SCO v. IBM

Message ID: 358833 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Linux not even geek-friendly Here is what a Mac user thinks of Linux software. You can see why a business model based on Open Source software is fundamentally fucked. http://daringfireball.net/2004/04/spray_on_usability >>> In Raymond’s own words, the goal is: software that works so well, and is so discoverable to even novice users, that they don’t have to read documentation or spend time and mental effort to learn about it. It’s pretty hard to sell “services and support” for software that fits that bill. The model that actually works is selling the software itself. This is politically distasteful to open source zealots, but it’s true — and it explains the poor state of usability in open source software. <<< Don't miss the linked document on "Why Free Software Tends to Suck". This Yahoo! SCOX Message Board post has been licensed for copying and distribution under the following license: CCL Attribution-N

Message ID: 358386 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Linux does ipod (sort of) http://www.cs.duke.edu/~geha/ipod/ This is the Linux Ipod how-to document. It was written in '02, but Ipod was a new toy then. Even if you had Red Hat 8, it was still a multi-step process dragging you down to a terminal, but put that aside for the moment. Notice that it only mentions Red Hat. What if you are running one of the other distributions? Tough. This is the flip side of choice. Nobody can write an install script or a help document. This is one of the reasons you hardly see any third party applications for Linux home users. There is no one defined environment. The how-to also illustrates how things get done on the Linux side when dealing with new stuff. One of the brave souls will go through the pain, and figure out how to get it working with Linux, and writes a long how-to. From that point on, the Linux nuts start claiming that "xyz works on Linux", when they actually mean to say "

Message ID: 358137 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Just Say No To Linux http://marc.abramowitz.info/archives/2005/12/13/want-pain-set-up-a-printer-in-linux/ Another honest account from a Linux user. This guy seems to know a thing or two about Samba - know enough to avoid it, that is! Notice how one particular library is missing, and this guy somehow figured out where to find it. Notice also the comments at the end - "Thank you very much! Finally, I have found the missing libtiff.so.3…" - which is from someone who was not so lucky until then. This is far different from the rosy picture painted by the Linux nuts - "just click on the graphical installer blah blah blah"! This situation is far more common than the Linux nuts care to admit. If you want to know which hardware kind of works on Linux and which hardware doesn't work, some loser maintains a web page you can search for on google. See, the beauty of Linux is all the documentation is on the web, including th

Message ID: 357867 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: The Stats Troll stats_for_all goes around the web collecting little factoids, and as soon as he thinks he sees a vague pattern, he posts his little collection here for the benefit of the other Linux nuts. His posts are usually followed by wild speculation about how some Government agency is going to punish SCO, Microsoft and other Linux Enemies. The Linux weenies briefly forget about their troubles with their crappy OS, and rejoice at these speculations. They indicate that they welcome these brief interludes by heavily recommending stats_for_all's posts. An encouraged stats_for_all goes back for more vague factoids, and the cycle repeats. As usual, self-important idiots like stats_for_all and his statistics don't amount to anything in practice. When the Linux nuts took over this message board, they drove the general public away from it. And, whatever credibility the Linux nuts didn't lose by their display of morbid hatred

Message ID: 357797 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Lies of the Linux Liars It is well known how the Linux nuts respond to Linux criticism - "It is not a problem", "It works perfectly for me!", "You are a Microsoft stooge" etc etc. If you look around the web, a different picture emerges. Here is an instructive web page. It documents somebody's troubles with a wireless card. It is dated October '04. (Before the Linux nuts parade their standard "it all works fine now" excuse, I must point out that Linux has trouble with the latest hardware, whatever that is at any given time, making Linux suitable only for those who like pain!) http://www.majordojo.com/archives/000457.php "... rarely do things just work in Linux, right out of the box, no hassle, no tech support calls, just pop in the CD, and go." Note also the two comments at the end. Also notable is this guy's belief that it is Wrong To Pay For Linux Software! These are the s

Message ID: 357556 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Linux freeloaders There is a common criticizm that companies don't make much software for sale to Linux home users because most Linux users are freeloaders! I can certainly understand this after looking at freedung99 here, ranting about how people should stop being selfish and start donating things so that he may use them. Even when a company is not interested in making money from a particular piece of software, it is rather reluctant to develop or maintain the Linux version of its software. Look at Y! Messenger or Real Player. Or, consider Google refusing to develop native Linux ports of its software. I wonder if the Linux development environment is so fucked up that people avoid it like the plague. In any case, if you are a Linux user, there are just so many ways for you to lose! This Yahoo! SCOX Message Board post has been licensed for copying and distribution under the following license: CCL Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlik

