Subject: A clarification on OS's
From: Rotary Engine
Date: 1/23/2007, 3:55 PM
To: AARotary Engine


 > OK I don't use Lotus notes so I don't have a clue. I always
 > attach the jpgs the same way using Thunderbird. Sometimes I process
 > them with gimp and sometimes I don't. Perhaps that is the key to
 > what is going on. I do the scanning with a Windows computer, HP
 > scanner and  transfer them with a USB 4 gig memory stick. I notice
 > that Windows cannot read the memory stick if the file is generated
 > on Linux but Linux can always read the file if generated on Windows.
 > I am begging to wonder if Microsoft has corrupted the jpg & file
 > standards some how like they did to HTML and JAVA. A lot of computer
 > problems would go away if Microsoft self destructed immediately
 > rather than later :)
 >
 > Are any of you OSX (Apple Mac Gui on Linux base) having problems?
 > Are any of you Windows users having problems like this?
 > I also notice when using m-tools to transfer files that seems
 > to be more consistent most of the time but there is something
 > subtle going on there. If you use the same floppy disk over and
 > over again eventually it fails after a month or two.
 >
 > Without the source code for Windows these bugs will never be fixed.
 > I would give up using computers if I had to use the new MS Vista.
 > I feel real sorry for anybody buying a new computer in the next
 > ten years that is forced to use MS Vista. It will be highly
 > bug infested. Computer makers are in for a hard time for
 > the foreseeable future. Customers won't know if it is
 > the hardware or the software and the computer maker will
 > not have the Vista source code to figure it out.

snips...

 > Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.


Apple, no problems at all,  ever.   Jerry


Thanks Jerry.
I would not really expect it to be so since Apple is running
Linux underneath OS-X.

Paul Lamar


More likely MAC O/S-X is UNIX based.

Jack Beale

Yes BSD I think. The API is roughly the same as Linux and the
source code on the OS is available which makes all the difference.
I don't know all the details but the two OS's are near identical
as far as I know.

Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.


snips....

A clarification:

Just so you can be correct ....  here is much more than you
need... I ramble:

So, OS X is not Linux. It is BSD underneath the display [GUI].
Specifically, It is a derivative of FreeBSD and OSF MACH


Apple started with an old Open Software Foundation (OSF) MACH kernel
and used freeBSD to fill it out. They also came up with their own
driver interface.

"Linux" is a "kernel" and so is "BSD". The rest of the OSes are
almost the same. Mostly GNU free software under GPL license. A few
other things (mozilla, X [X-Windows system GUI application interface],
...) under different licenses modeled after the BSD license.

"BSD" has multiple code splits: "BSD", "FreeBDS", "OpenBSD",
"NetBSD", "OpenDarwin" and "Apple Mac OS X". "OpenDarwin" is the open
Mac OS. Where "Apple Mac OS X" requires non open code from Apple, like
the display. It is "pdfDisplay" not X [X-Windows system GUI application
interface]. PDF is the langauge you write to the screen with.

Linux and GNU software are under the GPL (GNU Public License). The
license basically says if sell or provide this software to a customer
you have to make the source available to that customer for at least 5
years. The customer can do what ever it wants with the
source(restricted by the GPL). He can give it to me, you or the owners
on the original code. Basically it get modifications back to the
original owners. If you modify the code and sell it, it is in your
best interest to give the code back to the owners and allow them to
integrate it into the source and maintain it for you.

The BSD and BSD style licenses says you can sell the software and
do not have to provide the source, but you have to credit the software
owners. That is why they have so many different flavors of BSD. That
is how MicroSoft got the network stack for Windows. It is BSD code.
Some of the exploits/worms a while back affected most OS' network
stacks, all the same code.

The new GPL version 3. The third iteration of the GPL license is
causing a bit of stink. They rewrote it because people have been
taking linux/gnu software combining their code with it, then
encrypting the system. Usually after prodding, they provide the GPL
code as required, but hold back the process and their code to build
the end result. One of the reasons the GPL license was developed was
to allow the consumer to continue using the product after the company
quits supporting it or they go out of business. The people
circumventing this "spirt of the license" are using methods not
thought about when the license was developed. The new license is so
frigging restrictive that a bunch of people are jumping ship.......
It is my understanding that the linux kernel will not convert
to GPL3.


Blake Lewis

BTW my Side Kick cell phone runs BSD and my TVIO runs Linux :) PL


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