the force of
monopolistic ways of Microsoft and naturally that it also have lot of
money to get it�s way. PC manufacturers are forced to install Windows on
every machine. If manufacturer sells a PC with Linux it still have to
pay Microsoft for a license even though it was newer installed. It would
be very nice to read few of these contracts to see how Microsoft has
slaved the PC manufacturers. Microsoft is also very fast to hinder any
attempt to sell Linux with PC. There are many  reports which tell that
after a PC manufacturer started to sell Linux machines they got visit
from men with dark suits. Linux is free and one can get it from several
sources. Nobody keeps tally so those market share numbers one sees are
totally speculative when concerning Linux. There is no way to know.
Typically Apple MacIntosh is put before Linux in these numbers. That�s
certainly untrue. My estimate is that on desktop Linux is somewhere
between 8% - 15%. It can be even more.

6. Support for Linux is very good. There are good books and discussion
groups. If you are a corporate customer naturally you have a technical
number to call for help. For home users Linux community is very helpful.
Who home user has used very expensive Microsoft support anyway.

7. Linux is totally free. There is  no activation process to bother you
and it will not report mother ship what you have been doing with YOUR
computer. The source code, which is how an operating system is developed
is available. Therefore things can be fixed by anyone with right skills.
It is typical to get a fix in a  day. Instead if there is show stopper
bug in Windows which does not affect millions of users you might
consider your lucky if you get a fix in a year.

8. LOTS of free and good software. When you buy a Windows machine you
don�t get much on the line of software. Notepad and few games. Add an MS
Office - another $400, CD/DVD burning software, PhotoShop and few others
and you will notice that the Quad Processor with 16GB ram was actually
cheap comparing the tally of software. All the mentioned programs can be
more a less supplanted with free software on Linux side. Actually many
of those software is also available for Windows.

9. The one areas where Linux is lacking is the games. Linux can not run
Windows games. But here is a solution. Cedega can be used to run Windows
games on Linux machine. It costs $55/year and supported list of games is
very long. The other area is specialised CAD/CAM solutions. Though many
of those are starting to be ported to Linux.

10. If you are home user who appreciate freedom, don�t have cash to burn
and don�t play games then Linux is for you. You can easily install it as
a second operating system you can boot. Then you have a choice to select
which one you want. This is how I started to using Linux over ten years
ago. Nowadays I do my work on Linux computer but I have to admit I have
a Windows machine to punish me occasionally.

11. Microsoft is losing browser wars, with IE. Google Chrome, Apple
Safari and Mozilla Foundation Firefox are eating them away. So it seems
Microsoft�s try to own the web has at least slowed down. But they will
try again - very soon - be prepared.

12. Linux has command line. Well Windows also has a command box, but you
really can not do much with it - at least I have not managed. If you
have good examples let me know. Well one can have a nice command window
in Windows by installing cygwin tools. But back to Linux. Linux command
line is very flexible. There are thousands of utilities, which can be
used directly on command line or combined in little programs called
shell scripts. One key to command line power is that each part of
command can take it�s input from previous and feed it�s results to next
one. This is not the way utilities and commands work in Windows
environment.  Most Windows users typically don�t use command line
because they have only learned how to do things graphically. There is
nothing wrong in Microsoft�s way to make everything graphical but super
users typically would like to want do things easy and effectively
instead acting like learned monkeys clinking around. In Linux you can do
both ways.

13. Only way developing countries could catch up with developed
countries in data processing is to use Linux. This is already happening
and Microsoft got so scared that they dropped their price for Windows
operating system, Office combo. The price tag was/is $3 - no that�s not
a mistake it says three dollars. I don�t know whether taxes where
included. Many observed that with that price they would get some value
for Microsoft products. This only shows how desperate Microsoft is in
the developing markets. If those countries go with the Open Source and
Linux (why don�t I mention the BSD also), that could open the flood
gates - and that�s happening.

14. OpenOffice (now owned by Oracle) but it�s free version LibreOffice
started little after Oracle bought SUN, is a huge threat to Microsoft
Office. One can do same things with it as with Microsoft Office but it
is free. Also the file format it stores documents is totally open and
documented. This is horrible concept from the Microsoft point of view.
By keeping the file format secret Microsoft has prevented any
competition to make world processor, which could open any documents made
by Microsoft World. Microsoft has been in problem itself, that in some
case new Office has not been able to open documents made by older Word.
 OpenOffice and LibreOffice can open MS Office documents quite good but
not perfect. This is because the file format is mind bogling difficult.
 Also for many instances there is a need that old documents even 30
years back must be viewable. One state in USA decided that to secure
that and also that tax payers would be able to use documents the
standard must be open. They informed Microsoft that if it did not comply
they would choose OpenOffice. Microsoft did not want join OASIS to
support the storing standard others used to play nicely. Instead it
developed it�s own version of document format (very complex) and forced
it with money through the standard organizations. For example IBM got
very upset and thought that it should reconsider which standard
organizations in endorses. Few countries also uttered their disgust but
Microsoft has always played dirty.

15. Always when governments and/or parts of them decide to promote the
Open Source solutions, Microsoft is very keen to howl that �governments�
should not favour any solution. Governments are supposed to do things
that further common goods and they should protect their citizens against
thread were that another country or faceless,evil,destructive,<add your
term her> mega corporation, with monopolistic power. Microsoft is all
this and more - it is international form of that. Having a hold of 95%
of the markets. Practically owning data processing. So please tell why
governments, many of which have GNP smaller than Microsoft�s budget,
should not try to correct the market disturbance. It is not only needed
- it is the right thing to do.

16. Possible Linux adopters are always confused by that there are about
150 different named distributions. One can say that they are very same.
If you learn one other is easy. You typically have all the same programs
in each. Various distributions typically differ by their installation
program and management tools. You can not go wrong with Ubuntu, OpenSUSE
and Fedora. There are many more which might be better but I have never
used them. Many who want to point finger at Linux say that this is a bad
thing but fact is Linux development will never end up in dead end
because some distro have done things differently.

17. There has been not so reasonable tight between Intel and Microsoft.
What Intel has provided Microsoft Windows has taken up. In many way some
have suspected that this intentional to market more powerful machines.
The basic fact is that home users have more processing power available
at their desk than they probably would need for next ten years. But
business wants that machines are replaced each 2 years. You have choice
- install Linux - it takes less for the operating system and leaves more
resources to your applications, where the action is. In a way Microsoft
has made a favour for Linux by forcing overpowered machines out, which
are awesome with Linux. Also remember that something like 512M RAM,
800GHz cpu works with Linux for most of the tasks.

19. Governments should not be asked whether they could use open
standards like OpenOffice - they should be asked when the transition
will be ready. It is not legally, ethically, or any other way right that
a citizen should buy $400 Office to be able to communicate with the
government and by the way that office requires $250 operating system,
and it must be Microsoft Windwos, and btw to run it you need minimum
machine which will cost you about $1000. So to handle one thing with the
government you must pay quite a slump of money. And you have to reinvest
it again if you want to bother us again after two years.

20. Microsoft has called Open Source movement and Linux in particular a
cancer and communism. Well cancer first. It is somewhat nasty to use
word cancer for software, because there are millions of people fighting
this disease. But if Microsoft means that Linux cells will eat up the
Microsoft cells and finally kill it - then they are probably right.
Except to the the fact that Linux cells will make the world better place
than Microsoft cells.
Then Communism. It does not work as we have seen. They were after world
domination and state owned anything. Everything was produced by state.
You had only one type of washing machine, one type of car and on type of
everything and quality was generally bad. Do you see how this quite well
describes Microsoft. They want (already have) world domination, they
only allow one product of everything as long it is made by them.
Microsoft ideology is very near with communism. So they are accusing
Open Source for something they are itself. In communism people did NOT
have a CHOICE - in Open Source environment people have all the choice in
the world, so how it can be called communism. It is competition and
capitalism in it�s purest form - fittest project will survive.

On 12/01/2011 10:01, Kari Laine wrote:
> 2. Linux is much more secure than Windows. This is because it builds on
> the foundation of more than 30 years.

That it is 30 years is irrelevant. *nix's have been designed from the 
ground up to be multi user environments with priviledge levels properly 
designed from the word go. New apps being written conform to this 
process. Windows started its life as a single user system and although 
it now has proper multi user privs some incompatibilities still remain 
especially in app-land.

Verily I say unto thee, that Kari Laine spake thusly:

> So if you have time to spare please contribute.
>
> The paper I am working would need corrections from native English
> speakers. If you can help on that - please contact me privately.

Private message sent.

Also, for the sake of brevity, it might be a better idea to publish this
on a Website, then link to it, rather than clog up COLA with draft
copies.

I can help with that too.

-- 
K.                           | Ancient Chinese Proverb:
http://slated.org            | "The road to Hell is paved with
Fedora 8 (Werewolf) on sky   | ignorant twits who know nothing
kernel 2.6.31.5, up 18 days  | about GNU/Linux."

Homer wrote:
> Kari Laine spake thusly:
> 
>> So if you have time to spare please contribute.
>>
>> The paper I am working would need corrections from native English
>> speakers. If you can help on that - please contact me privately.
> 
> Private message sent.
> 
> Also, for the sake of brevity, it might be a better idea to publish this
> on a Website, then link to it, rather than clog up COLA with draft
> copies.

I'd rather Kari "clog" up COLA with his drafts, because it is Linux
advocacy, rather than to see some idiot Microsoft hugging troll clogging
up COLA with its moronic anti-Linux anti-advocate ad hominem drivel.

Keep up the good work, Kari.

-- 
HPT

Phil Da Lick! wrote:
> On 12/01/2011 10:01, Kari Laine wrote:
>> 2. Linux is much more secure than Windows. This is because it builds on
>> the foundation of more than 30 years.
> 
> That it is 30 years is irrelevant. *nix's have been designed from the
> ground up to be multi user environments with priviledge levels properly
> designed from the word go. New apps being written conform to this
> process. Windows started its life as a single user system and although
> it now has proper multi user privs some incompatibilities still remain
> especially in app-land.

Hi Phil,

thanks!

I remember I have read that also earlier from somewhere but got it wrong.

Best Regards
Kari

On 2011-01-12, the following emerged from the brain of High Plains Thumper:
> Homer wrote:
>> Kari Laine spake thusly:
>> 
>>> So if you have time to spare please contribute.
>>>
>>> The paper I am working would need corrections from native English
>>> speakers. If you can help on that - please contact me privately.
>> 
>> Private message sent.
>> 
>> Also, for the sake of brevity, it might be a better idea to publish this
>> on a Website, then link to it, rather than clog up COLA with draft
>> copies.
>
> I'd rather Kari "clog" up COLA with his drafts, because it is Linux
> advocacy, rather than to see some idiot Microsoft hugging troll clogging
> up COLA with its moronic anti-Linux anti-advocate ad hominem drivel.
>
> Keep up the good work, Kari.

Same here.

-- 
I sense much NT in you. NT leads to Bluescreen.
Bluescreen leads to downtime. Downtime leads to suffering.
NT is the path to the dark side. Powerful Unix is. 

On 2011-01-12, the following emerged from the brain of Kari Laine:
> Hi,
>
> 2. Linux is much more secure than Windows. This is because it builds
> on the foundation of more than 30 years. Do not think that Linux is
> old fashioned because of this.   The whole Linux (UNIX) concept have
> transformed in the times course but if something is good - it is not
> changed only for the joy of doing it. In the Windows environment
> developers have been forced to learn totally new way in every couple
> of years. And naturally Linux system is totally immune to viruses
> and worms and other harmful things making the Internet insecure
> these days.

This was already partially covered by someone else, but I want to add
a couple of thoughts anyway.

GNU/Linux isn't totally immune to viruses, malware, worms... You
probably mean it is immune to the nasties targeted at Windows. It may
also be worth to notice that is is harder to target GNU/Linux as a
whole, because the operating system comes in many different versions
(distributions).  A nasty piece of software that can wreak havoc on
Ubuntu may be totally harmless on Fedora for instance, simply because
those distributions do certain things differently.

It is also important to note that *nix systems use the 'executable'
bit to allow or disallow execution of a file, unlike Windows, where a
file can be executed purely based on its extension.

> 3. Linux and Open Source development has blossomed in the past ten
> years and it is not slowing down. Think about the good Internet
> Browser Firefox, good email program  Thunderbird,  Web server  that
> rules the Internet - Apache, GIMP and lot of others.

Don't forget OpenOffice/LibreOffice ;-)

Other popular open source projects include VLC (the video player) and
Audacity (the audio cutter).

> 5. Desktop Linux dominance is every Open Source advocate wet dream.
> It has not happened yet and there are many reasons. One is the force
> of monopolistic ways of Microsoft and naturally that it also have
> lot of money to get it’s way. PC manufacturers are forced to install
> Windows on every machine. If manufacturer sells a PC with Linux it
> still have to pay Microsoft for a license even though it was newer
> installed. It would be very nice to read few of these contracts to
> see how Microsoft has slaved the PC manufacturers. Microsoft is also
> very fast to hinder any attempt to sell Linux with PC. There are
> many  reports which tell that after a PC manufacturer started to
> sell Linux machines they got visit from men with dark suits. Linux
> is free and one can get it from several sources. Nobody keeps tally
> so those market share numbers one sees are totally speculative when
> concerning Linux. There is no way to know.  Typically Apple
> MacIntosh is put before Linux in these numbers. That’s certainly
> untrue. My estimate is that on desktop Linux is somewhere between 8%
> - 15%. It can be even more.

My guestimate is around 5%, based on a number of observations. Perhaps
half of those users are dual booting with Windows.

> 12. Linux has command line. Well Windows also has a command box, but
> you really can not do much with it - at least I have not managed. If
> you have good examples let me know. Well one can have a nice command
> window in Windows by installing cygwin tools. But back to Linux.
> Linux command line is very flexible. There are thousands of
> utilities, which can be used directly on command line or combined in
> little programs called shell scripts. One key to command line power
> is that each part of command can take it’s input from previous and
> feed it’s results to next one. This is not the way utilities and
> commands work in Windows environment.  Most Windows users typically
> don’t use command line because they have only learned how to do
> things graphically. There is nothing wrong in Microsoft’s way to
> make everything graphical but super users typically would like to
> want do things easy and effectively instead acting like learned
> monkeys clinking around. In Linux you can do both ways.

The advanced CLI is a very strong selling point for the advanced user.
Even for n00bs who are willing to learn it can be beneficial. There
are a lot of day to day tasks that are simply faster (and arguably
easier) on a command line interface.

These days Windows has PowerShell. It is way more advanced than the
classic Windows shell, but from what I have heard it doesn't have the
most friedly syntax, and often leads to very verbose code in scripts
and even CLI oneliners.

> 20. Microsoft has called Open Source movement and Linux in
> particular a cancer and communism. Well cancer first. It is somewhat
> nasty to use word cancer for software, because there are millions of
> people fighting this disease. But if Microsoft means that Linux
> cells will eat up the Microsoft cells and finally kill it - then
> they are probably right.  Except to the the fact that Linux cells
> will make the world better place than Microsoft cells.

It's not the cancer, it's the cure ;-)

-- 
You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
	~ Bullet Tooth Tony

Homer wrote:
> Verily I say unto thee, that Kari Laine spake thusly:
> 
>> So if you have time to spare please contribute.
>>
>> The paper I am working would need corrections from native English
>> speakers. If you can help on that - please contact me privately.
> 
> Private message sent.
> 
> Also, for the sake of brevity, it might be a better idea to publish this
> on a Website, then link to it, rather than clog up COLA with draft
> copies.
> 
> I can help with that too.
> 
Thanks a lot for offer. I will contact you privately.

I hereby make change in my behaviour. I start asking short questions and
don't post many at the same day. I start maintaining OpenOffice file at
the web. I rented a dedicated server from GoDaddy some days ago.
I took the own server because I wan't to learn to run my own site.
To get server running is not going to be next day, because I have never
set up Drupal and I want to make sure site is not hacked in a minute it
goes live.

the address is http://opensourceug.net

The basic agenda is this:

"To have a central point for all the user groups around the world. Site
will be build around Drupal. Provide needed services those groups, like
discussion groups and mailing lists. Allow members to publish documents."

I have a longer agenda but it is still work in progress and is
immaterial now because I want to finish this paper first.


Now I am waiting a letter from some random attorney that the domain name
is no-no. Well it can always be changed.


Best Regards
Kari

[snips]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:01:00 +0200, Kari Laine wrote:

> 1. Linux has become easy to install

Which isn't particularly relevant to many consumers, as they buy their 
machines with the OS preinstalled - and you just can't beat _zero_ for an 
effort level. :)

Then there's the question of which distro?  Some are easier to install 
than others.

As long as MS is clogging up the delivery arteries with Windows 
preinstalls, I think the win on installation has to go to Windows, 
despite it being less simple to install oneself (again, modulo the 
distro).

> and supports nearly all hardware.

Nearly all _established_ hardware.  Linux often has issues with brand-
spanking-new hardware, usually because vendors tend to be boneheads, 
preferring to keep their driver model closed rather than gain the 
additional sales to *nix buffs.  On the other hand, once a piece of 
hardware is supported, chances are drivers will be available for it until 
the last extant device of its type crumbles to dust - something the 
Windows world simply cannot come close to matching. 

> 2. Linux is much more secure than Windows. This is because it builds on
> the foundation of more than 30 years.

Actually, it's because of its security model, and the fact its security 
is "designed in" rather than "bolted on".

> years. And naturally Linux system is totally immune to viruses and worms
> and other harmful things making the Internet insecure these days.