Message ID: 357492 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Linux self-sabotage "Although the Linux kernel is an impressive and stable feat of distributed engineering, the incompatibility between different stable point versions of the kernel hampers the Driver on Demand concept. You could compile a driver for 2.6.5 and it would probably not work on 2.6.10 if you simply loaded the precompiled binary module; you would need to recompile the driver for each kernel version. This problem worsens when you consider furnishing a driver for all distributions. Not only do you have the official 2.6 tree to consider, but you also have the slight modifications that different distributions add to the kernels. If you want to distribute a precompiled binary driver, you'll need to provide a binary for each point version in the kernel for each distribution. This can amount to HUNDREDS OF MODULES FOR A SINGLE STABLE KERNEL RELEASE. The reason a single binary driver will not work across a kernel series is

Message ID: 357351 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Linux - anybody can change it Linux - anybody can change it, so everybody will! This situation must be familiar to the Linux fans here! "To install Joe's program, you need Bob's kernel hack, but for Bob's kernel hack, you've got to have Suzy's patches, but Suzy's patches only work with a year-old kernel, unless you get Mike's patches to Suzy's patches, but even then, those conflict with Jeff's drivers, which can be resolved only by installing Nancy's patches... " Linux fans are fond of pointing out that thousands of programmers working from all over the world will issue a quick patch as soon as a vulnerability is found in Linux programs. That is excellent, but you can't take that patch and apply it on your machine because the version you have may be a special one from your distribution. You have to wait for your distribution maker to release that patch. And, on an average, Red Hat

Message ID: 356970 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Free Speech = Free Beer Proponents of GPL (including many of the Linux nuts) are fond of pointing out the difference between free speech and free beer. Sure GPL doesn't stop you from selling your GPL'd software. But the first guy that buys your software can distribute copies of the software free of charge, and you can't stop him. GPL ensures that you can't stop him. So, in practice, Free Software tends to be free as in beer when it is not specifically developed for one client. Once this is clear, you have to ask yourself 'why does software *have* to be free?' What is wrong with software developers getting compensated for their efforts? They are not getting any free homes and free cars from the society, so why do they have to give away their products for free? Why should they be called 'unethical' for making money selling their products? It is absurd. This Yahoo! SCOX Message Board post has been licensed

Message ID: 356586 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Linux apologists Linux kernel has little release planning, no design, no regression test suite and no formal quality assurance. Just Keep Coding And Release Once in a While - this is the procedure. If it boots, that is mostly good enough. The distribution makers mostly mimic this behavior - they slap a few things together and release it with little testing. In the Linux world, this is mostly OK - all those blind grandmothers are not exactly clamoring for the next kernel release! After a few users try the new thing for several months and mess up their CD-rom drives and other peripherals, the bugs will be worked out, and the remaining world can use it. Still, anyone involved in any way in the comptuer software industry should find this situation apalling. However, the Linux apologists willingly turn a blind eye to all this. They would rather concentrate on Microsoft's problems. No wonder the Linux nuts lost their credibility! This Y

Message ID: 356017 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: MS Vista Delayed - Whatcha gonna do Now that I have left you guys alone for a day, have you had a chance to discuss the Vista delay? What is the executive decision? You ready to push for Linux desktop all over the world just yet? Or not? What happened to your leader freedung99? Did you notice that Vista is delayed and he is talking mostly about other things? I would keep an eye on him if I were you. Of all the people here, he is the most likely to be a double agent. He seems to be trying to give you guys a bad name! I mean, frankly, freedung sounds like a terrorist everytime he mentions freedom -- you know that most terrorist groups call themselves freedom fighters, don't you? Talking about freedom suits a guy like Richard Stallman - for him it is a way of life. For our freedung here, it is just a punch line! This Yahoo! SCOX Message Board post has been licensed for copying and distribution under the following license: CCL Attribu

Message ID: 355629 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Linux Zealots - obtuse and vindictive You know people figured the Linux zealots out when neutral people start talking about them as being as obtuse and vindictive as the SCO folks. People are openly calling the Linux zealots on their lies. Here is an example. >>> Linux zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of Windows configuration issues. Example comments: User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?" Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will dump core. Before you run the installer, make sure you have the GL drivers for

Message ID: 353224 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: IBM Germany denial IBM Germany denies Linux-over-Vista decision http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS5756705765.html This Yahoo! SCOX Message Board post has been licensed for copying and distribution under the following license: CCL Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike v2.0.

Message ID: 352252 Posted By: deepdistrust Subject: Michael Dell on Linux http://desktoplinux.com/news/NS3822185143.html "We can't support all 300 Linux distributions." The idiots that tout 'choice is good' and go on to reinvent the wheel in a slightly different form should pay attention. This Yahoo! SCOX Message Board post has been licensed for copying and distribution under the following license: CCL Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike v2.0.