From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Mar 18 9:37:48 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from bast.unixathome.org (bast.unixathome.org [216.187.105.150]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D64AA37B402 for ; Mon, 18 Mar 2002 09:37:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from wocker (wocker.unixathome.org [192.168.0.99]) by bast.unixathome.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 07A593F25 for ; Mon, 18 Mar 2002 12:37:46 -0500 (EST) From: "Dan Langille" Organization: DVL Software Limited To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 12:37:45 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: bsddiary.com/.org available Reply-To: dan@langille.org X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v4.01) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-description: Mail message body Message-Id: <20020318173746.07A593F25@bast.unixathome.org> Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Years ago, someone paid for bsddiary.com/.org and gave them to me. I've never done anything with them. If anyone wants them, and will treat them well, please let me know. I'd rather that happen than have then snapped by some pr0n site. cost: pay for a 2 year renewal and they are yours. -- Dan Langille The FreeBSD Diary - http://freebsddiary.org/ - practical examples To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 19 19:26: 6 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from pittgoth.com (14.zlnp1.xdsl.nauticom.net [209.195.149.111]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 075C637B416; Tue, 19 Mar 2002 19:26:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (c5.depaul-inst.pittsburgh.pa.us [192.168.1.5]) by pittgoth.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with SMTP id g2K3SMq32109; Tue, 19 Mar 2002 22:28:22 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from darklogik@pittgoth.com) Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 22:33:46 -0500 From: Tom Rhodes To: FreeBSD-advocacy@FreeBSD.org Cc: FreeBSD-doc@FreeBSD.org Subject: New FreeBSD Advocacy site - reviews requested Message-Id: <20020319223346.4364e318.darklogik@pittgoth.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.7.4 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.5) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=.kV9mBy93G'c3=W" Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG --=.kV9mBy93G'c3=W Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello everyone subscribed to the FreeBSD advocacy and doc mailing lists. Unfortunatly awhile ago the FreeBSD advocacy website was removed, noone was mainting it (from what I was told, any comments?) Recently, I took the time to sit down and threw a new one togeather, using some information I found scattered about FreeBSD.org, a new site was born. Much of the information came from a vision Nik Clayton had awhile ago... I took that, ripped it apart, changed alot of things, added/removed information and boom, a new site. I've had supportive comments from Nik, Joe, and Jim who have spared their very important time to review my work. Now I want comments from these 2 lists, if everything goes well we can add it to the site. The only thing left to do is generate an advocacy listing in the main image map that is included in the header of the FreeBSD web pages. So without any further rambling heres the site: http://www.Pittgoth.com/~darklogik/advocacy Thanks alot. -- Tom (Darklogik) Rhodes www.FreeBSD.org -The Power To Serve www.Pittgoth.com -Pittgoth Discussion Portal --=.kV9mBy93G'c3=W Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE8mAMewPmgiRuevUMRAj9EAJ9u4InVe5Ch3BNb0ESyYF+t6gTSaACgj0nM aJuomKP6/nnXVy7WkicHEFg= =+62t -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=.kV9mBy93G'c3=W-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 19 19:43:16 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from web21106.mail.yahoo.com (web21106.mail.yahoo.com [216.136.227.108]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 242CC37B405 for ; Tue, 19 Mar 2002 19:43:13 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <20020320034312.51079.qmail@web21106.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [62.254.0.4] by web21106.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue, 19 Mar 2002 19:43:12 PST Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 19:43:12 -0800 (PST) From: Hiten Pandya Reply-To: hiten@uk.FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: New FreeBSD Advocacy site - reviews requested To: Tom Rhodes , FreeBSD-advocacy@FreeBSD.org Cc: FreeBSD-doc@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: <20020319223346.4364e318.darklogik@pittgoth.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Looks good to me. :-) Go for it. -- Hiten --- Tom Rhodes wrote: > Hello everyone subscribed to the FreeBSD advocacy and doc mailing lists. > Unfortunatly awhile ago the FreeBSD advocacy website was removed, noone was > mainting it (from what I was told, any comments?) > > Recently, I took the time to sit down and threw a new one togeather, using > some information I found scattered about FreeBSD.org, a new site was born. > Much of the information came from a vision Nik Clayton had awhile ago... I > took that, ripped it apart, changed alot of things, added/removed > information and boom, a new site. > > I've had supportive comments from Nik, Joe, and Jim who have spared their > very important time to review my work. Now I want comments from these 2 > lists, if everything goes well we can add it to the site. The only thing > left to do is generate an advocacy listing in the main image map that is > included in the header of the FreeBSD web pages. So without any further > rambling heres the site: > > http://www.Pittgoth.com/~darklogik/advocacy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage http://sports.yahoo.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 5:57: 0 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from smtp016.mail.yahoo.com (smtp016.mail.yahoo.com [216.136.174.113]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 16CB037B400 for ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 05:56:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from gerardoparedes98 (AUTH plain) at unknown (HELO yahoo.com) (gerardoparedes98@63.100.89.35) by smtp.mail.vip.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; 21 Mar 2002 13:56:45 -0000 Message-ID: <3C99EA0B.4040808@yahoo.com> Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 08:11:23 -0600 From: Gerardo User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i386; en-US; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011126 Netscape6/6.2.1 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Tom Rhodes , freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I think the site is fine, a bit outdated in my opinion, but is a start. Maybe you could add some business cases from companies using FreeBSD, i would like to hear and official statement from the people at Yahoo telling the world their love story with FreeBSD in this days, add some links to benchmarks and reviews from some websites, a gallery showing how some everyday users smack their systems, maybe some pictures from the commiters machines, put some stuff like that and i think the site will be a complete success. Gerardo _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 8:13:35 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from pioneernet.net (mail.pioneernet.net [207.115.64.224]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40AAB37B41A for ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 08:13:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from chip3.wiegand.org [66.114.152.128] by pioneernet.net (SMTPD32-6.06) id A754C79000FC; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 08:16:20 -0800 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 09:49:17 -0800 From: Chip Wiegand To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site Message-Id: <20020321094917.4401f1dc.chip@wiegand.org> In-Reply-To: <3C99EA0B.4040808@yahoo.com> References: <3C99EA0B.4040808@yahoo.com> Organization: Homenet X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.7.0claws (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386--freebsd4.5) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Well, it looks like Gerardo opened his big mouth again, on Thu, 21 Mar 2002 08:11:23 -0600, and spouted out this: > I think the site is fine, a bit outdated in my opinion, but is a > start. Maybe you could add some business cases from companies using > FreeBSD, i would like to hear and official statement from the people > at Yahoo telling the world their love story with FreeBSD in this days, > add some links to benchmarks and reviews from some websites, a gallery > showing how some everyday users smack their systems, maybe some > pictures from the commiters machines, put some stuff like that and i > think the site will be a complete success. > Gerardo I agree whole-heartedly with Gerardo. My first impression was, hmm, nothing new here, not too attractive, why would I want to come back? I think the site definately needs new (and maybe even exciting) information. Dressing it up a bit wouldn't hurt, even the text browsers can view fancier sites just fine. I think it's a good start, but with some work could be a site I would recommend to my non-*nix friends to visit. Regards, Chip W www.wiegand.org chip@wiegand.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 10: 1:37 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from servo.sjmarketing.com (adsl-64-173-218-10.dsl.renocs.nvbell.net [64.173.218.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D55A837B421 for ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:01:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from [192.168.1.95] (lan95 [192.168.1.95]) by servo.sjmarketing.com (8.11.3/8.11.3) with ESMTP id g2LI1Hg52233 for ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:01:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bean@freebsd.org) User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/9.0.1.3108 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:01:12 -0800 Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site From: Bean To: Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20020321094917.4401f1dc.chip@wiegand.org> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I think the entire FreeBSD project site needs work... And I've been given the go-ahead to start working on it in my free time (what's that?!), with final approval from the core of course. Do you guys have any suggestions on features/design you'd like to see in a redesign? -Bean > From: Chip Wiegand > Organization: Homenet > Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 09:49:17 -0800 > To: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG > Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site > > Well, it looks like Gerardo opened his big > mouth again, on Thu, 21 Mar 2002 08:11:23 -0600, and spouted out this: > >> I think the site is fine, a bit outdated in my opinion, but is a >> start. Maybe you could add some business cases from companies using >> FreeBSD, i would like to hear and official statement from the people >> at Yahoo telling the world their love story with FreeBSD in this days, >> add some links to benchmarks and reviews from some websites, a gallery >> showing how some everyday users smack their systems, maybe some >> pictures from the commiters machines, put some stuff like that and i >> think the site will be a complete success. >> Gerardo > > I agree whole-heartedly with Gerardo. My first impression was, hmm, > nothing new here, not too attractive, why would I want to come back? I > think the site definately needs new (and maybe even exciting) > information. Dressing it up a bit wouldn't hurt, even the text browsers > can view fancier sites just fine. I think it's a good start, but with > some work could be a site I would recommend to my non-*nix friends to > visit. Regards, > Chip W > www.wiegand.org > chip@wiegand.org > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 10:10:31 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from odin.acuson.com (odin.acuson.com [157.226.230.71]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7424D37B419; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:10:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from mvaexch02.acuson.com ([157.226.230.209]) by odin.acuson.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with ESMTP id AAA3EDF; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:10:21 -0800 Received: by mvaexch02.acuson.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:08:14 -0800 Received: from there (dhcp-46-171.acuson.com [157.226.46.171]) by mvaexch01.acuson.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2653.13) id GKG9CVXM; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 09:59:10 -0800 From: Johnson David To: Bean , freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Organization: Acuson Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:10:14 -0800 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.2] References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-Id: <20020321181028.7424D37B419@hub.freebsd.org> Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thursday 21 March 2002 10:01 am, Bean wrote: > I think the entire FreeBSD project site needs work... And I've been given > the go-ahead to start working on it in my free time (what's that?!), with > final approval from the core of course. Do you guys have any suggestions on > features/design you'd like to see in a redesign? Make sure it works in Konqueror. No fancy Java, Javascript, Flash, etc. We want it to look pretty, but content is what counts. David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 10:20:17 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from sherline.net (sherline.net [216.203.226.