29 Sep 99 06:57, Jack Stein wrote to Stewart Honsberger:

I'll type slowly, ok?

 JS> No room for a stable GUI OS thats powerful, rather than pretty?  How 
 JS> stupid is that statement?  The pretty part is just as bogus as the 
 JS> rest of the statement, as OS/2 is just as "pretty" as WIN.  

Microsoft concentrates on adding as many "pretty" features as possible.
If it doesn't work properly, just add another layer to cover it up.
People won't mind re-booting 10 times a day as long as they get to watch
an animated logo and listen to pretty music.

 JS> Let me get this straight...  I should be sued for "libel" yet what I 
 JS> said is true, although IBM was "forced" into doing what I said they 
 JS> did?  You want to believe little old MS forced IBM into doing 
 JS> something, go ahead, believe what you want.

No, what you said is false. You said that "IBM has NEVER supported OS/2.
NOT FOR ONE DAY." (I believe that's a pretty accurate quote). I said
that IBM stopped MARKETTING OS/2 to the home user.

 JS> Yeah, right... The truth is not slander, nor libel, far as I know.

You don't know much about the law either, I see.

Where does your 'truth' come from? The fact that stores don't carry
OS/2? How substantiatable is that in court?

 SH>> Tell me; when has IBM ever told anybody that OS/2 is not for
 SH>> them? 

 JS> When they said the battle of the desktop is over,

Reference please.

 JS> when they said they OS/2 is not for the home user,

Reference please.

 JS> they would not support the home user,

Reference please.

 JS> when they insured retail outlets 

(That have insurance for retail outlets?)

 JS> did not have OS/2 to sell, and on

Haven't you been listening? People weren't buying OS/2, so stores
stopped stocking it. One of the big facets of retail sales is
organization. Trying to get as much product into the amount of space you
have available to you in a visually appealing way. Why devote a section
to a product that won't sell, when you could use it for more products
that WILL sell?

 SH>> Don't you know about their current new product, WSeB?
[...]
 JS> Yawn.

Oh, pardon me, they're not catering to your individual needs, so it
bores you.

 SH>> They can also get ~$2000 for each license of WSeB, whereas
 SH>> ~$200 for a license for OS/2 Warp for a home user is
 SH>> considered expensive. 

 JS> Yawn!  MS made how much money selling OS for $50 to the home user?

$50? I seem to recall $139 and $80 price tags for 95 and 98. Where do
you shop?

 JS> You sure don't.  Support means to provide for by supplying money and 
 JS> other necessities.  Marketing was not supported by IBM.  

{sigh} Buy a dictionary, or take a marketing course.

 JS> The ship was sinking because IBM did not support it, they didn't WANT 
 JS> the ship to float.

More slander.

 SH>> Do you realize how expensive an ad campaign is? With the 
 SH>> current trend in home users, there's no chance in hell they'll 
 SH>> make it back in Warp revenues.

 JS> MS seems to do very well at it.

MS sells what people WANT. Sell a crap product that looks pretty, but
has flaws. When they release a 'fixpack' for said product, people flock
out to buy it.

MS also gets their product pre-installed on pre-assembled machines.
Things like that drive up the common usage of the product, so people get
used to it. When people know nothing but the WIn'95 interface, they
don't want to change. Schools and businesses will install Win'95 (or
98, now) so that their students/employees won't have to go through a
learning curve.

Microsoft has already done its bit by forcing companies to pre-install
their OSs, and buying/destroying competition. Now the usage of MS OSs is
just spiralling, and they're sitting at the bottom collecting the money.

 SH>> What are they supposed to do, go the way of Microsoft and
 SH>> force them to shelve it? I've talked to computer store
 SH>> owners/managers, and if they don't say "OS-what?" they tell
 SH>> me stories that go something like "I got a case of 100
 SH>> copies of Warp, and 6 months later returned 98 copies to
 SH>> IBM", "I tried to sell Warp, but people went straight to the
 SH>> Microsoft section", "Nobody has shown any interest in OS/2"

 JS> Just more proof that IBM did not in any way support OS/2, ever.

What does that prove? That because IBM didn't (illegally) shove their
product in peoples' faces and down their throats, that they're not
interested in supporting it?