It's not that Linux is immune to them; rather, Linux presents a hostile 
landscape to them.  Windows offers what amounts to a singular set of 
tools (x86, IE, MS Office, MSN Messenger, Media Player, etc, etc, etc) 
which are used by enormous numbers of people - meaning that an exploit 
can run rampant across the landscape.

By contrast, in *nix-land, there are a plethora of browsers, mail 
clients, office apps, even CPUs in use, making for a much more diverse 
ecosystem - and diversity means resistance.  It also means that exploits 
which affect one machine will - at worst - cause errors on another, 
leading to detection and ultimate elimination of the threat.

> 4. Very big part of worlds super computers are running Linux. Which is
> in some way amusing is that Microsoft Corp’s Internet servers are
> provided by the Akamai, which runs Linux.

Actually, last I checked, they're not - MS's servers are just that - MS's 
servers, running Windows.

What Akamai does is provide a caching mechanism to distribute the load, 
reducing the demand on any particular server and, notably, selecting 
local cache results and suchlike rather than fetching them from more 
distant sources.

This has led, once or twice, to people noting with some amusement that IIS 
apparently runs on Linux and other such oddities, but it ain't quite so; 
the caching/load balancing is being done with Linux, the serving is being 
done by Windows.

> 5. Desktop Linux dominance is every Open Source advocate wet dream. 

No, it's not.

I advocate open source, and frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about Linux 
desktop dominance.  *I* use it, I recommend it, but if you want to use 
something else, by all means, use something else.

If OSS advocates could be said to have a wet dream, it would be a world 
where software (and information in general) is free and open, where 
bizarre licensing such as MS's doesn't exist, where owning a piece of 
software means just that - owning it - and where tinkering with *your own 
machine and applications* doesn't risk getting you thrown in jail, or 
fined to the point of bankruptcy.


> It
> has not happened yet and there are many reasons. 

Several billion of them per year, in fact, which MS pours into 
advertising, FUD, lawsuits, blocking vendors from distributing it, etc, 
etc, etc.

> pay Microsoft for a license even though it was newer installed. It would
> be very nice to read few of these contracts to see how Microsoft has
> slaved the PC manufacturers.

One or three such contracts - at least, the relevant terms - have been 
published before this.  In essence, they offer the vendor a choice: sell 
Windows at, say, $300 per copy, or sell it at, say, $50 per copy, but 
with the guarantee that it ships with every machine.

If you're a vendor, you can't very well afford to sell the same thing as 
the guy down the street, but for $250 more - so you have to either eat 
the $250 per machine difference in price, or accept the licensing terms.

The exact numbers, of course, will vary, but that's the gist of it.

> 7. Linux is totally free.

"Linux", properly, refers to the kernel, which is, indeed, free - both as 
in liberty and as in beer.  However, what the user gets is not just 
Linux, but a distro, which may well not be "free as in beer", and parts 
of which, at least, may not be free as in liberty, either.


> There is  no activation process to bother you
> and it will not report mother ship what you have been doing with YOUR
> computer.

There's nothing stopping a given distro from doing this, apart from the 
fact many Linux users wouldn't use said distro.

> 8. LOTS of free and good software.

Lots of free and good software for Windows, too - indeed, much of it is 
the _same_ software. :)  And each has its own collection of "killer 
apps", depending on your needs and preferences and suchlike.

What really makes Linux shine here, IMO, is not so much the "lots of free 
and good software", but the fact that it's so easy to find, install and 
update.

Mind you, that said, I wouldn't trade konsole for cmd, or a host of other 
similar comparisons, for love nor money.

> When you buy a Windows machine you
> don’t get much on the line of software. 

Sure you do: trial versions of MS Office.  Trial versions of commercial 
AV apps.  1,843 stupid little add-ins that do nothing useful, but suck up 
resources and slow things down.  what you don't get is much in the line 
of *useful* software. :)

> 9. The one areas where Linux is lacking is the games. Linux can not run
> Windows games.

It can actually run a fair - and growing - number, and in some cases runs 
them better.

> 16. Possible Linux adopters are always confused by that there are about
> 150 different named distributions. One can say that they are very same.
> If you learn one other is easy.

Not entirely true.  Red Hat's configuration tools and suchlike, compared 
to, oh, Ubuntu's, have more than a few non-trivial differences.  Yes, 
learning one makes the others easier, but learning one doesn't mean the 
others won't still have a learning curve.

> program and management tools. You can not go wrong with Ubuntu, OpenSUSE
> and Fedora.

Sure you can - but it depends what your goals are.  If you want the 
maximal selection of well-tested, solid, reliable, free/open software, 
stick with Debian.  If you want super-small, go with something like 
Puppy.  And so on and so forth.

The three you mention are perfectly acceptable, but they're far from the 
only options - and the main reason there _are_ so many options is that 
there are so many differing sets of needs and preferences.

> 20. Microsoft has called Open Source movement and Linux in particular a
> cancer and communism.

And I can call Ballmer a three-handed bandicoot; this doesn't make it so. 

Kelsey Bjarnason wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> [snips]

Nice post!

-- 
Anyone stupid enough to be caught by the police is probably guilty.

On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:48:03 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

> Kelsey Bjarnason wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

^^^^  Fuck that nonsense; if I post here, it's for public consumption. :)

> 
>> [snips]
> 
> Nice post!

One does try.  I'm only nominally a complete asshole.  :)

On Jan 12, 5:01=A0am, Kari Laine <klai...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,

> sorry again for a long post. But I would highly appreciate comments.

This is a great start - though not necessarily new.

> This is first draft. I basically wrote down what came to my mind.
> The final version will certainly be quite different.
> I already got many ideas from this news group - thanks for them.

> So if you have time to spare please contribute.
>
> The paper I am working would need corrections from native English
> speakers. If you can help on that - please contact me privately.
> My work on this document will take several weeks because I am scouring
> an immensely big list of sources for ideas. And I am will not be able to
> do this full time.
>
> Best Regards
> Kari Laine
>
> GET THE FACTS
>
> This name was selected because Microsoft did run a campaign with that
> name when it tried to combat Linux and Open Source after it got worried.
> The campaign contained few facts and some big lies. More it contained
> things that were half true. And naturally it did not mention why Linux
> is good. Now the facts about Linux.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-kills-its-get-the-facts-anti-=
linux-site/670

http://www.microsoft.com/hk/windowsserver/compare/default.mspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_related_to_Microsoft

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Linux-Allies-Rebut-Microsoft=
-Get-the-Facts-Campaign/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10145332-16.html

http://www.infoworld.com/t/platforms/novell-counters-microsofts-linux-facts=
-truth-259

The problem with Microsoft's "Get The Facts" campaign was two-fold.
First, Microsoft had to pay for the benchmarks themselves, and used
restrictions in the End User License Agreement to prevent others from
publishing benchmarks without Microsoft's prior written permission.

The problem was that when Microsoft decided to cancel support for
Windows NT 4.0 server, many companies had some old Intel server boxes
that they didn't want to license for Windows 2003 server, which had a
much higher "per CPU" license cost.  To get the most performance,
servers were replaced with machines with faster CPUs, more memory, and
higher disk capacities.

The old Intel servers could have been thrown away, but the IT
department quickly figured out that this was an easy way to get some
additional servers, without even having to requisition a budget.
Companies that already had UNIX servers were looking at the Linux
servers for things  like gateways, departmental web servers, and
internal content servers, often referred to as LAMP (Linux Apache
MySQL PHP) servers.

Microsoft asserted that even though the hardware and software were
"free", that these servers would be vastly more expensive to
administer than Windows NT servers, because companies would have to
hire a whole new staff to manage and support the Linux servers.

The problem for Microsoft was that thousands of companies were having
a very positive experience with Linux, and many were now considering
migration of not only Windows servers to Linux, but even some UNIX
servers to Linux.

The Linux proposition was made even more attractive when it became
possible to combine virtualization with blades.  The result was that a
single "server" might have a hundred blades with 4 to 8 CPU Cores per
blade.  And when these blades were combined with SAN storage - it
became possible to host hundreds of services on protected "servers"
that could be optimally deployed across the blade array.

Furthermore, scripting and remote access, as well as the text-based
console, made it possible to remotely administer servers over low-
speed links - from almost anywhere.  Companies who didn't want to
fully staff the night shift could hire services such as off-shore
support in India, Africa, or China - who could manage the servers
overnight.

> 1. Linux has become easy to install and supports nearly all hardware.
> With Windows, installing it to any machine older than three years means
> typically that not all hardware is supported. In Linux if some hardware
> is supported then it will supported in future also.

Many hardware chip companies are now debugging the hardware on Linux
first.  They know that they can quickly get a working driver running
and tested on Linux, and then make trivial changes to made the same
drivers work on Windows XP, or Windows 7.  However, Microsoft often
induces these hardware vendors into delaying the release of the Linux
drivers by offering to put them on the "Preferred hardware" list.
Typically, the "freeze" is for 3-6 months - long enough to keep PC
manufacturers using the new chips from installing Linux on the brand
new models, but short enough that corporations who require Linux
compatibility will still make the purchases once Linux drivers are
available.

> 2. Linux is much more secure than Windows. This is because it builds on
> the foundation of more than 30 years. Do not think that Linux is old
> fashioned because of this. =A0 The whole Linux (UNIX) concept have
> transformed in the times course but if something is good - it is not
> changed only for the joy of doing it. In the Windows environment
> developers have been forced to learn totally new way in every couple of
> years. And naturally Linux system is totally immune to viruses and worms
> and other harmful things making the Internet insecure these days.

Windows was a "revolutionary" platform - and had a a primary economic
goal, the sale of brand new computers.  Microsoft's primary customers
were not end-users but manufacturers of PCs and Laptops.  As a result,
Microsoft had to make it difficult for end-users to install newer
versions of Windows on older computers.  The result has been the
sudden inclusion of many memory-hungry applications, and dramatic
changes in standards - specifically designed to force corporations and
organizations to upgrade all users to new hardware, Windows, and
software - all at once.

UNIX was an "evolutionary" platform.  Early UNIX systems ran on large
and expensive Minicomputers like the VAX 11/780 and were often
connected to as many as 100 users connected via terminals or PCs using
terminal emulation software.  Universities often used UNIX systems not
only for classes, but also for record keeping.  Almost as soon as the
first UNIX systems were deployed at MIT, Berkeley, and CMU, there were
hackers who were trying to break into the accounts of teachers - to
change the grades of friends - often other members of their
fraternities.

Of course, initially, the teachers would notice that the football
player who was getting a D was suddenly getting a B, and would get
concerned.  After making the change a few times, it was pretty normal
for the teacher to raise the issue with the people running the
computer, and the administration.  Very quickly, it became a critical
requirement that UNIX have a very robust security system, and that
this security had to include not only authentication and
authorization, but also auditing and archiving that would make it
possible to catch, and prosecute the perpetrators.  As UNIX systems
got connected to military networks like ARPA, computer trespassing
became a crime, so did retrieving information and tampering with
information.  If you hacked into a computer, altered permissions, and
downloaded a file - even only taking a few minutes - you could face up
to 20 years in federal prison.

In 1987, a UNIX administrator released the "Morris Worm" - this shut
down thousands of computers all at the same time, and it took several
days to get the computers all back up again.  Though the worm was
actually a legitimate attempt to count the number of servers on the
usenet network, there was an error in the timer logic, and instead of
waiting roughly 30 minutes before sending out the next round of
probes, it only waited 3 seconds, flooding the entire network with
probes and e-mail, which filled the hard drives.  After that all of
the "back doors" were identified, locked, and guarded.

Microsoft also wanted to count Windows users, and with the Internet,
they were able to do so using specially designed back doors, very
similar to those exploited by the Morris Worm.  Using e-mail,
browsers, and routers, Microsoft was able to learn a great deal about
the total user base.  Eventually, Microsoft developed the ability to
gather all sorts of information, including all of the software
installed, hardware configuration details, hard drive partitioning,
and even the content of user files, e-mail archives, and other
documents.  Unfortunately, it was also pretty easy for hackers to
collect the same kinds of information for less ethical purposes.

As UNIX and Linux became more popular, the information stored on these
systems became more sensitive.  Soon intelligence and defense agencies
were storing strategic and tactical information on UNIX and Linux
systems.  The result was that these agencies began doing extensive
audits of the source code for both BSD and Linux systems, to get the
highest level of security and reliability.  There are some
configurations that are so secure that they are considered a security
threat when others use these configurations.

Microsoft has only allowed a limited number of government agents to
review a small portion of the Windows code, and even this under strict
nondisclosure agreements.  Microsoft attempted to get certified at the
very lowest level of security, and had to render the machine almost
unusable to pass the certification.

> 3. Linux and Open Source development has blossomed in the past ten years
> and it is not slowing down. Think about the good Internet Browser
> Firefox, good email program =A0Thunderbird, =A0Web server =A0that rules t=
he
> Internet - Apache, GIMP and lot of others.

Open Source projects are growing exponentially.  Many organizations
are now offering Open Source applications that allow users to access
"for fee" services.  This includes such things as media viewers and
business services.

We are also seeing the evolution of frameworks based on Open Source.
Such frameworks include the Open Office foundation classes, Eclipse,
Dojo, Ajax, and SOA.  Many "cloud" services now make it possible to
share and collaborate on projects in real-time.  And there has been
increasing effort around business process management - many of the
interfaces to BPM infrastructures are based on Open Source.

> 4. Very big part of worlds super computers are running Linux. Which is
> in some way amusing is that Microsoft Corp=92s Internet servers are
> provided by the Akamai, which runs Linux. Several financial powerhouses
> are dependent on their Linux servers. Last I know is the London Stock
> Exchange, which transferred from Windows to Linux and reported very good
> savings and much better transaction capacity. Actually they were not
> able to operate with Windows based system, which ignited the transfer.

Ironically, Linux now contains IBM Mainframe technology.  IBM
contributed several of enhancements to Linux which were based on
technologies used in MVS, VM/CMS, CICS, and other Mainframe systems to
squeeze the maximum performance out of every processor, hard drive,
and memory and peripheral - to get very high throughput on SMP, NUMA,
and loosely coupled systems.  IBM has even contributed technology to
help improve the performance of virtualization on Linux.

In addition, Linux got the benefit of a UNIX limitation.  In the early
days of BSD UNIX, there were no provisions for locking files.  As a
result, if you wanted to let multiple users update a shared resource,
you couldn't let them both open the file at the same time, or they
would clobber each other's work.  Instead, you would have each user
send requests to server processes which would then update the
resources.  Other systems, such as IBM Mainframes had this ability,
but with UNIX, the "client-server" and even "client-agent-server"
model wasn't optional, it was the only way to reliably update shared
resources.  Even though these server processes ran on the same
computer, it was easy to extend this capability to remote servers
using rsh, rlogin, and later ssh.  AT&T added the concept of message
queues, allowing the client application to prepare a "message" which
could be formatted and sent as a single packet through a multiplexed
stream.  Again, this was already used on IBM mainframes, but was more
widely used on the enhanced AT&T and BSD systems.  Linux also
implemented message queues, but did it much more elegantly, making it
possible to use the memory management unit to more efficiently map and
route messages, and making it much easier to multiplex message queues.

UNIX also had a much lighter "per process" overhead.  Memory was
shared as much as possible between processes, but was protected and
divided into executable, text (read-only) and buffer space, with copy-
on-write only for the buffer space.  The result was that more memory
could be shared between the processes.  Linux again used this shared
memory to further optimize the memory mapping, allowing more memory to
be shared as larger blocks - because it was protected.  This meant
that it was much easier to fork() a process, and have the child
execute it's own program, while the parent continued to provide the
service.  This made multitasking much easier, and eliminated many of
the issues of threads, including race conditions, deadlocks, and
memory corruption.

All of this made it much easier to scale Linux applications.  Large
complex applications could be broken into many smaller and simpler
services and interfaces.  This also improved performance, because less
frequently needed information would only be called when it was
needed.  Error handling, initialization, help, and other less
frequently needed applications could be separated from the core run-
time modules, which could be kept simple, small, and fast.  The result
was that you got much more performance for a given piece of hardware.
When these light fast applications were connected to each other
running over various servers on a high speed network, the performance
could be scaled almost indefinitely.  Today, there are arrays of
thousands of virtualized Linux servers.  In some cases, there isn't
even real virtualization, just a chroot "jail" that provides the
security and configuration of a protected server, without the overhead
of having to do low-level hardware emulations.

> 5. Desktop Linux dominance is every Open Source advocate wet dream. It
> has not happened yet and there are many reasons. One is the force of
> monopolistic ways of Microsoft and naturally that it also have lot of
> money to get it=92s way. PC manufacturers are forced to install Windows o=
n
> every machine. If manufacturer sells a PC with Linux it still have to
> pay Microsoft for a license even though it was newer installed. It would
> be very nice to read few of these contracts to see how Microsoft has
> slaved the PC manufacturers. Microsoft is also very fast to hinder any
> attempt to sell Linux with PC. There are many =A0reports which tell that
> after a PC manufacturer started to sell Linux machines they got visit
> from men with dark suits. Linux is free and one can get it from several
> sources. Nobody keeps tally so those market share numbers one sees are
> totally speculative when concerning Linux. There is no way to know.
> Typically Apple MacIntosh is put before Linux in these numbers. That=92s
> certainly untrue. My estimate is that on desktop Linux is somewhere
> between 8% - 15%. It can be even more.

Even before Linux existed, many in the UNIX community could see the
potential of UNIX as the GUI interface.  Keep in mind that even with
primitive text-only terminals, UNIX already had windows, drop down
menus, context sensitive help, directory navigation, and multitasking
displays.  The curses/termcap library made it easy to create fairly
sophisticated applications, even when you didn't have complex
hardware, and the applications could run on hundreds of different
kinds of terminals, including IBM compatible PCs.  The emacs
application was almost like Windows, allowing users to run many
different applications through it's windowed interfaces, and allowing
the user to switch between windows or even expand a window to "full
screen".  This environment also ran on hundreds of different types of
terminals.