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A7D5537B41A for ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:20:08 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 14300 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2002 18:20:06 -0000 Received: from ip68-8-235-4.sd.sd.cox.net (HELO cptnhosedonkey) (68.8.235.4) by sherline.net with SMTP; 21 Mar 2002 18:20:06 -0000 Message-ID: <001001c1d105$3473a3c0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> From: "Jeremiah Gowdy" To: "Bean" , References: Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:21:22 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > I think the entire FreeBSD project site needs work... And I've been given > the go-ahead to start working on it in my free time (what's that?!), with > final approval from the core of course. Do you guys have any suggestions on > features/design you'd like to see in a redesign? Perhaps the handbook and FAQ links could be in bigger letters, perhaps in some ugly color like red. Too many newbies are flamed on IRC (and this discouraged about FreeBSD) when their questions are right there. I know... you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force them to drink. I'm not really suggesting you go too far with it, but perhaps a bigger link that says NEED HELP ? or something like that. Since the webpage is one of the main ways of capturing new converts, we have to figure the first thing they're going to need is help. The quickest response time would probably be the Handbook, #freebsdhelp on EFNet, and -questions. An entire page dedicated to FreeBSD help is more likely to keep these people involved. Imagine how many people try installing and setting up FreeBSD, have some kind of problem, can't find the answer, and therefore they quit, give up, and install RedHat. You might say that person has their own personality problems, or perhaps they wouldn't have made a very good addition to our community, but I disagree. I say bring on the masses. FreeBSD feels like the AMD of operating systems right now. WE know FreeBSD is the shiznit. Our core followers know. The corporations that use FreeBSD know. But if you start thinking about the hearts and minds of the upcoming generation of admins, that 15 year old kid on his DSL is tomorrow's admin. I know that's true because quite a few of us were yesterday's 12 year old kid on a 2400 baud modem. I have obviously diverged into a minor rant, and I beg your pardon for doing so, but if you're redoing the webpage, keep in mind, it's the first thing most people see about FreeBSD. Look at NetBSD's page, where they pump their architectures on the front page like a badge of honor. Look at OpenBSD's page with the use of their logo and the "elite" security vibe they try to put out. The FreeBSD homepage needs to *sell* FreeBSD to the kiddies, the alternate OS admins, and the corporate manager who is considering his admin's request to convert systems to FreeBSD. Don't give up our reserved and professional attitude (one of our more valuable assets), but at the same time, consider that we need to impress these groups of people with the very first page, because most won't follow more than 1 link on the page before they bail. I know people hate the word, but part of FreeBSD advocacy is marketing. If you win someone over with good marketing, they'll eventually learn the merits of FreeBSD through their own experience. I know that's a tall order, I just wanted to get some of that out there for consideration. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 10:22:30 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from ancmail1.state.ak.us (correct.state.ak.us [146.63.92.75]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D84F937B419; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:22:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from dnr.state.ak.us ([127.0.0.1]) by ancmail1.state.ak.us (Netscape Messaging Server 4.15) with ESMTP id GTC5P700.OSQ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 09:22:19 -0900 Message-ID: <3C9A24D0.8624ABF8@dnr.state.ak.us> Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 09:22:08 -0900 From: Brian Raynes X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en,pdf MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd advocacy , Bean Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site References: <20020321181028.7424D37B419@hub.freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Johnson David wrote: > > On Thursday 21 March 2002 10:01 am, Bean wrote: > > I think the entire FreeBSD project site needs work... And I've been given > > the go-ahead to start working on it in my free time (what's that?!), with > > final approval from the core of course. Do you guys have any suggestions on > > features/design you'd like to see in a redesign? > > Make sure it works in Konqueror. No fancy Java, Javascript, Flash, etc. We > want it to look pretty, but content is what counts. > I would strongly second that request. When I want information, I like fast, relevant and current. Fancy graphics and pictures that slow things down are irritating and do not usually add information. Within those parameters, anything you can do to make it attractive is good. If you can add real content that helps with advocacy, and make it easy for visitors to find, that would be even better. Brian Raynes To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 11: 9:31 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from servo.sjmarketing.com (adsl-64-173-218-10.dsl.renocs.nvbell.net [64.173.218.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BE31637B435 for ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 11:08:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from [192.168.1.95] (lan95 [192.168.1.95]) by servo.sjmarketing.com (8.11.3/8.11.3) with ESMTP id g2LJ8fg52358 for ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 11:08:50 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bean@freebsd.org) User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/9.0.1.3108 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 11:08:36 -0800 Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site From: Bean To: Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <3C9A24D0.8624ABF8@dnr.state.ak.us> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I agree about leaving out any fancy crap, we don't need it for this type of content-driven site, and I would never dream of putting flash or DHTML or anything on it either. I do this for a living (mostly backend stuff), I test in all browsers I have available to me on Mac/Winduhs/BSD/etc..., and I won't make it all girly and pink, I promise :) -Bean > From: Brian Raynes > Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 09:22:08 -0900 > To: freebsd advocacy , Bean > Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site > > Johnson David wrote: >> >> On Thursday 21 March 2002 10:01 am, Bean wrote: >>> I think the entire FreeBSD project site needs work... And I've been given >>> the go-ahead to start working on it in my free time (what's that?!), with >>> final approval from the core of course. Do you guys have any suggestions on >>> features/design you'd like to see in a redesign? >> >> Make sure it works in Konqueror. No fancy Java, Javascript, Flash, etc. We >> want it to look pretty, but content is what counts. >> > > I would strongly second that request. When I want information, I like > fast, relevant and current. Fancy graphics and pictures that slow > things down are irritating and do not usually add information. > Within those parameters, anything you can do to make it attractive is > good. If you can add real content that helps with advocacy, and make it > easy for visitors to find, that would be even better. > > Brian Raynes To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 15: 4:25 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from swan.prod.itd.earthlink.net (swan.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.123]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DFB4337B419; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 15:04:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from pool0042.cvx21-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([209.179.192.42] helo=mindspring.com) by swan.prod.itd.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 16oBbW-00027G-00; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 15:04:19 -0800 Message-ID: <3C9A66D5.432DDF14@mindspring.com> Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 15:03:49 -0800 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Sony} (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jeremiah Gowdy Cc: Bean , freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site References: <001001c1d105$3473a3c0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Jeremiah Gowdy wrote: > > I think the entire FreeBSD project site needs work... And I've been given > > the go-ahead to start working on it in my free time (what's that?!), with > > final approval from the core of course. Do you guys have any suggestions > on > > features/design you'd like to see in a redesign? > > Perhaps the handbook and FAQ links could be in bigger letters, perhaps in > some ugly color like red. Too many newbies are flamed on IRC (and this > discouraged about FreeBSD) when their questions are right there. I know... Perhaps there could be a big, red, "Test drive FreeBSD" button. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 18:24:40 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from sherline.net (sherline.net [216.203.226.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9A46137B400 for ; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 18:24:37 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 18516 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2002 02:24:33 -0000 Received: from ip68-8-235-4.sd.sd.cox.net (HELO cptnhosedonkey) (68.8.235.4) by sherline.net with SMTP; 22 Mar 2002 02:24:33 -0000 Message-ID: <000901c1d148$e2f45b40$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> From: "Jeremiah Gowdy" To: "Terry Lambert" Cc: "Bean" , References: <001001c1d105$3473a3c0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> <3C9A66D5.432DDF14@mindspring.com> Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 18:25:50 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > Perhaps the handbook and FAQ links could be in bigger letters, perhaps in > > some ugly color like red. Too many newbies are flamed on IRC (and this > > discouraged about FreeBSD) when their questions are right there. I know... > > Perhaps there could be a big, red, "Test drive FreeBSD" button. > hah. :) > -- Terry > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 19:33:31 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mailsrv.otenet.gr (mailsrv.otenet.gr [195.170.0.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 32D8437B419; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 19:33:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from hades.hell.gr (patr530-a088.otenet.gr [212.205.215.88]) by mailsrv.otenet.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g2M3XJOQ011539; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 05:33:20 +0200 (EET) Received: from hades.hell.gr (hades [127.0.0.1]) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g2M3XObe023149; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 05:33:24 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Received: (from charon@localhost) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2/Submit) id g2M3XOfU023147; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 05:33:24 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 05:33:19 +0200 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: Tom Rhodes Cc: FreeBSD-advocacy@freebsd.org, FreeBSD-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New FreeBSD Advocacy site - reviews requested Message-ID: <20020322033319.GA22260@hades.hell.gr> References: <20020319223346.4364e318.darklogik@pittgoth.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020319223346.4364e318.darklogik@pittgoth.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On 2002-03-19 22:33, Tom Rhodes wrote: > Recently, I took the time to sit down and threw a new one togeather, > using some information I found scattered about FreeBSD.org, a new site > was born. Much of the information came from a vision Nik Clayton had > awhile ago... Cool work :) There's only one thing that worries me a bit. The categories of links you've provided on the page are not listed in a TOC of some sorts near the top of the page. This means that hunting down for the "Web Resources" section is going to become harder and harder as this page grows :/ Some fancier way of presenting 'categories of links', is probably needed. But a TOC will do just fine too. - Giorgos To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 19:49:54 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from pittgoth.com (14.zlnp1.xdsl.nauticom.net [209.195.149.111]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7CB537B41A; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 19:49:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (c5.depaul-inst.pittsburgh.pa.us [192.168.1.5]) by pittgoth.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with SMTP id g2M3q4q35833; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 22:52:04 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from darklogik@pittgoth.com) Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 22:57:28 -0500 From: Tom Rhodes To: Giorgos Keramidas Cc: FreeBSD-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, FreeBSD-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New FreeBSD Advocacy site - reviews requested Message-Id: <20020321225728.5dc872bd.darklogik@pittgoth.com> In-Reply-To: <20020322033319.GA22260@hades.hell.gr> References: <20020319223346.4364e318.darklogik@pittgoth.com> <20020322033319.GA22260@hades.hell.gr> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.7.4 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.5) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=.IG:Vr5t/)PtTh7" Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG --=.IG:Vr5t/)PtTh7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 05:33:19 +0200 Giorgos Keramidas wrote: > On 2002-03-19 22:33, Tom Rhodes wrote: > > Recently, I took the time to sit down and threw a new one > > togeather, using some information I found scattered about > > FreeBSD.org, a new site was born. Much of the information came > > from a vision Nik Clayton had awhile ago... > > Cool work :) There's only one thing that worries me a bit. The > categories of links you've provided on the page are not listed in a > TOC of some sorts near the top of the page. This means that hunting > down for the "Web Resources" section is going to become harder and > harder as this page grows :/ > > Some fancier way of presenting 'categories of links', is probably > needed. But a TOC will do just fine too. > > - Giorgos > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message > Maybe that would work, but should we maybe break down the links, make a ``more information'' page? Let me know what you think on that... A revision of the entire site has recently been brought up, but i'm not sure how well that will go :) -- Tom (Darklogik) Rhodes www.FreeBSD.org -The Power To Serve www.Pittgoth.com -Pittgoth Discussion Portal --=.IG:Vr5t/)PtTh7 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE8mqurwPmgiRuevUMRAueyAJ9IFR1BWScmgYAnLhSRW8FWlmXSeQCg7vwM llBysi/p/4dglAj4Zg5lpmI= =+Pi1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=.IG:Vr5t/)PtTh7-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 21 22:14:15 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from harrier.prod.itd.earthlink.net (harrier.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.12]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C094037B419; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 22:14:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from pool0183.cvx40-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([216.244.42.183] helo=mindspring.com) by harrier.prod.itd.