On 29 Jul 2004 14:18:36 -0700, "Tony Lawrence" <pcunix@gmail.com>
wrote:

[...]

>> >Just what, in your opinion, have we done wrong?
>>
>> Here's another analogy; you're playing the part of a drug dealer
>who's
>> claiming the high-ground because he's selling 60% less smack outside
>
>Drug dealer?
>
>Are you nuts?
>
>The rest of your post is reasonable, but this is insane.

Let's see:

1. Supplying an overpriced product that's very likely to cause serious
problems for users in the future (AutoZone, DC, IBM etc): Check

2. Product sourced from a supplier with (at best) questionable
business ethics: Check

3. Product encourages a dependency problem: Check

4. Dependency problem causes users to use other, overpriced products,
which cause a circular dependency: Check

5. Original product makes it as difficult as possible to migrate away
to something healthier: Check

6. Suppliers of product attempted to run an illegal protection racket
("Linux License"): Check

Ticks all my boxes...


>> the school gates. Personally I don't care if you're running 1% or 99%
>> SCO software on your servers (although if it were over 50% I'd
>> question your sanity). Run what you like, but don't gripe when you
>> can't get stuff for free, when you're paying another company to
>> litigate against everything they stand for.
>>
>> >>I'd go further than the Xpdf guy, I'd add code to randomly write
>trash
>> >>to various files on the hard disk of a SCO system in the background
>> >>;-) (although since I contribute to a couple of OS projects, I know
>> >>I'd never get away with it...)
>
>You'd get arrested, too. And deserve it.

I'd make sure the added functionality was mentioned in 1px high text
in the EULA (on page 1,448,303). The user would have to agree to these
terms before running the software. Of course, it could also simply be
an entirely unintentional "bug", and since the GPL (and every other
EULA that I've seen on software) specifies the user is responsible for
any problems (bit of a godsend for Microsoft, that one), I don't think
I'd be in any danger of sharing with Bubba...

>> >This attitude has got me stumped. Do you, FyRE, have total faith
>that
>> >TSG are going to lose completely, have no leg to stand on, and IBM
>will
>> >prevail, with 100% certainty, in court?
>>
>> Yes, and anyone in any doubt about this should look at the SCOX share
>> price history...
>
>SCO's share price was moving downward long before this. Your certainty
>indicates nothing but overstated desire. A lot of us WANT SCO to lose;
>it's patently stupid to say that you are certain they will.

All their arguments have been shot down/ridiculed. They're proven
liars, their backers have deserted them; and are actually threatening
to sue them. The SEC is investigating the blatant stock price
manipulation. The CEO has a history of attempting to litigate his way
to personal profit (he's certainly not interested in the company). The
board has just gained another "executive" with a criminal past. Each
one of their concurrent court cases is based on conflicting views and
seemingly identical lack of evidence. They were pretty much thrown out
of court in their case against DC. They now have IBM counter-suing for
patent infringement on virtually all of the products they used to
develop.

I could go on, but you get the picture, and it's about as attractive
as something you'd find in Dorain Gray's attic. Sure it's a
possibility they're telling the truth and they'll win every court case
- it's also possible that I'll wake up tomorrow to find monkeys flying
out of my ass. I won't be stocking up on bananas though...

>> >If so, just what would this
>> >sort of thing achieve? It's pissing off people who you want to
>migrate
>> >to Linux, not get scared by the petty open source revenge and go
>running
>> >to MS.
>>
>> I don't "want them to migrate". I couldn't care less if they ran
>> Microsoft until their ears bled cash. Working on an OS project, with
>> people you respect and admire, is not some crusade to gain market
>> share.

>I do care about people running Microsoft. There's the real danger to
>Linux and Open Source, and they aren't going away when this lawsuit
>does. Market share is important because without enough, Microsoft just
>steamrolls over all of us and we are left with no choice whatsoever.
>Wake up and look around.

It's obvious that anyone still running their business on an SCO
platform is either a cretin or completely uninterested in that side of
their business - and probably doomed to spend a lot of money switching
over before long. Once SCO is gone, it's very likely that MS will buy
up their "IP" and spend a good deal of dev time creating tools to
allow former SCO victimsH^H^H^H^H^H^H^clients to migrate to their
platform. These people are sheep, they don't care about alternatives
and wouldn't switch to Linux anyway. They're not worth bothering
about; pitied maybe as they plow along in the ruts toward their
inevitable fate: chained to MS CALs. Serves them right.

>> I'm not out to overthrow the government (though I'd not care if
>> it happened), I'm not trying to put anyone out of business or attract
>> chicks. What a lot of the "old thinkers" here seem to believe; that
>> it's impossible for anyone to actually be interested in technology,
>or
>> altruistic enough to produce software for zero reward;
>
>There is always reward. It may not be monetary, but the reward is
>always there. Even people who do things they hate have their martyrdom
>to contemplate.

The reward is personal of course. Virtually every SCO reseller is
completely oblivious to this concept though. They're just pushing a
product to make some cash, no matter how dirty the money is. They
wouldn't care if 50% of the cash they paid/earned SCO went to fund
some extremist terrorist group in [take your pick]; in fact the
destination of their funding doesn't even enter their greedy little
heads as they sit there counting the cash and laughing at the latest
sucker left stuck with an SCO OS that's barely evolved since 1971.

