Re: tlug: Re: MS ordered split

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Viktor" == Viktor Pavlenko <vp@example.com> writes:

    Viktor> Consider this situation. I've not used any opearating
    Viktor> system at home but linux for three years (it was a Mac
    Viktor> before that). My kids go to a friend's house and play very
    Viktor> nice games on Windows, they come home and ask me to
    Viktor> install those games here. How can you explain kids that
    Viktor> Windows is bad and linux is good???

You can't.  A PS2 (not PS/2 ;) beats Windows hands-down for those kids
whose friends have Playstations but not Windows boxes; that's not
going to change.  Nor is the fact that most kids parents can barely
handle Windows, let alone hack *nix.

Anyway, Windows isn't bad if it's used for playing games.  The games
market is a perfect example of the kind of market where freedom of
software is close to irrelevant, except in principle.

What you can do is try to get your kids interested in aspects of
computers other than games.  Warning:  for some kids, it will never
work.  Vive la difference!  (And I don't mean gender.)  And also try
to get them interested in games that run on Linux.  Warning:  that is
very expensive in terms of Poppa's time.  Kids (little ones, anyway)
are interested in computers, even computer games, primarily for the
social interaction.

So far, though, my daughter's favorite platform is Sparc ROM.  She
likes making all the LEDs on the keyboard light up.  YES!  An abstract
gamer!

    Viktor> I'm doing my best. My wife would like to use something an
    Viktor> ms office like thing.

    Viktor> She has to use linux and its xterms, and I don't expect
    Viktor> her to understand what's going on behind the curtains.

That's OK as long as she has a competent sysop to rely on.

My wife uses Windows; I'm not willing to spend enough time on building
her a usable environment (she used to do CAD for money; AutoCAD is
unacceptably primitive to her---I don't think it's going to be easy to
build an acceptable environment in Linux, even at several times the
price).

    Viktor> I like current desktop development even if it hurts a bit
    Viktor> the system itself.

I don't think anybody is arguing against desktops in user space.  What
Chris, Scott, and I oppose are AI (Artificially Idiotic) system
administration tools.  All of us have written scripts, installation
tools, and the like.  Scott for sure has put "user-friendly
interfaces" on them.  But we see those as ways of automating what a
well-informed admin can do in her sleep, _knowing that it is safe_ to
do it while asleep.

In principle, I (speaking for myself) accept the idea that developers
should strive to make computers as easy to operate as a car.  But that
means limiting their capabilities to what the user has intuition for.
As we all know, the basis for many "licensed" drivers' intuitions
about physics is rather shaky.  But you can _see_ everything that a
car can hurt; you can feel it when you lose control.

Those things are _not_ true about networked computers.  Joe Random
Luser has _zero_ intuition for the harm his computer can do.  We've
seen several recent examples right here on this list; some even have
gone so far as to demonstrate their lack of intuition about security
and ethical responsibilities when using others' systems in
excruciating detail.  I don't think that a license should be required
to run Linux (or any other operating system) on your _personal_
computer; but it is a useful thought experiment to consider whether
one should be required to attach that computer to a network, and what
the license examination would be like.


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