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 16oIJX-0007EK-00; Thu, 21 Mar 2002 22:14:11 -0800 Message-ID: <3C9ACB9F.861D2999@mindspring.com> Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 22:13:51 -0800 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Sony} (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jeremiah Gowdy Cc: Bean , freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site References: <001001c1d105$3473a3c0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> <3C9A66D5.432DDF14@mindspring.com> <000901c1d148$e2f45b40$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Jeremiah Gowdy wrote: > > > Perhaps the handbook and FAQ links could be in bigger letters, > > > perhaps in some ugly color like red. Too many newbies are > > > flamed on IRC (and this discouraged about FreeBSD) when their > > > questions are right there. I know... > > > > Perhaps there could be a big, red, "Test drive FreeBSD" button. > > hah. :) "Hah! Good idea!" or "Hah! Not possible!" I have to tell you... it's definitely possible, and actually not that incredibly hard. For my last year at Whistle, I tended toinstall ports using a CGI script with an Apache server with a hacked MIME-Types file with cryptographically signed bundles, and a local MIME type and external handler that could be glued into the local browser. Root would use the browser, click on a port or package, iot would get copied across, have the signature verified using the public key of the publisher, build (if it were a port), and install. One click installation of software on FreeBSD. For the "test drive", all you would need to do is unpack into an FS mountable from FreeBSD, and deal with it. It won't work with Windows XP, because FreeBSD can't write NTFS properly, but it can work with MSDOS-FS, using an installer written to run under Windows (grabbing a level 3 then level 0 volume lock would even let you install a boot manager from Windows). -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 1:31:43 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from obsecurity.dyndns.org (adsl-64-165-226-239.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net [64.165.226.239]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 339E737B400 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 01:31:39 -0800 (PST) Received: by obsecurity.dyndns.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id B0E5A66C39; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 01:31:38 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 01:31:38 -0800 From: Kris Kennaway To: advocacy@FreeBSD.org Subject: [burnscharlesn@hotmail.com: Advocacy help for CS professor] Message-ID: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG ----- Forwarded message from Charles Burns ----- Delivered-To: kkenn@localhost.obsecurity.org Delivered-To: kris@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Originating-IP: [68.6.86.185] From: "Charles Burns" To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Advocacy help for CS professor Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 23:41:47 -0700 X-OriginalArrivalTime: 22 Mar 2002 06:41:48.0377 (UTC) FILETIME=[A426E490:01C1D16C] List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: b5916a8ade03ee9c6749c0138e7e7097 X-jf: 20020307, 1:1,2:1,3:1,4:1,ad:1,bo:1,di:1,do:1,he:1,ip:1,us:0 I have a CD professor who has a masters in CS and EET from a top 50 university yet is enveloped in the Microsoft way of life. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, he is indirectly advocating Windows over Unix for all tasks based on knowledge from the Unix of years ago. Alot has changed! Showing him that Unix (BSD/Linux, etc) make a great server is easy, but Unix is now a great desktop platform as well. This is what I need help with. I have written several advocacy messages myself, but they are typically targeted to people setting up servers. I would like to make some specific arguments that will show him that Unix is worth giving a try, and if he doesn't like it, fine, his choice. He is willing to read what I have to say about it and listen to me as a peer, and considering his position as the head of the CS department, this could benefit FreeBSD and Unix in general (if you are interested in that sort of thing). This person has the following additude: - Microsoft has money, therefore can buy the best programmers, therefore has the best products. - Microsoft is very successful, therefore has the best products (though he is not using the popularity alone as an argument as he does have extensive knowledge of logic) - OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft programmers, because Microsoft sponsors such things as nat'l programming competitions and hires the winners/hires the best of class from top universities, etc. I need specific reasons and hopefully links (not to slashdot, to reputable neutral news sites and such). OSS has Greenman, DeRaadt, Torvalds, Hubbard, Lehey, and others which are certainly among the top 100 programmers on earth. How to prove, though? I have pointed out that academics and contest winners are different from people that naturally love to code, but he is in a commercial mindset. I have seen many great logical abstractions of this concept on various sites, but finding them would be impossible. - He is using examples of MS products being superior to other Windows products, examples in which he is right. Netscape 4.7* vs. IE4--No comparison. MS Office vs everything else--for it's intended audience, it really is the best. Media player, etc. He quoted Outlook Express, but being in the field he uses Eudora because of OE's jaw-dropping security record. I already made the Evolution comparison, but I really need more examples in which an OSS Unux product is superior. ----Note that I am not trying to convince him that Unix makes a better overall desktop, or that OSS software is necessarily the best, only that there are many great OSS apps-some of which are better than MS counterparts, and that he should give it a try. (he is busy and doesn't want to waste time on something that he is pretty sure will suck) - He says Unix is fragmented, therefore cannot have a unified vision and focus, and that this automatically makes it inferior to Windows which is under one company with theoretically one vision and focus.(to own everything :-) I have already made some arguments and given some examples, but I would greatly appreciate any compact and strong anecdotes, facts, quotes, examples, theories, logical proofs, rhetorical questions, etc. that apply. Please don't tell me that Windows really is a better desktop OS--whether it is or not isn't the point. Thanks ahead of time. _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message ----- End forwarded message ----- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 3:14:48 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mailsrv.otenet.gr (mailsrv.otenet.gr [195.170.0.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 05F0837B400 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 03:14:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from hades.hell.gr (patr530-b133.otenet.gr [212.205.244.141]) by mailsrv.otenet.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g2MBEROQ015711; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 13:14:28 +0200 (EET) Received: from hades.hell.gr (hades [127.0.0.1]) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g2MBEQbe027303; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 13:14:26 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Received: (from charon@localhost) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2/Submit) id g2MBClPh027170; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 13:12:47 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 13:12:46 +0200 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: advocacy@freebsd.org Cc: Charles Burns Subject: Re: Advocacy help for CS professor Message-ID: <20020322111245.GA26042@hades.hell.gr> References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: application/pgp; x-action=sign; format=text Content-Disposition: inline; filename="msg.pgp" In-Reply-To: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Charles Burns wrote: > > This person has the following additude: > > - Microsoft has money, therefore can buy the best programmers, therefore > has the best products. This a flawed argument, I'm afraid. Microsoft does have a lot of money. It can therefore pay the programmers a large amount. This does not make their programmers 'the best' though. It merely means that they are paid larger amounts than what they would receive in other positions. This, combined with the fact that 'the best programmer' is a very hard thing to define in a way that satisfies both Microsoft's criteria and your professor's criteria (not to mention, the requirements that third parties might have), is hopefully enough to show that this is a flawed argument. Is the 'product quality' always something proportional to the amount of money paid for the job? I am not so sure. > - Microsoft is very successful, therefore has the best products (though > he is not using the popularity alone as an argument as he does have > extensive knowledge of logic) Again, is the success of a company as a commercial entity, something that can be used as a measure of product quality? We, humans, are not always cynical objective tradesmen, and do not always use the best tool for a job. There are at times various reasons for using inferior tools for getting a given job done. Some of these could be a) the rest of the team that I'm part of uses tool B, so I don't care if A is better, since I have to use the same tools like the rest to interoperate, or b) I know that B is probably faster, easier, lighter, better than A, but I like using A because it allows me to have a picture of my girlfriend as a background image. Other reasons for using inferior products are probably into play in many areas of our lives. For instance, we should never underestimate the power of advertisement and good marketting. It can probably be proven that car model A is faster and safer to use than model B, but there are people who would buy B anyway, because B is what they usually see when they open a magazine. > - OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft programmers, > because Microsoft sponsors such things as nat'l programming competitions > and hires the winners/hires the best of class from top universities, etc. This is probably a vicious self-preservingn cycle. Programmers that will take part in Microsoft competitions are those that already use Microsoft's products to solve problems. Therefore, it's programmers that already use Microsoft's products that will eventually win those competitions. Without trying to lessen the Windows programmer of the field, I think that these are not the only knowledgeable programmers out there. The fact that some Windows programmers are good at their work, doesn't necessarily mean that there exist no other programmers who are also good in their work. > OSS has Greenman, DeRaadt, Torvalds, Hubbard, Lehey, and others which are > certainly among the top 100 programmers on earth. How to prove, though? See above. All these are people who know their stuff, and they know it well. The fact that they are not using Microsoft's products, does not in any way lessen the value of their knowledge. They are experts, but in a different part of the computer related technology. > - He is using examples of MS products being superior to other Windows > products, examples in which he is right. Netscape 4.7* vs. IE4--No > comparison. MS Office vs everything else--for it's intended audience, it > really is the best. Media player, etc. He quoted Outlook Express, but > being in the field he uses Eudora because of OE's jaw-dropping security > record. I already made the Evolution comparison, but I really need more > examples in which an OSS Unux product is superior. Note that someone who contributes to open source projects might, and will usually have more reasons to 'create' stuff than money. However, since open source developers are also humans, they do need to work too. The fact that they like working on open source projects is not always based on their belief that all programs should be non-commercial and given away for free. It is not hatred for the commercial world that drives the forces of open source. It is the need to be 'open'. The people who work on open source projects like the fact that they can 'see the code', understand how it works, and extend it as the need arises to do their work. Apart from the reduced costs for obtaning the product (in binary or source form), safety, security, extensibility, modularity, the different design of OSS products, interoperability, and maintainability are some of the advantages that draw developers closer to open source. So, this is not all about money. Safety & security It is hard to implement 'hidden features' in a program whose source is readily available for anyone to read. We have read many times on the Web and elsewhere about 'hidden Easter eggs' in commercial programs. From a security standpoint, this is plainly *unacceptable*. Who can guarantee to you as the end-user of a commercial product that the programs you are using do not have 'hidden features' that the vendor can use to retrieve information that is private, personal and very important to you? Who can guarantee that there are no hidden features that can be exploited, by third parties (excluding you and the vendor of the code), to obtain, modify or otherwise influence information that belongs to you and only to you? Extensibility It is easier to extend a program, when it's source is available. One can argue that commercial products usually provide ways to extend their basic, out of the box functionality. This is not always true though. The ways that a program can be extended and improved are limited by the interfaces that the vendor has chosen to provide, and are also limited by the design decisions of the vendor. Different design & interoperability Open source programs are designed and built in more modular ways. Every program is designed to do one thing, and do it well. This is assisted by the fact that other open source programs are easy to work with. Commercial products tend to become monolithic monsters that strive to conquer the world. This is an interesting side-effect of the fact that commercial vendors can not work together to develop solutions and products that interoperate smoothly. They try to hide the way their products work, because this is what they bet on to make money. On the other hand, open source programmers have nothing to hide. The source of their programs is there, right in front of the critisizing eyes of all the interested programmers, to read, check, test, debug and stress to the point of breakage. Knowing how an open source product works, is very helpful and allows programmers of other open source products to write programs that work together in a much more smooth and clean manner. They don't have