[BLUG] Best of BLUG #2: Bill Gates posts to the list

What the? Can anyone claim this from 9 years ago?

==============================================================================
http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/pipermail/blug/2000-July/000071.html

Bill_Gates@microsoft.com Bill_Gates_at_microsoft.com
Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:05:37 -0500

Hey guys I've got this other neat operating system that works really
swell! It can be installed along side linux too. It's called Winblows,
err, I mean Windows 98. Just boot up with dos, then use the dos version
of fdisk to make some windows partitions. Dont worry that it cant see
your linux partitions, it automagically steps around them (Hehehehaha
Mwuhaaahahawuhaha). Then format your new windows partitions and you are
ready to go. Just send $150 to me and I'll mail you a shiny new windows
cd... better yet send me your creditcard number('s). It's so nice and
pretty and easy to use, I'm sure you all will be using it instead of
linux in no time. And hey, there's nothing like a freshly rebooted
machine to brighten your day! Well I have to go now, someone named 'DoJ'
keeps sending me email... I keep telling them I'm not interested in what
they have to say, but they keep harassing me. Oh well... tata for now!

P.S. Check out this website I really like:
http://www.linuxstinks.com

Bye!
==============================================================================

--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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[BLUG] Posts from the past (Best of BLUG)

To add to the massive amount of list e-mail this month, Barry suggested
that I send this one to the list. Maybe this is a Best of BLUG.
It was from 4 years ago:

===============================================================================
Mark Krenz blug_at_mailman.cs.indiana.edu
Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:46:12 -0000 (GMT)

I was reading this:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/e9a25c6688188ede/12c015c336ceb5dc

and came across this reply 3 posts down:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did you ever have to deal with IBM DeskStar (a.k.a. DeathStar) drives?

The most spectacular HD blowout I ever witnessed was one such DeathStar.
The postmortem was that the drive had first suffered from bearings
failure, which then led to a headcrash. That wasn't the spectacular bit
though ... no that came a second later, when microfractures in one of the
platers caused the now unbalanced disks to shatter with such force, that
shrapnel from the explosion penetrated the outer casing, and embedded into
the aluminium of the drive bay and surrounding area.

Oh, and of course, I had no backups.

One hard drive, one aluminium PC case, three months worth of work, and a
perfectly good pair of pants, all gone forever.

-
[H]omer
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Has anyone ever heard of something like that happening for real? It
just seems kinda unbelievable.

Mark
===============================================================================

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Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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Re: [BLUG] Beware Copyright Law (was Transform Ubuntu to OS-X)

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 5:02 PM, Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 04:36:09PM -0400, Simón Ruiz wrote:
>> Copyleft—the GNU license, Creative Commons etc.—as I understand them,
>> are clever hacks designed to subvert the copyright system as it
>> stands, basically to *free* people from it. Artists who choose these
>> licenses are expressing disgust with the system.
>
> Now, I disagree with you there. I don't think there's any implication
> of disgust.

No, you're right, mere use is no implication of disgust.

However, their creators were openly motivated by disgust.

>> These licenses may derive their legal teeth from copyright itself, but
>> they exist as criticisms of it. They are good, I'd say, not because of
>> our copyright system but in spite of it.
>
> Again, I disagree with you.
>
> I think it is easy to be dissatisfied with copyright out of a general
> disgust with the manipulations of "intellectual property" talk made by
> the media on behalf of big business. There's an active attempt to blur
> the lines between things right and good (like copyright) and things
> wrong and bad (like software patents).

I've heard plenty of bad stuff being done with copyright itself. The
letters RIAA and MPAA conjur up as much evil in the minds of some as
the name Microsoft might to others.

>> I hear this "We have a crappy implementation of it, but copyright is
>> good in principle" idea often, but I'm not sure I know which principle
>> is being talked about.
>>
>> What is this principle? Can we name it?
>
> How about from "Principles of copyright" located at
> http://www.damic.qc.ca/damic/eng/pages/rights/principe.htm :
>
> |Copyright is a legal convention which recognizes the paternity of a work
> |to its author's natural person. It is based on two types of fundamental,
> |inalienable, perpetual, imprescriptible and complementary rights: moral
> |rights and patrimonial rights.
>
> The principles then appear to boil down to:
>  * Moral rights: It is mine, and you can not change it.
>  * Patrimonial rights:
>   * Exclusive proprietory rights: I, alone, own it.
>   * Remuneration right: I can be paid for it.
>
> The Creative Commons licenses offer finer control over these rights.
>
> It does not appear to conflict with them. I see nothing about these
> rights and the CC licenses which even conflict.

These principles I can get behind.

I'd say that not only do CC licenses not conflict with these ideas,
they better reflect them than traditional copyright does now.

I believe society has some rights itself when it comes to its members'
brain work, though.

No one's creative works comes wholly formed to their brain in a
vacuum, it is as much a product of society as it is theirs
individually, and society should have a right to it after a reasonable
time.

I think it's stupid that large, important parts of our shared culture
essentially do not belong to us, legally.