I'm interested in you joining my religion. I'll be at your door every
day at 6:00 AM, 12:00 noon, and 6:00 PM forcing you to read my religious
pamphlets. I will use whatever force neccesary to get into your house,
and when you're not home, I'll fill your mailbox with advertisements.

I guess I'm "just interested in supporting" my religion, right?

 JS>>> IBM NEVER supported OS/2, not for one day.

 SH>>> I hope you're taken to court for libel.

 JS> Hope all you want.  I have a right to my opinion, and to speak it, 
 JS> shout it from the roof tops if I wish.

Judging by this statement, and the above quoted statement, I'm assuming
that you don't understand the libel laws.

"I don't believe that IBM has sufficiently supported OS/2" is an opinion.
"IBM NEVER supported OS/2, not for one day." is a libelous claim.

 SH>> Why would they spend 10's of millions of dollars to develop a 
 SH>> product for several years, which they never intended to 
 SH>> support? 

 JS> Tens of millions is NOTHING to IBM.  They blew THREE BILLION on 
 JS> LOTUS, give me a break.

I was giving an example. Would you like me to request their payroll
documents and accounting records for the development years of OS/2, and
post an exact figure, rounded to the nearest million?

My point was this;

They spent more money than you or I will likely ever see in our entire
lives on a product. Why would they do this if they never intended for
its success?

 SH>>> Linux can NOT be "killed" by any corporation. Not even IBM and
 SH>>> Microsoft combined. You can't kill a product that's source
 SH>>> code is available on millions of sites worldwide.

 JS> True, not as easy to kill a product you don't own as it is to kill 
 JS> your own, however, it is possible to make damn sure the mass market 
 JS> doesn't want the product.  That is done with propaganda (ZIFF-DAVIS 
 JS> propaganda machine - read what Dvorack or whatever the asses name had 
 JS> to say about LINUX, it's on the ZIFF-DAVIS propaganda site)  

{sigh}

Linux does not need a name to move forward. Microsoft has seen the rapid
development of Linux, and it's starting to scare them. They now have an
anti-Linux task force, trying to debunk all claims of Linux's
stabililty. They're paying companies like Mindcraft to do "benchmarks"
comparing the two OSs, in completely unrealistic circumstances, and with
unequal equipment, and with an improperly configured Linux (while a team
of MCSE's worked on the NT machine) - which led to "prove" that NT was
faster than Linux as a server.

Linux is just like musicians. Elvis, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne,
Marilyn Manson, etc.. The more people post bad publicity about them, the
more popular they get.

If RedHat were to go completely bankrupt tomorrow - fold totally.
Destroy all products, all development, etc.. Linux would not only
survive - it would move PAST it.

Do you know how/why the TCP/IP protocol was designed? It was designed
for the military to transfer data across long distances. In the event of
a nuclear or similar disaster (knocking out one or several major
servers), the data would be re-routed around it and still make its
destination.

Linux is much the same way. There are 10's of 1000's of independant
developers working on Linux every day, worldwide. The only common
language they speak is C/C++.

 JS> I get it from the fact that IBM and INTEL are buying into RedHat.  
 JS> Simple really.

So? They're buying a name. They can't copyright any of the Linux
software currently available (IE and especially the kernel) as it's open
source and licensed under the GPL.

 SH>> You've obviously never heard of SuSE. They've got about 80%
 SH>> of the sold-copy Linux market in Europe, and are rapidly
 SH>> gaining steam in the Americas.

 JS> Nope, never heard of them.  

Then you are uninformed. You speak of Linux as if you're an expert, yet
you don't even know the big names involved.

 JS> I know more than 95% of the people on earth, thats a fact.

Really? I wait with baited breath for your explanation.

 JS> No, they cannot kill linux, nor any other OS.  OS are not living 
 JS> things.  They can stop a company from selling and promoting the 
 JS> thing, simply by buying the damn company.  Linux needs a name behind 
 JS> them to move big time into the market, freeware is not yet ready to 
 JS> take over the computer OS market.

Wrong on both counts.

1) The "name" behind Linux is Linus Torvalds.
2) Linux is not by any means "freeware". Most software for Linux is
Open Source Software. Completely different concept, completely different
development system.

[..More propaganda and ASSumptions deleted..]

 JS> LINUX

{sigh} It is not an acronym. The name of the operating system is Linux.

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