As graphics terminals became more affordable, there was interest in
creating similar capabilities as those provided in curses and emacs -
with full high resolution graphics.  Eventually, they came up with a
"server" model, which allowed a client to call a library which would
convert library graphics commands into messages that were sent to a
server.  The server would then translate those commands into actual
implementations on the display terminal.  The advantage of this
approach is that the same application could run on a VT-300, a
Tektronics terminal, a PC with bit-mapped graphics, or even a high end
workstation such as an HP-9000 or Sun workstation.  These early UNIX
graphics terminals often had resolutions far beyond the PCs of the
day.  Tektronics terminals for example had 4096x4096 resolution in
monochrome, grey-scale, or - for a bit more - color.  The 640x480
resolution of the average PC seemed pathetic in comparison.

Of course, these high resolution monitors were not cheap, so they were
often used in specialized applications such as computer aided design
(CAD), computer aided manufacturing (CAM), computer generated
graphics, and statistical analysis.  In many of these applications,
the monochrome or gray-scale was more than adaquate, even if there
were only 16 shades of grey.

In some cases, there was a "work flow" from less expensive equipment
used to create the "rough drafts" to more expensive high resolution
grey-scale displays used to add all the details, then the high-end
full-color high resolution graphics displays used to do the final
rendering of objects in full 3-D.

For those lucky enough to get an X11 terminal, which usually had no
less than 1280x1024 resolution, it was easy to get spoiled.  You could
easily put up multiple windows, overlap them, and be able to see lots
of information all at once.  Furthermore, if you used a small font,
you could have a HUGE emacs window, which was great when you were
working on a project with lots of smaller files that were being
compiled and linked together.  And of course, there was REAL
multitasking - the display could even use "frames" that would allow
one application to handle the outer frame, such as a word processing
document, while another application might display a picture, or even a
real-time graph of stock quotes - in the frame.

When Linux was first released by Linus, he only provided support for
the low resolution graphics display using BIOS calls, serial port, and
an internal hard drive.  But since could was API compatible with UNIX,
it didn't take long for the developers of X11 to complete a successful
port to Linux.  Ironically, Linus and his team asked that they NOT
make changes to their source code, but instead, tell them what wasn't
working, so they could fix the kernel code.  Linus also added support
for several graphics chips.  Within a year, X11 was working on several
of the most popular PC graphics boards.  If you had a monochrome
monitor, you could also get higher resolutions - often as high as
1280x1024 interlaced - but if you pushed too high, the monitor would
catch fire.

Keep in mind that the Web Browser was a lobotomized implementation of
the UNIX graphical interface.  The original Web Browsers, including
Lynx and Viola, were written for Linux, and were designed to interact
with Linux and UNIX servers.  The early browsers were able to process
full SGML documents, but SGML was to complicated to parse for the
Windows 3.1 workstations, which had limited memory and limited
processor speed.  Not to mention that Windows 3.1 had difficulty
dealing with modems faster than 9600 baud and early Internet servers
were accessed using SLIP dial-up lines.  Trumpet Winsock was a port of
the BSD Sockets, with changes made to be more compatible with the
multithreaded environment of Windows 3.1.  The Mosaic web browser
provided wrappers for both UNIX and Windows, and was sufficiently
"dumbed down" to run well on Windows 3.1.

Ironically, even Windows 95 and 98 still had limitations.  Even these
systems were unable to handle the more complicated SGML parsers, so in
order to get beyond the limitations of HTML, Microsoft proposed a
subset of SGML which we now know as XML.  Of course, for Microsoft,
the goal was to be able to force-feed Microsoft Office documents
through the browser without getting stopped by firewalls, antivirus,
and other security measures.  Eventually, HP, IBM, Sun, and Oracle
developed some standards and constraints that reduced the need for
embedded binaries that would execute themselves automatically.

The frustration for Linux users and those who have used UNIX
workstations, and now Mac users, is that the X11 interfaces are far
more powerful than the Web Browser paradigm.  With X11, the GUI
"Server" can connect to applications running on various Linux systems
and safely access the graphical applications.  So I could have a
window that is accessing stock quotes at my broker, another that is
connected to a real time news feed, another that is graphing mutual
fund values, and another that is charting stocks by PE ratio or by
percent of 30 day moving average.

I can also access the spreadsheet application running on that remote
Linux server, rather than being tied to an application running on my
local PC.  As a result, I can collaborate with others in real-time.

And for collaboration, with the higher resolution display and Linux
display, I can conduct multiple meetings via chat, and even
participate in multiple meetings sharing the same charts and graphics
information - using that shared server again.

With Windows, there are still limitations and security issues.
However, there are many ways to get Linux and Windows to run on the
same workstation at the same time.  The simplest approach is to get an
X11 server for Windows.  Once this is done, I can access any desktop
applications on Linux "servers" which are now running the client
applications.  Commercial packages such as Hummingbird eXceed are one
solution, but there are also free X11 servers which will run quite
nicely on Windows XP or Windows 7.

One simple way to get a bit more Linux on the Windows box, AND get a
free X11 server, is to install cygwin.  This is a "Linux distribution"
which uses a library to implement Linux operating system and hardware
calls as Windows calls.  The result is that many Linux applications
can run on Windows and will look, act, and behave much like Linux
applications.  The caveat is that you only get the security of
Windows, not the security of Linux.  So if you are running Windows 95
on a FAT-32 file-system, anyone can look at your .profile, .bashrc, or
any of your private files - as easily as mounting a shared drive - you
don't even need a password.

Another popular solution is virtualization.  Microsoft has
virtualization software that is available for Windows XP and included
with Windows 7 that will let you run Windows XP applications, but it
will also let you run virtualized Linux as well.  The biggest downside
to this option is that you can ONLY run that virtualization software
on Windows.

There are also tools like KVM, VMWare, and Xen.  These will let you
run either windows or Linux as your "host" operating system, then let
you run the other operating system as a "guest".  Under Windows 7, the
hypervisor does most of the work, with Windows only providing the user
interface to the hypervisor.  With VMWare or Xen, the engine runs as a
Windows or Linux application.  The problem with running Windows as the
"host" operating system is that Windows will "fight" for the memory
and other resources.  Normally, Windows applications will be at higher
or equal priority, while the virtualization engine, which appears to
be a back-end service to Windows - will run at lower priority.  This
means that the "guest" can be very slow.  The worst-case scenario is
Windows on Windows (notation is guest on host).  In this
configuration, Windows host will keep "taking back" Windows Guest
memory, and Windows Guest memory, will keep trying to grab all the
memory it can, "just in case".

The "Windows on Linux" approach is probably the most popular among
experienced Linux users.  The properly configured Linux system is easy
to maintain, and it is trivial to back up an entire Windows system
"virtual disk" to a USB drive.  Then, if your Windows VM gets
corrupted - you can quickly and easily "fall back" to the backup.

Many companies are now using Linux "start-up" CDs, DVDs, or USB drives
to do the installation of Windows.  In some cases, the system actually
boots a small version of Linux with minimal GUI, then boots Windows
automatically.  To the end user, it looks like the PC is running
Linux, but the company can reload a "standard image" in 30-40 minutes
rather than 3-4 hours, or the 40-50 hours it takes to manually install
3rd party software, configure screens and desktops, and get everything
"back to normal" for that user.  With Windows on Linux, the user can
load up the laptop, take it home, and if something goes bad, he can
come back and get a new snapshot.  If he has a high speed connection,
and a VPN, he can get the "corporate image" without even coming into
the office.

> 6. Support for Linux is very good. There are good books and discussion
> groups. If you are a corporate customer naturally you have a technical
> number to call for help. For home users Linux community is very helpful.
> Who home user has used very expensive Microsoft support anyway.

Support for Linux runs from the free - mostly going to Google to
search for information - to premium services such as outsourcing
provided by companies like IBM, where someone makes sure your server
is running on a 24/7 basis.

Even desktop users can get "remote support" services - this can range
from bbs support provided by Canonical for latest release Ubuntu
users, to hot-line support and remote access support - allowing
experienced Linux administrators to fix your laptop as easily as they
would fix a server.

The most important service is the update service.  Linux has had
automated update services since the early 1990s.  Linux had plug-and-
play more than a year before Microsoft did (Bill may have delayed the
release of Windows 95 to assure that Windows 95 had a "plug-and-play"
that Linux couldn't easily use).  Linux had automated updates back
when Microsoft was still sending e-mail notices of patches to Windows
NT 4.0 and Windows 2000.  Mandrake introduced the concept.  Red Hat
and SUSE quickly followed suit, providing their own update managers.

Another key support service is the ability to install applications
that have been tested with the desired distribution.  This again is a
concept introduced in the early 1990s, around 1993 or early 1994, and
allows the user to install applications from either the local DVD or
from a remote server.  Normally, the number of servers is fairly
small, since most distributors are more than happy to offer both
commercial and OSS software via their distribution site.  Usually, the
commercial vendors provide a free or Open Source version of the
application, sometimes called a "community edition" and then you can
purchase plug-ins that provide additional commercial functionality -
for example Eclipse.

> 7. Linux is totally free. There is =A0no activation process to bother you
> and it will not report mother ship what you have been doing with YOUR
> computer. The source code, which is how an operating system is developed
> is available. Therefore things can be fixed by anyone with right skills.
> It is typical to get a fix in a =A0day. Instead if there is show stopper
> bug in Windows which does not affect millions of users you might
> consider your lucky if you get a fix in a year.

That's not quite true.  Linux systems get updates from servers, or
their mirrors.  The distributor may or may not know what you are doing
with a protected mirror (such as a mirror provided by the corporate IT
Department, but if you are getting your updates directly from the
vendor sites, the vendor can see which updates you are getting.  This
can help provide some level of information that is only available to
the distributors themselves.  Some companies, like Red Hat offer
"Supported Mirrors" which allows a corporate mirror to refresh from a
Red Hat Mirror.  If I recall correctly, the mirror is also supposed to
provide certain statistics about what they have updated - for example,
how many unique systems have been updated.

On the other hand, other mirrors are completely unmonitored, so the
distributor has no idea how many users have received updates from the
mirror.

Some applications call their "mother ship" - more for statistical
information than anything.  This information is usually limited to
some statistical information and perhaps a way to identify the device
- such as a disk drive serial number, CPU serial number, or ethernet
MAC address.

> 8. LOTS of free and good software. When you buy a Windows machine you
> don=92t get much on the line of software. Notepad and few games. Add an M=
S
> Office - another $400, CD/DVD burning software, PhotoShop and few others
> and you will notice that the Quad Processor with 16GB ram was actually
> cheap comparing the tally of software. All the mentioned programs can be
> more a less supplanted with free software on Linux side. Actually many
> of those software is also available for Windows.

One of the reasons there is so much no-cost software is because most
people don't spend 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year editing
photographs.  In fact, more and more people are spending more of their
time on the web browser, chat tools, and e-mail (pop or imap) client -
and much LESS time on the local applications.

If I'm using an Office Suite to create some personal documents that I
might want to print out and share with a friend - such as a
newsletter, I could easily do it with OpenOffice, and I wouldn't need
lots of support.

On the other hand, if my immediate supervisor is totally enamored with
complex excel macros, mail-merge documents, and create visio diagrams
that include the macros needed to extract all of the information from
the diagrams into a relational database or a spreadsheet - including
connections and properties of each "object" in the diagram (for
example, server characteristics) and then uses VBA macros to generate
the configuration scripts for the entire system - AND I need to be
making changes to those diagrams and spreadsheets several hours a day,
every day - then I probably SHOULD be spending time and money for
Windows, Office, and Visio.

The problem is that this solution would not scale well, would be
difficult to coordinate, and could easily get corrupted if 3-4 people
started making daily updates to their personal copies of the drawings
and spreadsheets.

At the point where we have multiple people updating the same document
at the same time, the cost of the "Microsoft Office Solution" grows
exponentially.  At that point, it may be worth exploring alternatives
such as Google Docs, or a PHP database.

One of the advantages of Linux is that you can put the server on the
laptop or the desktop machine.  This means that you can set up a
personal version, when it's working you can move it to a shared server
and that shared server could scale from a VM on a desktop server (with
a fixed IP address or ddns) to a mainframe server - with the
capability to serve thousands of users.

Even editing that spreadsheet could be transformed into editing a
MySQL database with OpenOffice Base, or even setting up a PHP form
with a dojo "spreadsheet" control.

> 9. The one areas where Linux is lacking is the games. Linux can not run
> Windows games. But here is a solution. Cedega can be used to run Windows
> games on Linux machine. It costs $55/year and supported list of games is
> very long. The other area is specialised CAD/CAM solutions. Though many
> of those are starting to be ported to Linux.

Linux actually runs games quite well.  One of the big myth-busters
that shoots holes all over the notion that Linux can't run games, is
Second Life.  On Windows, Second Life is slow, jerky, and difficult to
manage.  On Linux, secondlife is more like watching a real movie, with
you in control of the camera, the movement of your "player", and you
can even create your own environment.

The "games" are created by creating environments, complete with
scenery, landscaping, buildings, and lighting.  Then you can provide
support for various devices and weapons, ranging from swords, daggers,
and bows, to automatic weapons and explosive devices.  Within a given
"game" or "landmark" you can restrict what devices may be used, and
limit what users can do.  For example, you wouldn't want to bring a
tank to a Roman Arena.

To make the games more interesting, you can raise the stakes by adding
things like restrained life - which allows you to be captured and
controlled.  You can even set it up so that when you are captive, the
other person can dress you (or strip you) restrain you, or even
torture you.  You could even be sold to someone else.

The unpredictability of the game (within the constraints of the game),
tends to make the game far more interesting.  In addition, many of the
games are played as teams, so you have various social dynamics.

And in some cases, virtual reality crosses over into real reality.
For example, clothing designers will create designs on Second Life,
and see which ones are popular (in Second Life, you can even see which
items are being worn when they are worn), and you can actually
implement the more popular items - which seem to sell very well in
real retail stores.

There are even people who have set up businesses in second life, and
derive an income by running night-clubs or stores, even shopping
centers, and selling products they've designed.

If you want more "Traditional" games, there are numerous game machine
emulators - many of which outperform the original products on modern
Linux laptops or desktops.  There are emulators for Sega, Nintendo,
Sony, and even Atari devices.  Since many of these vendors make more
money on the media than on the game machines, being able to sell you a
game that you can run on Linux using an emulator could result in sales
of several million additional units.

> 10. If you are home user who appreciates freedom, don=92t have cash to bu=
rn
> and don=92t play games then Linux is for you. You can easily install it a=
s
> a second operating system you can boot. Then you have a choice to select
> which one you want. This is how I started to using Linux over ten years
> ago. Nowadays I do my work on Linux computer but I have to admit I have
> a Windows machine to punish me occasionally.

These days, I still have a Windows machine, but it's a virtual
machine.  Linux supports virtualization very well.  Windows on Linux
can even run FASTER than Windows on native hardware.  Linux uses it's
extra memory as disk buffers, so if you don't need the space for the
VM or Linux application, you could buffer several megabytes of "read
ahead" on files you read sequentially.

> 11. Microsoft is losing browser wars, with IE. Google Chrome, Apple
> Safari and Mozilla Foundation Firefox are eating them away. So it seems
> Microsoft=92s try to own the web has at least slowed down. But they will
> try again - very soon - be prepared.

Ironically, IE-6 is now becoming a LIABILITY.  Applications that ONLY
run on IE, especially IE-6, are targets for elimination.  Vendors who
wrote code that was IE dependent are already finding that it costs
them customers.  Some companies are switching to FireFox as the
primary browser - because they CAN'T upgrade to IE 7 or IE 8 - because
there are corporate applications that still ONLY run on IE 6.

With new tools like PHP and Dojo, it's much easier to create really
nice looking forms and documents - that will run properly on multiple
platforms, including IE, FireFox, Chrome, iPhone, and Android.

> 12. Linux has command line. Well Windows also has a command box, but you
> really can not do much with it - at least I have not managed. If you
> have good examples let me know. Well one can have a nice command window
> in Windows by installing cygwin tools. But back to Linux. Linux command
> line is very flexible. There are thousands of utilities, which can be
> used directly on command line or combined in little programs called
> shell scripts. One key to command line power is that each part of
> command can take it=92s input from previous and feed it=92s results to ne=
xt
> one. This is not the way utilities and commands work in Windows
> environment. =A0Most Windows users typically don=92t use command line
> because they have only learned how to do things graphically. There is
> nothing wrong in Microsoft=92s way to make everything graphical but super
> users typically would like to want do things easy and effectively
> instead acting like learned monkeys clinking around. In Linux you can do
> both ways.

Microsoft has always frowned on scripting.  Almost from the very
beginning, Microsoft wanted to distinguish itself from UNIX and CP/M
by putting a LOT of focus on graphical interfaces.  Initially, this
meant writing things in BASIC, or calling routines in the BIOS, or
even updating in-memory bit-maps and updating them to the display.
Later, as graphics became more important, Microsoft added more native
graphics calls, and with Windows, Microsoft established standard
application programmer interfaces to do nearly all of the graphical
interaction.

It was only as Linux began to displace Windows NT 4 machines that
Microsoft realized that scripting might not be as bad as they
thought.  Unfortunately, Microsoft has pretty much decided that the
scripting should not be interactive, and should only be used to make
native calls to Microsoft's binary level application library routines.

