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Re: Newbie help, and public relations.
On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Elisheva Alexander wrote:
> it's about time for capt. internet!
> grrrr!
Wow, man ! Before the #define ! It's a semantic perusage fault. ;)
> #define FLAME "capt. internet"
>
> Linux is one of those operating systems that wouldn't be around without
> the internet. this paper claims to report about these sort of subjects.
> it does a good job, most of the time. but where is ONE article about
> Linux?
I think we agreed to flame them AFTER, not BEFORE ?
> many of the innovations that make the internet what it is today, (and i
> think tomorrow are more to come) were born in the UNIX environment.
> all the excitement happens in UNIX.
If it does, then it happens very quietly. After all, UNIX is an excellent
tool and a philosophy, not a famous pub. Would you worship the theatre
where a great opera was performed, or the opera performance and the
performers (and give due credit to the quality of the theatre).
> it's not an "obsolete system being
> replace by NT" as the general public has been (mis)lead to think.
The general public thinks that NT is just another one of those stupid
computer acronyms that only geeks grok, like UNIX, DOS, HDD and SDRAM.
People want buttons to click on, possibly buttons that click on
themselves, possibly for free. Never heard of complaints about crashed
Sony Playstations or Nintendos, only busted power supplies and Coke in the
connectors / CD eye. No advocacy wars either, just people who crack the
copy/usage security chips for them.
> heck, we know where it all started. and it wasn't Bill's great idea,
> to "integrate your desktop with the internet". (KDE file manager is a
> browser...)
I don't know about KDE which emulates something too well, but there was
'Internet integrated into the desktop' at least with Lasermoon Linux in
1995, with Mosaic (!) and it worked well too. You have to see this to
understand. I have. I have no idea what Red Hat was doing in 1995. Not to
mention KDE. Ah, and Lasermoon was based on Slackware and was
POSIX-certified with 1.2.13 kernels.
> the MS environment was the birthplace of nothing innovative i can
> recall. oh wait, there is ICQ, and those great anti-viruses.
> ...and those great viruses.
Come on, the biggest supermarket in the world has invented the slowest
word processor, the incredible black hole resource eating program (never
enough resources for it), the ninja morphing text file format and other
firsts, including the type of user support that assumes that only the user
and not the product can be wrong, and the extra high speed
takeover/relabeling of whatever is good out there. Of course they don't
sell quality stuff, you have to go to the speciality shop for that ;)
> there are articles about hackers (sorry, crackers) but no one mentions
> what tools the use. could they be using Linux?
WHY would you like Linux to be mentioned in that context ? Let FreeBSD
carry that fame...
> where is ONE article about Linux?
In the Linux Journal and Linux Gazette perhaps ? PC Magazine has quite a
few, Byte too. Maybe the guys would pick up courage from a solid copy of
the Linux Journal (anyone donate one - I'm not subscribed) ? Just to
prove that we are not entirely virtual ;)
> WHY does that paper ignore UNIX? they keep posting all these articles on
> how "MS is bad for the world" and act as if there is no alternative.
They really want to sell chinese wooden abacuses as replacements, which
they have secretly imported to avoid taxation, and they are preparing the
market psychologically for the announcement.
> when i walk into a PC shop they seem to think i either run Windows or DOS
> (and if they are very educated they know about OS/2).
If they are very educated then they are not in a computer shop. If they
are not then it's normal. Believe me.
> Why is Linux such a secret? i'm starting to thing this is one big
> conspiracy...
Ssshhh.
> Just as it's the job of the regular newspapers to shout out in the face of
> corruption, greed, and scream for progress.
No shit ? Where, here ? Your mail domain says you are in JLM, maybe I got
it wrong ? West of the ex-USSR (and east of China), the job of newspapers
is to sell copies, and make money, unless they are printed by a charity.
Or so I was taught in marketing courses. Maybe they were wrong ?
> it is the JOB of capt.
> internet to scream for progress in the computing world.
It's job is, to sell copies. Sometimes somthing else can be done. Not more
than 1-2 times a year, tho'. Editors and publishers have a very solid
agreement on this most of the time. Unshakable. Ever wondered why in every
newspaper, from everywhere there are 11 pages of crud, half of them
advertising, and just one page of real good stuff ? Because the crud sells
the paper and the man who writes the extra page is the talent kept by the
editor to whitewash his conscience and/or to raise the image of the paper.
(ok, I've been told that I'm a little bit cynical before).
> Windows has not brought us progress.