to "guess" how to make their programs work together. Commercial vendors do not always have this luxury. This results in open source programs that can work together, in clean, well defined, standard ways, and commercial products that are closed, black boxes, that might or might not work together, depending on the design decisions made by the vendors when they wrote their programs. Being not as easily extensible, as outlined above, doesn't help much with this either. Maintainability This is probably an advantage that is more appealing to users of commercial products that provide value added services or products of their own. For instance, companies that base their products on the products of another company. It does happen at times, that a company A uses a product of company B, to do something. Then company B falls off the face of the earth, and as it disappears, it leaves company A with the following choises: 1. To stop using the products of the (now gone) company B, and start looking for some other company C, on whose products they can base their work on. 2. To develop a replacement of B's products in-house, because they can not afford to throw away all the investments they have made to make their favorite product work. This is a true senario, which I've seen happen at least twice, in two different companies. And it's not that I've been working for too long. A couple of years was enough to let me see what happens when a company shuts down, and stops selling their products. If, and this is a big requirement, the B company had opened their source, then company A could continue developing their own products, even if company B stopped supporting them. Hiring contractors to extend an open source program, is usually cheaper than throwing away an entire product line, and starting a new one, based on a new vendor's commercial products. You can probably come up with other reasons why open source program is better to use at times. The http://www.opensource.org/ site has a few interesting essays on the topic. You may find it amusing or useful to see what others have to say about the commercial vs. open source quality topic. > - He says Unix is fragmented, therefore cannot have a unified vision and > focus, and that this automatically makes it inferior to Windows which is > under one company with theoretically one vision and focus.(to own > everything :-) This is partially true. The UNIX world in general, includes such diverse and different members as Minix, Linux's many distributions, BSD Unix in it's many incarnations, like BSD/OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD, SunOS & Solaris, AIX, IRIX, HP/UX, Xenix, Ultrix, SCO, and a ton of other UNIXes that I forgot or haven't heard of. The Windows world is not less fragmented though. It's been through changes of lesser or bigger importance, from Windows 3.0, 3.1 & 3.11, then Windows 95, 98 & NT, up to the current Windows NT, 2000, ME, and XP with their Professional, Desktop, Server editions, or what have you... What is important to note here, is that UNIX versions can and usually do interoperate nicely. They do have incompatibilities that will bite the unwary administrator or user. But this is something that can also be said about the different Windows versions, so the 'fragmentation' argument equally applies to the Windows part of the world. If you are still reading, after this long post, thanks for your attention :) Cheers, Giorgos Keramidas FreeBSD Documentation Project keramida@{freebsd.org,ceid.upatras.gr} http://www.FreeBSD.org/docproj/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE8mxGt1g+UGjGGA7YRAqGCAJ4uVQ+bFuFaVqGOSnu4g/6mP6Z1qACdFzRl SlXhVCwQ0/L1qWujyAPWuMs= =4UtC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 7:58:11 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from pittgoth.com (14.zlnp1.xdsl.nauticom.net [209.195.149.111]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A70037B404 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 07:57:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from pittgoth.com (lcl234.zbzoom.net [208.236.36.234]) by pittgoth.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g2MFwsq36921; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 10:58:54 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from darklogik@pittgoth.com) Message-ID: <3C9B571F.1090101@pittgoth.com> Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:09:03 -0500 From: Tom Rhodes Reply-To: darklogik@pittgoth.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.7) Gecko/20011221 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Giorgos Keramidas Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, Charles Burns Subject: Re: Advocacy help for CS professor References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> <20020322111245.GA26042@hades.hell.gr> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Good morning brother Giorgos and community member Charles Burns, recently the following issue has come up which I think requires my reply or at least my attention. Also, for those of you who are humor or friendship impaired Giorgos is not really my brother ;) > > Charles Burns wrote: > >>This person has the following additude: >> >>- Microsoft has money, therefore can buy the best programmers, therefore >>has the best products. >> This right here, and I don't really understand why, really really upsets me... Why doesn't MS have Marshall Kirk McKusick? I mean, this guy is smart! Simple, because many of the so-called best programmers do not really want to work for MS... Hell, even I outsmarted the MS tech support many times over... And if the hire the ``best'' then why was their DNS software misconfigured? Their OWN software!!! By their OWN trained technicians!!! Surely you remember the 3-days of downtime that hit a few months ago where Microsoft admitted that they misconfigured their own software... And it took them how many days to get it working, they finally gave up and sent it over to another company, who has been running it perfectly fine since... Read more at Wired.com, just search for Microsoft, and it was a few months ago... >>- Microsoft is very successful, therefore has the best products (though >>he is not using the popularity alone as an argument as he does have >>extensive knowledge of logic) >> I don't eat meat, but lets have some fun... WOW!! I guess we should all eat ball park hotdogs cause that one basket ball player eats them, and tells us that they are great... I'll tell myself whats great thank you very much... And apologies that this is a more american product marketing scheme, but this is the point i'm trying to make: Microsoft has a huge popularity with many of my In Real Life friends, mainly you hear them associated with things like ``money hungry'' and ``unknowledgeable technicians'' and of course ``monopoly'' but the list goes on and on. If your professor has a REAL sence of this ``logic'' then he would not bash something or put it down until he's tried it. To be honest, I didn't think it was right for a professor to make remarks of this kind, but what do I know right... I know that all of the professors that i've ever talked to understood one thing, personal opinion... Most of them actually liked *NIX because if gave them the developement environment and power that they needed! You cannot judge a product by the success of a company... Would you buy a car that failed all the safety tests, just because the company is sucessful with its other cars?! I wouldn't! Every company is bound to have a ``bad'' product. You cannot simply have a flawless record, why, because everyone is human, and humans are prone to mistakes... >>- OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft programmers, >>because Microsoft sponsors such things as nat'l programming competitions >>and hires the winners/hires the best of class from top universities, etc. >> Even if I had a PHD in computer science and knew every programming language in-out like the back of my hand, I would NEVER take part in in a competition like this... People have more uses than programming, look at me for instance! I do not understand much about code, but i'm very good with hardware, and I can explain things in depth... I support the FreeBSD project by helping them with their documentation efforts, and Operating System isn't worth anything if you do not have understandable and knowledgeable people writing this documentation... Now! If I can just get my spelling better ;) >>OSS has Greenman, DeRaadt, Torvalds, Hubbard, Lehey, and others which are >>certainly among the top 100 programmers on earth. How to prove, though? >> >>being in the field he uses Eudora because of OE's jaw-dropping security >>record. I already made the Evolution comparison, but I really need more Microsoft has always had this dark cloud known as (security issues) just raining over their heads... Personally, I won't trust anything from MS, just because I do not wish for critical or important information to be leaked > > The Windows world is not less fragmented though. It's been through changes > of lesser or bigger importance, from Windows 3.0, 3.1 & 3.11, then Windows > 95, 98 & NT, up to the current Windows NT, 2000, ME, and XP with their > Professional, Desktop, Server editions, or what have you... Backward compatibility!!! Where I work they wanted to throw XP on my main workstation (this one) which currently and unfortunatly has Windows 98. I'm scared to have XP on here, not just because its a resource hog and insecure, and the interface bugs me, but what if say, a boring day comes along and I want to play doom? Will doom work on XP (I've never tried it), will other windows programs that i've grown used to sigfaulting, sigfault in the same way on XP, or will it be worse... I know thats sort of a humorous answer, but hell... > > If you are still reading, after this long post, > thanks for your attention :) Your welcome, it was a very interesting arguement, and I felt bad about snipping it ;) Maybe the advocacy page could have another part where your information is thrown in... Maybe we could have a quick let loose on the advocacy mailing list for ``best arguements on why FreeBSD is a great Operating System'' and even a ``What has FreeBSD done for you'' area ;) Opinions? I will not paste your information without any authorization... As if a request was even required... > > Cheers, > > Giorgos Keramidas FreeBSD Documentation Project > keramida@{freebsd.org,ceid.upatras.gr} http://www.FreeBSD.org/docproj/ -- Tom (Darklogik) Rhodes www.Pittgoth.com Gothic Liberation Front www.FreeBSD.org The Power To Serve To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 8: 8:13 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from 1upmc-msximc2.isdip.upmc.edu (1upmc-msximc2.isdip.upmc.edu [128.147.18.40]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DE95437B41A for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 08:07:57 -0800 (PST) Received: by 1upmc-msximc2.isdip.upmc.edu with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2655.55) id ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:07:55 -0500 Message-ID: <46AEB8C1B628D511969200508B6FE42A088D8A64@1upmc-msx6.isdip.upmc.edu> From: "Person, Roderick" To: 'Kris Kennaway' Cc: "'advocacy@freebsd.org'" Subject: RE: [burnscharlesn@hotmail.com: Advocacy help for CS professor] Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:07:56 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2655.55) Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C1D1BB.BAF59230" Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. ------_=_NextPart_001_01C1D1BB.BAF59230 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > - Microsoft has money, therefore can buy the best > programmers, therefore has > the best products. I hate to say it but in general, I think your professor arguments are more geared toward 'The Business Aspect' of microsoft than the 'technical' side of things. This assumes that every programmer in the world focus is money. Not everyone has a price that will make them work for an 'entity' that the disagree with. Also, what is the definition of 'best' here? I would think the 'best' in the case of any company is the best fit for the company. The programmer that is going to bend to you paradigm, otherwise you have a disgruntled employee that can do more harm than good. > - Microsoft is very successful, therefore has the best > products (though he is not using the popularity alone as an argument as he does > have extensive knowledge of logic) This too is a business argument. Hell there are more Garbage men than Presidents so Garbage man must be a better job!? Most people who use Microsoft Win-whatever did not even buy it, came with the computer so that's what you got. That what they use it easier to stick. In the business world you got a herd mentallity -every ones doing it so why don't we. Even though there are programs that can output documents in MS format people want to follow the heard. > - OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft > programmers, because Microsoft sponsors such things as nat'l programming > competitions and hires the winners/hires the best of class from top > universities, etc. I don't know anything about MS programming contest. So I can't speak to that. But I think you should try and find out about code MS is using that came from Open Source projects like the FreeBSD TCP stacks they use. > - He is using examples of MS products being superior to other Windows > products, examples in which he is right. Netscape 4.7* vs. IE4--No > comparison. MS Office vs everything else--for it's intended > audience, it really is the best. Media player, etc. He quoted Outlook > Express, but being in the field he uses Eudora because of OE's jaw-dropping > security record. I already made the Evolution comparison, but I really need more > examples in which an OSS Unux product is superior. Again what is the definition of better or best for applications. Netscape vs IE what makes one better than the other Speed, Reliablity , customization? MS Office, it's really is the best? Why? There are things I can do in Star Office that I can't do in MS Office there are things in WordPerfect that can't be done in MS Office. So whay is it superior - because more people use it? > - He says Unix is fragmented, therefore cannot have a unified > vision and focus, and that this automatically makes it inferior to > Windows which is under one company with theoretically one vision and focus.(to > own everything > :-) UNIX is no more fragmented than, OS/2 and Windows are fragmented. He is thinking of all the 'unix based' companies as a whole instead of each company as an entity of itself. I hope you have luck with your professor and when your done I'd like to hear how it went and what you wrote. Rod... Roderick P. Person Programmer II personrp@ccbh.com "People that spend a large amount of time with me, tend to find me disagreeable." ------_=_NextPart_001_01C1D1BB.BAF59230 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable RE: [burnscharlesn@hotmail.com: Advocacy help for CS = professor]

