No war, no truce required.
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| dinotrac Jun 14, 2006 8:30 AM EDT |
As in life, religious differences cause serious problems only for those on the fringe. For the rest, there is no war and no need for a truce. Microsoft browsers can render pages served up by apache web servers. Absent exclusionary coding by web designers, Linux-based browsers can render pages served up by IIS. E-mail can go between the two without a hitch. Linux and Microsoft servers can engage in complex interactions based on XML messages. SCP, FTP, VNC, etc, all work in both worlds. You can run perl, python, MySQL and PostgreSQL on either platform. No war, period. So long as Microsoft adheres to accepted international standards (or international law, if you wish to continue the war analogy), linux users, linux developers, and linux machines are perfectly content to interoperate. In fact, linux has gone a little further than that, supporting SMB via Samba. Actually, Linux has gone a lot further than that...witness Mono, the Linux .Net implementation. Funny way to fight a religious war. Now, all bets are off when one party decides to blow off international standards in order to protect its monopoly... |
| tuxchick2 Jun 14, 2006 9:13 AM EDT |
There is no war... At least, not in the way that Microsoft means. FOSS persons were just playing in their clubhouse, making cool stuff and having a good time, when along came the Microsoft gang of bullies to mess with them. "Stop what you're going and pay tribute to our Beloved Leader" said the chief Microsoft thug. Puzzled, the FOSS gang tried to explain that the FOSS club was neither exclusive nor predatory, but open to all. But Beloved Leader insisted on taking their very existence personally, and ordered that enormous resources be devoted to stamping them out. Which is a futile waste of time, because the FOSS club has no central authority, but is organized more like large random herds of cats. (Do not confuse de-centralization with lack of discipline and focus, because the most successful individual FOSS projects are highly disciplined.) So Beloved Leader became very frustrated and unhappy, and tried even harder to stamp out the FOSS menace, despite repeated invitations to come play in the FOSS clubhouse. And that, children, is the nature of this "war" even today- Microsoft wants to destroy FOSS, and all we want to do is our own thing and not have to pay attention to Microsoft at all. Which, I think, is the nature of most "wars." |
| tuxchick2 Jun 14, 2006 9:50 AM EDT |
No, I take that back- Ballmergates do not want to destroy FOSS, but want the right to use all that great Free software without having to abide by the terms of the GPL. In short, they want to run a coding plantation staffed by slaves. So that does make them equivalent to world-class robber barons like DeBeers and Royal Dutch Shell, in intent if not in deed. |
| wind0wsr3fund Jun 14, 2006 12:43 PM EDT |
All I can do in response to this thread is shake my head and acknowledge the lengths people go to justify their own lack of involvement and conviction. |
| dinotrac Jun 14, 2006 12:47 PM EDT |
w3 - Trolling again I see, and doing no better a job. |
| wind0wsr3fund Jun 14, 2006 1:37 PM EDT |
I could say the same thing about your attempts to justify non-free software |
| dinotrac Jun 14, 2006 2:13 PM EDT |
w3c - I think you need to upgrade that broken record to the digital age. No justification of non-free software in this thread. |
| Libervis Jun 14, 2006 3:31 PM EDT |
I don't see trolling in that message dinotrac, to be honest. How do you think should he have expressed this opinion? Calm down a bit. I agree with tuxchick2 here. If there is a war then MS started it. Free Software was started for the goal of freedom, but the way it was set up it wasn't meant to go on the offensive against the proprietary software world. It simply found space it can exist in and set the terms. These terms, notably the GNU GPL and similar licenses, simply say that everyone who wants to benefit from what we're doing in this space has to cooperate with us, rather than just take and not give back. That's what naturally contributes to increasing of the Free Software pool, its significance and its community. That's also what maddens the folks at Microsoft as they don't want to play along fairly - they never did - they just want to take and go with it. So essentially, the general policy of the Free Software community is defence, not offence. MS at the lead of the proprietary software world it monopolized is the aggresor. |
| dinotrac Jun 14, 2006 3:50 PM EDT |
libervis: [quote]All I can do in response to this thread is shake my head and acknowledge the lengths people go to justify their own lack of involvement and conviction.[quote] In what way is that not a troll? What in this thread even hints at a lack of involvement or conviction? For that matter, lack of involvement with what? What conviction is lacking? Troll, pure and simple. |
| grouch Jun 14, 2006 5:38 PM EDT |