Yes it has. Its versions get obsoleted so fast that people keep buying new
hardware and bring 2nd rank machines into our reach, price-wise. Keep the
good job up, guys, I'll buy a K6-2/400 next year if it goes on like this
;)
> It's a closed up system, most people
> running windows, have no idea whats going on. fixing a system usually
> means "reboot", or "reinstall everything". is this a good thing?
> shouldn't anyone be able to learn from his OS? to change his OS around?
Hmm. I can see myself selling (low cost) Linux and answering phone support
questions like "I'm the lawyer who bought Linux from you yesterday, can
you please tell me in what code line in the source do I find a reference
to the symbol VIDIOCMCAPTURE that appeared in a kernel error message so I
can hack it right to make my video capture card work right ?".
> Linux (and other open OSs) are an ever-changing environment, progressing
> with time.
Which means, that they are as stable as quicksand for most commercial
purposes. So is the concurrence (un)fortunately (Word file formats, anyone
?), so let's put this away until later. At least the programming interface
never sinks too deep to follow with UNIX.
> with the most helpful and resourceful community i know. great technical
> support. every question i ever had was always answered, even if i had to
> work hard to get the answer.
I like the way you put that ;)
> we dont have to sit back and swallow bug after bug.
Don't ride the virtual motorcycle with your mouth open.
> we can CHANGE things.
You mean, from L95 desktop to ?DE desktop ? If it emulates well enough,
then: a) ppl won't be able to tell the difference and won't care and b) it
will be the exact same piece of s..t, way down to the last emulated bug,
and you will have gained nothing at all.
> we dont have to pay money so someone gives us a fixed version of his
No, after all this is supposed to be one of the one-diskette countries.
Even BG has noticed that.
> broken code (we dont have Linux 98). we get it free. isn't this good?
> shouldn't the public know of this?
Sure, but shouldn't one support those wonderful ppl. who write software a
little bit ?
> Linux today is not what it used to be. there ARE word processors, matlab,
> gimp, wonderful programs. sure Linux is not right for everyone, it
> may not YET be good for an office, there isn't enough hebrew support,
> and it's hard to manage without Word 97, when everyone sends you .doc files
> in the mail.
StarOffice 4 Word .doc ?
> ok, so Linux may not be the only operating system around. but should any
> operating system dominate?
Domination in the technological sense, and domination in the market sense
are 2 different things, and there are a million shades of grey between
them. Anyone not understanding that is on his way to some form of
extremism.
> all i wanted was one little article.
I could write you one, and send it by email, or we can all chip in with a
few shekels and rent advertising space ;)
> when Netscape became open source i expected someone to give a short
> article about GNU. but only the name was mentioned.
> as if it GNU were some big secret as well.
Nobody knows exactly what GNU is, only what it says not to be, but still
pretty much is ;). Hard to write about that, the mere attempt to grasp the
idea may cause brain infarcts in average readers, and they might sue for
damages.
> it's not as if Linux is not mentioned on the internet. go to altavista and
> check for yourself.
You mean Compaq.
> I am not one of those people that thing all information should be free and
> we should not pay people to write software, books, or music.
No, you just want THAT piece of software, for free. An OS, no more, and
no less.
> but an operating system is something that must be free. or at least have
> one OS for the poor people.
Write a letter to Bill Gates. I'm sure he will understand.
> and hey, even if it's a bad idea, it deserves at least one little article!
Wrong group for advocacy. It's too late for us, we're all users already ;)
> #undef FLAME
>
> sorry about that, but every time i read that newspaper it got me more
> and more upset. time passed and no linux stuff!
Subscribe to the Linux Journal !
> i think that by now cpt. internet owes us two issues exclusively about
> Linux :-)
That's your (one) opinion. How many readers (circulation) ? PS: I have
never seen this 'newspaper' anywhere. Maybe it's an advantage ;)
> there ARE Linux people willing to help any reporter in this noble cause.
Yes !
> --eli7 (maybe i should have CCed it to captain@haaretz.co.il?!)
Now, THAT is the right address. Just wondering why you had to ask the
opinion of 250 people on whether to send this letter to that address, and
WHY DID YOU POST THEM THE WHOLE LETTER TOO. Would you like us to vote
changes and approve it before you sent it on ? Establish a comitee ? Two
comitees ? An amuta ?
Sorry, but I could not resist to answer such a long and motivated posting
that made me such pleasure to read, among the other 85 emails I got today.
Thank you so much for generously sharing all of your point of view with
ALL of us (if I'm allowed to voice my opinion in our name ;),
Peter