> - Microsoft has money, therefore can buy the = best
> programmers, therefore has
> the best products.

I hate to say it but in general, I think your = professor arguments are more geared toward 'The Business Aspect' of = microsoft than the 'technical' side of things. This assumes that every = programmer in the world focus is money. Not everyone has a price that = will make them work for an 'entity' that the disagree with. Also, what = is the definition of 'best' here? I would think the 'best' in the case = of any company is the best fit for the company. The programmer that is = going to bend to you paradigm, otherwise you have a disgruntled = employee that can do more harm than good.


> - Microsoft is very successful, therefore has = the best
> products (though he is not using the popularity = alone as an argument as he does
> have extensive knowledge of logic)

This too is a business argument. Hell there are more = Garbage men than Presidents so Garbage man must be a better job!? Most = people who use Microsoft Win-whatever did not even buy it, came with = the computer so that's what you got. That what they use it easier to = stick. In the business world you got a herd mentallity -every ones = doing it so why don't we. Even though there are programs that can = output documents in MS format people want to follow the = heard.

> - OSS programmers could not possibly be as good = as Microsoft
> programmers, because Microsoft sponsors such = things as nat'l programming
> competitions and hires the winners/hires the = best of class from top
> universities, etc.

I don't know anything about MS programming contest. = So I can't speak to that. But I think you should try and find out about = code MS is using that came from Open Source projects like the FreeBSD = TCP stacks they use.


> - He is using examples of MS products being = superior to other Windows
> products, examples in which he is right. = Netscape 4.7* vs. IE4--No
> comparison. MS Office vs everything else--for = it's intended
> audience, it really is the best. Media player, = etc. He quoted Outlook
> Express, but being in the field he uses Eudora = because of OE's jaw-dropping
> security record. I already made the Evolution = comparison, but I really need more
> examples in which an OSS Unux product is = superior.

Again what is the definition of better or best for = applications. Netscape vs IE what makes one better than the other = Speed, Reliablity , customization? MS Office, it's really is the best? = Why? There are things I can do in Star Office that I can't do in MS = Office there are things in WordPerfect that can't be done in MS Office. = So whay is it superior - because more people use it?

> - He says Unix is fragmented, therefore cannot = have a unified
> vision and focus, and that this automatically = makes it inferior to
> Windows which is under one company with = theoretically one vision and focus.(to
> own everything > :-)
 
UNIX is no more fragmented than, OS/2 and Windows = are fragmented. He is thinking of all the 'unix based' companies as a = whole instead of each company as an entity of itself.


I hope you have luck with your professor  and = when your done I'd like to hear how it went and what you wrote.
 


Rod...

Roderick P. Person
Programmer II
personrp@ccbh.com

"People that spend a large amount of time with = me, tend to find me disagreeable."

