Kyle Faber said: >> If Red Hat wants to >> standardize a Linux desktop, they might as well call themselves MS >> Linux. Let me predicate my following response with saying I whole heartedly disagree with the above statement. AS LONG AS RED HAT makes their standard "free". Which best I know is the case. > few days. The main complaint in that thread was that because Microsoft > "invented" their own standards and didn't go with someone else's, they I believe the issue was Microsoft "did" agree to follow standards just they never followed through on it, or tweaked it slightly to as to be incompatiable with others. I see what Red Hat as doing is agreeing to standards but moving them in directions that are not only free but compatiable. As soon as they start to break these two things the value becomes suspect and questionable. I think that some people feel one or the other is in jeopardy of violation and why some of the GNU\Linux crowd does not like this move. However, a good majority think its a good thing. > were bad. Now Red Hat wants to standardize a desktop, help everyone > work well together, and the first in line to bash our "commercial" > leader is ... *ominous drum roll* the linux community itself. If you were bitten by a snake in the past you would be leary of snakes. So dont fault those that have fought long and hard against 'commerical' snakes for fearing snakes even though people claim them to be the non venomous variety. > Standards are not bad. Closed standards are an oxymoron. The thing I can NOT agree with this statement in any way shape or form. .doc is a PERFECT example of closed standard. It is the 'standard' because everyone uses is, but is surely isnt 'open'. Currently people have reverse engineered to support it, and now of course that is also illegal. > they can cram into that little $60 box, don't support the distribution. Many people wont. Many people will, ultimately the free market decides. > The knee-jerk reaction to hating Microsoft is lame at best, and > damaging at > the worst. The majority of people in this country (and yes I am being > US-centric here, because its the only culture I can speak for) want > their computer to just WORK! If they wanted it to be hard, they would The problem is windows doesnt just work. Having to reboot hourly and having to reinstall the operating system annually and being forced to upgrade for obnoxious dollar values while rending working programs worthless isnt just 'working'. > go down to the basement bin and fish out Redhat 2.0 and no one would > ever upgrade except with code they wrote themselves. WRONG! People > hate having to reboot all the time, but they hate even more not being > able to get ANYTHING done between those reboots, even more > frustratingly if those reboots are weeks apart. I think its more than just reboots. I have a friend who purchased a cdrom and installed NERO software on windows. It stopped working, then the drive did. He called the drive company for support who told him to call nero who told him to call microsoft, who asked for $100 to talk on the phone. So he returned the drive and tried another with similar problems. So he 'pirated' yes bootlegged EasyCD Creator from a friend to avoid nero, which did work, but mysteriously made other applications on his PC start behave eradicatlly. He finally gave up and is now going to reinstall windows. "so much for just working" > OpenOffice is great for this, but how many times have we heard about > the > "waste of time supporting .Doc format." If you are the new kid on the > block you have to learn the rules to all the other kid's games or they > will kick your ass and call you a dork. .doc is how they play baseball > on this block, ladies and gentlemen. Its a proposition of freedom. No one says there is NO value in supporting .doc, but being CHAINED by the .doc format is detrimental. We really need to break free into an open and free format. This is similar to the mp3 vs ogg debate. Finally .ogg has been vindicated some since the patent holder to mp3 might finally start really being restrictive. .doc might be how they play baseball, but if you have to give all your lunch money to bill to be able to use the bat to play in the game, isnt getting your butt kicked and being a called a dork, and aligning with 'better' friends to start your own game a better proposition? > Evolution is great for this. Search your email logs or slashdot for > "Ximian > Connector is ANTI-OPENSOURCE!!!" Exchange is how they play Hopscotch on > this block, better learn the rules. It is ANTI OPENSOURCE. No one is mad that Evolution supports exchange, they are mad that Ximian has broken its COMMITTMENTS to writing free software. > Samba is great for this. How many gigabytes of bandwidth have been > wasted on > "Why are you using Samba, just switch to Linux and use NFS, its works > better." Samba is how you play hide-and-seek here, folks. Again this is the try to avoid lockin. People making these arguments are trying to unchain you. > Learn all the rules, play all their games. Then, after you know all > the > games they play, you can raise you hand and say "since I am such a good > person, and I know all the rules to your games, let me introduce you to > my new game. Do I rock or what?" Then when they all believe that you > can make up great new games, you tell them about how all their games > suck and you have them wrapped around your little finger. I agree that being able to play their games is important, but not at the cost of losing to the fact that their games are stacked and they cheat and as long as we use 'their' rules we will always lose. > Unfortunately, I will get blasted as a MS supporter and Linux hater > because > making everyone think that your games are the coolest is "such a M$ > thing to do", I might as well call myself "Kyle Gates" Microsoft is not the enemy, just one of the strongest solidiers in its army. The enemy is proprietary software and data formats. I agree that the M$ helps no one. In fact, there used to be a saying.... BSD users love Unix. Linux users just hate Microsoft. Its a shame that sometimes people are more in love with hating M$ than valuing the freedoms GNU/Linux gives them. > > > > Kyle Faber > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss