RE: IE in FreeBSD?

From: Ted Mittelstaedt (tedm_at_toybox.placo.com)
Date: 09/19/05

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    To: "Mario Hoerich" <spambox@MHoerich.de>
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 10:58:00 -0700

    >-----Original Message-----
    >From: Mario Hoerich [mailto:spambox@MHoerich.de]
    >Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2005 10:07 AM
    >To: Ted Mittelstaedt
    >Cc: jahnke@fmjassoc.com; youshi10@u.washington.edu;
    >freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
    >Subject: Re: IE in FreeBSD?
    >
    >
    ># Ted Mittelstaedt:
    >> # On Behalf Of Frank Jahnke
    >> >
    >> >filled out and saved on a FreeBSD system?
    >> >
    >>
    >> PDF doesn't belong in complex forms that are filled out online. I use
    >> PDF at my job and we use it for one use only - contracts. A contract
    >> must be in paper with a human's signature on it to have any validity
    >> whatsoever in a court of law, despite what you may read otherwise.
    >
    >In Germany, electronic signatures conforming to the conditions in
    >§17 SiG ("signature law") and §15 Annex 1 SigV ("signature decree")
    >are as valid as a "hard" signature and can (for example) be used for
    >communication with government departments.
    >
    >The world doesn't end on US borders.
    >

    Sure, try suing someone for $200 in small claims for that - the expert
    witness fees to verify to the court that such a signature exists and is
    valid will be more than the amount your trying to get.

    >
    >> >>The Mac isn't
    >> >> a gateway to UNIX by any means. Apple made it easy for
    >Mac users to
    >> >> continue to be stone stupid, and the Mac users by and
    >large chose to
    >> >> stay stone stupid. Apple knows it's customer base that's for sure.
    >
    >*Shrug*. I'm a CS + Math student and I've used FreeBSD since 3.3
    >(Linux before). I don't think I'm stone stupid.

    Are you aware of that the terminology "by and large" means in that
    context?
    Perhaps not, maybe the translation to German modified the meaning?

    So, your the one in a thousand Mac user that's not stone stupid, an
    occurrance that my statement allowed to exist.

    >
    >
    >> >I find this attitude to be very distressing, but remarkably common.
    >
    >Yup.
    >
    >> >Sure, users are not as informed as they might be, and they
    >can do stupid
    >> >things. But they use the computer as a tool to do certain tasks, and
    >> >they shouldn't have to know about how the computer works to
    >accomplish
    >> >those tasks.
    >>
    >> Yah yah yah. I hear the same thing about cars - "we shouldn't need to
    >> know how a car works to drive it" Sure - sounds great.
    >
    >Cars != computers. With cars, failure to understand their basic
    >features is likely to get people killed. I don't see that kind
    >of risk with ordinary PCs. The analogy is thus pointless.
    >
    >You could just as well demand that anyone ever using mathematics
    >knows the entire theory behind it.

    Hey, you just said the analogy is pointless - then proceed to argue it?
    Must be a valid analogy or you wouldn't have proceeded to argue.

    >
    >> It's like teaching mathematics in school. You can teach the
    >kids to do
    >> addition, subtraction, multiplication and division by hand, so they
    >> understand what is going on,
    >
    >No, they don't. Mathematics in school is nothing but a "desktop"
    >for real mathematics.

    Why are you continuing to divert focus here? Let me restate and
    rephrase:

    "You can teach the kids to do addition, subtraction, multiplication and
    division by hand, so they understand what is going on with addition,
    subtraction, multiplication and division."

    >With just school mathematics, you don't
    >understand the slightest thing of what's going on, but you've
    >learned how to use it. The above example is *very* basic (this
    >is the stuff you usually learn at the very beginning of your
    >first math-lecture at a university), but you won't learn any
    >of that in school. At least not around here.
    >
    >A more advanced example are integrals. You learn how to integrate,
    >but you haven't got the slightest clue an integral is really defined
    >as (from the top of my head)
    >
    > \int f := \sum_{k=1}^{\infty} f_k
    >
    >where each f_k is a step function, i.e. an element of the
    >vector space \mathcal{F}_{ST}(|R,|R) spanned by the elementary
    >functions g_i. That is:
    > f_k := \sum_{i=1}^{k} \lamda_i g_i
    >with
    > g_i(x) := \begin{cases}1 & x \in [a,b[ \\ 0 & otherwise\end{cases}
    >
    >There's a *lot* of theory behind those few lines and believe me,
    >it ain't pretty or simple. However, there's no reason anyone
    >but a mathematician should care about this.

    Baloney. Sure, someone who uses integrals every day to build
    or create something does not need to
    know the theory well enough to repeat it, or remember enough of it
    to understand all of it correctly.

    But sometime during the teaching of how to work an integral they should
    have been instructed by someone who really understood it and could
    help them to form a mental image that would be an analogy of what is
    going on. They should have the general gist of the idea.

    Your attitude is reminicent of "Pay no attention to that man behind the
    curtain"
    from the Wizard of Oz. It's elitist and snobbish - "oh only us priests
    can
    understand it you commoners never can so go away and let your betters
    handle this"

    >
    >That's why the "desktop" school mathematics exists. So people
    >who aren't interested in mathematics won't have to deal with
    >its intricacies.
    >

    When I was growing up there was a LOT of stuff I had stuffed into
    my head when I was in school that I 'wasn't interested in" and was
    "never going to use when I grow up" I told my teachers this repeatedly.
    Fortunately they ignored this. I feel sorry that you must have
    grown up in one of the permissive schools where your teachers
    didn't slap that notion out of your head like they should have.

