Re: tlug: re: fetchmail flushes flushing Laszlo's career down the drain

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

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Tony Laszlo wrote:

    Tony> Yeah... everyone is not a "koumuin" ;)

Sure.  But most people still use Microsoft, and I suspect that even
with Linux a lot of people will just use Pine directly, and have no
problem with fetching the mail.  Only a few people really need the
flexibility that fetchmail provides.

    >> I nominate Stephen Turnbull to be president of a crack task
    >> force which searches out these offending parties and reprimands
    >> them (and their software developers)! :) I'll buy the first
    >> round of beer.

Well, then you owe a round already.  Ask ex-Outhouse-user Jonathan
Byrne; I don't just flame random turkeys, I flame my friends too.

    >> I also think that, while such a task force is building up
    >> strength and creating its database, Linux folks need to devise
    >> a way to be as lenient as the other OSes in this regard.

This isn't really an issue of leniency.  It's an issue of "who needs
kokusaika? not us!"  It's possible for Microsoft because Microsoft is
interested in selling you one operating system per language.
Microsoft is actively going out and breaking standards wherever
possible because they can sell more software that way.  (There is
something to be said for the innovations that they introduce, but not
enough to justify the havoc they wreak.)

I seem to recall, Tony, that that's one reason you're using Linux
today.  You can have "leniency" if you want.  Just go back to
Microsoft and give up the possibility of a truly multilingual
environment that "just works".  Standards will make that possible,
although it's just a dream today.  Flouting standards makes it
impossible.

>>>>> "Selva" == Selva Nair <selva@example.com> writes:

    Selva> You wont get many takers for that.  When "lenient" means
    Selva> breaking the standards, the party wont go on for long.

And that's one of the reasons I use Linux.  Because not only do people
pay lip service to standards, they (eventually) actually get around to
implementing them.  (And in cases like IPv6, they even implement them
before they become standards!)

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