On the other hand, the Linux community has been very good at porting
Linux applications to Windows.  Cygwin not only gives you the bash
interface, but it also gives you tools like perl, python, ruby, rails,
and platform independent Java.  Several of these languages support
both interactive and script (batch) mode.  In addition, many can be
used with Apache to create Web based applications - using the Apache
web server that comes with Cygwin.  Cygwin also offers MySQL and
PostGreSQL.
There are also a number of canned "templates" in several of these
languages - some of which come with the standard downloads (just like
Linux), others can easily be downloaded from the Web.

> 13. Only way developing countries could catch up with developed
> countries in data processing is to use Linux. This is already happening
> and Microsoft got so scared that they dropped their price for Windows
> operating system, Office combo. The price tag was/is $3 - no that=92s not
> a mistake it says three dollars. I don=92t know whether taxes where
> included. Many observed that with that price they would get some value
> for Microsoft products. This only shows how desperate Microsoft is in
> the developing markets. If those countries go with the Open Source and
> Linux (why don=92t I mention the BSD also), that could open the flood
> gates - and that=92s happening.

Microsoft, along with many other companies doing business in other
countries, has had to deal with the realities of very different
notions of currency.  In Africa and Bejing, for example, a worker
might make only a few dollars a day.  This isn't so bad though,
because this is enough to rent a small apartment, buy food, and even
buy some new clothes now and then.  What the low prices does do is
discourage people from buying products from companies who don't buy
products from that country.  For example, if you sell Windows for $75
a copy in China, that's almost a month's pay.  Only the very rich
could afford to buy Windows.  If this means that people in China end
up switching to Red Dog Linux (the official Chinese version of Linux)
- then you might end up losing customers who COULD pay for Windows -
to Linux.

But if it costs you $50 to produce a copy of Windows and sell it, then
how can you make money?  The answer is that you have to take the $3
per copy that you got for Windows, and BUY something that you can sell
in the United States for at least $75.  Or maybe you combine the
revenue from 3 licenses - $9 and buy an X/Box - which you can sell in
the US for $300.  Of course, you have to buy and sell in quantities,
and it becomes easy to see that if you spend a bit more in China than
you made - you're only borrowing $9 rather than $300, which means that
your effective interest rate, even at 20% would only be $1.80 rather
than $60.

The bigger problem for Microsoft was that suddenly they realized that
they were not losing just $3 per customer that used Linux, but instead
more like $100 per user.  Microsoft really didn't want to lose 1
billion customers to Linux - and almost gave it up without a fight.
There are 7 billion people on the planet now, and only about 300
million of them live in the United States.  The total for ALL of the
"Western" countries is about 1 billion.  Linux has been very effective
at going after the other 6 billion.

For Microsoft, a critical mistake was telling corporations that they
had to "Junk" all of their existing PCs to upgrade to Windows 95, or
Windows 98, or Windows NT, or Windows XP, or Windows 7.

The problem was that those "junk" computers ended up going to people
who couldn't afford to buy a new computer, but could easily take a
"free" computer - which had been stripped of Windows completely - and
install Linux on it.  And Linux gave them most of what they needed.
Especially if they were kids, elderly, or from low-income families.

In recent years, Microsoft has been very carefully meting out free
licenses to non-profit organizations who create computers for people
who are nearly destitute.  Even then, the recipient has to prove that
there is no way they could afford a new PC (including those $250
netbooks), and they are not allowed to give it to anybody who CAN
afford a PC.  They aren't even allowed to SELL the Windows PC.

Of course, Microsoft is unlikely to sue the recipients, but they could
claim that ALL of these "free" versions of Windows were "pirated" -
and use that as justification to revoke all licenses distributed by
that charity.  With Windows Activation, Microsoft could disable those
free licenses, and extort more money out of the recipients.

> 14. OpenOffice (now owned by Oracle) but it=92s free version LibreOffice
> started little after Oracle bought SUN, is a huge threat to Microsoft
> Office. One can do same things with it as with Microsoft Office but it
> is free. Also the file format it stores documents is totally open and
> documented. This is horrible concept from the Microsoft point of view.
> By keeping the file format secret Microsoft has prevented any
> competition to make world processor, which could open any documents made
> by Microsoft World. Microsoft has been in problem itself, that in some
> case new Office has not been able to open documents made by older Word.
> =A0OpenOffice and LibreOffice can open MS Office documents quite good but
> not perfect. This is because the file format is mind bogling difficult.
> =A0Also for many instances there is a need that old documents even 30
> years back must be viewable. One state in USA decided that to secure
> that and also that tax payers would be able to use documents the
> standard must be open. They informed Microsoft that if it did not comply
> they would choose OpenOffice. Microsoft did not want join OASIS to
> support the storing standard others used to play nicely. Instead it
> developed it=92s own version of document format (very complex) and forced
> it with money through the standard organizations. For example IBM got
> very upset and thought that it should reconsider which standard
> organizations in endorses. Few countries also uttered their disgust but
> Microsoft has always played dirty.

The value of Microsoft Office in the 21st century has been
significantly marginalized.  I almost went into shock a few days ago
when I walked into a meeting and was handed a stack of printed
documents and told to "take one of each and pass it on".  As I
scribbled notes on the paper copy, unable to make updates to the
electronic copy - I quickly realized that I hadn't had hand-outs like
these since around 1995.  If the purpose of the hand-outs was to avoid
having to deal with any written feedback or constructive criticism, it
worked.  I ended up making all my comments verbally.  There were 12
people in the meeting, and everybody spent a few minutes putting their
"two cents" in.  The problem was that at an average of $120 per hour
per person, that "two cents" which actually took about 5 minutes to
discuss and capture - was costing about $120 per comment.  The meeting
lasted about 3 hours, for a total of $120 times 3 hours times 10 peopl
minutes  - about $3,600 - IN ADDITION to the cost of copies of
Microsoft Office for every member of the team.  Add to this, the cost
of printing and collating all those copies - about $4,000 plus $300
times 10 people - or $3000 in software.

But then again, to get all those people into that one room, they had
to be flown, during peak hours, to the location, put up in hotels for
the week, and given rental cars and meals.  That added another $30,000
to the price.

And since everybody was there to have meetings all week - there were
40 hours per person worth of meetings - roughly $4800 per person -
times 10 - $48,000.  Plus the travel for $84,000 a week.   And since
all the changes need to be reviewed and approved again, it will be
another $84,000 for the next round of meetings - the following week.

Too often, people try to write "Ransom Notes" and include them as
attachments in e-mails.  They try to send out these proclamations,
often without even an explanation of what's in it.  The recipient is
then supposed to use outlook to open the attachment, ignore the
warnings about Macro viruses, and permit updates to the linked files.
They are then supposed to make their updates, save the changed version
to their local hard drive, and then create a "reply" document, attach
the NEW document that they have changed, and send the new document
back to the recipient, who will then have to merge these changes with
any other changes made by any of the other recipients.  And this is
sent to a distribution list of 30 people.

Once all the merges are done, the revised document has to be sent out
to the same distribution list, for yet another round of thirty
updates.  If you figure that each merge takes about 20 minutes
(assuming a 20 page document - thats about 20 hours.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, another "publisher" sent out a related
document, complete with a number of changes which have not been
integrated into the first publisher's document.

In a month or two, all of the Office documents will be "frozen" -
whether they are correct or not - because all of the money budgeted
for that phase of the project has been spent.

OR

I could provide a PHP or JSP form that would update a database, using
dojo tools to provide a consistent user interface regardless of what
they are using to read the document.  They could make updates on their
smartphone, tablet, or any of the more popular Web Browsers - and each
change would result in a refresh of the view.  With an application
like Google Docs, the users could even see other people making their
changes - including who was making the changes.

If we need to have a discussion, we can have it on a Wiki page, or a
newsgroup, or even in a chat room.  And if we really need to "get
together" to discuss it, we can use screen sharing such as Lotus e-
meeting or gotoMeeting and we call all look at the same screen at the
same time - AND we can have a discussion in the associated chat Window
- while we are on a conference call using SIP connections.

Eliminate the air-fare, get and confirm feedback from each reviewer/
approver, and make sure that the status of the information is known at
each stage.

And rather than sending that monster attachment - they can create a
web page using blog software, and provide the ability for people to
respond directly below their entry.  If they need to add a graphic,
they can use SVG, GIF, PNG, or JPEG.


> 15. Always when governments and/or parts of them decide to promote the
> Open Source solutions, Microsoft is very keen to howl that =93governments=
=94
> should not favor any solution.

Microsoft feels that "governments" should not favor any solution other
than Microsoft's.

> Governments are supposed to do things
> that further the common good and they should protect their citizens again=
st
> thread were that another country or faceless,evil,destructive,<add your
> term here> mega corporation, with monopolistic power.

The problem with monopolies is that the company holding the monopoly
BECOMES the government.  They see themselves as being ABOVE the law.
The result is that lawlessness prevails.  When J.P. Morgan created his
rail, oil, and coal monopoly, people in the cities thought it was
great that they got cheap coal and oil.  The problem was that people
who actually worked in the mines were slaves, often quitting school at
8-9 years old to work as "breakers" picking coal from noisy bins, when
they were about 13 or 14 they would go into the mines.  If they lived
long enough, they would get black lung and go back to breaking up the
rocks.  They were barely paid at all, and even though the railroad
took coal out, the workers couldn't leave.  They also had to buy food,
clothing, and tools from the "company store" who always charged a
hefty mark-up.  Their personal debt would pile up, and when they
couldn't pay up, their daughters would have to "work it off" as
prostitutes.  The song "I owe my soul to the company store" - just
touched the surface of the horror.

Microsoft's monopoly has led to a different kind of problem.  The
solutions are so labor intensive, and the amount of information to be
processed has increased, and time-lines are so tight, that most
Windows/Office users have to work 60-70 hours a week, even though they
are only acknowledged for working 40 hours a week.  In many cases,
they have to cancel vacations, work on holidays, and even on week-
ends.  To give them the illusion of being with their families - they
can bring their computers home with them - laptops - and do the work
they couldn't complete in the office - at home.

Of course, hunching over a computer for 18 hours a day plays havoc
with the back, shoulders and neck.  Repetitive stress injuries damage
the hands and fingers, and small screens with small fonts put a toll
on the eyes, which eventually become so fixed that the only way to
focus on objects far away is to use gradient lenses and drop your head
to look through the "far" part.

But all of this is made worse by the nature of the work, which is
mostly cut and paste from one Microsoft document to another.  That
could be cut/paste from one reviewers comments to another, or cut/
paste from the spreadsheet to the word document.

The problem is that, as productivity falls, the demands for more work
increases.  The company is looking for profitability.  To make matters
worse, if it isn't complicated enough - they might send the work to
some guy in Africa, India, or China.

And the tenticles of Microsoft run deep.  The companies Microsoft
doesn't want to own, for regulatory reasons, it owns a 25% interest.
Microsoft owns a chunk of Expedia, CarPoint, Monster, Dice, and a few
banks.  Through other agreements and partnerships, it controls Yahoo,
MSNBC, CNBC, and several other media sources.  And Microsoft's
contracts maintain strict control of the manufacturers.  Gateway went
bankrupt in it's loyalty to Microsoft.  Others like Dell, HP, Sony,
and Lenovo have chomped at the bit several times, making public
announcements of Linux PCs, only to have Microsoft take punitive acts
that made them withdraw the offer, often in less than 48 hours.

But Microsoft rabidly resists all of the technology it doesn't own or
control.  And they don't just control the PCs, they also control the
INFORMATION on the PCs.  They can access any file on the PC (or
virtual PC), and can use any information they find in any way they
want, including passing it on to others.  This could be information
about your taxes or financial dealings - to the IRS, SEC, or FTC.  It
could be information about your sex life - to Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC.

It's ironic that the soldier who published documents to WikiLeaks
could be facing the death penalty for treason, but when Microsoft
leaked the sexual affairs of former antitrust advocates like John
Edwards, Elliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Nikki Haley, Harry Coates,
Preston Smith, and of course, Bill Clinton go completely
uninvestigated as to how private records stored on personal computers,
was obtained and leaked to the public via news outlets such as MSNBC
and Fox News.

And meanwhile, as an "Unpaid informant" Microsoft was able to get
investigators to stop looking into antitrust, fraud, extortion,
blackmail, and political campaign contributions - including
substantial donations through Jack Abramhov and Tom Delay.

And then there were those programs on MSNBC which so favored Obama
(and opposed Hillary Clinton and John McCain, both of whom wanted to
regulate Microsoft).  And the intense coverage of TEA party candidates
who unseated incumbents who wanted to regulate Microsoft.

The power of the press goes to those who OWN one.  And Microsoft owns
or controls numerous media sources, and sources several others.
Microsoft also holds placement and content control over nearly $40
billion in advertising that uses the Microsoft trademarks.

> Microsoft is all
> this and more - it is international form of that. Having a hold of 95%
> of the markets.

> Practically owning data processing. So please tell why
> governments, many of which have GNP smaller than Microsoft=92s budget,
> should not try to correct the market disturbance. It is not only needed
> - it is the right thing to do.

Even more interesting, is that even governments with bigger budgets,
like the United States, can't seem to stand up to Microsoft.  Even the
EU has soften it's tone with Microsoft, when several leaders of
governments most opposed to Microsoft were unseated in elections - due
in part to Microsoft's funding and coverage.

It's a crime in the United States for a corporation to attempt to
overthrow or influence elections in other countries.

It wasn't so long ago, about 30 years ago, that it was IBM and AT&T
who were being watched through the microscope for their control of
information.  Many of the privacy and computer security laws of today
were designed to protect people from having their personal information
sold by companies like IBM, or having phones recorded by AT&T.

Hard to believe that 30 years later, Micro-soft has become the company
that is bigger than the governments of the United States, Canada, the
UK, the EU, China, and India - COMBINED!

The problem is that it isn't just Microsoft.  Microsoft has left holes
in their software, back doors, that can easily be used by hackers to
get at the very types of information that those 30 year old laws were
passed to protect.

No surprise that Linux has become popular as the only way to assure
one of any degree of privacy.

> 16. Possible Linux adopters are always confused by that there are about
> 150 different named distributions. One can say that they are very same.
> If you learn one other is easy. You typically have all the same programs
> in...

This is a straw-man.  There are 150 distributions, but this includes
many flavors of major distributions such as Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu,
Xubuntu, and Netbuntu - which are just different configurations of the
same Ubuntu distributions.

Others are niche distributions, designed for specific needs, such as
very small PCs or very old PCs (puppy Linux, TAMU), or try-before-you-
buy (knoppix), or specific server needs (StrongBox), or custom kernels
(Slackware), and so on.

Even many of these "specialty" versions are just versions of Red Hat,
Ubuntu, Debian, or SUSE that have been stripped down or enhanced with
commercial software.  In some cases, the distribution is designed to
create a specific "Appliance" - such as StudioLinux - which creates a
media editing studio on a standard PC, and for a $$$ fee, you can get
the hardware and drivers for Linux controlled Mixers with multichannel
audio, or Linux "appliances" to be used as pick-up systems connected
via high speed WiFi.

> read more =BB

Oops.

On Jan 12, 5:01=A0am, Kari Laine <klai...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,

You made so many good points that the article was too long - So this
is my response to the second half.

> sorry again for a long post. But I would highly appreciate comments.
> This is first draft. I basically wrote down what came to my mind.
> The final version will certainly be quite different.
> I already got many ideas from this news group - thanks for them.

I snipped the earlier section since I have already responded.  I'm re-
responding to items 14 and 15 because they were getting to be more
like rants, so I'd like to moderate my responses.

> 14. OpenOffice (now owned by Oracle) but it s free version LibreOffice
> started little after Oracle bought SUN, is a huge threat to Microsoft
> Office. One can do same things with it as with Microsoft Office but it
> is free. Also the file format it stores documents is totally open and
> documented. This is horrible concept from the Microsoft point of view.

As the CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, and now Steve Ballmer had the
responsibility of balancing the concerns of investors, who are looking
for a good return on their investment, employees, who want to be
rewarded for their efforts, and this reward depends heavily on stock
options and profit sharing checks, and customers - specifically
computer manufacturers and the Chief Information Officers of very
large corporations with 100,000 employees or more.  These are the
companies who buy large quantities of software licenses from
Microsoft, often far more than they actually need - but with certain
expectations.

> By keeping the file format secret Microsoft has prevented any
> competition to make word processor, which could open any documents made
> by Microsoft Word. Microsoft has been in problem itself, that in some
> cases new Office has not been able to open documents made by older Word.

Most of these other "Open" Office packages, based primarily on the
Open Document Format (ODF) are constrained by numerous industry
standards, including standards for Java, standards for fonts,
standards for file formats, and standards for operating system
application programmer interfaces.  This is because standards are
critical to the success of industries where competition needs to
thrive.  Imagine if each hotel you walked into had different kinds of
power outlets.  Some would put out 110 volts of 60 hertz AC, another
hotel would have identical plugs, but would put out 500 volts at 20
hertz, and another hotel would have only connections for 9 volts of
DC, and so on.  Plugging in the wrong connector to the wrong power
could destroy expensive equipment, like your laptop, televisions, and
appliances.  In other cases, the provided power wouldn't even be
sufficient to run the devices you need to use.

Monopolists often use, and manipulate, standards, to give themselves
economic advantages and eliminate competition.  In Colorado Springs,
General Palmer convinced the powers that be that a "Narrow Gage"
railroad from Colorado Springs (once called Colorado City) to the
mining towns would cost less to build.  This was true, but customers
did not enjoy the benefits of the savings.  Travelers coming to
Colorado Springs on the standard gage railroad would have to wait a
couple of days in Colorado Springs for the Narrow Gage railroad to
arrive.  IT was LITERALLY a tourist TRAP.  People would be trapped in
the town, where every sort of scam artist, crooked gambler, and hooker
was making a living by cleaning the visitors out of their excess funds
before they could board the train that would let them complete their
trip.

