[ILUG] Getting way OT (was It's illegal...)

[Kathryn Cassidy]

On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 02:34:08AM +0100, Smelly Pooh wrote:
> Regardless of its approriateness (I never said it wasn't, any statement
> or implication to that effect is completely of your own conjuring), it's
> reasonably apt to say it isn't original

I don't see why the originality of the quote is relevant to the topic 
though.

> I ignored them because Kevin introduced information not pertinent to the
> discussion (that being Windows and Linux in operating systems courses).

No, he introduced a few examples of what should constitute an operating
systems course, I think that's quite relevant.  You do something similar
below.

> 1)  The head funny faced vampire guy is Luke Goss from BROS?

Yeah, I kept thinking I recognised him during the film but didn't cop
on to who it was 'till the end credits.

> 2)  The black guy in the vampire ninja team was cat from Red Dwarf (I
> expect most of you knew that anyway)

Yup.

> 3)  The chinese guy from the vampire ninja team was the dad from Iron
> Monkey

Yup.  By the way, Niall, do you have my copy of that or is it still
in your place Kevin?  Someone (Niall, I think) volunteered to get
it to Kate, but it never got that far, so it's got to be floating
'round somewhere in between...

> 4)  Wesley Snipes has jungle fever

No.

> Linux isn't the only open source OS to learn from, and certainly not

That's why that paragraph talked about open source being good for 
an operating systems course, not linux.

> There's a limit to what you can learn with just Linux, one might say
> there's a limit to what you can learn with any particular OS, all I'm
> saying is that the operating system that isn't windows doesn't have to
> be (and in fact, shouldn't be) Linux

I'm not suggesting it should be, but if you re-read the original post
it did actually say that people had said something along the lines
of "why use linux, sure windows is good enough" which does suggest
that they're only using windows and that they have no interest in
anything other than windows.  Ie, no interest in studying a unix
system or vms or anything other than windows in a OS course.

> 1)  Most people do operating systems courses as part of computer
> science, you'll be very hard pushed to find a student who is interested
> in every mandatory module they have to do, including operating systems

Yes, but it's not unreasonable to expect a majority of the students to 
indicate some interest in the topic.

> 2)  An interest in OSs doesn't require an interest in Linux, what's so
> interesting about Linux as an OS?

I stated that clearly in my last mail.

> 2)  Linux users (especially here) are a lot more dismissive of Windows
> than Windows users are of Linux

Yes that's why were a linux user group not an operating systems course
group.  We're a bloody linux advocacy group, of course we're dismissive
of windows...

me.