Britannica and Linux. Does it get any more pitiful 4971

Jorge Jorgensen

Keep in mind that the OEM has paid as much as $60-machine for every machine that Microsoft believes it WILL SELL within the NEXT YEAR. Typically, this is about 20-30% MORE than they sold LAST year, or 20% more than they sold in their BIGGEST year, like 1995 or 1998.

The OEM signs a contract which obligates them to pay for these licenses in advance, regardless of how many they use. Microsoft generously provides FINANCING of this inventory.

Of course, the OEM can earn DISCOUNTS, or REBATES by using hardware that has been developed EXCLUSIVELY for MICROSOFT. Microsoft provides some funding for the hardware maker, and because the hardware maker has signed a contract that prevents them from publishing Linux drivers or the information required to make Linux drivers, and makes them promise to take legal action against anyone who attempts to write their own Linux drivers, there is a pretty good chance that these Microsoft EXCLUSIVE boards will not work with Linux.

When the OEMs agree to use these EXCLUSIVE hardware devices, Microsoft can give them discounts of as much as 50%, which amounts to as much as $30-machine. Put another way, OEMs who make Linux FRIENDLY machines pay a PENALTY of as much as $30-machine.

By the way, you can still put Linux on these machines as Client machine to Windows using virtual machines such as VMWare, Bochs, and Xen. The Microsoft exclusive hardware simply buttures that Microsoft will NOT become the CLIENT of the Linux machine. The irony of course is that Windows XP running as a Linux client will be more secure, more stable, more easily backed up and recovered, easier to keep in a reliable state, and can more quickly recover from viruses and spyware. But Microsoft appearantly doesn't want you to discover ANY of those new features.

This is actually another side of Microsoft's monopoly protection strategy.

Microsoft provides a great deal of information to independent software vendors (ISVs). Part of the contract related to this information is a series of nondisclosure and no reverse-engineering clauses. Microsoft doesn't ALLOW you to disclose ANYTHING that might make it easier to port to Linux. In fact, when the DOJ ordered Microsoft to publish certain source code to device drivers and protocols of Windows, Microsoft required that all people wishing to view this code sign an agreement which forbid any form of discloure or use other than for Windows. Linus Torvalds read the license, had his lawyers review it, and realized that if he were to sign the agreement, even if he didn't actually look at the code - he could never work on Linux again.

One way of getting around this, is to have an employee or independent contractor, or just a user of the Windows product, create the open source implementation that will allow Linux users to use the application or data.

GnuCash and MoneyDance can use Quicken files, but contain no quicken code. OpenOffice can use MS-Office documents, but contains no MS-Office code.

The disclaimer is the ISVs way of keeping Microsoft from initiating legal actions against them. By saying "we didn't publish this as 'our product' and we don't support it", they can serve the Linux market, yet avoid costly litigation, retaliatory actions, sabotage, and other covert and overt acts of agression from Microsoft.

In most cases, ISVs who want to provide support for Linux will let a few of their employees form a non-profit 501c organization. The ISV and customers can "contribute" various amounts of money, but only the buttets of the non-profit organization are available to litigants. Lawyers are much less eager to try and sue non-profits, which have a charter to perform a "public service".

IOW - We can't include this in our production packaging because if we do, Microsoft will sue the pants off us, put their own dictionary into bundleware, change the APIs we use in their next "security fix" so that our software no longer works on Windows, or have our software declared Spyware or Malware so that it will be disabled by antivirus and antispyware - possibly even disabled by VISTA.

One of the great things about Linux is that it allows user to run multiple JVMs on the same machine at the same time. Windows gets JAVAHOME from the registry, which means that only one version of Java can be run.

With Linux, I can have one shell script which set JAVAHOME to jdk1.3 and start the application that wants that version, then start shell script which sets JAVAHOME to jdk1.4 and run the application that wants that version. Then I can run another application on jdk1.5

The problem is that if you wanted to run multiple versions of Java, you would have to have some sort of script that could manipulate the registry. Wouldn't that be fun? I suppose you could use regedit, which is even MORE fun!

At this point you have demonstrated that you have absolutely no clue what Linux is, that you have no clue what the trade-offs are between Windows and Linux, and that you are not only uninformed but ignorant, and yet you are posting your "expert opinion" into this newsgroup.

And by the way, it is quite possible to write an RPM which will automate the installation of the Brittanica software, make sure the correct version of Java is installed as well, and make sure that the launcher uses the correct combination of software - and all you need to do to load it is check the little box on the software installer.

This is why people pay $100 for a copy of SuSE Linux instead of paying $0 for a copy of Debian. This is why most commercial software supports Red Hat (or any Linux implementation that supports Red Hat RPMs and file structures) and SuSE (or any Linux implementation that supports LSB 2.x).

A shell is a text file that can be used to make sure that everything needed to run your binary application has been configured before launching the binary. The advantage of having it as a text file is that you are not restricted to configuring ONLY the elements that were specified in some GUI interface.

The closest equivalent in Windows to shell would be the MSI Microsoft software installer, except that when you are using MSI, they only give you a handful of perameters that you can set. You can chose the directory into which you want the software installed, perhaps you can choose whether to have icons installed on the desktop, quick launcher, and locations in the start menu. All of this is up to the particular application.

Getting the right JVM, getting the right libraries, getting the right support environment is more of a crap shoot. In fact, you can throw a machine into "dll hell" simply by starting programs in the wrong sequence. The shell script eliminates all of this uncertainty.

snip

Jorge,

Your posting clearly shows that you have not even attempted to install Linux on a Linux compatible machine, have not spent even a few hours actually using Linux, and you really have no clue what you are talking about.

The good news is that you're not alone, there are lots of other WinTrolls in this group who do the same thing. I would just reccomend that you at least take the measures suggested above. Install a good commercial grade Linux, SuSE, Red Hat, LinSpire, or Knoppix, install it on a Linux compatible machine (google "Linux Compatible Laptop" or "Linux Compatible Desktop" for some good references, there are hundreds). Install as much of the software as you have room for. Then spend 90 days, 4-5 hours-day, exploring and using the different applications available. Learn how to read and write a shell script (it takes about 2 hours to learn). Learn SED, AWK, and PERL (in that order). Play with the machine a bit.

After you have done this, you will have the information required to make informed reccomendations. You will find things that you absolutely love about Linux, you will find things that you absolutely hate about Linux. You will find things that you wish Windows had. You will find things you wish Linux had.

The good news is that modern PCs don't force you into an "either-or" situation anymore. You can buy a "Linux Compatible" PC from an OEM, complete with Windows License, request installation media, and then you can install Linux, Xen (free) or Win4Lin (cheap) or VMWare (expensive but really powerful), and run both Linux and Windows applications, on the same desktop, at the same time, without sacrificing the best features of either, and without having to put up with the worst features of either.

You Windows will be more secure, easier to maintain, easier to back up, less vulnerable to Viruses and Malware, and more robust. You Linux will have the ability to run those applications which ONLY run on Windows, but you will still get faster performance, lower memory consumption, and easier back-ups and recovery with Linux.

You could run Windows as the main OS, but then you can't back it up, or fall back to a "clean" implementation when malware attacks. You can't control the damage. You can't clean up the damage. Your infrastructure will be more conducive to receiving and executing the malware against the REAL hardware.

It's a choice.

But since you haven't even bothered to install Linux, you have no CLUE what your choices are.

Rex