------_=_NextPart_001_01C1D1BB.BAF59230-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 9:37:10 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from sherline.net (sherline.net [216.203.226.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id BAD8A37B41A for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 09:37:01 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 23912 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2002 17:30:14 -0000 Received: from ip68-8-235-4.sd.sd.cox.net (HELO cptnhosedonkey) (68.8.235.4) by sherline.net with SMTP; 22 Mar 2002 17:30:14 -0000 Message-ID: <001101c1d1c7$67cf4ae0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> From: "Jeremiah Gowdy" To: , "Giorgos Keramidas" Cc: , "Charles Burns" References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> <20020322111245.GA26042@hades.hell.gr> <3C9B571F.1090101@pittgoth.com> Subject: Re: Advocacy help for CS professor Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 09:31:30 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > This right here, and I don't really understand why, really really > upsets me... Why doesn't MS have Marshall Kirk McKusick? I mean, this > guy is smart! Simple, because many of the so-called best programmers do > not really want to work for MS... Hell, even I outsmarted the MS tech > support many times over... And if the hire the ``best'' then why was > their DNS software misconfigured? Their OWN software!!! By their OWN > trained technicians!!! Surely you remember the 3-days of downtime that > hit a few months ago where Microsoft admitted that they misconfigured > their own software... And it took them how many days to get it working, > they finally gave up and sent it over to another company, who has been > running it perfectly fine since... Read more at Wired.com, just search > for Microsoft, and it was a few months ago... There is a big difference between admins and programmers chief (except for those of us who are both). Poking holes in Microsoft's administrators and tech support reps doesn't say very much about their programming staff. The truth is, Microsoft picks up quite a bit of the world's best programming talent. Whether they use that talent wisely, that's a management issue. However, I don't think you're in good standing here when you knock on very talented people, who have completed excellent Computer Science programs at respectable universities. I know that's not all there is to being a good software engineer, but I believe you need to give them the benefit of the doubt and not accuse them of incompetence based on their unrelated other-department coworkers. And as for any incompetence you can point out, keep in mind how much management influences coding (depending on where you work). If the management of their software engineers sucks, they're going to have a hard time putting out good code. But to be honest, Microsoft DOES put out awesome software sometimes. The Age of Empires series of games was flawless and made a mockery of the pathing engine in most other overhead strat games. Office 2000/XP is the cornerstone of a majority of businesses today. Whether you like the program or not, you have to admit, some powerful coding went into that. If Microsoft's programmers were as stupid as everyone tries to make them out to be, they wouldn't have any successful products. I just don't like to see people blindly bashing the _programmers_ at Microsoft, for what are most likely management issues. I like to think I'm a computer scientist first, and all of the people in the computer science field are my colleagues. Other computer scientists are worthy of some respect until you find some real evidence that they're not. That you outsmarted MS Tech Support, and that they outsourced their DNS, are not very good reasons to knock programmers. There are some valid reasons to bash Microsoft programmers, and I'm sure someone will point them out, but you haven't found them yet. I don't mean any personal offense to you, but I just find empty bashing of software engineers to be very distasteful. If software engineers were the beginning and the end of all software development, then you could knock on them. However, with management, marketing, design teams, etc etc etc, it's a group effort. > I don't eat meat, but lets have some fun... WOW!! I guess we should all > eat ball park hotdogs cause that one basket ball player eats them, and > tells us that they are great... I'll tell myself whats great thank you > very much... And apologies that this is a more american product > marketing scheme, but this is the point i'm trying to make: > > Microsoft has a huge popularity with many of my In Real Life friends, > mainly you hear them associated with things like ``money hungry'' and > ``unknowledgeable technicians'' and of course ``monopoly'' but the list > goes on and on. Hahahha. Thank you, you've just brightened my day with a little humor. In one paragraph you are refusing to be a follower and allow marketing techniques to make you eat a certain brand of hot dogs, but in the next paragraph you're spouting what you hear Microsoft associated with. That would be sad if it wasn't so funny. You'll decide for yourself what hot dogs you're going to eat, but you'll let people tell you that Microsoft is "bad." At least you have your priorities straight. (hot dogs > software) > >>- OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft programmers, > >>because Microsoft sponsors such things as nat'l programming competitions > >>and hires the winners/hires the best of class from top universities, etc. The statement (not made by the person I'm responding to), is obviously false logic to anyone who is educated. You're making a statement, "OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft programmers", and then backing it up by stating how Microsoft acquires good programmers. At no time do you describe why that means OSS cannot have equally as good programmers. I'm not sure if this is ad Ignorantiam or False Cause. Anyone smarter than I am care to point out the fallacy of inductive logic in this sentence? > Backward compatibility!!! Where I work they wanted to throw XP on my > main workstation (this one) which currently and unfortunatly has > Windows 98. I'm scared to have XP on here, not just because its > a resource hog and insecure, and the interface bugs me, but what if > say, a boring day comes along and I want to play doom? Will doom work > on XP (I've never tried it), will other windows programs that i've > grown used to sigfaulting, sigfault in the same way on XP, or will it > be worse... I know thats sort of a humorous answer, but hell... Well, since you're speaking somewhat out of (admitted) ignorance there, I'll tell you, Windows XP is far more stable than Windows 98, and it will run Doom just fine. Have a blast. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 9:38:22 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from sherline.net (sherline.net [216.203.226.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 7508B37B41A for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 09:38:09 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 24065 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2002 17:38:07 -0000 Received: from ip68-8-235-4.sd.sd.cox.net (HELO cptnhosedonkey) (68.8.235.4) by sherline.net with SMTP; 22 Mar 2002 17:38:07 -0000 Message-ID: <001b01c1d1c8$8203b530$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> From: "Jeremiah Gowdy" To: "Terry Lambert" Cc: "Bean" , References: <001001c1d105$3473a3c0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> <3C9A66D5.432DDF14@mindspring.com> <000901c1d148$e2f45b40$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> <3C9ACB9F.861D2999@mindspring.com> Subject: Re: Review of the FreeBSD advocacy site Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 09:39:24 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > For the "test drive", all you would need to do is unpack into > an FS mountable from FreeBSD, and deal with it. It won't work > with Windows XP, because FreeBSD can't write NTFS properly, > but it can work with MSDOS-FS, using an installer written to > run under Windows (grabbing a level 3 then level 0 volume lock > would even let you install a boot manager from Windows). Not a bad idea at all Terry. Perhaps we could have a preconfigured MFS image that could be downloaded, then either use the bootfbsd.exe or add a boot sector image to the boot.ini, depending on if they're running Windows 9x/ME or Windows NT/2K/XP. If you could give them psuedo-multibooting with an MFS image, that would be nice. The problem is, can you load an MFS image off an NTFS or FAT partition. I know people could just download the CD or floppy disks, but you and I both know people would be more likely to use some InstallShield like setup.exe, that made them a multi-boot setup. It would be very easy to uninstall too. There's some potential there, no doubt. Good idea. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 10:19:35 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from pittgoth.com (14.zlnp1.xdsl.nauticom.net [209.195.149.111]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BCC3337B41A for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 10:19:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from pittgoth.com (lcl234.zbzoom.net [208.236.36.234]) by pittgoth.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g2MIKFq37095; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 13:20:15 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from darklogik@pittgoth.com) Message-ID: <3C9B7840.6000409@pittgoth.com> Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 13:30:24 -0500 From: Tom Rhodes Reply-To: darklogik@pittgoth.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.7) Gecko/20011221 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jeremiah Gowdy Cc: Giorgos Keramidas , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, Charles Burns Subject: Re: Advocacy help for CS professor References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> <20020322111245.GA26042@hades.hell.gr> <3C9B571F.1090101@pittgoth.com> <001101c1d1c7$67cf4ae0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Jeremiah Gowdy wrote: >>This right here, and I don't really understand why, really really >>upsets me... Why doesn't MS have Marshall Kirk McKusick? I mean, this >>guy is smart! Simple, because many of the so-called best programmers do >>not really want to work for MS... Hell, even I outsmarted the MS tech >>support many times over... And if the hire the ``best'' then why was >>their DNS software misconfigured? Their OWN software!!! By their OWN >>trained technicians!!! Surely you remember the 3-days of downtime that >>hit a few months ago where Microsoft admitted that they misconfigured >>their own software... And it took them how many days to get it working, >>they finally gave up and sent it over to another company, who has been >>running it perfectly fine since... Read more at Wired.com, just search >>for Microsoft, and it was a few months ago... >> > > There is a big difference between admins and programmers chief (except for > those of us who are both). Poking holes in Microsoft's administrators and > tech support reps doesn't say very much about their programming staff. The > truth is, Microsoft picks up quite a bit of the world's best programming > talent. Whether they use that talent wisely, that's a management issue. > However, I don't think you're in good standing here when you knock on very > talented people, who have completed excellent Computer Science programs at > respectable universities. I know that's not all there is to being a good > software engineer, but I believe you need to give them the benefit of the > doubt and not accuse them of incompetence based on their unrelated > other-department coworkers. And as for any incompetence you can point out, > keep in mind how much management influences coding (depending on where you > work). If the management of their software engineers sucks, they're going > to have a hard time putting out good code. But to be honest, Microsoft DOES > put out awesome software sometimes. The Age of Empires series of games was > flawless and made a mockery of the pathing engine in most other overhead > strat games. Office 2000/XP is the cornerstone of a majority of businesses > today. Whether you like the program or not, you have to admit, some > powerful coding went into that. If Microsoft's programmers were as stupid > as everyone tries to make them out to be, they wouldn't have any successful > products. I just don't like to see people blindly bashing the _programmers_ > at Microsoft, for what are most likely management issues. I like to think > I'm a computer scientist first, and all of the people in the computer > science field are my colleagues. Other computer scientists are worthy of > some respect until you find some real evidence that they're not. That you > outsmarted MS Tech Support, and that they outsourced their DNS, are not very > good reasons to knock programmers. There are some valid reasons to bash > Microsoft programmers, and I'm sure someone will point them out, but you > haven't found them yet. > > I don't mean any personal offense to you, but I just find empty bashing of > software engineers to be very distasteful. If software engineers were the > beginning and the end of all software development, then you could knock on > them. However, with management, marketing, design teams, etc etc etc, it's > a group effort. My point here was not really to bash them, but to prove the arguement, ``this world is capable of having alot of smart people that do not current or who may never work at Microsoft. I am sorry if you took offence however, bashing them wasn't really my point. Looking at it from an even more different angle, you could say ``with over a million programmers, Microsoft cannot have the best, its just a impossible feat'' I do not see any one company being capable of grabbing up the best of the breed throughout the world... If the professor in question is a programmer, and if he is really good, ask him if Microsoft has ever offered him a job. If he is a really good programmer, and by the way he sounds (seems to make himself up to be the best) why not ask him that... Many times you can turn a situation around to prove a point to otherwise ignorant people, example from today at work, the monopoly thing came up, and a coworker said ``well, thats biz, to either buy out a company and take their clients, or to scheme up some sort of company team effort to put another company out of biz is perfectly fair play'' and I said, reverse the situation, you would not like it, if another company sprung up down the street, and then bought us out, which may cost you that job you value. Maybe it is how things work, but I find it very unfair... I also found it very aggrovating last week when I called IBM to purhcase a laptop