>> is blinkering
>> them to the fact their feeble excuses of "I'm just doing what I need
>> to earn a buck" doesn't wash with a great many people.
>
>That's a political opinion. Part of my reward system involves making
>enough money that I can afford to take lots of time off and do whatever
>the hell I please. You feel that involving SCO in that equation is
>evil; I don't agree. As I've said many times, the decision of my
>clients to run any OS at all is THEIR decision.

And there you were screaming that you're nothing like a drug dealer...
"Hey, I'm just supplying these kids with a fix; they'd find it
elsewhere anyway, so why shouldn't I profit?"

>I don't like it when
>they choose Microsoft, but it's not up to me to educate them on the
>dangers of losing all competition. I can TRY, but if they don't care,
>that's just the cway it is. As to using SCO, again, none do unless
>they have to.

I turn down offers to write software for, or administer/support
Microsoft shops. In fact, I did exactly that just over 2 weeks ago; it
was a pretty simple and lucrative job, but I told them I had no
intention of developing for MS products and running on IIS+SQL Server.
I then explained why, and gave them the alternatives. Then I left them
to make a decision. I know they've not given the work to anyone else,
and expect to receive another call ;-) It's a matter of self respect.

>> I'm sure a lot
>> of the SCO resellers are now "studying" for their MSCEs already - yet
>> another good route for someone with no interest in tech, content to
>> "get by", bumbling through life with the least effort possible.
>
>Hmm.. actually I did the MCSE thing in 1995 or 1996.. but not for
>those reasons. I also certified in Solaris and SCO, but only because
>certification seemed important back then..
>
>As much as I dislike Microsoft, I think your implication that people
>who do that crap for a living are bumbling dolts is ridiculous.

Every MSCE I've worked with - without exception - has been a bumbler.
The lack of the most basic problem solving skills, or general IT
knowledge has been almost frightening at times. I'd be very surprised
if the MSCE course consisted of anything beyond "Read 1st Dialog box
then press button. Read 2nd Dialog box, then press button etc etc".

Here are a few of my experiences (I have a hundred of them)

One I've worked with took almost 2 months to get an Exchagne server
running correctly (managed to infect it with Virii 3 times during
patching - lost countless mailboxes moving them from one server to
another, misconfigured the virus filter and stripped every single
attachment etc).

I watched another MSCE in slack jawed horror as he took a week (on and
off) to configure a simple wireless router - phoning the company
countless times to complain about it being "broken" along the way (I
realized after about 2 minutes that his main problem was caused by the
fact his web browser was set to use a proxy on another subnet which
couldn't see the wireless router - and he has it setup to not
broadcast its SSID, but I thought it funnier not to say anything,
until half way through his (last) support call ;-)

I've seen Outlook set up on a corporate network to "disconnect" after
uploading/downloading mail (with an Exchange server!) which resulted
in ridiculously slow performance - about 10 seconds to open each email
(they probably still run like that - I was running Linux, and after I
privately confirmed that changing the settings on one of the clients
fixed the problem completely, I changed it back and kept quiet as
listening to people swear about MS is music to my ears! Everyone was
amazed at how fast my Email client was with the same server ;-)

Another stunned me by complaining about the security protection of
files in a Samba share. I was ordered to chmod all files to 777 on the
corporate HPUX server and adding symlinks so that the config files
could be administered by Samba, and the MSCE wouldn't have problems
adding software and backing up users etc. The same guy (in fact all
the MSCEs) would only ever use the root account when using telnet for
the same reason, even if he just wanted to run "top" or something. As
you may have guessed, that server had stability problems aplenty
caused by their handiwork (moving the wrong directories around,
editing config files with Word, truncating files, filling the root
partition with zip files, deleting home directories,
deleting/corrupting print queues, killing the wrong processes etc,
although they'd not admit to them of course - and claim the server
needed a reboot.

I've watched MSCE's deliberately crash a server to confirm the way it
crashed the previous night - while it was in use by hundreds of people
who then lost work. Another just set up AT jobs to reboot a very
unreliable server every few hours instead of investigating the
problem.

I used to help out, although I'm not an MSCE, and fix a lot of the
problems (even the most obvious solutions seem beyond most MSCE's I've
worked with), I no longer bother. It seems the one thing an MCSE does
learn is arrogance, so it's better to watch them bumble and feign
ignorance...

The more I think about it, the more I think that the MSCE actually
PREFERS MS' products to be unreliable trash. It's a nice scape-goat
for their own inadequacies.

>> Let's say you find that Ford are funding the KKK, Israeli military
>> operations and Martha Stewart. Would you still be proud driving that
>> Pinto down the street?
>
>I might not buy a new one, but if I already own it, I'm not going to
>give it up because of that.

Huh, well look into what happened to Ratners jewelers in the UK to see
how normal people react...

[BTW, I'm not going to sink to the level of spelling flames, Tony]

--
FyRE < "War: The way Americans learn geography" >