dinotrac: >"Now, all bets are off when one party decides to blow off international standards in order to protect its monopoly..." tuxchick2: >"Ballmergates do not want to destroy FOSS, but want the right to use all that great Free software without having to abide by the terms of the GPL. In short, they want to run a coding plantation staffed by slaves." I admit that I have bad eyes and sometimes misunderstand plain ASCII, but those two comments appear to reflect both involvement and conviction to me. Each sounds like a line being drawn around personal choice and freedom, with an implied warning of consequences if that line is crossed. |
| dinotrac Jun 14, 2006 5:52 PM EDT |
grouch: Thanks, old fellow geezer geek. To go one step further, I've always been bothered by the war analogy when used in reference to free software. I realize that the notion of war and big bangy things invokes a certain testosterone rush, but war is only one of the ways that powerful forces manifest themselves in human society. Free software makes a lousy weapon of war. It's very nature undoes it: It is open, it is free. Even the enemy is entitled to use it. War is a dirty, nasty, vicious thing. Free software appeals to our better angels. So true to its principles that it must invite exploitation, free software stands atop a moral high ground granting vision grander and more powerful than mere war. |
| tuxchick2 Jun 14, 2006 6:02 PM EDT |
Wow dino, that's much better than what I was thinking, which was snarky thoughts along the lines of pasty indoor geeks requiring all kinds of macho fantasies just to feel like they're really tuff, hence all the war nonsense. Nice post. |
| grouch Jun 14, 2006 6:27 PM EDT |
dinotrac: You're in fine form tonight. War involves the destruction of a threat, by any and all means necessary. Free software isn't like that; it does, indeed, appeal "to our better angels." It offers, rather than attacks. It invites, without threat if you decline the invitation. Microsoft does not need to ask for any sort of truce with free software advocates. All it needs to do is cease attacking people. All of its speeches and sound bites mean absolutely nothing so long as it continues to unilaterally attack the users of computers. For peace, all it has to do is stop buying messages from human vending machines to promote disinformation, stop subverting open standards of communication and computing, stop spying on people, stop lying, stop cheating, stop stealing. (Each of these activities by Microsoft has been well documented in court and news). A truce is entirely in Microsoft's hands. All it has to do is come up out of its slimey, amoral burrow and become neutral. dinotrac: >"So true to its principles that it must invite exploitation, free software stands atop a moral high ground granting vision grander and more powerful than mere war." I love that line. |
| dcparris Jun 14, 2006 6:35 PM EDT |
Must find flak jacket and helmet... |
| dinotrac Jun 14, 2006 7:04 PM EDT |
Rev - No flak jacket required, This is the love bombing thread. |
| tuxchick2 Jun 14, 2006 7:14 PM EDT |
I think I'm going to hurl. |
| grouch Jun 14, 2006 7:40 PM EDT |
I can contribute one (1) 7 ft.- 6 in. long, 3" O.D. schedule 80 steel pipe, with one (1) 6 cylinder, 90 cfm air compressor to power it, and several bushels of old, sun-hardened black walnuts for ammunition. Anybody got a trigger and air cannon plans? Need somebody to calculate the ballistics, too. C'mon, folks. Show some cooperative spirit. I want to share some good American black walnut trees with Brother Bill, via air delivery. Someone needs to call him before the launch so no family members are in the landing zone. Don't want to dent heads; just roof, cars, pool, etc. |
| dcparris Jun 14, 2006 9:09 PM EDT |
> No flak jacket required, This is the love bombing thread. Must find flower-patterned camouflaged flak jacket and "Flower Power" helmet... oh yeah, and bell bottoms! |
| kennyf27 Jun 14, 2006 10:41 PM EDT |
If I were to guess, I would think that all of you in these idiotic hypothetical "threads" (War, et. alia.) are 1) under the age of 15, 2) have way too much time on your hands, are 3) crass and unfeeling and unworldly ("bangy things"?), 4) have now wasted more time on arguing than on investigation, 5) are very VERY defensive, nasty, cliquey, and throw your stones from a safe distance, and lastly 6) have an incredibly low opinion of yourselves, making you VERY VERY angry and outwardly conceited-acting. What, do you think you alone can speak for the myriad of developers, visionaries, early adopters, geniuses, and just plain folk who may or may not run a certain type or piece of software.? Get over yourselves, people. These kinds of threads are a colossal waste of time and drive space. Hey - get this: I have been using "PC"'s since 1976 ( I built a HeathKit), I burned out on surfing such services as Quantumlink and Compuserve - the "Internets" of their day - by about 1979. And games. I was there at the beginning of all the most important Internet and other protocols of our time. I was in the industry for over 30 