Microsoft (an many other software companies) make a great deal of
money by mixing and deviating standards.  Even simple text files,
which are terminated by ONLY line-feeds on most operating systems,
can't be read by Notepad, and Notepad generates text files that are
terminated with carriage returns and line-feeds, which cannot be
processed by the application that adhere to the line-feed standard.
Even though this has been a problem for almost 30 years, Microsoft
continues to assert that their text format is the only "right one" -
because they have 1 billion PCs that run Windows and use Notepad for
"plain text".  It's easy enough to fix, but it does have to be fixed -
one file at a time.

Microsoft does the same thing with such things as fonts on Microsoft
Office documents.  Rather than establish, publish, and conform to a
standard that could be adopted by the entire industry, Microsoft uses
nondisclosure agreements to prevent publication of the formats, uses
patents to protect the undisclosed code, and reserves the right to
alter these standards in any manner it chooses, at any time it
chooses, without any agreement to give notice or submit to peer
reviews.

Over the years, this has lead to many problems, including the
dissemination of macro-viruses, OLE viruses, and other malware
embedded in the documents.

On the other hand, this tactic has been very profitable for
Microsoft.  After all, every 2-4 years, Microsoft comes out with new
versions of Windows and Office which are incompatible with it's
predecessors.  This helps "encourage" end-users and corporations to
upgrade by buying new PCs (remember, Microsoft sells most of it's
licenses to manufacturers, not individuals), and forces "accross the
board" upgrades for corporations who want to do business with
Microsoft's largest business customers.

> =A0OpenOffice and LibreOffice can open MS Office documents quite good but
> not perfect. This is because the file format is mind bogling difficult.

Actually, there are core standards which make simple Microsoft
documents easy to open and manipulate.  On the other hand, there are
fonts like Ariel Narrow which require special treatment.  Furthermore,
several of the fonts are protected by Microsoft trademarks - including
trademarks of each character in the font.  This started when Microsoft
wanted to trademark the dot in the center - required to type Micro-
soft (their original trademark had a dot where the hyphen was).

Microsoft also does numerous strange things to generate certain
fonts.  The fonts are scalable, but an 8 point Times Roman might be an
1/8th reduction of a 64 point font, while Ariel might be a 1/10th
reduction of an 80 point font.  Microsoft knows and protects it's own
fonts and the rules for generating the correct font that looks like it
should.

Open Document Format based Office suites use industry standards
established by MIT X11, Adobe, and W3C - which are public domain or
open source fonts.

> =A0Also for many instances there is a need that old documents even 30
> years back must be viewable. One state in USA decided that to secure
> that and also that tax payers would be able to use documents the
> standard must be open. They informed Microsoft that if it did not comply
> they would choose OpenOffice. Microsoft did not want join OASIS to
> support the storing standard others used to play nicely.

Microsoft, especially under Bill Gates, has always resisted standards
bodies - unless they could control them.  Microsoft attempted to
manipulate the IETF, the W3C standards committee, and ISO - attempting
to strong-arm them into accepting a subset of "standards" that would
allow Microsoft to embed binary and even executable code  in a manner
that would allow that code to be loaded, executed, and run.  Microsoft
wanted to be able to count users, and to track how they used their
computers.  Unfortunately, to do this, they hid "back doors" in their
applications that ended up being widely used by viruse writers and
malware distributors.  Ironically, Microsoft even decided to sell
access to our Windows PCs, selling certificates that assured that
malware and spyware would not be flagged as a virus and quarantined.

> Instead it
> developed it s own version of document format (very complex) and forced
> it with money through the standard organizations. For example IBM got
> very upset and thought that it should reconsider which standard
> organizations in endorses. Few countries also uttered their disgust but
> Microsoft has always played dirty.

Microsoft has been making nearly $100 billion a year in revenues,s and
for many years, a very large profit margin, as high as 80% in some
quarters.  They know that if that top-line number fell suddenly, or
the profit, which has been gradually dropping, were to suddenly drop
more aggressively - investors, especially institutional investors
might dump the stock.  The challenge for Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer,
is to find ways to keep investors buying the stock, and still be sure
that they get the highest possible price for the millions of shares
they have been selling personally.

> 15. Always when governments and/or parts of them decide to promote the
> Open Source solutions, Microsoft is very keen to howl that governments
> should not favour any solution. Governments are supposed to do things
> that further common goods and they should protect their citizens against
> thread were that another country or faceless,evil,destructive,<add your
> term her> mega corporation, with monopolistic power. Microsoft is all
> this and more - it is international form of that. Having a hold of 95%
> of the markets. Practically owning data processing. So please tell why
> governments, many of which have GNP smaller than Microsoft s budget,
> should not try to correct the market disturbance. It is not only needed
> - it is the right thing to do.

Even in the late 1970s, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs undertood that it
wasn't about the gadgets, or even the basic functionality of the
computer, but rather the control of information.  If you controlled
information, you had almost unlimited power.  You could leaks scandals
about people you wanted to unseat, and place more "friendly" officials
in key offices.  You could also hide information, or even alter
information.  The movie "then Net" was science fiction when it was
first screened, but today it's very easy for certain organizations and
individuals to use vulnerabilities in Windows to steal or alter
someone's identity, and make a bunch of money doing it.

> 16. Possible Linux adopters are always confused by that there are about
> 150 different named distributions. One can say that they are very same.
> If you learn one other is easy. You typically have all the same programs
> in each. Various distributions typically differ by their installation
> program and management tools. You can not go wrong with Ubuntu, OpenSUSE
> and Fedora. There are many more which might be better but I have never
> used them. Many who want to point finger at Linux say that this is a bad
> thing but fact is Linux development will never end up in dead end
> because some distro have done things differently.

Most of these distributions are different combinations of the standard
distributions such as Red Hat, SUSE, Debian, or Ubuntu, with different
combinations or configurations of diffeent software.  For example,
Debian is "Pure GNU" and Open Source.  Others, like Linux Mint are
"Commercial" distributions which includes proprietary binary driver
modules, as well as commercial applications.

In some cases, the same vendors will offer different distributions for
different needs.  Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (RHELD) is designed
to run core applications in a corporate environment, as well as some
commercial applications that adhere to the LSB 3.x standards.  Fedora
was originally created for developers, but has found popularity with
experienced Linux users who want all of the newer applications - which
can be pulled down from the Fedora software site.

> 17. There has been not so reasonable ties between Intel and Microsoft.
> What Intel has provided Microsoft Windows has taken up.

Intel and Microsoft have a symbiotic relationship.  Linux will run on
Intel, but it will also run well an AMD, Alpha, Sparc, PPC, and ARM
chips as well.  For Intel, Microsoft has been a good partner.  Even
when Microsoft agreed to write ports to these other platforms (mainly
to keep them from stepping up behind OS/2 or some variant of UNIX or
Linux), they didn't port the applications.  This extended the "WinTel"
monopoly in it's 32 bit mode for another 15 years or so.  Ironically,
Linux makes better use of most of the capabilities of the Intel chips,
but it also makes good use of the features of other chips as well.
This is because the GNU C compilers, and their extenders are written
by the chip makers rather than the operating system team.  The
hardware vendors can also ad driver modules for Linux designed to
provide features that Microsoft might not adopt for years.

> In many way some
> have suspected that this intentional to market more powerful machines.
> The basic fact is that home users have more processing power available
> at their desk than they probably would need for next ten years.

One of the problems with Windows is that performance and speed are so
heavily dependent on the hard drive.  Windows pulls small clusters -
usually around 4 kbytes at a time from the hard drive.  And the size
of a cluster is also the smallest possible size for a file.  Linux on
the other hand, can pull content an i-node at a time.  An i-node can
be up to a megabyte in each access, and keep it cached and ready for
reading by the applications.  The read-ahead and write-behind
capabilities of Linux can accelerate the performance not only of
Linux, but also Windows running as a VM on Linux.

> But business wants that machines are replaced each 2 years. You have choi=
ce
> - install Linux - it takes less for the operating system and leaves more
> resources to your applications, where the action is.

Part of this performance is because applications don't have to include
EVERYTHING in the main run-time.  This can be very important when you
consider the impact on CPU L1 and L2 cache.  If you can keep the 5% of
the code that runs 80% of the time - in L1 cache, and never swap it
out, that memory can run MUCH faster.  If you can keep the 20% of the
code that runs 95% of the time in the L2 cache, you can further speed
up Linux applications.  Linux pulls in a number of small libraries,
and many of those libraries are small and efficient, because they
don't have to be swapped out of cache, they can run in the high speed
cache.  For example libc is less than 2 megabytes - and the "hot" part
could easily fit in the L2 cache of even the least expensive Intel
chips.  And the "hottest" subset of each library could easily run in
the L1 cache.

This argument goes all the way back to the CISC vs RISC debate.  UNIX
advocates suggested that if you had a larger cache, which you would
have room for if you used RISC, you would be able to put more code in
the L1 cache, making it possible to run more complex subroutines that
are frequently called, at the highest speed - effectively turning the
RISC chip into a CISC chip where the "microcode" was loaded into the
L1 and L2 cache RAM.  Some UNIX CPUs such as the PPC have large L3
cache, and even subdivide the shared memory - making it much easier to
keep most of the code running in the CPU cache.  In multi-core
processors, that common code can be shared by the different cores.

> In a way Microsoft
> has made a favour for Linux by forcing overpowered machines out, which
> are awesome with Linux. Also remember that something like 512M RAM,
> 800GHz cpu works with Linux for most of the tasks.

Linux users do have different priorities, as do UNIX Users such as OS/
X users.  Because Linux supports true multitasking, processes, and
kernel mapped threads - Linux and OS/X users often pay a little extra
for display real-estate.  Mac users for example can get monitors with
"Cinema" resolution - 3800x2400 - nearly double the 1900x1200
resolution of "FullHD" displays.  Linux users can also use multiple
displays and can even connect multiple X11 servers to the control of a
single keyboard and mouse.  Some Linux systems have even been used for
multiscreen displays such as those at NASDAQ, or even some sports
stadium scoreboards.

> 19. Governments should not be asked whether they could use open
> standards like OpenOffice - they should be asked when the transition
> will be ready. It is not legally, ethically, or any other way right that
> a citizen should buy $400 Office to be able to communicate with the
> government and by the way that office requires $250 operating system,
> and it must be Microsoft Windwos, and btw to run it you need minimum
> machine which will cost you about $1000. So to handle one thing with the
> government you must pay quite a slump of money. And you have to reinvest
> it again if you want to bother us again after two years.

Transition takes planning.  It took almost 10 years to transition from
IBM Mainframes and 3270 block-mode "green Screen" terminals to MS-
DOS.  It took almost 10 years to transition from MS-DOS 3.0 to Windows
95, and another 5 years to transiton from the limits of Windows 3.1 to
the capabilities of Windows 2000 and the support of Windows XP.
Microsoft had the luxury of being able to plan 10 years ahead, and
Bill Gates continued to think 10 years ahead - even as he was making
the transition from CEO of Microsoft to the head of the Gates
Foundation.  Most CEOs, including Steve Ballmer, are under pressure to
deliver good results each quarter.  Even a 1 year plan is pretty much
"long term".

The Open Source community has also been looking at the long-term
planning, and there are many who do think 5-10 even 20 years ahead.
Thousands of Linux applications were ported to Windows using embedded
cygwin libraries.  This has made users less dependent on Windows API
based software, and more available to UNIX/Linux API software.  The
adoption of UNIX in OS/X has further improved the desire for Linux/
UNIX API based software, as well as truly platform independent Java
applications like Eclipse, AJAX, and dojo.

> 20. Microsoft has called Open Source movement and Linux in particular a
> cancer and communism. Well cancer first. It is somewhat nasty to use
> word cancer for software, because there are millions of people fighting
> this disease. But if Microsoft means that Linux cells will eat up the
> Microsoft cells and finally kill it - then they are probably right.
> Except to the the fact that Linux cells will make the world better place
> than Microsoft cells.

Microsoft has had to struggle with a serious problem recently.  They
might be able to get BSD versions of desirable code, but if a Linux
supporter releases a really great patch - but ONLY releases it under
GPL, Microsoft can't use it.  Microsoft has been trying to get Open
Source developers to give up control - by getting them to sign or
accept "Microsoft Open Source" licenses which mandate that EVERYTHING
they develop has to be licensed to Microsoft (including subsequent
patches to Linux).

Linux also benefits from peer review - including review of
intelligence agencies like the FBI, CIA, and NSA - who have helped to
developed SELinux - security enhanced Linux - that can be secure
enough for "top Secret" classified information.

> Then Communism. It does not work as we have seen. They were after world
> domination and state owned anything. Everything was produced by state.

The problem is that Linux ISN'T communism - it's free market
competition at it's most extreme.  When you get a Linux distribution,
you don't just get one of each application, you get as many as a dozen
different competing applications of a specific time.  I can chose from
10 web browsers, which I can select based on needs such as speed,
performance, flexibility, or compatibility.  I can also choose from 5
office suites, and even 3-4 versions of Java.

> You had only one type of washing machine, one type of car and on type of
> everything and quality was generally bad. Do you see how this quite well
> describes Microsoft.

Much of what we thought was bad about "Communisim" was actually the
problems of a facist and totalitarian state, whether it was Hitler's
Volkswagon that didn't have a rear window, or Stalin's USSR, where
Stalin personally chose specific designs.  As competing
infrastructures were dismantled, the lack of competition resulted in
the gradual lack of innovation.

> They want (already have) world domination, they
> only allow one product of everything as long it is made by them.
> Microsoft ideology is very near with communism.

Actually, Microsoft is advocating totalitarian control, including
their exclusive control over ALL information stored on EVERY PC.
Unfortunately, hackers can also take control, even when Microsoft has
not sold them the right to do so.

> So they are accusing
> Open Source for something they are itself. In communism people did NOT
> have a CHOICE - in Open Source environment people have all the choice in
> the world, so how it can be called communism. It is competition and
> capitalism in it s purest form - fittest project will survive.

Ironically, the Bush tax cuts, especially the elimination of the tax
on dividends paid to investors, caused the venture capital market to
dry up.  Had it not been for open source, there might not have been
ANY innovation - not even by Apple, let alone Microsoft.

Hi Kelsey,

thanks a LOT! good points.

Best Regards
Kari

Hi Rex,

I very much appreciate you took your expensive time and commented
throughly to my text. I am just posting to let you know that I am
digesting it very carefully.

The think about Microsoft squeezing PC manufacturers to delay Linux
driver sounds like a smoking gun. That would be nice addition to my Get
The Facts list, only if I had proof or at least some comments in the
computer press.


Best Regards
Kari

In message <8si108-739.ln1@spanky.localhost.net>, Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:

> Which isn't particularly relevant to many consumers, as they buy their
> machines with the OS preinstalled - and you just can't beat _zero_ for an
> effort level. :)

Until Windows needs reinstalling. Which seems to be quite often.

Kelsey Bjarnason wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:48:03 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>
>> Kelsey Bjarnason wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>
> ^^^^  Fuck that nonsense; if I post here, it's for public consumption. :)

Its a-copyrighted, bwah, and there ain' a thin' ye kin dew about it! 

>>> [snips]
>> 
>> Nice post!
>
> One does try.  I'm only nominally a complete asshole.  :)

I am an asshole, pig, idiot, or nice guy, depending on who's telling you.

-- 
I don't hate him. I don't hate anyone. But you must remember he is simply a
dishonest show off.  I think he's a suck up. And he compounds it by claiming
I am lying when he knows damn well I am not.  I give him shit because he
gives others shit all the time and pretends to be some sort of guru when its
as plain as the trojans on Roy's website that he recently googled it and is
bluffing. See when he calls for "fair play" and "decent language" - he then
uses "cunt" himself. He's a moron. 
   -- "Hadron".  Copied from Google Groups.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@geek-central.gen.new_zealand> writes:

> In message <8si108-739.ln1@spanky.localhost.net>, Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
>
>> Which isn't particularly relevant to many consumers, as they buy their
>> machines with the OS preinstalled - and you just can't beat _zero_ for an
>> effort level. :)
>
> Until Windows needs reinstalling. Which seems to be quite often.

For idiots yes. For others including me (in the past) Ahlstrom, Tattoo
Vampire and others it doesnt.

Rex Ballard wrote:
> On Jan 12, 5:01 am, Kari Laine <klai...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
> 
>> sorry again for a long post. But I would highly appreciate comments.
> 
> This is a great start - though not necessarily new.
No it is not - it should be obvious and general knoledge for everyone
but still world operates as people wouldn't know it....
On the Linux side I have used much of my time to read about Linux,
therefore I don't know what exactly is my own creation, if any - whole
of my life I have been trying to be smarter, but now I give up :-)


> The problem with Microsoft's "Get The Facts" campaign was two-fold.
> First, Microsoft had to pay for the benchmarks themselves, and used
> restrictions in the End User License Agreement to prevent others from
> publishing benchmarks without Microsoft's prior written permission.
I know - the EULA. I gather that if I would test something between
Windows and Linux I would not be able to publish my findings. Not even
with a claim "these are results of my test. They could be wrong and
rigged but I publish them anyway"

Is there anything to be done to allow computer press to be objective
about Linux. Naturally they favour the biggest payer. Is the only way to
create a new computer magazine?

> 
> The problem was that when Microsoft decided to cancel support for
> Windows NT 4.0 server, many companies had some old Intel server boxes
> that they didn't want to license for Windows 2003 server, which had a
> much higher "per CPU" license cost.  To get the most performance,
> servers were replaced with machines with faster CPUs, more memory, and
> higher disk capacities.
It is pity that I don't have contacts to many companies in Finland who
replace their hardware. I would very eagerly took couple of SUNs,
Itaniums and G5 MACs and other interesting stuff from them - I would
even pay for it. Just in case I am in Finland.

