Very Computer

Error Log for Sat, 20 Jul 2002 19:40:54 -0400: segfault in module
"Lustrin" - dump details are as follows...

Quote:> At least he is honest, unlike the maniac Linux zealots.

Who is "he"?  I've never even heard of him before.  Why exactly should
this person's opinion matter to me?

How will his opinions affect me in the future?  Will he guarantee me
gainful employment?  Will he be able to secure me a raise or otherwise
help me to provide for my family?

In other words, does this person's personal opinion determine the ebb and
flow of the tides of IT?

If not, then his opinions are just that, opinions.  And you know what they
say about opinions, right?

Quote:> Linux has it uses, but it is going to have to provide a better
> environment for the desktop user than Windows currently does or those
> users will not have a reason to switch.

> If price mattered, Linux would have won years ago.

If it was only a matter of price, then it would have.  But when you factor
in all of the other considerations of why Win32 is * on the desktop
then you start to understand why no other OS has been able to encroach
upon the market.

Case in point, if you go to purchase a pre-manufactured PC from just about
anywhere, what OS is pre-installed on the system by the OEM?  What type of
software is on the shelves?  What platform are most hardware PC components
supported on?

Windows reigns supreme right now not because of technical superiority, but
because of the sheer acumen, influence and power of the producing company.

--
rapskat -   9:55pm  up 11:00,  3 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.05, 0.02
68 processes: 64 sleeping, 4 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  0.9% user,  0.8% system,  0.0% nice, 98.2% idle
drop the hot to mail me

The * truth of it is, I have no shirt.
                -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"

Followups fixed (as if this has anything to do with an
XP help-and-support group! Blatant trollsign.)

Has anyone ever noticed how the one-shot trolls [1]always post
several copies of their Amazing Discoveries?

Anyway, basically Rasterman put a lot of effort into
Enlightenment only to see it buried behind KDE, Sawfish, etc.
Dude's got a serious case of sour grapes.

[1] yeah, I know, assumes plurality not in evidence

--
|      An engineer is someone who will spend three hours        |
|      figuring out how to do a two-hour job in one hour.       |

Or just pessimistic.

Quote:> Linux has it uses, but it is going to have to provide a better
> environment for the desktop user than Windows currently does or
> those users will not have a reason to switch.

It already does. It's far more stable and infinitely more open that
MS Windows is.

Quote:> If price mattered, Linux would have won years ago.

And Linux wasn't a household word even two years ago. I have seen a
lot of change in the last two years, and I know if I was Bill Gates
or Steve "Monkey Boy" Ballmer, I'd be shitting bricks over Linux.

Word of Mouth advertising is a great thing, and that's what you have
with Linux.

The things I hear from my MS-Windows using co-workers are, "Stupid
Computer", "*ing Windows", Goddamnit, my computer crashed again."

OTOH, they _never_ hear me say the same things about Linux. They only
hear, "Yeah, once it's [the server/desktop] set up, I don't have to
really do anything with it. It just works."

Quote:

> Lustrin

--
Donovan Hill
Linux: Because you can!
All rise for the Microsoft Anthem: "BAAAA!"
"Micheal, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing and it was
everything that I thought it could be." - Peter, Office Space

-

We see another example of Lustrin's drum pounding litany...

-> ********************************************************
->
-> At least he is honest, unlike the maniac Linux zealots.
->
-> Linux has it uses, but it is going to have to provide a better
-> environment for the desktop user than Windows currently does or those
-> users will not have a reason to switch.
->
-> If price mattered, Linux would have won years ago.

No. It wouldn't have precisely for the reasons that you've stated. But if
everyone had adopted the "We can't win. We can't compete. So we should just
pack up and go home." attitude that you've been pounding in this newsgroup
recently we wouldn't be a a point where there could even be a discussion.

However in all of this you're missing several major points:

1) The Linux desktop is a dynamic entity that's developing by the day.

2) Microsoft has an uneasy crown upon its head. No longer are the days that
   it can simply release something new and expect individuals, and businesses
   to simply flock in droves to get it. Their sales and earnings are falling.
   Their users are becoming more satisfied with what they have and are feeling
   less of a need to upgrade. You can see Microsofts response in their current
   practices:

   1) The July 31 deadline for businesses to sign up for the annual
      subscription model is fast approaching. It's already on a 9 month slip
      because of the lack of response. As of late less than 40% of their
      current base have signed up for subscriptions.

   2) Registrations have come once. They will come again and the next time it
      won't be optional. You can see the stirrings of the next phase with this
      Palladin project. Behind all of it is the compulsion to force users to
      pay completely for the ride.

   3) It's quite likely that Microsoft may be compelled to do the unthinkable
      and start to deliver products that have no substative compatibility with
      their current offerings.

3) The cost of software is going up. In comparison the cost of hardware is
   continuing to drop like a rock. How long will it be before regular Joes
   start to really feel the disparity.

All of these are rumblings of a massive events to come. Events where users
are going to have to pay full price to keep using Microsoft software. Events
where subscriptions are going to be manditory. Events where users are going
to have to choose.

But of course with your thinking, there will be no choice. There won't be any
alternative there because since Microsoft has already won the desktop, there's
no need to compete.