years, am still an MCSE, CISSP, former CISO, CTO. I phreaked phone calls with my "nerdie" friends for the first time around 1965. Jammed radio stations with my Heathkit, an oscilloscope and a repeater. Now I'm retired, and looking to pursue some nice new topics and this is what I find. Little kids throwing mud at each other and congratulating each other for knowing how to spell their own name. You sound like Family Feud: "Good answer. GOOD Answer." Did you know: There used to be a product called "Internet in a Box" from BSDI software, that cost $800 per server, and of course was just FreeBSD in a friendly package. Well, Linus wasn't the first to think to do such a thing, but stealing the same package and lowering the price to the "cost" of a CD? Smart, very smart. And while all you guys were arguing over Open Source etc., there were many variants of Unix/Linux that had Netscape Navigator embedded in their software, and no way to get it out. Remember when Microsoft got in so much trouble over embedding IE in their offering? Just goes to show you how stupid and petty anything other than collective progress is. Am I a genius? Nope. By your standards I'm an idiot, if only because I make a lot of syntactical errors, or I might have a made a misstatement or two. Just take these things to heart: Music is only one facet of life, and certainly not worth the money that's spent on its acquisitions and accessories ; TV, IPtoTV, videos, cell phones, camera phones, ESPN phones. What's the problem? You've got all this new technology, but the problem is that you have nothing of any substance to say. Much of your music in fact is "sampled" (stolen) from others and does not even require human intervention. The art is creating itself without you. Video games are not real, and they will teach you nothing you will ever need to know in your life. When you have TV shows on how to cheat, I know this planet isn't long for this galaxy. Lastly, getting a "technical education", with little or no emphasis on art, humanity, language and most importantly - THE most important class for making me a good technical and executive worker - was philosophy. it taught me how to think, and to solve any problem, with or without the Internet or a book, or a cell phone to cheat on my exams. I made it to age 55 before they decided that in spite of our massive well of knowledge and experience, our company just couldn't afford as many high paid executives as we had. (Translation: Bush needs to throw a few more offshoring contracts to some of his buds.) But we made it to 55 and above because we knew much, much more than just a boot camp's worth of forgotten crap. You will not last anywhere near to 55, because in 3 or 4 years when you ask for your first decent raise, they will fire you and hire some more newbies for dirt. And for any of you offshore/outsource supporters......well....you're not gonna' be fans, because you will have no where in the world to go to pitch your wares. Wake up kids: Your future is crap. We are in the BioTechnical Age now anyway. The only jobs soon will be truck driver, health worker, customer service (yeah, but they're in Brazil), construction, Accountants, and not much more. My final advice: As you go through life, don't memorize the answers; know where and how to find them, when they are needed, with little or no guideposts. The Voice of Reason |
| grouch Jun 15, 2006 12:37 AM EDT |
Ok, whose turn was it to watch kennyf27? You know the medication must be applied hourly or you get the above disjointed, presumptive diatribe. |
| dinotrac Jun 15, 2006 2:07 AM EDT |
grouch: Kennyf27 doesn't much concern me...but, if his post is right, somebody has really pissed off The Voice of Reason. |
| Libervis Jun 15, 2006 6:45 AM EDT |
Grouch wrote:Quoting:I admit that I have bad eyes and sometimes misunderstand plain ASCII, but those two comments appear to reflect both involvement and conviction to me. Each sounds like a line being drawn around personal choice and freedom, with an implied warning of consequences if that line is crossed. Alright. I agree. I still don't think w3f is a real troll. He may have misunderstood dinotrac's posts, but I don't think the intentions are ones of a troll (to throw the discussion to waste), but rather express an opinion based on a misunderstanding. Why am I defending him? Well, from what I've seen him post in other threads I didn't recognize the intention of killing a discussion or turning it into a flamewar as trolls usually do. Some of his opinions are in my opinion valid. I guess for that I can give him at least a little more credit. As for the topic, some really nice posts have been written (particularly by dinotrac) and I agree that Free Software community is not about waging wars. Microsoft does that and we are merely required to defend ourselves. So if there is a war and if therefore there needs to be a truce, it's all up to MS, as already pointed out. @kennyf27 I can respect you as a senior (compared to me) and your experience, but I am not sure I quite get the whole point of your post. I don't think these threads are necessarily childish diatribe. I don't see it as such, as well as I don't see anything wrong with dedicating a little bit of your time to engage in such discussions. It's all part of the whole interaction process that makes a community be a community. But then again I might just be a 21 year old child if you will. ;) Thanks |