> Cheers,
>
> --
> Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> / KeyID: 8596FA8E
> Fingerprint: 108C 089C EFA4 832C BF07  78C2 DE71 5433 8596 FA8E

Cheers,

Simón

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Re: [BLUG] burning boxes (was: Openfiler and Zumastore)

LOL. Too funny. It worked great (she didn't even know that her Mac was rsyncing back to it!) But company was coming over, so she shoved it into a cupboard and stacked stuff on top of it. And it got way too hot -- not fun to wake up to that smell in the middle of the night!

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> wrote:

On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 05:35:00PM -0400, Kirk Gleason wrote:
> [...] Unfortunately my wife burned that box up, so I lost
> it all. *sigh*

If it worked like it should, it wouldn't have inspired her to waste the
liquor on it and set it ablaze... I mean, you can only frustrate a person
so many times before they snap...

;)

--
Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> / KeyID: 8596FA8E
Fingerprint: 108C 089C EFA4 832C BF07  78C2 DE71 5433 8596 FA8E

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Re: [BLUG] Beware Copyright Law (was Transform Ubuntu to OS-X)

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Beartooth <beartooth@beartooth.info> wrote:
>        Freedom and justice. It's your work, you decide.
>
>        Don't get me wrong. I run software all the time that was written a/o
> is still being written by people who charge nothing for it; as an old
> retired fart on a small pension, I probably couldn't run anything else if I
> tried. I'm intensely glad that so many people who can write code are so
> generous with it.
>
>        But unless they own their work, how can they choose to give it away?

I don't disagree that artists "own" their work in some real moral sense.

However, I don't believe copyright was created to guarantee freedom
and justice, though justice may have been a side effect from time to
time.

I think copyright was created as a compromise, that society would cede
certain "rights" to authors of certain types of works (i.e., we'll be
willing to enforce already common social conventions by law on your
behalf) in exchange for the net benefit to society of encouraging
their increased cultural and intellectual output.

It's important, and deliberate, that a person was required to seek
copyright, that it only covered certain types of work, that it was for
only 14 years renewable once by a living author, and that a copy had
to be archived in the library of congress, thus ensuring the work's
availability to the public.

I think it was understood that monopolies are dangerous and ultimately
harmful and anti-competitive, and so monopolies were issued
conservatively, were limited in scope, and required the copyrighted
work to be given to "the people" up front as a precondition.

I feel copyright is now failing at, if not actively working against,
its original intent.

And it's doing a pretty lousy job at protecting our freedoms and
justice, too. ;-)

It's *almost* as if money buys you laws in this country.

>        If you follow several lists and forums, as I expect you do, you must
> notice that many of those who post to them also make their living writing
> code. Some few, like the RedHat employees at Fedora, may be getting paid to
> give their work away. Others create some software at work, and some at home
> -- and contribute what they do at home to the cause.
>
>        If they weren't being paid for what they write for their employers,
> what would they live on?

At the risk of sounding like I'm just looking for ways to be contrary
(I'm not, I'm just enjoying an interesting conversation):

I don't think coders are being paid for a manufactured good, code.

They're being paid for their time, for the privilege of having all
their skills, expertise and experience focused on solving your
problems.

Most code doesn't end up packaged up and sold to anyone.

> --
> Beartooth Implacable, Curmudgeonly Codger Learning Linux
> On the Internet, you can never tell who is a dog --
> supposing you care -- but you can tell who has a mind.

Simón

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Re: [BLUG] Apt-get vs Aptitude

On Friday 05 June 2009 18:16:38 Steven Black wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 05:32:10PM -0400, Kirk Gleason wrote:
> > I installed Fink on OS X before it had any apt-ability. dselect was it,
> > and it was not fun (almost made me wish for RPM).
>
> You're not the only person who didn't enjoy dselect. I was comfortable
> with it, personally. In fact, only recently (~2-3 years) did I stop
> using it.
>
> It took me a little while to get used to aptitude. Once I got used
> to it, I found I like it much, much better. I've spent a lot of time
> dependancy surfing, whether it is to try another tool using a common
> library, or it is to remove everything that uses a GNOME library... I,
> perhaps perversely, find it a lot of fun.

I never liked dselect. I switched to aptitude shortly after I started using
Linux (around 2004, Debian Sarge was about to release). dselect kept doing
unintuitive things like making changes after I quit and restarted the program
that I thought I had cancelled the first time. aptitude's interface was so much
nicer. Of course, once I learned apt-get I really didn't see why I needed a
ncurses interface (I didn't realize until later that I could use aptitude like
apt-get).
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Re: [BLUG] burning boxes (was: Openfiler and Zumastore)

On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 05:35:00PM -0400, Kirk Gleason wrote:
> [...] Unfortunately my wife burned that box up, so I lost
> it all. *sigh*

If it worked like it should, it wouldn't have inspired her to waste the
liquor on it and set it ablaze... I mean, you can only frustrate a person
so many times before they snap...

;)

--
Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> / KeyID: 8596FA8E
Fingerprint: 108C 089C EFA4 832C BF07 78C2 DE71 5433 8596 FA8E

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