Stewart Honsberger wrote in a message to Jack Stein:

 SH> I'll type slowly, ok?

Whatever floats your boat.

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

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

That's about as lame as it gets, you might as well typed fast...

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

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

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

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

I guess thats slander on your part.

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

Go to any popular computer store.

 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,

 SH> Reference please.

Big Lou said it on the eve of 95's release...

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

 SH> Reference please.

Look it up yourself.

 JS> they would not support the home user,

 SH> Reference please.

Same as above.

 JS> when they insured retail outlets 

 SH> (That have insurance for retail outlets?)

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

 SH> Haven't you been listening? 

I don't need to listen.  I know when WARP was released, none of the computer
stores had copies for sale in my area.  People all over the country were
having the same problem.  

 SH> People weren't buying OS/2, so stores stopped stocking it. 

They didn't stop, they didn't have it for the most part.

 SH> One of the big facets of retail sales is organization. Trying 
 SH> to get as much product into the amount of space you have 
 SH> available to you in a visually appealing way. Why devote a 
 SH> section to a product that won't sell, when you could use it for 
 SH> more products that WILL sell?

It was up to IBM to support the marketing end of OS/2 so users would want to
try it.  They didn't, and users didn't.

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

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

Correct.  

 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?

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

Where have you been for the past 15 years, in a cave?

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

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

{sigh} Are you stupid, or just uninformed?  Guess I'll have to dig out my
dictionary... lets see, The Ameriacn Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language says:

support:... 6) "To provide for or maintain by supplying with money or other
necessities."  7) To aid the cause of by approving, favoring, or advocating."
 
 JS> The ship was sinking because IBM did not support it, they 
 JS> didn't WANT the ship to float.

 SH> More slander.

Stick it in your ear...

 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.

 SH> MS sells what people WANT. 

Oh, I forgot, people WANT a lousy product that looks good, not a good product
that looks good, I almost forgot that little tidbit.

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

Hard to compete with a company that screws it's customers, right?
Perhaps you should take a marketing course... I did, and this is exactly what
a competitor loves to see happen.  Makes moving in quite easy if you have a
superior product, and tons of money to make it happen.  IBM had both, but
didn't do it.

 SH> MS also gets their product pre-installed on pre-assembled
 SH> machines. Things like that drive up the common usage of the
 SH> product, so people get used to it. 

IBM didn't know that, right?  Just a little secret between you and MS.

 SH> When people know nothing but the WIn'95 interface, they don't 
 SH> want to change. Schools and businesses will install Win'95 (or 
 SH> 98, now) so that their students/employees won't have to go 
 SH> through a learning curve.

Ever here of Mac?

 SH> Microsoft has already done its bit by forcing companies to
 SH> pre-install their OSs, and buying/destroying competition.

MicroSoft was and is incapable of destroying IBM.  IBM was the second largest
Software distributor on Earth, and that was not thier major business.  MS was
third, and would die instantly if thier ONE product failed.

 SH> Now the usage of MS OSs is just spiralling, and they're
 SH> sitting at the bottom collecting the money. 

Take a marketing course and learn that that is what happens when a huge cartel 
controls the market.

 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", 

They were more than likely lying to you, they never had a case of OS/2.  Every 
store I went to in OS/2's "hay day" either said they were sold out of it, or
couldn't get it.

 SH>> "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.

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

Yes, stores could easily stock OS/2 if people were interested in buying it. 
IBM had the power, money and influence to market the hell out of OS/2, and
make it pretty, and make it installable, and provide developers with tons of
support.  The chose not to.

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

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

I haven't a clue what you're rambling about there?

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

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

I hope I'm not, IBM has more money than me, so I'd lose my ass.

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

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

I'm not a damned laywer, if thats your question.

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

When given in a Fido conference, by a nobody, it is an opinion.  Only a dolt
would think otherwise.

 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.

 SH> I was giving an example. 

I was trying to enlighten you on why your example didn't hold water.  I might
add that the return on investment with owning the OS that is dominant on earth 
would make the 3 BILLION wasted on LOTUS a fart in the wind.

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

Go ahead.

 SH> My point was this;

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

My point is that a few hundred million is nothing to a company that can piss
away $3 BILLION w/o blinking an eye.

 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)  

 SH> {sigh}

 SH> Linux does not need a name to move forward.

{sigh} Yes it does.

 SH>  Microsoft has seen the rapid development of Linux, and it's 
 SH> starting to scare them. 

They starting getting scared when RedHat started becoming a market force,
although a small one.  Soon after IBM starts pouring cash into RedHat.  Enough 
to make people think a little if they watched IBM in action over the last 15
years.

 SH> They now have an anti-Linux task force, 
 SH> trying to debunk all claims of Linux's stabililty. They're 
 SH> paying companies like Mindcraft to do "benchmarks" comparing the
 SH> two OSs, in completely unrealistic circumstances, and with
 SH> unequal equipment, and with an improperly configured Linux
 SH> (while a team of MCSE's worked on the NT machine) - which
 SH> led to "prove" that NT was faster than Linux as a server.

We all know MS is useless.  On the other hand, watch what you say, you might
be sued for libel and slander, in fact, I guess I should say I hope you are,
but then I'd be lying, I don't give a damn if you are or aren't.

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

And Linux share of the desktop is?  

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

It would survive, but where, on a few thousand meaningless computers...

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

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

The computer world knows less about LINUX than they do about OS/2.

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

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

They don't want a company that will provide software support, and technical
support, and stand behind the product competing with them.  They don't worry
too much about a bunch of gear heads messing around with an OS that nobody
uses, or will use w/o that support.

 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.  

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

Sorry for being so stupid, oh enlightened one...

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

 SH> Really? I wait with baited breath for your explanation.

95% of the people on earth know little about DOS/WIN/OS2/UNIX.  I do.

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

 SH> Wrong on both counts.

 SH> 1) The "name" behind Linux is Linus Torvalds.

He doesn't provide the things needed by business to run his OS.  Companies
want more than this.

 SH> 2) Linux is not by any means "freeware". Most software for
 SH> Linux is Open Source Software. Completely different concept,
 SH> completely different development system.

You're wrong again.  LINUX is freeware, it is not public domain.  You don't
know much do you, let me throw in one of your {sigh}'s...

 JS> LINUX

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

{sigh} Who give's a rat's patoot?  Why don't you run a spell checker on my
post while you're at it...{sigh}

                                              Jack 
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