From: Spif <c642011@cclabs.missouri.edu>
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 95 22:08:25 PST
To: anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com
Subject: Re: alt.religion.your.operating.system.sucks
In-Reply-To: <199501300539.VAA18044@jobe.shell.portal.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.3.91.950129235548.3652H-100000@sgi7.phlab.missouri.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Sun, 29 Jan 1995 anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com wrote:

> Spif wrote:
> >so your point, basically, is that the public will settle for whatever it 
> >can get, and get easiest and cheapest, when it comes to software and 
> >operating systems in particular.  
> 
> It always puzzles me that people on the net spend so much time griping
> about Microsoft when the net tends towards libertarianism.  I would
> think libertarians would welcome Microsoft's dominance, as a
> validation of the free market in action.

I don't think supporting the free market has anything to do with 
supporting bad products.  I separate my ideological views from my 
technical opinions, quite frankly.  In addition, when did I single out 
Microsoft?  IBM and Apple make plenty of crappy products, which is ironic 
since they also make UNIX products that are technically superior and 
should probably be the de facto operating systems for their high-end 
machines (in fact, in IBM's case, they are - AIX is the default OS on rs6000 
machines).

> "Dos/Windows + applications available for Dos/Windows" are obviously
> blowing out "unix + applications available for unix".

that depends on what applications you're talking about...  if you mean 
Word Processors, Spreadsheets, and (perhaps) games, then I'd have to 
agree.  If you're talking about programming environments/tools, graphical 
interfaces, networking software, graphic design software, or file server 
applications, not to mention at least a few other categories, I'd have to 
disagree strongly.

> Normal people don't give a damn if source code is available for "power
> tools" like PERL, sed, grep, wc, bc, strip, yacc, lex, puke, barf,
> etc.

so UNIX users aren't "normal" now, eh?  by what standard do you define 
normal?  

> >certainly a growing market for internet-capable systems
> 
> OS/2 is internet friendly, Windows 95 will be friendly, etc.
> Certainly unix will let you do more, but most people won't care about
> the value of the extras, as long as a web browser, news reader, and
> mail reader is available.

we're talking about both client AND server applications here, as well as 
the robustness of the multitasking/threading capabilities of the OS they 
run on.  when surfing the net, it's best not to have your news reader 
choke because your web browser needs more resources.

> Some people on this list swear they never have to drop to a command
> line with the cool tools they use with their SLIP accounts (except to
> change their password).  If that's true, then any "advantage" unix has
> is washed away.  How will the unix market grow (relative to other more
> popular OS's) if internet access tools run the same on Windows and
> OS/2 and Mac's as they do on unix?

simple - they never will run the same, and they definitely won't run 
better, unless of course they are morphed into UNIX...  and I wouldn't be 
surprised if they do.  I see a day sometime not too far into the future 
when Windows, OS/2, and their kin either vanish completely or at least as 
non-UNIX operating systems, and are replaced with look-alike UNIX 
flavours with commercial app support.  if Microsoft, IBM, and/or Apple 
have the guts, that is.

    Bryan Venable               | c642011@cclabs.missouri.edu
    Student & MOO Administrator | wlspif@showme.missouri.edu
    U of Missouri - Columbia    | spif@pobox.com
    SGI/Netscape/MOO addict     | spif@m-net.arbornet.org
    Spif or Turmandir @ MOOs    | http://www.phlab.missouri.edu/~c642011 

             <insert standard university disclaimer here>