11.27.08
Happy Thanksgiving
Richard Stallman at the launch of GPLv3
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Needs Sunlight said,
November 27, 2008 at 11:03 am
I’m particularly thankful for all the effort towards software freedom that has been made by the Gnu project.
As far as utilities go, I’m really glad about Gnu tar. The other tars have been catching up, but it led the way.
AlexH said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:30 pm
@Needs: because it’s an acronym, you should usually write “GNU” not “Gnu”.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:32 pm
AFAIK, both are acceptable in actual use. The UNIX way doesn’t encourage capitalisation, either.
AlexH said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:47 pm
No, they’re not. You won’t see anyone in the project refer to it that way.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Journalists sometimes do.
AlexH said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:57 pm
That doesn’t really make it correct
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Of course not. Becta ain’t correct either.
AlexH said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Actually, “Becta” is correct, it’s no longer an acronym. Ditto Ecma.
GNU remains an acronym, hence it should not be studly-capped.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Tell USENET/Google as well.
http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=usenet%3Dgnu
AlexH said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:16 pm
As far as I can see, all the descriptions there are correct, and anyway I’m not going around hunting for people mis-writing “GNU”.
It was just a friendly hint to someone who appears to support the project; I don’t get why you’re trying to defend writing it incorrectly.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Naa… I just see an overly pedantic Microsoft apologist nitpicking the comment of a regular reader.
AlexH said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:24 pm
It doesn’t really surprise me that you’re resorting to insults again now that you’ve lost the argument that you picked in the first place.
“Needs Sunlight” was trying to give just credit to the GNU Project, and I’m just showing him how we usually write the project name. It’s pretty poor show that you’re attempting to confuse the matter with nonsense.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Again… the point is the nitpicking. Almost everything revolves around it.
AlexH said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:32 pm
No, it’s not nitpicking, it’s just a helpful nudge. I assumed he would want to know because he wants to credit GNU. I would do the same if he’s written “Redhat” or something.
You’re the one making a big thing out of this by spouting inaccuracies.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I don’t bother correcting people who write “Redhat” or “Linux” in reference to an operating system. Most people I know would simply not bother.
Again… the point is your nitpicking. It’s part of a pattern.
AlexH said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Correcting “Linux” referring to an operating system isn’t “nit picking“, Roy.
If you don’t want to bother, that’s up to you. Please stop disrupting those of us who do.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 27, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Are you AlexH or just a forger? Either way, this is getting funny.
AlexH said,
November 27, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Whatever, Roy. Saying “GNU/Linux” is important. If you cannot comprehend why, then I have no idea what you think you’re doing.
pcolon said,
November 27, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Today is a day when we attribute as thanksgiving. A short time in which we stop or rear from our normal daily activities, to reflect and focus on things to be thankful for.
Like “Needs Sunlight”, I also am thankful for the efforts of GNU/FOSS and the altruistic efforts of all contributors to the cause of freedom of choice & expression.
Goblin said,
November 27, 2008 at 5:48 pm
How do you do it Roy?
How do you manage getting these people to post on your blog? I would love AlexH (or should that be ALEXh or alexH or AlExH) to post on mine.
If he is a shiller, it shows how desperate MS posters are getting. If he’s not then it is even worse (Ive seen some petty points being made but that takes the biscuit)
Please AlexH would you consider coming over to my site?
Michael said,
November 27, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Ahh, nice friendly banter to lighten my morning coffee. Can’t you just “feel the love”? Do you guys want a private room?
*chuckle*
And after getting angry at SA’s attorneys general for being a complete dick head, I only come over here to get all my angriness-at-something out in one go this morning.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 27, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Can you elaborate on that?
RyanT said,
November 28, 2008 at 5:54 am
How do you do it Goblin, posting completely irrelevant remarks and insults about someone who has been right more than wrong?
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 28, 2008 at 6:26 am
Alex side-steps all the big questions and instead addresses pet peeves or minor inaccuracies.
AlexH said,
November 28, 2008 at 7:27 am
@Roy: that’s completely untrue. E.g., “Mono has patent problems” – that meme/FUD gets repeated here on a regular basis, and I help show people how it’s wrong.
What happens is that you, and others, attempt to defend the FUD by saying things like “Oh, you’re supporting software patents!”, or “MS have been nasty before so Mono must have problems”. When I point out that your facts are wrong, you call it “nit-picking” because I don’t take on your conclusions.
The problem is that your conclusions don’t follow from the facts.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 28, 2008 at 7:53 am
I was referring to things like neglecting Microsoft’s pattern of behaviour. Jeff Waugh has the same type of problem and so does Miguel de Icaza.
AlexH said,
November 28, 2008 at 8:05 am
No, I don’t neglect it, I accept it without question.
I’m not willing to use it as justification to attack e.g. Mono, though. Mono’s future cannot be controlled by Microsoft; it is free software.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 28, 2008 at 8:09 am
It mimics Microsoft, just as the name “mono” (monkey) suggests. Therefore it is controlled by Microsoft, not to mention Microsoft’s close partner, Novell (copyrights holder).
AlexH said,
November 28, 2008 at 8:26 am
You’ve been given plenty of examples of Mono technologies that are not present in .net before, including Simd, Posix, Cecil, Gnome#, and a host of other APIs.
Yes, it is byte-code compatible with .net and comes with the same basic library. Yes, there are higher level libraries which are also MS compatible. But no, it’s not ‘controlled by Microsoft’.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 28, 2008 at 8:29 am
Believing this is akin to believing that Iraq is an independent country.
Ian said,
November 28, 2008 at 5:21 pm
It mimics Microsoft, just as the name “mono” (monkey) suggests. Therefore it is controlled by Microsoft, not to mention Microsoft’s close partner, Novell (copyrights holder).
So does Samba.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 28, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Yes, but that’s a flawed comparison.
Ian said,
November 28, 2008 at 5:39 pm
You said Mono mimics Microsoft(.net). I’m saying Samba mimics CIFS. I don’t see what’s flawed. It’s not a bash on Samba, it just is what it is. Samba reacts to what Microsoft does with their CIFS protocols, not the other way around.
That article mentions patents, which neither you nor I mention in the two previous posts.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 28, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Samba treats existing protocols. Mono and Novell encourage development using Microsoft APIs (‘protocols’).
AlexH said,
November 28, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Mono doesn’t include solely MS “APIs / protocols”. So that argument obviously doesn’t work.
As empirical evidence, try running Tomboy on Windows without installed the free software APIs.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 28, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Let me state my point more clearly as I seem to be miscomprehended. Mono is used to create content the ‘Microsoft way’. Samba merely treats things in existence, much like wine.
AlexH said,
November 28, 2008 at 7:46 pm
@Roy: except that’s not true either. E.g., Samba’s BDC support is nothing like MS’ version.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 28, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Yes, the dissimilarities are not perfect.
AlexH said,
November 28, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Including that Mono can be used to develop stuff not in the “Microsoft way”, unless Microsoft adopted Gtk+ / Qt while I wasn’t looking.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 28, 2008 at 7:58 pm
In practice, inside Novell in particular, Mono is routinely used for C#/Gtk development.