> 
> The old Intel servers could have been thrown away, but the IT
> department quickly figured out that this was an easy way to get some
> additional servers, without even having to requisition a budget.
> Companies that already had UNIX servers were looking at the Linux
> servers for things  like gateways, departmental web servers, and
> internal content servers, often referred to as LAMP (Linux Apache
> MySQL PHP) servers.
Yes this was written in some magazines back then and it was hilarious.
Management did not know that penguin was swimming in. They only found
after a while because they got curious why everything works so smoothly
nowadays....

> 
> Microsoft asserted that even though the hardware and software were
> "free", that these servers would be vastly more expensive to
> administer than Windows NT servers, because companies would have to
> hire a whole new staff to manage and support the Linux servers.
Why don't they hire those who know both and even more important knows
how they interoperate.

I have been wondering why big corporations won't do following.

Buy all important server licenses from RedHat with support contract.
Select a distro to base the custom made corporate desktop.
Naturally it's cost is free to the company.
Hire 2-3 or enough Linux/kernel hackers to be able to solve thorny issues.

> 
> The problem for Microsoft was that thousands of companies were having
> a very positive experience with Linux, and many were now considering
> migration of not only Windows servers to Linux, but even some UNIX
> servers to Linux.
Yep Linux is really gaining in servers but I personally would like to
see it gain on the desktop before I die....

> 
> The Linux proposition was made even more attractive when it became
> possible to combine virtualization with blades.  The result was that a
> single "server" might have a hundred blades with 4 to 8 CPU Cores per
> blade.  And when these blades were combined with SAN storage - it
> became possible to host hundreds of services on protected "servers"
> that could be optimally deployed across the blade array.
I have been using VMWare products and you really can't make a wrong
decision by selecting them. They are great. Now when I test something
with Windows I can always restore situation to a selected point.

> 
> Furthermore, scripting and remote access, as well as the text-based
> console, made it possible to remotely administer servers over low-
> speed links - from almost anywhere.  Companies who didn't want to
> fully staff the night shift could hire services such as off-shore
> support in India, Africa, or China - who could manage the servers
> overnight.
How remote administration is done most effectively in Windows Server
environment. In Linux it is build in - just use ssh, or redirect the
tools window to your desktop. It couldn't be more elegant.

> 
>> 1. Linux has become easy to install and supports nearly all hardware.
>> With Windows, installing it to any machine older than three years means
>> typically that not all hardware is supported. In Linux if some hardware
>> is supported then it will supported in future also.
> 
> Many hardware chip companies are now debugging the hardware on Linux
> first.  They know that they can quickly get a working driver running
> and tested on Linux, and then make trivial changes to made the same
> drivers work on Windows XP, or Windows 7.  However, Microsoft often
> induces these hardware vendors into delaying the release of the Linux
> drivers by offering to put them on the "Preferred hardware" list.
> Typically, the "freeze" is for 3-6 months - long enough to keep PC
> manufacturers using the new chips from installing Linux on the brand
> new models, but short enough that corporations who require Linux
> compatibility will still make the purchases once Linux drivers are
> available.
I started to think this. I have never written a device driver - my plan
is to write one some day for just heck of it. I have read 4 books about
Windows device drivers and so far I think it is a mess - other way
saying that I did understand it because of my limited capacity. And
always when I return to subject Microsoft has seemed to changed the
rules. I will take again this area when I have a time. I have a need for
generic driver for parallel port under Windows 7 32 and 64 bit, which
allows me to control state of the pins read/write. In Linux this kind of
trivial thing is already included.

I have read Rubini's device driver books and it feels much easier - if a
device driver can ever be easy. The complexity is determined by the device.

> 
>> 2. Linux is much more secure than Windows. This is because it builds on
>> the foundation of more than 30 years. Do not think that Linux is old
>> fashioned because of this.   The whole Linux (UNIX) concept have
>> transformed in the times course but if something is good - it is not
>> changed only for the joy of doing it. In the Windows environment
>> developers have been forced to learn totally new way in every couple of
>> years. And naturally Linux system is totally immune to viruses and worms
>> and other harmful things making the Internet insecure these days.
> 
> Windows was a "revolutionary" platform - and had a a primary economic
> goal, the sale of brand new computers.  Microsoft's primary customers
> were not end-users but manufacturers of PCs and Laptops.  As a result,
> Microsoft had to make it difficult for end-users to install newer
> versions of Windows on older computers.  The result has been the
> sudden inclusion of many memory-hungry applications, and dramatic
> changes in standards - specifically designed to force corporations and
> organizations to upgrade all users to new hardware, Windows, and
> software - all at once.
I have always suspected this - what the heck - it is a fact. By not
supporting old hardware people are forced to buy new machines, more
business for PC manufacturers and Intel. This is not coincidence. I had
a retro moment 2 years back and installed Windows 3.11 and Word(I don't
gather which version) to an old 386(don't remember the specs). And I was
able to write text with it like I write this on Quad Intel with 8GB RAM.
People really don't need that raw processing power they are forced to buy.

> 
> UNIX was an "evolutionary" platform.  Early UNIX systems ran on large
> and expensive Minicomputers like the VAX 11/780 and were often
> connected to as many as 100 users connected via terminals or PCs using
> terminal emulation software.  Universities often used UNIX systems not
> only for classes, but also for record keeping.  Almost as soon as the
> first UNIX systems were deployed at MIT, Berkeley, and CMU, there were
> hackers who were trying to break into the accounts of teachers - to
> change the grades of friends - often other members of their
> fraternities
> 
> Of course, initially, the teachers would notice that the football
> player who was getting a D was suddenly getting a B, and would get
> concerned.  After making the change a few times, it was pretty normal
> for the teacher to raise the issue with the people running the
> computer, and the administration.  Very quickly, it became a critical
> requirement that UNIX have a very robust security system, and that
> this security had to include not only authentication and
> authorization, but also auditing and archiving that would make it
> possible to catch, and prosecute the perpetrators.  As UNIX systems
> got connected to military networks like ARPA, computer trespassing
> became a crime, so did retrieving information and tampering with
> information.  If you hacked into a computer, altered permissions, and
> downloaded a file - even only taking a few minutes - you could face up
> to 20 years in federal prison.
> 
> In 1987, a UNIX administrator released the "Morris Worm" - this shut
> down thousands of computers all at the same time, and it took several
> days to get the computers all back up again.  Though the worm was
> actually a legitimate attempt to count the number of servers on the
> usenet network, there was an error in the timer logic, and instead of
> waiting roughly 30 minutes before sending out the next round of
> probes, it only waited 3 seconds, flooding the entire network with
> probes and e-mail, which filled the hard drives.  After that all of
> the "back doors" were identified, locked, and guarded.
> 
> Microsoft also wanted to count Windows users, and with the Internet,
> they were able to do so using specially designed back doors, very
> similar to those exploited by the Morris Worm.  Using e-mail,
> browsers, and routers, Microsoft was able to learn a great deal about
> the total user base.  Eventually, Microsoft developed the ability to
> gather all sorts of information, including all of the software
> installed, hardware configuration details, hard drive partitioning,
> and even the content of user files, e-mail archives, and other
> documents.  Unfortunately, it was also pretty easy for hackers to
> collect the same kinds of information for less ethical purposes.
This probably has a good web-page already in the Internet - if not such
should be set up. I will use some time on the Privacy activists sites.

> 
> As UNIX and Linux became more popular, the information stored on these
> systems became more sensitive.  Soon intelligence and defense agencies
> were storing strategic and tactical information on UNIX and Linux
> systems.  The result was that these agencies began doing extensive
> audits of the source code for both BSD and Linux systems, to get the
> highest level of security and reliability.  There are some
> configurations that are so secure that they are considered a security
> threat when others use these configurations.
> 
> Microsoft has only allowed a limited number of government agents to
> review a small portion of the Windows code, and even this under strict
> nondisclosure agreements.  Microsoft attempted to get certified at the
> very lowest level of security, and had to render the machine almost
> unusable to pass the certification.

This is important. I don't know much about intelligence and military
tactics but EVEN I understand that to base your most important tool to
such full of holes operating system as Windows is plain stupid.
Naturally this are is very sensitive. Naturally USA intelligence and
military would like a world were all other countries would use Windows
and them self would use Linux but world would probably smell rat somewhere.


>> 3. Linux and Open Source development has blossomed in the past ten years
>> and it is not slowing down. Think about the good Internet Browser
>> Firefox, good email program  Thunderbird,  Web server  that rules the
>> Internet - Apache, GIMP and lot of others.
> 
> Open Source projects are growing exponentially.  Many organizations
> are now offering Open Source applications that allow users to access
> "for fee" services.  This includes such things as media viewers and
> business services.
> 
I would like to get estimates how much in monetary term developers and
companies have totally contributed to Open Source space? I saw one
estimate that Linux kernel alone was over 600 million dollars.

> We are also seeing the evolution of frameworks based on Open Source.
> Such frameworks include the Open Office foundation classes, Eclipse,
> Dojo, Ajax, and SOA.  Many "cloud" services now make it possible to
> share and collaborate on projects in real-time.  And there has been
> increasing effort around business process management - many of the
> interfaces to BPM infrastructures are based on Open Source.
> 

Dojo, will I learn.

>> 4. Very big part of worlds super computers are running Linux. Which is
>> in some way amusing is that Microsoft Corp�s Internet servers are
>> provided by the Akamai, which runs Linux. Several financial powerhouses
>> are dependent on their Linux servers. Last I know is the London Stock
>> Exchange, which transferred from Windows to Linux and reported very good
>> savings and much better transaction capacity. Actually they were not
>> able to operate with Windows based system, which ignited the transfer.
> 
> Ironically, Linux now contains IBM Mainframe technology.  IBM
> contributed several of enhancements to Linux which were based on
> technologies used in MVS, VM/CMS, CICS, and other Mainframe systems to
> squeeze the maximum performance out of every processor, hard drive,
> and memory and peripheral - to get very high throughput on SMP, NUMA,
> and loosely coupled systems.  IBM has even contributed technology to
> help improve the performance of virtualization on Linux.
I have started to like IBM.
I wish I could some day have a change to sit at the console of a
mainframe....


> With Windows, there are still limitations and security issues.

On this you are very careful :-) I don't understand how people put up
with a system that daily gets a warning about security hole.

>> 7. Linux is totally free. There is  no activation process to bother you
>> and it will not report mother ship what you have been doing with YOUR
>> computer. The source code, which is how an operating system is developed
>> is available. Therefore things can be fixed by anyone with right skills.
>> It is typical to get a fix in a  day. Instead if there is show stopper
>> bug in Windows which does not affect millions of users you might
>> consider your lucky if you get a fix in a year.
> 
> That's not quite true.  Linux systems get updates from servers, or
> their mirrors.  The distributor may or may not know what you are doing
> with a protected mirror (such as a mirror provided by the corporate IT
> Department, but if you are getting your updates directly from the
> vendor sites, the vendor can see which updates you are getting.  This
> can help provide some level of information that is only available to
> the distributors themselves.  Some companies, like Red Hat offer
> "Supported Mirrors" which allows a corporate mirror to refresh from a
> Red Hat Mirror.  If I recall correctly, the mirror is also supposed to
> provide certain statistics about what they have updated - for example,
> how many unique systems have been updated.
> 
> On the other hand, other mirrors are completely unmonitored, so the
> distributor has no idea how many users have received updates from the
> mirror.
> 
> Some applications call their "mother ship" - more for statistical
> information than anything.  This information is usually limited to
> some statistical information and perhaps a way to identify the device
> - such as a disk drive serial number, CPU serial number, or ethernet
> MAC address.
> 
I think Open Source community should clearly document what kind of
information is gathered, when apps connect to home and what is done with
the information. I should be available as one document.



>> 9. The one areas where Linux is lacking is the games. Linux can not run
>> Windows games. But here is a solution. Cedega can be used to run Windows
>> games on Linux machine. It costs $55/year and supported list of games is
>> very long. The other area is specialised CAD/CAM solutions. Though many
>> of those are starting to be ported to Linux.
> 
> Linux actually runs games quite well.  One of the big myth-busters
> that shoots holes all over the notion that Linux can't run games, is
> Second Life.  On Windows, Second Life is slow, jerky, and difficult to
> manage.  On Linux, secondlife is more like watching a real movie, with
> you in control of the camera, the movement of your "player", and you
> can even create your own environment.
I haven't looked Wine for 2-3 years now. Today I had a look and it seems
to run quite a lot of Windows programs. I stand corrected. Hopefully
they will reimplement Windows so that it works....

> 
>> 13. Only way developing countries could catch up with developed
>> countries in data processing is to use Linux. This is already happening
>> and Microsoft got so scared that they dropped their price for Windows
>> operating system, Office combo. The price tag was/is $3 - no that�s not
>> a mistake it says three dollars. I don�t know whether taxes where
>> included. Many observed that with that price they would get some value
>> for Microsoft products. This only shows how desperate Microsoft is in
>> the developing markets. If those countries go with the Open Source and
>> Linux (why don�t I mention the BSD also), that could open the flood
>> gates - and that�s happening.
> 
> Microsoft, along with many other companies doing business in other
> countries, has had to deal with the realities of very different
> notions of currency.  In Africa and Bejing, for example, a worker
> might make only a few dollars a day.  This isn't so bad though,
> because this is enough to rent a small apartment, buy food, and even
> buy some new clothes now and then.  What the low prices does do is
> discourage people from buying products from companies who don't buy
> products from that country.  For example, if you sell Windows for $75
> a copy in China, that's almost a month's pay.  Only the very rich
> could afford to buy Windows.  If this means that people in China end
> up switching to Red Dog Linux (the official Chinese version of Linux)
> - then you might end up losing customers who COULD pay for Windows -
> to Linux.
> 
> But if it costs you $50 to produce a copy of Windows and sell it, then
> how can you make money?  The answer is that you have to take the $3
> per copy that you got for Windows, and BUY something that you can sell
> in the United States for at least $75.  Or maybe you combine the
> revenue from 3 licenses - $9 and buy an X/Box - which you can sell in
> the US for $300.  Of course, you have to buy and sell in quantities,
> and it becomes easy to see that if you spend a bit more in China than
> you made - you're only borrowing $9 rather than $300, which means that
> your effective interest rate, even at 20% would only be $1.80 rather
> than $60.
> 
> The bigger problem for Microsoft was that suddenly they realized that
> they were not losing just $3 per customer that used Linux, but instead
> more like $100 per user.  Microsoft really didn't want to lose 1
> billion customers to Linux - and almost gave it up without a fight.
> There are 7 billion people on the planet now, and only about 300
> million of them live in the United States.  The total for ALL of the
> "Western" countries is about 1 billion.  Linux has been very effective
> at going after the other 6 billion.
So Linux will win. Actually it would have already if there were not
pirates. Microsoft silently allows pirating in developing countries to
make sure people will be Microsoft brainwashed AND keep Linux out.

>> 14. OpenOffice (now owned by Oracle) but it�s free version LibreOffice
>> started little after Oracle bought SUN, is a huge threat to Microsoft
>> Office. One can do same things with it as with Microsoft Office but it
>> is free. Also the file format it stores documents is totally open and
>> documented. This is horrible concept from the Microsoft point of view.
>> By keeping the file format secret Microsoft has prevented any
>> competition to make world processor, which could open any documents made
>> by Microsoft World. Microsoft has been in problem itself, that in some
>> case new Office has not been able to open documents made by older Word.
>>  OpenOffice and LibreOffice can open MS Office documents quite good but
>> not perfect. This is because the file format is mind bogling difficult.
>>  Also for many instances there is a need that old documents even 30
>> years back must be viewable. One state in USA decided that to secure
>> that and also that tax payers would be able to use documents the
>> standard must be open. They informed Microsoft that if it did not comply
>> they would choose OpenOffice. Microsoft did not want join OASIS to
>> support the storing standard others used to play nicely. Instead it
>> developed it�s own version of document format (very complex) and forced
>> it with money through the standard organizations. For example IBM got
>> very upset and thought that it should reconsider which standard
>> organizations in endorses. Few countries also uttered their disgust but
>> Microsoft has always played dirty.
> 
> The value of Microsoft Office in the 21st century has been
> significantly marginalized.  
I know it used universally but is it really a good application?
I would not have anything against it if the file formats were open.
WAIT! they are OOXML. I would bet the standard (which is over 6000 pages
long) will be very hard to implement in practice. I will eat my words
when a competing implementation supports OOXML 100% and MS won't kill it
with some kind of patent trick.

And OpenOffice is a productivity tool also containing most features of
the MS Office. Probably enough for a company. And selling price $0.


> Eliminate the air-fare, get and confirm feedback from each reviewer/
> approver, and make sure that the status of the information is known at
> each stage.
I have always wondered why many meetings are not made virtual. Would
save a lot of plane fuel.