    >I think this is a better analogy than yours, because in both cases
    > i) the matters involved are widely considered complicated.
    >
    > ii) the users have to deal with "virtual" quantities, i.e. they
    > can't touch them. This tends to be a problem for many people.
    >

    Snob again.

    >iii) the risks involved are pretty much the same.

    >
    >None of this applies to cars.
    >

    Boy you keep coming back to that cars thing, it must really be bugging
    you - what's wrong, haven't figured out how to invalidate it yet? The
    point of analogy is to assist the reader to understand the point of
    an argument. I think you understand it well and your trying to divert
    attention to it by focusing on the analogy itself, rather than the idea
    the analogy quite obviously effectively conveyed.

    >
    >> >It seems that you are arguing the BSDs (Free, Net, Open and so on)
    >> >should be used only for servers (and perhaps a few other applications
    >> >like embedded systems), and to leave the desktop to the Mac
    >and Windows.
    >>
    >> No, you are missing the point totally. I'm arguing that the so-called
    >> "desktop" isn't important.
    >
    >For you. There's other needs than yours and they're of no less
    >importance.
    >

    No, for everyone. All the users see is application interfaces on the
    screen. They don't know or care if those application interfaces are
    generated
    locally or 1000 miles away and they are just seeing the screen output.

    I think you, like many Mac users, are still stuck with that mental image
    of the Mac Big Brother commercial that played once during the superbowl
    nearly 2 decades ago, and the idea that your precious Mac might simply
    be nothing more than a portal to a bigger and more powerful system
    admined by someone else you think is unnatural.

    >> The desktop needs to serve as a portal to the real applications
    >> and processing, which is centralized. It is a means to an end,
    >> not an end itself. The servers in the center that are doing the
    >> Really Important Work are of course all FreeBSD.
    >
    >This doesn't exactly make sense for home PCs. I'll certainly not
    >stick another machine in my single room appartment so I have a
    >"server".
    >

    Rubbish. We have many customers who have employees that work at home
    and terminal server into the office, and they have all their applications
    at the work system, and they do this very successfully. You aren't doing
    your biological experiments at home.

    And as for basic apps like wordprocessors and such - well I have to
    remind
    you that you yourself already argued in a previous post that this entire
    scenario of yours that your talking about here specifically dealt with
    apps that are more complex than that. In other words the rules of
    engagement
    you set up for this discussion was specifically NOT home user apps, it
    was
    complex business apps in a work environment. Now your dragging in home
    users which are a different deal alltogether. Recall the OP wants to run
    IE to deal with vendor websites that are IE specific and already ruled
    out
    telling the vendors of these busted websites to *** off (like a home
    user
    has the freedom to do) since he has to go to them for work.

    >
    >[ data on notebooks ]
    >> Move the data to a central location and the notebook becomes a dumb
    >> window with no data on it, and there's no need to pay attention to
    >> the notebook.
    >
    >Not all the world's a company. And I certainly wouldn't like
    >my data or applications on a "central location" not owned and
    >controlled by me.
    >

    If it is truly your own data then you have a right to save it locally,
    as any portal would allow you to do. But most people arging like your
    doing here, are actually working with data belonging to someone else.

    You send and receive e-mail from your home PC to your office? Guess
    what, those mails belong to your employer. All that biological data
    you are talking about in a prior post doesen't belong to you either.

    Your a home user viewing a DVD you 'bought' guess again, you don't own
    that data either.

    Your a home user reading the news on CNN's website - guess again, that
    data doesen't belong to you either.

    Your running Microsoft Word on your home PC - guess again, Microsoft owns
    that program not you. Your running it under MacOS? Apple owns that
    operating system, not you.

    All the world IS a company unless you completely buck the system and
    install ALL open source and don't view anyone elses's webpages, e-mails,
    hell even this post here is copyrighted by someone else, not you.

    And your arguing for putting -commercial- software on FreeBSD? Seems
    to me that's an argument for your applications being not owned or
    controlled by you.

    >
    >> It's a shame these days that people have so little respect for someone
    >> else's point of view that they are more concerned with the feelings of
    >> the person than the actual ideas of that person. I think you've been
    >> around those government shirts too long, you've been contaminated
    >> by political correctness. Tell me, do you really believe in anything
    >> anymore or is everything just shades of gray to you? Sorry
    >> though I forgot the words to Kumbiya.
    >>
    >> Jesus, at least call me an *** then I will have some hope you
    >> actually believe what your saying!
    >
    >Ad hominem attacks are *precisely* what implies disrespect with
    >another's ideas. Besides, they usually show a notable lack of
    >both self-discipline and arguments. They're not really efficient
    >either.

    Metadiscussion implies far more disrespect. And you haven't responded
    to my point anyway - which is you've been around those government shirts
    too long, you've been contaminated by political correctness. It's pretty
    clear you really haven't thought through a consistent philosophy on this
    IE thing.

    I will give you a ray of hope though, there ARE consistent logical
    arguments
    for creating emulators for FreeBSD to allow it to run commercial
    binaries.
    But you MUST accept as an axiom to make these arguments that it will
    damage
    FreeBSD and the Open Source movement for these arguments to have any
    consistency.
    You cannot have it both ways - you cannot work to bring commercial
    binaries to
    an Open Source OS like FreeBSD without undermining the very system your
    claiming to "help" Your arguments are just like the people who argued
    for
    seamless Windows for OS/2. They were just lying to themselves to make
    themselves feel better when they were arguing that seamless support of
    Microsoft Windows binaries would "help" OS/2. And you are doing it also
    today, it's no different.

    Ted

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