[I apologize in advance for even responding to this, but it's just too much!]

In article <017e01beb93d$696bf920$63770118@c44023-8.lvrmr1.sfba.home.com>,
Frank Warren <clovis@home.com> wrote:
> Why do I say all UNIX weenies are bad guys?  For one, they don't support
[...]
> while slimes like Bill Gates take over the market because he:
> 
> 1) Supports users

If you like the kind of support he offers, and are willing to pay
the same exorbitant rates, just say so and I'm sure you'll find many
willing suppliers of similar service for NetBSD. 

> 2) Has decent applications

Hahahahahhaahah!

s/decent/popular/, and you have a point.  Decent applications are coming
to Unix.  Popular is a problem.  M$ owns many of the most popular
applications, and they're not going to port them. 

> 3) Forms strategic alliances with people who can do him good

...and then screws them.

> 4) Tries to fight as little as possible

Sure. He can afford to buy people off instead, or avoid a fight in the
first place by being too big and scary.

(And if Unix weenies are bad guys for not doing the above, I guess that
means Gates is a good guy?)

> I like BSD, more or less, and think the Linux world is a mess, more or less,
> because I've looked.  But UNIX is UNIX, and it's still pretty useless.  In
> fact, TCP/IP is the ONLY reason it endures at all.  It was pretty much dead
> except as an esoteric undertaking by 1989.  And it wasn't BSD per se that
> led the charge; it was largely Sun and Silicon Graphics, two other
> organizations that do support users, have decent apps, form strategic
> alliances and don't engage in ego-based religious wars.

And have money. And have users who are willing to pay for support. And
hire people to write decent apps. And are big enough to be interesting
to people who they want to form alliences with, and so on.

Yes, we should bicker less.  We know that.  We've been bickering for
years about the need to bicker less.  However, trying to behave like a
large company is not an option.  And it's a mistake to think that the
large companies don't bicker -- they just hire lawyers to do it for
them.