>> 15. Always when governments and/or parts of them decide to promote the
>> Open Source solutions, Microsoft is very keen to howl that �governments�
>> should not favor any solution.
> 
> Microsoft feels that "governments" should not favor any solution other
> than Microsoft's.
> 
>> Governments are supposed to do things
>> that further the common good and they should protect their citizens against
>> thread were that another country or faceless,evil,destructive,<add your
>> term here> mega corporation, with monopolistic power.
> 
> The problem with monopolies is that the company holding the monopoly
> BECOMES the government.  They see themselves as being ABOVE the law.
> The result is that lawlessness prevails.  When J.P. Morgan created his
> rail, oil, and coal monopoly, people in the cities thought it was
> great that they got cheap coal and oil.  The problem was that people
> who actually worked in the mines were slaves, often quitting school at
> 8-9 years old to work as "breakers" picking coal from noisy bins, when
> they were about 13 or 14 they would go into the mines.  If they lived
> long enough, they would get black lung and go back to breaking up the
> rocks.  They were barely paid at all, and even though the railroad
> took coal out, the workers couldn't leave.  They also had to buy food,
> clothing, and tools from the "company store" who always charged a
> hefty mark-up.  Their personal debt would pile up, and when they
> couldn't pay up, their daughters would have to "work it off" as
> prostitutes.  The song "I owe my soul to the company store" - just
> touched the surface of the horror.
> 
I like Johnny Cash's music very much and country in general.
Now the sweatshops are in China, India and so on....


> Microsoft's monopoly has led to a different kind of problem.  The
> solutions are so labor intensive, and the amount of information to be
> processed has increased, and time-lines are so tight, that most
> Windows/Office users have to work 60-70 hours a week, even though they
> are only acknowledged for working 40 hours a week.  In many cases,
> they have to cancel vacations, work on holidays, and even on week-
> ends.  To give them the illusion of being with their families - they
> can bring their computers home with them - laptops - and do the work
> they couldn't complete in the office - at home.
> 

Microsoft certainly handles the key developers well. I wondering why we
see so little company information leaked to Internet. There must be
frustrated and angry employees also at Microsoft.


> Of course, hunching over a computer for 18 hours a day plays havoc
> with the back, shoulders and neck.  Repetitive stress injuries damage
> the hands and fingers, and small screens with small fonts put a toll
> on the eyes, which eventually become so fixed that the only way to
> focus on objects far away is to use gradient lenses and drop your head
> to look through the "far" part.
> 
Tell me about it!

> 
> It's ironic that the soldier who published documents to WikiLeaks
> could be facing the death penalty for treason, but when Microsoft
> leaked the sexual affairs of former antitrust advocates like John
> Edwards, Elliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Nikki Haley, Harry Coates,
> Preston Smith, and of course, Bill Clinton go completely
> uninvestigated as to how private records stored on personal computers,
> was obtained and leaked to the public via news outlets such as MSNBC
> and Fox News.
> 
I have never visited WikiLeaks but I think that if there is information
endangering people on ground it should be shut down. On the other hand
if they publish Microsoft documents - they get one more customer.


> And meanwhile, as an "Unpaid informant" Microsoft was able to get
> investigators to stop looking into antitrust, fraud, extortion,
> blackmail, and political campaign contributions - including
> substantial donations through Jack Abramhov and Tom Delay.
> 
> And then there were those programs on MSNBC which so favored Obama
> (and opposed Hillary Clinton and John McCain, both of whom wanted to
> regulate Microsoft).  And the intense coverage of TEA party candidates
> who unseated incumbents who wanted to regulate Microsoft.
> 
I would have voted Obama. Are you saying he let Microsoft of the hook?
Damn McCain would then have been better. But he is rebublican. Aren't
them favour of mega corporations and whatever goes?


> The power of the press goes to those who OWN one.  And Microsoft owns
> or controls numerous media sources, and sources several others.
> Microsoft also holds placement and content control over nearly $40
> billion in advertising that uses the Microsoft trademarks.
> 
This has always made me feel, well tiny and bit of angry. Shouln't there
be regulations for this kind of thing?


>> Microsoft is all
>> this and more - it is international form of that. Having a hold of 95%
>> of the markets.
> 
>> Practically owning data processing. So please tell why
>> governments, many of which have GNP smaller than Microsoft�s budget,
>> should not try to correct the market disturbance. It is not only needed
>> - it is the right thing to do.
> 
> Even more interesting, is that even governments with bigger budgets,
> like the United States, can't seem to stand up to Microsoft.  Even the
> EU has soften it's tone with Microsoft, when several leaders of
> governments most opposed to Microsoft were unseated in elections - due
> in part to Microsoft's funding and coverage.
> 
> It's a crime in the United States for a corporation to attempt to
> overthrow or influence elections in other countries.
> 

Well you are not only one but you certainly have a reputation to change
things.


> It wasn't so long ago, about 30 years ago, that it was IBM and AT&T
> who were being watched through the microscope for their control of
> information.  Many of the privacy and computer security laws of today
> were designed to protect people from having their personal information
> sold by companies like IBM, or having phones recorded by AT&T.
> 
> Hard to believe that 30 years later, Micro-soft has become the company
> that is bigger than the governments of the United States, Canada, the
> UK, the EU, China, and India - COMBINED!
>
How can it be so big? It has quite a bit smaller budget than those
combined? If you means it influence then I tend to agree.

But I have been wondering why Microsoft won't get same compliment than
IBM and AT&T.

>> 16. Possible Linux adopters are always confused by that there are about
>> 150 different named distributions. One can say that they are very same.
>> If you learn one other is easy. You typically have all the same programs
>> in...
> 
> This is a straw-man.  There are 150 distributions, but this includes
> many flavors of major distributions such as Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu,
> Xubuntu, and Netbuntu - which are just different configurations of the
> same Ubuntu distributions.
> 
> Others are niche distributions, designed for specific needs, such as
> very small PCs or very old PCs (puppy Linux, TAMU), or try-before-you-
> buy (knoppix), or specific server needs (StrongBox), or custom kernels
> (Slackware), and so on.
> 
> Even many of these "specialty" versions are just versions of Red Hat,
> Ubuntu, Debian, or SUSE that have been stripped down or enhanced with
> commercial software.  In some cases, the distribution is designed to
> create a specific "Appliance" - such as StudioLinux - which creates a
> media editing studio on a standard PC, and for a $$$ fee, you can get
> the hardware and drivers for Linux controlled Mixers with multichannel
> audio, or Linux "appliances" to be used as pick-up systems connected
> via high speed WiFi.
> 
>> read more �
> 
> Oops.

Yep I wrote that 150 little frustrated for the fact that there is so
many different distributions that confuse new convert. I have never
heard that two distros would have joined....



Again, very much thank you for your post!


Best Regards
Kari

Verily I say unto thee, that Rex Ballard spake thusly:

> As the CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, and now Steve Ballmer had the
> responsibility of balancing the concerns of investors, who are looking
> for a good return on their investment, employees, who want to be
> rewarded for their efforts, and this reward depends heavily on stock
> options and profit sharing checks, and customers

Looks like the customers and investors both got screwed, and the balance
all went into Microsoft's bank account.

-- 
K.                           | Ancient Chinese Proverb:
http://slated.org            | "The road to Hell is paved with
Fedora 8 (Werewolf) on sky   | ignorant twits who know nothing
kernel 2.6.31.5, up 19 days  | about GNU/Linux."

Kari Laine wrote:


> I know - the EULA. I gather that if I would test something between
> Windows and Linux I would not be able to publish my findings. 


You are mistaken and so is Rexx.



http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms994344.aspx

You may conduct internal benchmark testing of the .NET Framework 
component of the OS Components (“.NET Component”).  You may disclose the 
results of any benchmark test of the .NET Component, provided that you 
comply with the following terms: (1) you must disclose all the 
information necessary for replication of the tests, including complete 
and accurate details of your benchmark testing methodology, the test 
scripts/cases, tuning parameters applied, hardware and software platforms 
tested, the name and version number of any third party testing tool used 
to conduct the testing, and complete source code for the benchmark suite/
harness that is developed by or for you and used to test both the .NET 
Component and the competing implementation(s); (2) you must disclose the 
date(s) that you conducted the benchmark tests, along with specific 
version information for all Microsoft software products tested, including 
the .NET Component; (3) your benchmark testing was performed using all 
performance tuning and best practice guidance set forth in the product 
documentation and/or on Microsoft’s support web sites, and uses the 
latest updates, patches and fixes available for the .NET Component and 
the relevant Microsoft operating system; (4) it shall be sufficient if 
you make the disclosures provided for above at a publicly available 
location such as a website, so long as every public disclosure of the 
results of your benchmark test expressly identifies the public site 
containing all required disclosures; and (5) nothing in this provision 
shall be deemed to waive any other right that you may have to conduct 
benchmark testing.  The foregoing obligations shall not apply to your 
disclosure of the results of any customized benchmark test of the .NET 
Component, whereby such disclosure is made under confidentiality in 
conjunction with a bid request by a prospective customer, such customer’s 
application(s) are specifically tested and the results are only disclosed 
to such specific customer.  Notwithstanding any other agreement you may 
have with Microsoft, if you disclose such benchmark test results, 
Microsoft shall have the right to disclose the results of benchmark tests 
it conducts of your products that compete with the .NET Component, 
provided it complies with the same conditions above.

On Jan 13, 4:03=A0am, Kari Laine <klai...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Rex,
>
> I very much appreciate you took your expensive time and commented
> throughly to my text. I am just posting to let you know that I am
> digesting it very carefully.
>
> The think about Microsoft squeezing PC manufacturers to delay Linux
> driver sounds like a smoking gun. That would be nice addition to my Get
> The Facts list, only if I had proof or at least some comments in the
> computer press.
>
> Best Regards
> Kari

http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/

http://grokdoc.net/index.php?title=3DComes_v._Microsoft_Exhibits&printable=
=3Dyes

Also - look at the discussions of the Atheros ABGN MadWifi WiFi
driver.

Some of these were also discussed in Antitrust settlement proposed by
Microsoft and accepted by the Bush Administration - Microsoft
specifically stated that they wanted to give discounts to vendors and
OEMs who used hardware written exclusively for Microsoft - vendors who
agreed to delay releasing Linux drivers or the information required to
create Linux drivers.

On Jan 13, 10:36=A0am, Homer <use...@slated.org> wrote:
> Verily I say unto thee, that Rex Ballard spake thusly:

> > As the CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, and now Steve Ballmer had the
> > responsibility of balancing the concerns of investors, who are looking
> > for a good return on their investment, employees, who want to be
> > rewarded for their efforts, and this reward depends heavily on stock
> > options and profit sharing checks, and customers

> Looks like the customers and investors both got screwed, and the balance
> all went into Microsoft's bank account.

Mostly to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as well as Paul Allen - who
cashed out much of their stock while prices were high.  Then they
started collecting $billions in tax-free dividends.

Bill and Steve are still the largest individual share-holders - and
only a few institutions have larger stakes.

> K. =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 | Ancient Chinese =
Proverb:http://slated.org=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0| "The road to Hell is pave=
d with
> Fedora 8 (Werewolf) on sky =A0 | ignorant twits who know nothing
> kernel 2.6.31.5, up 19 days =A0| about GNU/Linux."

On Jan 13, 11:09=A0am, Uuh <U...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Kari Laine wrote:
> > I know - the EULA. I gather that if I would test something between
> > Windows and Linux I would not be able to publish my findings.

> You are mistaken and so is Rexx.

Can't even get the name right?  Reliable source?

> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms994344.aspx

> You may conduct internal benchmark testing of the .NET Framework
> component of the OS Components (=93.NET Component=94).

You are not allowed to run any of the industry standard benchmarks
such as those used to benchmark UNIX and Linux systems.  Even database
benchmarks and screen performance benchmarks have to be published by
Microsoft.  You can RUN any benchmarks you like, but before you
PUBLISH them, you have to get Microsoft's prior written approval.
However, Microsoft may want to make a few "revisions" to either the
write-up of the benchmark or the test.

Microsoft even tried to sue one company because they ran benchmarks of
SQL Server 7 on Windows 2000 and Windows XP - and reported that SQL
Server was faster on the older operating system.  Microsoft tried to
claim that the publication of the benchmark violated the terms of
their license, and wanted an injunction against the continued
publication of the benchmark.  I think that the judge ended up ruling
against Microsoft on the injunction.

Having trouble finding the specific link.  When I searched
Microsoft "files lawsuit" to stop publication of benchmark "SQL
Server" Windows
I got 1600 results on Google.


Time has expired

In message <ign4a9$nok$1@news.eternal-september.org>, Hadron wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@geek-central.gen.new_zealand> writes:
> 
>> In message <8si108-739.ln1@spanky.localhost.net>, Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
>>
>>> Which isn't particularly relevant to many consumers, as they buy their
>>> machines with the OS preinstalled - and you just can't beat _zero_ for
>>> an effort level. :)
>>
>> Until Windows needs reinstalling. Which seems to be quite often.
> 
> For idiots yes. For others including me (in the past) Ahlstrom, Tattoo
> Vampire and others it doesnt.

So you have levels of Windows savvy far beyond that of the average user. 
Windows seems to need regular application of those sorts of skills to keep 
it running smoothly. Thank goodness Linux doesn’t—it lets us get on with our 
productive work, while it manages most of its own maintenance chores itself.

That’s the way an OS should be designed, don’t you think?

Rex Ballard wrote:


> 
> You are not allowed to run any of the industry standard benchmarks such
> as those used to benchmark UNIX and Linux systems.  Even database
> benchmarks and screen performance benchmarks have to be published by
> Microsoft.  You can RUN any benchmarks you like, but before you PUBLISH
> them, you have to get Microsoft's prior written approval. However,
> Microsoft may want to make a few "revisions" to either the write-up of
> the benchmark or the test.
> 

Bull.Shit.Rexx.

quote
You may conduct internal benchmark testing of the .NET Framework 
component of the OS Components (“.NET Component”).  You may disclose the 
results of any benchmark test of the .NET Component, provided that you 
comply with the following terms: (1) you must disclose all the 
information necessary for replication of the tests, including complete 
and accurate details of your benchmark testing methodology, the test 
scripts/cases, tuning parameters applied, hardware and software platforms 
tested, the name and version number of any third party testing tool used 
to conduct the testing, and complete source code for the benchmark suite/
harness that is developed by or for you and used to test both the .NET 
Component and the competing implementation(s); (2) you must disclose the 
date(s) that you conducted the benchmark tests, along with specific 
version information for all Microsoft software products tested, including 
the .NET Component; (3) your benchmark testing was performed using all 
performance tuning and best practice guidance set forth in the product 
documentation and/or on Microsoft’s support web sites, and uses the 
latest updates, patches and fixes available for the .NET Component and 
the relevant Microsoft operating system; (4) it shall be sufficient if 
you make the disclosures provided for above at a publicly available 
location such as a website, so long as every public disclosure of the 
results of your benchmark test expressly identifies the public site 
containing all required disclosures; and (5) nothing in this provision 
shall be deemed to waive any other right that you may have to conduct 
benchmark testing.  The foregoing obligations shall not apply to your 
disclosure of the results of any customized benchmark test of the .NET 
Component, whereby such disclosure is made under confidentiality in 
conjunction with a bid request by a prospective customer, such customer’s 
application(s) are specifically tested and the results are only disclosed 
to such specific customer.  Notwithstanding any other agreement you may 
have with Microsoft, if you disclose such benchmark test results, 
Microsoft shall have the right to disclose the results of benchmark tests 
it conducts of your products that compete with the .NET Component, 
provided it complies with the same conditions above.
/quote

Lawrence D'Oliveiro stated in post igo1dd$6kn$2@lust.ihug.co.nz on 1/13/11
4:21 PM:

> In message <ign4a9$nok$1@news.eternal-september.org>, Hadron wrote:
> 
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@geek-central.gen.new_zealand> writes:
>> 
>>> In message <8si108-739.ln1@spanky.localhost.net>, Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Which isn't particularly relevant to many consumers, as they buy their
>>>> machines with the OS preinstalled - and you just can't beat _zero_ for
>>>> an effort level. :)
>>> 
>>> Until Windows needs reinstalling. Which seems to be quite often.
>> 
>> For idiots yes. For others including me (in the past) Ahlstrom, Tattoo
>> Vampire and others it doesnt.
> 
> So you have levels of Windows savvy far beyond that of the average user.
> Windows seems to need regular application of those sorts of skills to keep
> it running smoothly. Thank goodness Linux doesn�t�it lets us get on with our
> productive work, while it manages most of its own maintenance chores itself.
> 
> That�s the way an OS should be designed, don�t you think?

To use Linux well, though, there are many options one has to pick... choice.
All those distros and all the options for each distro - it can take, really,
years to find one that works best for you.  Or you settle.  And the
fragmentation drives developers (and users) away.

I prefer an OS where it is flexible enough and customizable enough to meet
my needs, but where there is enough thought that has gone into the design
that it is able to have extra productivity enhancement features that other
OSs lack (proxy icons, saved status indicators, media browser, color
selector, etc.).  To each their own though.

Pretty much the choices are Popular, Flexible, Productive.  Granted, that is
a gross simplification and it does not apply to all people, but it is
generally how it is for *most* - or at least many - people.


-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

In message <C9550AD1.8A12A%usenet@gallopinginsanity.com>, Snit wrote:

> To use Linux well, though, there are many options one has to pick...
> choice.

You’re not trying to say choice is bad, are you?

Lawrence D'Oliveiro stated in post igofdq$ej5$3@lust.ihug.co.nz on 1/13/11
8:20 PM:

> In message <C9550AD1.8A12A%usenet@gallopinginsanity.com>, Snit wrote:
> 
>> To use Linux well, though, there are many options one has to pick...
>> choice.
> 
> You�re not trying to say choice is bad, are you?

Of course not.  But I do recognize that it has both benefits and down sides.


-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:20:26 +1300, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> In message <C9550AD1.8A12A%usenet@gallopinginsanity.com>, Snit wrote:
> 
>> To use Linux well, though, there are many options one has to pick...
>> choice.
> 
> You’re not trying to say choice is bad, are you?

Oh no. Choice is good, as long as you let Apple choose for you.