and they refused to ship a laptop with either linux or a formatted harddrive! It had to come with WindowsXP, and I replied very friendly ``I do not want XP, I want to buy a computer, I want my choice as a customer, can you provide me with my choice?'' and I got smacked with a very unfortunate no. I find that wrong, I find it ignorant, in America we are apperently to have the freedom of choice, if I do not want to pay that $100 (somewhere around there) for software that has no real use to me, why should I? > > >>I don't eat meat, but lets have some fun... WOW!! I guess we should all >>eat ball park hotdogs cause that one basket ball player eats them, and >>tells us that they are great... I'll tell myself whats great thank you >>very much... And apologies that this is a more american product >>marketing scheme, but this is the point i'm trying to make: >> >>Microsoft has a huge popularity with many of my In Real Life friends, >>mainly you hear them associated with things like ``money hungry'' and >>``unknowledgeable technicians'' and of course ``monopoly'' but the list >>goes on and on. >> > > Hahahha. Thank you, you've just brightened my day with a little humor. > > In one paragraph you are refusing to be a follower and allow marketing > techniques to make you eat a certain brand of hot dogs, but in the next > paragraph you're spouting what you hear Microsoft associated with. That > would be sad if it wasn't so funny. You'll decide for yourself what hot > dogs you're going to eat, but you'll let people tell you that Microsoft is > "bad." At least you have your priorities straight. (hot dogs > software) > > Actually no, the point i'll make here is (I will not let him tell me what to eat and I will not let people tell me that I must use Microsoft) My friends are mostly Linux users, but you don't see me using Linux (at least if you knew me in person)... I mean, sure, i'll go in with a bit of ms bashing because I don't like this, or that, but I won't let someone tell me what software to use. Just like my eating habits, people think i'm wierd because I don't eat meat, whats wrong with not eating meat? People do it all over the world, I am this way because its my choice. Maybe I should have retyped this to give more of an idea about my point, but I did not, and apologise that it did not come out to right. You are right (now that I reread that) I honestly should have said that told me a few times Linux is better... I don't like Linux, its my personal opinion, I don't like Microsoft, thats my personal opinion. And i'm straying off topic here, so i'll shut up ;) set topic > professor >>>>- OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft >>>> > programmers, > >>>>because Microsoft sponsors such things as nat'l programming competitions >>>>and hires the winners/hires the best of class from top universities, >>>> > etc. > > > The statement (not made by the person I'm responding to), is obviously false > logic to anyone who is educated. You're making a statement, "OSS > programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft programmers", and > then backing it up by stating how Microsoft acquires good programmers. At > no time do you describe why that means OSS cannot have equally as good > programmers. I'm not sure if this is ad Ignorantiam or False Cause. Anyone > smarter than I am care to point out the fallacy of inductive logic in this > sentence? I don't see logic... How many people partake in these ``contests''? I really want to know. Does it include anyone who attends the university, what about graduates? What about people who did graduate already from say, last year? What about people who are still a senior in high school, but have been programming since their 9th grade year (my friend could, it is possible)? Surely this contest would be limited as only to be availible to only a few individuals... Although, I've never seen one of these so I am not really sure if they let anyone who wants to try take a turn... Don't forget the one sentance in the last email where the professor loves outlook express but will not use it in the field because of the security... That just really lost me ;) > > >>Backward compatibility!!! Where I work they wanted to throw XP on my >>main workstation (this one) which currently and unfortunatly has >>Windows 98. I'm scared to have XP on here, not just because its >>a resource hog and insecure, and the interface bugs me, but what if >>say, a boring day comes along and I want to play doom? Will doom work >>on XP (I've never tried it), will other windows programs that i've >>grown used to sigfaulting, sigfault in the same way on XP, or will it >>be worse... I know thats sort of a humorous answer, but hell... >> > > Well, since you're speaking somewhat out of (admitted) ignorance there, I'll > tell you, Windows XP is far more stable than Windows 98, and it will run > Doom just fine. Have a blast. > > I've used XP a little bit, maybe for complete newbies on windows, but not for me... I still cannot understand how, last time I installed it on a system, that their were avoer 20mb of updates! -- Tom (Darklogik) Rhodes www.Pittgoth.com Gothic Liberation Front www.FreeBSD.org The Power To Serve To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 10:41:30 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mailsrv.otenet.gr (mailsrv.otenet.gr [195.170.0.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5953D37B41B for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 10:41:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from hades.hell.gr (patr530-a070.otenet.gr [212.205.215.70]) by mailsrv.otenet.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g2MIepIg022059; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 20:40:59 +0200 (EET) Received: from hades.hell.gr (hades [127.0.0.1]) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g2MIenbe032616; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 20:40:49 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Received: (from charon@localhost) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2/Submit) id g2MIemXW032615; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 20:40:48 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 20:40:47 +0200 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: Jeremiah Gowdy Cc: advocacy@freebsd.org, Charles Burns Subject: Re: Advocacy help for CS professor Message-ID: <20020322184047.GC31556@hades.hell.gr> References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> <20020322111245.GA26042@hades.hell.gr> <3C9B571F.1090101@pittgoth.com> <001101c1d1c7$67cf4ae0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <001101c1d1c7$67cf4ae0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On 2002-03-22 09:31, Jeremiah Gowdy wrote: > The truth is, Microsoft picks up quite a bit of the world's best > programming talent. Whether they use that talent wisely, that's a > management issue. Let's keep this in mind. They have 'a bit' of the world's best programmers. Not all of them. That needs to be made clear, and this is what I wrote earlier. > I know that's not all there is to being a good software engineer, but I > believe you need to give them the benefit of the doubt and not accuse > them of incompetence based on their unrelated other-department coworkers. Fair is fair. Giorgos Keramidas FreeBSD Documentation Project keramida@{freebsd.org,ceid.upatras.gr} http://www.FreeBSD.org/docproj/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 10:53:54 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from sherline.net (sherline.net [216.203.226.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 3C86237B417 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 10:53:44 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 25037 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2002 18:53:41 -0000 Received: from server.sherline.net (HELO server) (basharteg@216.203.226.3) by sherline.net with SMTP; 22 Mar 2002 18:53:41 -0000 Message-ID: <00cb01c1d1d2$e4cbe6b0$03e2cbd8@server> From: "Server Admin" To: Cc: "Giorgos Keramidas" , , "Charles Burns" References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> <20020322111245.GA26042@hades.hell.gr> <3C9B571F.1090101@pittgoth.com> <001101c1d1c7$67cf4ae0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> <3C9B7840.6000409@pittgoth.com> Subject: Re: Advocacy help for CS professor Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 10:53:45 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > If the professor in question > is a programmer, and if he is really good, ask him if Microsoft has ever > offered him a job. As to this, and your statement about why Dr. McKusick doesn't work for Microsoft (besides the fact that he seems happy doing what he's doing), I don't think Microsoft is looking for as many Ph.Ds, as they are looking for B.S. and M.S. to do the grunt work of turning out the code. So asking why a professor hasn't been offered a job at Microsoft doesn't really apply to much. > Many times you can turn a situation around to prove a point to > otherwise ignorant people, example from today at work, the monopoly > thing came up, and a coworker said ``well, thats biz, to either buy out > a company and take their clients, or to scheme up some sort of company > team effort to put another company out of biz is perfectly fair play'' > and I said, reverse the situation, you would not like it, if another > company sprung up down the street, and then bought us out, which may > cost you that job you value. Maybe it is how things work, but I find it > very unfair... That's capitalism. "Fair" is communism. I don't want to start a big argument over MS business practices, because they did break the law, but it seems to me that crushing the competition isn't a sad thing, like it's some kind of murder of ideas, it's a success of business. Yes, they should be punished for breaking the law, and they are finally owning up to some of the things they did, but you can't hate them for being successful and not playing "fair," if your definition of fair involves not putting other people out of business. > I also found it very aggrovating last week when I called IBM to purhcase > a laptop and they refused to ship a laptop with either linux or a > formatted harddrive! It had to come with WindowsXP, and I replied very > friendly ``I do not want XP, I want to buy a computer, I want my choice > as a customer, can you provide me with my choice?'' and I got smacked > with a very unfortunate no. I find that wrong, I find it ignorant, in > America we are apperently to have the freedom of choice, if I do not > want to pay that $100 (somewhere around there) for software that has no > real use to me, why should I? > > Actually no, the point i'll make here is (I will not let him tell me > what to eat and I will not let people tell me that I must use Microsoft) Exactly, but on the same token, don't let other people tell you that you must not use Microsoft, because that's the same thing. If you're going to decide for yourself, more power to you. But don't be selective about which things you're not going to "lemming." I'm not saying you are, just making a point. > My friends are mostly Linux users, but you don't see me using Linux > (at least if you knew me in person)... I mean, sure, i'll go in with a > bit of ms bashing because I don't like this, or that, but I won't let > someone tell me what software to use. Just like my eating habits, > people think i'm wierd because I don't eat meat, whats wrong with not > eating meat? People do it all over the world, I am this way because its > my choice. Maybe I should have retyped this to give more of an idea > about my point, but I did not, and apologise that it did not come out to > right. You are right (now that I reread that) I honestly should have > said that told me a few times Linux is better... I don't like Linux, its > my personal opinion, I don't like Microsoft, thats my personal opinion. > And i'm straying off topic here, so i'll shut up ;) > I don't see logic... How many people partake in these ``contests''? I > really want to know. Does it include anyone who attends the university, > what about graduates? What about people who did graduate already from > say, last year? What about people who are still a senior in high > school, but have been programming since their 9th grade year (my friend > could, it is possible)? Surely this contest would be limited as only to > be availible to only a few individuals... Although, I've never seen one > of these so I am not really sure if they let anyone who wants to try > take a turn... Well, actually programming contests are pretty old school in computer science. There's certainly nothing wrong with having them. Check out www.topcoder.com, they run contests all the time. When I was in high school, our teacher was entering us in those contests too. For most of them, anyone can participate if they have some kind of organization, high school, or university. Quite a few high schools, universities, and corporations enter programming contests. It's very fun. > I've used XP a little bit, maybe for complete newbies on windows, but not for me... You're just letting the interface fool you. Turn all that theme crap off. Of the Windows out there, XP is pretty much the best, except for maybe 2000. I use 2000 on my desktop at home, but XP on my laptop for it's awesome native 802.11b support. At least use 2k though. > I still cannot understand how, last time I installed it on a system, > that their were avoer 20mb of updates! You ever measure the size of your cvsups ? Nothing wrong with updates. People accuse MS of not fixing their bugs, then when they do, it's too much. :) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 11:17: 8 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from odin.acuson.com (odin.acuson.com [157.226.230.71]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3E9D237B400 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:17:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from mvaexch02.acuson.com ([157.226.230.209]) by odin.acuson.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with ESMTP id AAAFE7; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:17:01 -0800 Received: by mvaexch02.acuson.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:14:52 -0800 Received: from there (dhcp-46-171.acuson.com [157.226.46.171]) by mvaexch01.acuson.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2653.13) id GKG9DBAB; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:05:46 -0800 From: Johnson David To: Kris Kennaway , advocacy@FreeBSD.