| dcparris Jun 15, 2006 7:56 AM EDT |
> Ok, whose turn was it to watch kennyf27? You know the medication must be applied hourly or you get the above disjointed, presumptive diatribe. I thought it was either one of those clever spam messages that I heard about on TLLTS, or Steve Ballmer sharing the news with us that he has been dismissed before it breaks in the mainstream media. Of course, it could be Scott, now that he has some free time on his hands. As they say, there's one in every crowd! :-) |
| jimf Jun 15, 2006 9:23 AM EDT |
> Ok, whose turn was it to watch kennyf27? Well, I hope the rant helped him, but there is a lot of anger and frustration there. Sounds like someone has really given up on the world. |
| jdixon Jun 15, 2006 4:16 PM EDT |
Oh, come on guys, at least give Kenny the benefit of taking his comment seriously. After all, we all know he's not going to make it to the end of the show. :) So, here goes: > 1) under the age of 15 Closer to the other end of the scale I'm afraid. > 2) have way too much time on your hands Possibly. > 3) crass and unfeeling and unworldly ("bangy things"?), Possibly. > 4) have now wasted more time on arguing than on investigation Extremely doubtful. > 5) are very VERY defensive, nasty, cliquey, and throw your stones from a safe distance Defensive? Sometimes. Nasty? Not really. Cliquey? I wouldn't know. I've never been in one. I always try to throw stones from a safe distance. Otherwise, what's the point of throwing stones? > 6) have an incredibly low opinion of yourselves, I'm certain there are far too many people who would disagree with that. :) That covered, let's see if there was anything else of interest... > Lastly, getting a "technical education", with little or no emphasis on art, humanity, language and most importantly - THE most important class for making me a good technical and executive worker - was philosophy. it taught me how to think, and to solve any problem, No, I can't say I took philosophy in college. A shame, the ability to solve ANY problem would be extremely useful. Such as how to avoid getting your job outsourced, for instance. > I made it to age 55 before they decided that in spite of our massive well of knowledge and experience, our company just couldn't afford as many high paid executives as we had. Whoops, I guess they didn't cover that one after all. Oh well. Maybe they covered how to win the Powerball this weekend. > You will not last anywhere near to 55, Sorry Kenny, I'm already somewhere near 55, though not quite there yet. Thanks for playing, and better luck next time. |
| tuxchick2 Jun 15, 2006 4:36 PM EDT |
"Oh, come on guys, at least give Kenny the benefit of taking his comment seriously. After all, we all know he's not going to make it to the end of the show. :) " Well OK then. My mom taught me to not take ranty self-contradicting off-topic windbags seriously, but what the hey, she also taught me to take my fun where I can get it. I'm 48, and I don't fear layoffs because I am the boss of me. I'm a cruel, demanding taskmaster who doesn't give me enough time off, and I'm always painting myself into a corner by taking on too much work. But I get to work at home and play my Lawrence Welk music really loud (a polka comes to life when it rattles the windows, by gum), and I can say all the politically incorrect things to my horses that I want. And that's as far as I feel like going. |
| dinotrac Jun 15, 2006 4:51 PM EDT |
tuxchick2 - >and I can say all the politically incorrect things to my horses that I want. Horsefeathers. |
| jimf Jun 15, 2006 5:35 PM EDT |
>Lawrence Welk music really loud Ouch! and I was begining to think you were the perfect woman :D |
| Libervis Jun 15, 2006 5:45 PM EDT |
Man, I feel young! :) (no offence intended to anyone older than me) |
| jimf Jun 15, 2006 6:01 PM EDT |
> Man, I feel young! :) Contrary to the advise of Mick Jagger, time is 'not' on your side. |
| Libervis Jun 15, 2006 6:06 PM EDT |
Hehe thanks for the warning Jimf. :) |
| grouch Jun 15, 2006 6:08 PM EDT |
Lawrence Welk music? Is that like, Aussie Hip-Hop or something? Pre-15ers want to know. |
| jimf Jun 15, 2006 6:13 PM EDT |
> like, Aussie Hip-Hop or something? German/Bavarian hip-hop to be precise. |
| dinotrac Jun 15, 2006 6:20 PM EDT |
>German/Bavarian hip-hop to be precise. Only for the first few rounds. Then it becomes drip 'n drop. |
| grouch Jun 15, 2006 6:26 PM EDT |
jimf: >"Contrary to the advise of Mick Jagger, time is 'not' on your side." "Life's like an hourglass glued to the table. No one can find the rewind button, boys, so cradle your head in your hands and breathe, just breathe." -- Anna Nalick, Breathe (2 AM) |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!