-- 
RonB
Registered Linux User #498581 
CentOS 5.5 or VectorLinux Deluxe 6.0

RonB stated in post igono6$8fr$1@news.eternal-september.org on 1/13/11 10:42
PM:

> On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:20:26 +1300, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> 
>> In message <C9550AD1.8A12A%usenet@gallopinginsanity.com>, Snit wrote:
>> 
>>> To use Linux well, though, there are many options one has to pick...
>>> choice.
>> 
>> You�re not trying to say choice is bad, are you?
> 
> Oh no. Choice is good, as long as you let Apple choose for you.

I know you think you are trying to mock my views, but - again - you seem to
have no idea what it is you are mocking.  You are just stampeding around
trying to please your herd.


-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@gmail.com> writes:

> On Jan 13, 4:03 am, Kari Laine <klai...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Rex,
>>
>> I very much appreciate you took your expensive time and commented
>> throughly to my text. I am just posting to let you know that I am
>> digesting it very carefully.
>>
>> The think about Microsoft squeezing PC manufacturers to delay Linux
>> driver sounds like a smoking gun. That would be nice addition to my Get
>> The Facts list, only if I had proof or at least some comments in the
>> computer press.
>>
>> Best Regards
>> Kari
>
> http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/
>
> http://grokdoc.net/index.php?title=Comes_v._Microsoft_Exhibits&printable=yes
>
> Also - look at the discussions of the Atheros ABGN MadWifi WiFi
> driver.
>
> Some of these were also discussed in Antitrust settlement proposed by
> Microsoft and accepted by the Bush Administration - Microsoft
> specifically stated that they wanted to give discounts to vendors and
> OEMs who used hardware written exclusively for Microsoft - vendors who

When Rexx is in the middle of telling lies and making things up with
himself as the main protagonist he gets confused.

"Kari" is playing him like a fish on the line.

Rex Ballard wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> http://grokdoc.net/index.php?title=Comes_v._Microsoft_Exhibits&printable=yes
>
> Also - look at the discussions of the Atheros ABGN MadWifi WiFi
> driver.
>
> Some of these were also discussed in Antitrust settlement proposed by
> Microsoft and accepted by the Bush Administration - Microsoft
> specifically stated that they wanted to give discounts to vendors and
> OEMs who used hardware written exclusively for Microsoft - vendors who
> agreed to delay releasing Linux drivers or the information required to
> create Linux drivers.

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/0000/PX00026.pdf

"Try hard to sell this product [DOS 4.0] per system.  Per copy prices quote
at 3 times the per system prices. It is important that the customer buys the
shell. DRI cannot copy it easily and we do sell mice to OEM's. I am
interested in per system mouse bundles with MS-DOS 4.0 and the shell. Sell
the shell before you sell the mouse. Do not loose because of price."

-- 
Go!

Uuh wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> Rex Ballard wrote:
>
>> You are not allowed to run any of the industry standard benchmarks such
>> as those used to benchmark UNIX and Linux systems.  Even database
>> benchmarks and screen performance benchmarks have to be published by
>> Microsoft.  You can RUN any benchmarks you like, but before you PUBLISH
>> them, you have to get Microsoft's prior written approval. However,
>> Microsoft may want to make a few "revisions" to either the write-up of
>> the benchmark or the test.
>
> Bull.Shit.Rexx.

Not really.  After much brouhaha, Microsoft changed the EULA.

Try a little earlier in history, Uh-uh:

   http://trustleap.com/en_doj.html

   Microsoft Product Use Rights - Microsoft Servers
   (EMEA)(English) (January 2003) [...]

   C. Benchmark Testing.

   You may not without Microsoft's prior written approval
   disclose to any third party the results of any benchmark
   test of Application Center, BizTalk, BizTalk Adapter
   for MQSeries, BizTalk Accelerator for Financial Services,
   BizTalk Accelerator for HIPAA, BizTalk Accelerator for
   Suppliers, BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet, BizTalk
   Adapter for SAP, Content Management Server, Commerce Server,
   HIS, IIS, ISA, Message Queue Server, Mobile Information
   Server, Project Server, SQL Server, or Transaction
   Server, or any related client software. [...]

But wait, what about today?

   MICROSOFT VisualStudio 2008's license agreement states that:

   SQL SERVER BENCHMARK TESTING. You must obtain MICROSOFT's
   prior written approval to disclose to a third-party the
   results of any benchmark test of the SQL Server software
   that accompanies this software.

-- 
"For a couple o' pins," says Troll, and grins,
"I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee now.
	Hee now!  See now!
I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins;
I've a mind to dine on thee now."
 
But just as he thought his dinner was caught,
He found his hands had hold of naught.
Before he could mind, Tom slipped behing
And gave him the boot to larn him.
	Warn him!  Darn him!
A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thoguht,
Would be the way to larn him.
 
But harder than stone is the flesh and bone
Of a troll that sits in the hills alone.
As well set your boot to the mountain's root,
For the seat of a troll don't feel it.
	Peel it!  Heal it!
Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan,
And he knew his toes could feel it.
 
Tom's leg is game, since home he came,
And his bootless foot is lasting lame;
But Troll don't care, and he's still there
With the bone he boned from its owner.
	Doner!  Boner!
Troll's old seat is still the same,
And the bone he boned from its owner!
		-- J. R. R. Tolkien

Hadron wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@geek-central.gen.new_zealand> writes:
>
>> In message <8si108-739.ln1@spanky.localhost.net>, Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
>>
>>> Which isn't particularly relevant to many consumers, as they buy their
>>> machines with the OS preinstalled - and you just can't beat _zero_ for an
>>> effort level. :)
>>
>> Until Windows needs reinstalling. Which seems to be quite often.
>
> For idiots yes. For others including me (in the past) Ahlstrom, Tattoo
> Vampire and others it doesnt.

Just wanted to note Tattoo's recent reinstall of Win 7.

Dang.  Just found that Visual Studio 2002 (yeah, I know it is OLD) will not
install on Win 7 Pro.

-- 
Cohn's Law:
	The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less
	time you have to do anything.  Stability is achieved when you spend
	all your time reporting on the nothing you are doing.

Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

> Just wanted to note Tattoo's recent reinstall of Win 7.
> 
> Dang.  Just found that Visual Studio 2002 (yeah, I know it is OLD) will
> not install on Win 7 Pro.

Visual Studio 2010 - $711

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116864&cm_re=Visual_Studio-_-32-116-864-_-Product

You'll just have to pony up the bucks, you freetard!  :-P

-- 
HPT

"Rex Ballard" <rex.ballard@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:01e27f5d-6b93-4e81-9cab-a88127a8ae12@j25g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
On Jan 12, 5:01 am, Kari Laine <klai...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,


<snip>

There is waaaaayyyyy  to much BS in that last post to even begin debunking 
it.

Get help Rex. Get some help.

"Rex Ballard" <rex.ballard@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:f7d5a090-8172-4c18-aaf1-688d6ea41a76@j1g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...
On Jan 13, 10:36 am, Homer <use...@slated.org> wrote:
>> Verily I say unto thee, that Rex Ballard spake thusly:
>
>Mostly to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as well as Paul Allen - who
>cashed out much of their stock while prices were high.  Then they
>started collecting $billions in tax-free dividends.

Dividends paid out by corporations are ***NOT*** tax-free you fool.

What's interesting is that I would expect people who have good jobs in the 
computer field (perhaps COLA readers) to know a thing or two about BASIC 
financial principals. Perhaps simple things like how public companies valued 
worth is "stock-price * number of shares"  and not just share-price along 
which many seem too stupid to understand.

Yet I read complete rubbish all the time about "$billions in tax-free 
dividends"  and how 'tax write-offs allows Gates to make a profit on his 
taxes.'

"Ezekiel" <no_zeke@fake-zeke.com> schreef in bericht 
news:igppfj$6kf$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>
> "Rex Ballard" <rex.ballard@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:f7d5a090-8172-4c18-aaf1-688d6ea41a76@j1g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...
> On Jan 13, 10:36 am, Homer <use...@slated.org> wrote:
>>> Verily I say unto thee, that Rex Ballard spake thusly:
>>
>>Mostly to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as well as Paul Allen - who
>>cashed out much of their stock while prices were high.  Then they
>>started collecting $billions in tax-free dividends.
>
> Dividends paid out by corporations are ***NOT*** tax-free you fool.
>
> What's interesting is that I would expect people who have good jobs in the 
> computer field (perhaps COLA readers) to know a thing or two about BASIC 
> financial principals. Perhaps simple things like how public companies 
> valued worth is "stock-price * number of shares"  and not just share-price 
> along which many seem too stupid to understand.
>
> Yet I read complete rubbish all the time about "$billions in tax-free 
> dividends"  and how 'tax write-offs allows Gates to make a profit on his 
> taxes.'
>
Rather a strange post from Rex, because he must be some kind of financial 
expert, according to what he claims on his website?
[q]
* $2 million per day in revenue/savings at FedEx
* creator of $1 billion industries
[q/]

<chuckle> 

Rex Ballard wrote:

> On Jan 13, 11:09 am, Uuh <U...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Kari Laine wrote:
>> > I know - the EULA. I gather that if I would test something between
>> > Windows and Linux I would not be able to publish my findings.
> 
>> You are mistaken and so is Rexx.
> 
> Can't even get the name right?  Reliable source?
> 
>> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms994344.aspx
> 
>> You may conduct internal benchmark testing of the .NET Framework
>> component of the OS Components (“.NET Component”).
> 
> You are not allowed to run any of the industry standard benchmarks such
> as those used to benchmark UNIX and Linux systems.  Even database
> benchmarks and screen performance benchmarks have to be published by
> Microsoft.  You can RUN any benchmarks you like, but before you PUBLISH
> them, you have to get Microsoft's prior written approval. However,
> Microsoft may want to make a few "revisions" to either the write-up of
> the benchmark or the test.
> 
> 




quote
You may conduct internal benchmark testing of the .NET Framework 
component of the OS Components (“.NET Component”).  You may disclose the 
results of any benchmark test of the .NET Component, provided that you 
comply with the following terms: (1) you must disclose all the 
information necessary for replication of the tests, including complete 
and accurate details of your benchmark testing methodology, the test 
scripts/cases, tuning parameters applied, hardware and software platforms 
tested, the name and version number of any third party testing tool used 
to conduct the testing, and complete source code for the benchmark suite/
harness that is developed by or for you and used to test both the .NET 
Component and the competing implementation(s); (2) you must disclose the 
date(s) that you conducted the benchmark tests, along with specific 
version information for all Microsoft software products tested, including 
the .NET Component; (3) your benchmark testing was performed using all 
performance tuning and best practice guidance set forth in the product 
documentation and/or on Microsoft’s support web sites, and uses the 
latest updates, patches and fixes available for the .NET Component and 
the relevant Microsoft operating system; (4) it shall be sufficient if 
you make the disclosures provided for above at a publicly available 
location such as a website, so long as every public disclosure of the 
results of your benchmark test expressly identifies the public site 
containing all required disclosures; and (5) nothing in this provision 
shall be deemed to waive any other right that you may have to conduct 
benchmark testing.  The foregoing obligations shall not apply to your 
disclosure of the results of any customized benchmark test of the .NET 
Component, whereby such disclosure is made under confidentiality in 
conjunction with a bid request by a prospective customer, such customer’s 
application(s) are specifically tested and the results are only disclosed 
to such specific customer.  Notwithstanding any other agreement you may 
have with Microsoft, if you disclose such benchmark test results, 
Microsoft shall have the right to disclose the results of benchmark tests 
it conducts of your products that compete with the .NET Component, 
provided it complies with the same conditions above.
/quote

On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 23:14:45 +0000, Uuh wrote:

> Rex Ballard wrote:
> 
>> On Jan 13, 11:09 am, Uuh <U...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> Kari Laine wrote:
>>> > I know - the EULA. I gather that if I would test something between
>>> > Windows and Linux I would not be able to publish my findings.
>> 
>>> You are mistaken and so is Rexx.
>> 
>> Can't even get the name right?  Reliable source?
>> 
>>> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms994344.aspx
>> 
>>> You may conduct internal benchmark testing of the .NET Framework
>>> component of the OS Components (“.NET Component”).
>> 
>> You are not allowed to run any of the industry standard benchmarks such
>> as those used to benchmark UNIX and Linux systems.  Even database
>> benchmarks and screen performance benchmarks have to be published by
>> Microsoft.  You can RUN any benchmarks you like, but before you PUBLISH
>> them, you have to get Microsoft's prior written approval. However,
>> Microsoft may want to make a few "revisions" to either the write-up of
>> the benchmark or the test.
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> quote
> You may conduct internal benchmark testing of the .NET Framework
> component of the OS Components (“.NET Component”).  You may disclose the
> results of any benchmark test of the .NET Component, provided that you
> comply with the following terms: (1) you must disclose all the
> information necessary for replication of the tests, including complete
> and accurate details of your benchmark testing methodology, the test
> scripts/cases, tuning parameters applied, hardware and software
> platforms tested, the name and version number of any third party testing
> tool used to conduct the testing, and complete source code for the
> benchmark suite/ harness that is developed by or for you and used to
> test both the .NET Component and the competing implementation(s); (2)
> you must disclose the date(s) that you conducted the benchmark tests,
> along with specific version information for all Microsoft software
> products tested, including the .NET Component; (3) your benchmark
> testing was performed using all performance tuning and best practice
> guidance set forth in the product documentation and/or on Microsoft’s
> support web sites, and uses the latest updates, patches and fixes
> available for the .NET Component and the relevant Microsoft operating
> system; (4) it shall be sufficient if you make the disclosures provided
> for above at a publicly available location such as a website, so long as
> every public disclosure of the results of your benchmark test expressly
> identifies the public site containing all required disclosures; and (5)
> nothing in this provision shall be deemed to waive any other right that
> you may have to conduct benchmark testing.  The foregoing obligations
> shall not apply to your disclosure of the results of any customized
> benchmark test of the .NET Component, whereby such disclosure is made
> under confidentiality in conjunction with a bid request by a prospective
> customer, such customer’s application(s) are specifically tested and the
> results are only disclosed to such specific customer.  Notwithstanding
> any other agreement you may have with Microsoft, if you disclose such
> benchmark test results, Microsoft shall have the right to disclose the
> results of benchmark tests it conducts of your products that compete
> with the .NET Component, provided it complies with the same conditions
> above. /quote

So, if you jump through all of Microsoft's legal hoops, you may benchmark 
and publicly disclose the results for the product you've licensed from 
Microsoft. Isn't that nice of them.

-- 
RonB
Registered Linux User #498581 
CentOS 5.5 or VectorLinux Deluxe 6.0

[snips]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 23:28:46 -0800, Rex Ballard wrote:

> by mixing and deviating standards.  Even simple text files, which are
> terminated by ONLY line-feeds on most operating systems, can't be read
> by Notepad, and Notepad generates text files that are terminated with
> carriage returns and line-feeds, which cannot be processed by the
> application that adhere to the line-feed standard. Even though this has
> been a problem for almost 30 years, Microsoft continues to assert that
> their text format is the only "right one" - because they have 1 billion
> PCs that run Windows and use Notepad for "plain text".  It's easy enough
> to fix, but it does have to be fixed - one file at a time.

Except it's not easy to fix.  One of the things you learn very quickly 
when coding in C is the difference between "text mode" and "binary mode" 
and how it relates to line endings - and, to a lesser extent, why the 
differences exist.

Some OSen use ASCII 10 as EOL.  Some use ASCII 13.  Some use a 
combination.  Still others used fixed-length lines - and I mean at the OS 
level, not just an app choosing to use a structured text file.  Others 
use even odder formats and layouts.

C's answer to this was to introduce "text mode", leaving the actual 
translation of EOL to the implementation's library - if your code writes 
"\n" out to a text stream, the actual output could be most anything, but 
will be a specific EOL indicator for the system.

Meaning that to change this would mean not just converting MS-produced 
text files, but those produced by elder Apple machines, various *nixes, 
and umpteen other OSen, all to a common standard - and this 
differentiation has been going on since the dawn of time; MS is nothing 
novel here.

Kelsey Bjarnason stated in post s0fd08-dgm.ln1@spanky.localhost.net on
1/17/11 2:33 AM:

> [snips]
> 
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 23:28:46 -0800, Rex Ballard wrote:
> 
>> by mixing and deviating standards.  Even simple text files, which are
>> terminated by ONLY line-feeds on most operating systems, can't be read
>> by Notepad, and Notepad generates text files that are terminated with
>> carriage returns and line-feeds, which cannot be processed by the
>> application that adhere to the line-feed standard. Even though this has
>> been a problem for almost 30 years, Microsoft continues to assert that
>> their text format is the only "right one" - because they have 1 billion
>> PCs that run Windows and use Notepad for "plain text".  It's easy enough
>> to fix, but it does have to be fixed - one file at a time.
> 
> Except it's not easy to fix.  One of the things you learn very quickly
> when coding in C is the difference between "text mode" and "binary mode"
> and how it relates to line endings - and, to a lesser extent, why the
> differences exist.
> 
> Some OSen use ASCII 10 as EOL.  Some use ASCII 13.  Some use a
> combination.  Still others used fixed-length lines - and I mean at the OS
> level, not just an app choosing to use a structured text file.  Others
> use even odder formats and layouts.
> 
> C's answer to this was to introduce "text mode", leaving the actual
> translation of EOL to the implementation's library - if your code writes
> "\n" out to a text stream, the actual output could be most anything, but
> will be a specific EOL indicator for the system.
> 
> Meaning that to change this would mean not just converting MS-produced
> text files, but those produced by elder Apple machines, various *nixes,
> and umpteen other OSen, all to a common standard - and this
> differentiation has been going on since the dawn of time; MS is nothing
> novel here.
> 
> 
Yeah, but blaming MS is so much fun!


-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]