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Organization: Acuson Subject: Re: [burnscharlesn@hotmail.com: Advocacy help for CS professor] Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:16:51 -0800 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.2] References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> In-Reply-To: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-Id: <20020322191703.3E9D237B400@hub.freebsd.org> Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Friday 22 March 2002 01:31 am, Kris Kennaway wrote: > - Microsoft has money, therefore can buy the best programmers, therefore > has the best products. Microsoft's money is irrelevant. Although it does mean that that can in general hire the best programmers, it does not mean that the best programmers will want to work for Microsoft. Microsoft has hired some damn good programmers, engineers and designers. But they don't have a monopoly on them. They don't even have the majority of them either. GM is bigger than Volkswagon, but that doesn't mean that Volkswagon has to settle for second rate engineers. > - Microsoft is very successful, therefore has the best products (though he > is not using the popularity alone as an argument as he does have extensive > knowledge of logic) Market success has little to do with who has the best products. As a former salesman, I know from intimate experience that business success has little to do with quality. I had more successful competitors with crappy products, and less successful competitors with high quality products. And believe it or not, as unfathomable as this may seem to your professor, what is the best product for one person is not always the best product for everyone. > - OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft programmers, > because Microsoft sponsors such things as nat'l programming competitions > and hires the winners/hires the best of class from top universities, etc. What makes him think that the best of class want to work for Microsoft? I can think of a hundred reason for not working for Microsoft. Not everyone is motivated by money alone. Maybe they don't like the Redmond weather or housing prices. Maybe the area they want to work in doesn't have openings. Maybe they want to work in hardware instead of software. Maybe they want to work for Cisco or IBM, both of whom are much bigger than Microsoft, and more successful in their respective fields. Maybe they don't like big companies and want to work for a tiny ten person outfit. Who are the best ten programmers on Earth? Hard to say, and opinions will vary widely. But I would at least but Knuth and Stepanov in the list, neither of which work for Microsoft. > How to prove, though? I have pointed out that academics and contest > winners are different from people that naturally love to code, but he is in > a commercial mindset. If he is of a commercial mindset, then nothing will dissuade him. He probably thinks McDonald's makes the world's best hamburgers. Let him have his Windows and Big Macs. Having had to use this at work, I have found OE to be the worst email client I have every had the occasion to use. > but I really need more examples in which an OSS Unux product is superior. gcc versus Visual C++. Take out the user interface and Visual C++ sucks. In terms of C++ standards, Visual C++ is downright medieval. Actually, ANY C++ compiler will beat out Visual C++ once you take out the GUI. KDE versus that monstrosity known as the Windows Desktop. (I don't have much experience with Gnome, so I can't comment on it). I'm serious! I'm talking about just the desktop, not the underlying OS. As a desktop, Windows is horrible. The KDE panel runs rings about the Windows taskbar. Its window manager is sensible. It doesn't trash your file associations everytime you install a new program. Etc. Mozilla or Konqueror versus IExplorer. If all you judge by is the number of sites that says "best viewed with IExplorer", or the number of proprietary plugins, then the latter will win. But that only demonstrates the ubiquitousness of IExplorer, not its quality. But if you judge based on usability, adherence to standards, etc., then the former two are at least as good, if not better, than the Microsoft offering. David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 11:27:58 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from odin.acuson.com (odin.acuson.com [157.226.230.71]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CDACC37B426 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:27:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from mvaexch02.acuson.com ([157.226.230.209]) by odin.acuson.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with ESMTP id AAA1334; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:27:48 -0800 Received: by mvaexch02.acuson.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:25:39 -0800 Received: from there (dhcp-46-171.acuson.com [157.226.46.171]) by mvaexch01.acuson.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2653.13) id GKG9DBD6; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:16:33 -0800 From: Johnson David To: darklogik@pittgoth.com Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Organization: Acuson Subject: Re: Advocacy help for CS professor Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:27:38 -0800 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.2] References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> <001101c1d1c7$67cf4ae0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> <3C9B7840.6000409@pittgoth.com> In-Reply-To: <3C9B7840.6000409@pittgoth.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-Id: <20020322192751.CDACC37B426@hub.freebsd.org> Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Friday 22 March 2002 10:30 am, Tom Rhodes wrote: > I also found it very aggrovating last week when I called IBM to purhcase > a laptop and they refused to ship a laptop with either linux or a > formatted harddrive! It had to come with WindowsXP, and I replied very > friendly ``I do not want XP, I want to buy a computer, I want my choice > as a customer, can you provide me with my choice?'' and I got smacked > with a very unfortunate no. I find that wrong, I find it ignorant, in > America we are apperently to have the freedom of choice, if I do not > want to pay that $100 (somewhere around there) for software that has no > real use to me, why should I? Simply tell them "no thank you", and take your business elsewhere. Life is too short to waste arguing with salesman who don't want to sell. You may have to capitulate and buy a laptop with Windows on it. But don't knuckle under to the first dealer that won't deal. David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 12: 1:41 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from pittgoth.com (14.zlnp1.xdsl.nauticom.net [209.195.149.111]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 285EA37B4AE for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 12:00:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (lcl234.zbzoom.net [208.236.36.234]) by pittgoth.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with SMTP id g2MK2tq37280; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 15:02:56 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from darklogik@pittgoth.com) Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 15:08:18 -0500 From: Tom Rhodes To: Johnson David Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Advocacy help for CS professor Message-Id: <20020322150818.2d41ffaa.darklogik@pittgoth.com> In-Reply-To: <200203221930.g2MJUsq37200@pittgoth.com> References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> <001101c1d1c7$67cf4ae0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> <3C9B7840.6000409@pittgoth.com> <200203221930.g2MJUsq37200@pittgoth.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.7.4 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.5) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="0HYOWq(=.wuprx:u" Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG --0HYOWq(=.wuprx:u Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:27:38 -0800 Johnson David wrote: > On Friday 22 March 2002 10:30 am, Tom Rhodes wrote: > > > I also found it very aggrovating last week when I called IBM to > > purhcase a laptop and they refused to ship a laptop with either > > linux or a formatted harddrive! It had to come with WindowsXP, > > and I replied very friendly ``I do not want XP, I want to buy a > > computer, I want my choice as a customer, can you provide me with > > my choice?'' and I got smacked with a very unfortunate no. I find > > that wrong, I find it ignorant, in America we are apperently to > > have the freedom of choice, if I do not want to pay that $100 > > (somewhere around there) for software that has no real use to me, > > why should I? > > Simply tell them "no thank you", and take your business elsewhere. > Life is too short to waste arguing with salesman who don't want to > sell. > > You may have to capitulate and buy a laptop with Windows on it. But > don't knuckle under to the first dealer that won't deal. > > David > hehe, was the third. I tried Dell, HP, IBM, and afterwords I called up Gateway, who told me the same thing. Here is what bothers me a little bit, IBM has put alot of time into linux, and even 1 or more of the FreeBSD Developers work there in the linux dept. I really do not understand that. Dell is another one who started to do it, they put money and/or time and said they would sell with linux, and then just cut it (I read the news about it) So yes, after a talk with the IBM sales person, I was informed that IBM is planning to do it in the future, but it just has not gone through... So, I am looking elsewhere ;) -- Tom (Darklogik) Rhodes www.FreeBSD.org -The Power To Serve www.Pittgoth.com -Pittgoth Discussion Portal --0HYOWq(=.wuprx:u Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE8m481wPmgiRuevUMRAr4QAJkBnjdq2y27sCy4A+jdfCV9uQZsuwCgvMCi atuxVroOPod/PbtLmD2pLsE= =fClN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --0HYOWq(=.wuprx:u-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 14:15:28 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from harrier.prod.itd.earthlink.net (harrier.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.12]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 39B5037B417 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 14:15:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from pool0291.cvx21-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([209.179.193.36] helo=mindspring.com) by harrier.prod.itd.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 16oXJ2-0005ZW-00; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 14:14:41 -0800 Message-ID: <3C9BACBC.3C246723@mindspring.com> Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 14:14:20 -0800 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Sony} (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Server Admin Cc: darklogik@pittgoth.com, Giorgos Keramidas , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, Charles Burns Subject: Re: Advocacy help for CS professor References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> <20020322111245.GA26042@hades.hell.gr> <3C9B571F.1090101@pittgoth.com> <001101c1d1c7$67cf4ae0$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey> <3C9B7840.6000409@pittgoth.com> <00cb01c1d1d2$e4cbe6b0$03e2cbd8@server> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Server Admin wrote: > > If the professor in question > > is a programmer, and if he is really good, ask him if Microsoft has ever > > offered him a job. > > As to this, and your statement about why Dr. McKusick doesn't work for > Microsoft (besides the fact that he seems happy doing what he's doing), I > don't think Microsoft is looking for as many Ph.Ds, as they are looking for > B.S. and M.S. to do the grunt work of turning out the code. So asking why a > professor hasn't been offered a job at Microsoft doesn't really apply to > much. So tell him your goal is to be a professor, like him, instead of a code grunt for Microsoft. ;^). -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 22 16: 6:31 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from obsecurity.dyndns.org (adsl-64-165-226-239.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net [64.165.226.239]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4912237B400 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 16:06:27 -0800 (PST) Received: by obsecurity.dyndns.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id A424066C39; Fri, 22 Mar 2002 16:06:23 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 16:06:23 -0800 From: Kris Kennaway To: Johnson David Cc: Kris Kennaway , advocacy@FreeBSD.org, "Person, Roderick" Subject: Re: [burnscharlesn@hotmail.com: Advocacy help for CS professor] Message-ID: <20020322160623.A7068@xor.obsecurity.org> References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> <20020322191703.A61753840E@naza0.gandi.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-md5; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="82I3+IH0IqGh5yIs" Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i In-Reply-To: <20020322191703.A61753840E@naza0.gandi.net>; from djohnson@acuson.com on Fri, Mar 22, 2002 at 11:16:51AM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG --82I3+IH0IqGh5yIs Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline I didn't write the mail you're replying to..you all should be replying to the original poster, not me. Kris --82I3+IH0IqGh5yIs Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8m8b+Wry0BWjoQKURAo4CAKD9DMYSpkSIPF1W5JZmMGkH5SaUpQCg2hjY ciAGqcD6lm91X1WCF3iJvyk= =5qAx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --82I3+IH0IqGh5yIs-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Sat Mar 23 14:53:32 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from catflap.bishopston.net (catflap.bishopston.net [24.67.16.239]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F09837B419; Sat, 23 Mar 2002 14:53:29 -0800 (PST) X-Envelope-From: jamie@catflap.bishopston.net X-Envelope-To: greid@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from catflap.bishopston.net (jamie@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by catflap.bishopston.net (8.12.1/8.12.1) with ESMTP id g2NMrScN059131; Sat, 23 Mar 2002 22:53:28 GMT (envelope-from jamie@catflap.bishopston.net) Received: (from jamie@localhost) by catflap.bishopston.net (8.12.1/8.12.1/Submit) id g2NMrSuk059128; Sat, 23 Mar 2002 22:53:28 GMT (envelope-from jamie) Message-Id: <200203232253.g2NMrSuk059128@catflap.bishopston.net> To: greid@FreeBSD.ORG From: Jamie Jones Subject: FreeBSD in UK schools (was Re:Is there anything wrong with softlinking /var to a pratition with more space) Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 22:53:28 +0000 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > As an aside, I thought RM PLC had hijacked all of the software in most > schools these days. Glad to see that isn't the case everywhere. My brother-in-law is in charge of ICT at the school he teaches in, and has had quite a frustrating time with the RM situation. Still, their schools website sits on my server, which, of course, runs FreeBSD! Jamie To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message