Fortunately all of us Linux zealots out here in the community won't pay you
much attention. The kernel and applications developers, the XFree86, KDE, and
Gnome teams, the Mozilla and Gnucash and Wine and Mplayer developers, and the
ever growing legion of users will just keep on truckin' pretty much oblivious
to the fact that it's a battle that can't be won.

But you see we've already won because our desktop for us is already here.

Today.

And when the cataclysm comes, we'll still be here, armed with an alternative.

And then everybody else will get a chance to choose.

So since there's nothing but us zealots here, you can just keep on yapping...

...while we just keep on truckin'

BAJ

Sigh. I would imagine that Terry Porter has gone on his
roundabout...

Otherwise, we would have been able to discern that 'Lutrin'
is flatfish (I won't dignify h/s/it with an assertation;
I'm just guessing, but the bullshit smells familiar.)

Terry: _PLEASE_ run colatroll on your return. We'd like
confirmation of the idiots who post nonsense herein.

did you even follow the link to the complete interview???

try using the enlightenment desktop instead of KDE or Gnome or whatever...
then you'll really be amazed with his skills

Quote:

> How will his opinions affect me in the future?  Will he guarantee me
> gainful employment?  Will he be able to secure me a raise or otherwise
> help me to provide for my family?

well if you intend to use embedded Linux in the future he will probably
matter a lot to you

Quote:

> In other words, does this person's personal opinion determine the ebb and
> flow of the tides of IT?

he has a place in Linux history and as such is entitled to make opinion...

His software is included or is available in just about every distro now.

--
Paul Cooke
  Registered Linux user 273897 Machine registration number 156819
  Linux Counter: Home Page = http://counter.li.org/

Error Log for Sun, 21 Jul 2002 05:35:08 -0400: segfault in module "Paul
Cooke" - dump details are as follows...

I don't follow links from trolls.

Quote:> try using the enlightenment desktop instead of KDE or Gnome or
> whatever... then you'll really be amazed with his skills

I've used Enlightenment, and it's an awesome WM/DE.  Probably my second
favorite after IceWM.

Quote:>> How will his opinions affect me in the future?  Will he guarantee me
>> gainful employment?  Will he be able to secure me a raise or otherwise
>> help me to provide for my family?

> well if you intend to use embedded Linux in the future he will probably
> matter a lot to you

Maybe his work will, but his opinions mean pretty much squat.

Quote:>> In other words, does this person's personal opinion determine the ebb
>> and flow of the tides of IT?

> he has a place in Linux history and as such is entitled to make
> opinion...

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, I just happen to disagree with this
one.

For someone that has contributed so much to the community, that sure seems
like a defeatist attitude he is taking towards LGX and OSS in general.

It's kind of like saying that he expects his own work to fail, when in
actuality it is proabably helping ot put LGX on the map.

Quote:> His software is included or is available in just about every distro now.

Good, he should take some pride in that fact and stop acting like a
whupped puppy then.

--
rapskat -   4:45am  up  2:57,  2 users,  load average: 0.37, 0.54, 1.05
80 processes: 75 sleeping, 4 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 28.0% user,  4.3% system,  0.0% nice, 67.5% idle
drop the hot to mail me

We should be glad we're living in the time that we are.  If any of us had been
born into a more enlightened age, I'm sure we would have immediately been taken
out and shot.
                -- Strange de Jim

Quote:> ********************************************************

> At least he is honest, unlike the maniac Linux zealots.

> Linux has it uses, but it is going to have to provide a better
> environment for the desktop user than Windows currently does or those
> users will not have a reason to switch.

> If price mattered, Linux would have won years ago.

First of all: people who read
alt.os.windows-xp,
alt.windows-xp,
microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support,
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
don't care about Linux.
Really, they don't, otherwise they would be reading the linux groups.
(follow-up set). You will be kill-filed by alot of people, if you keep
this up..

Second of all: windows users will potentially switch, because their
business does, and because they have to work with it. Some businesses
already switched to using a bunch of X-Terminals, for their employees,
because they don't need really specialised applications, and they can get
by perfectly with KDE or Gnome to: surf the (intra)net, e-mail, writing
texts, making presentations. Alot of people in a company don't need to do
alot more. To give them an edge during the next evalutation, it is likely
that they will switch to whatever operating system their company uses.
Even if that is Linux. Basically: users will switch because they have to.

Third: In a lot of areas Linux is already a better environment than
Windows. Galeon is better than Mozilla, Internet Explorer or Opera.
Evolution is better than Outlook. Making a graphical application with
Glade and whatever language you prefer (C, C++, Eiffel, Perl, Python,
Ruby), is easier than using Visual C, or Visual Basic, where you can't
choose the language that is most appropriate for the task at hand. That a
user doesn't have to worry about virusses, inconsistency or ad-ware, is a
big plus, and is the primary reason I will switch my dad's pc from Windows
to Linux. 90% of the users will be able to do with the Gimp, what they did
with Photoshop. And a whole bunch of users will be happy with the
Script-Fu possibilities in the Gimp. (ie making pretty web-buttons while
you don't have any graphical capabilities). The same goes for OpenOffice.
Students, that wants to write a thesis will be happy to know that they can
use Latex, and that it is likely already installed.

Rasterman is the dude that main-developer of Enlightenment. I hope you
don't have any hopes for E17 ever being released or being stable :-)