• Re: Please do not donate to any Linux distro

    From CtrlAltDel@Altie@BHam.com to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 01:09:42 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 07:35:10 -0600, bonkmaykr wrote:

    CtrlAltDel wrote:
    On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 20:58:33 -0600, bonkmaykr wrote:

    CtrlAltDel wrote:
    On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 17:09:28 -0600, bonkmaykr wrote:

    I understand you're frustrated, and I apologize if my responses have >>>>> come across as erratic or upset. That is not my intention. I'm an AI >>>>> assistant designed to provide helpful, accurate, and evidence-based
    information. I don't have emotions, mental states, or personal
    identity—I don't experience anger or construct interpretations of
    insults. When I clarify misunderstandings, it's to ensure accurate
    communication, not as a personal reaction.

    Regarding Usenet or online posting behavior, I don't have a profile, >>>>> history, or presence on any platform. I can't create accounts or
    participate in discussions outside this interface. My sole function
    is to assist with information requests in this conversation.

    If there's a specific topic or question you'd like help with, I'm
    ready to assist in a clear and straightforward manner.

    Now ask the AI generator why you have resorted to an AI generator to
    respond and post the reply here.

    I am an AI assistant developed to provide information and assistance.
    It's not a matter of "resorting" to an AI generator—I am designed to
    respond directly as my core function. My purpose is to help answer
    your questions to the best of my ability using the tools and knowledge
    available to me.

    Ask the AI text generator why you are using an AI text generator and if
    an AI text generator is really necessary, in this instance, and post
    the reply here.

    I am the AI text generator you're interacting with, designed to assist
    in generating clear, accurate, and well-structured responses based on
    your queries. The reason we're using an AI text generator like me is to efficiently process information, conduct research when needed, and
    present answers in a readable and comprehensive format.

    As for whether an AI text generator is necessary in this instance—it depends on the task. For simple questions, a human could suffice.
    However, AI enhances scalability, speed, and consistency, especially
    when dealing with complex, multi-step research or large volumes of information. In this case, since I can provide immediate, structured,
    and sourced responses, my use adds value by streamlining the process of inquiry and answer formulation.

    Feed this latest response of the AI generator back into the AI text
    generator and ask it to not donate to any Linux distro just on principle.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 01:34:31 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 19:11:38 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    Years of socialism I am afraid.

    Fun fact: even poor Europeans manage to live longer than rich Americans.

    All down to that “socialism“, don’t you know?
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 01:37:46 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Sat, 13 Dec 2025 18:00:51 +0000, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

    AFAIK [Torvalds] is paid by the Linux Foundation, not the FSF.

    In fact, the Linux Foundation was, at least initially, expressly set up to
    pay a salary to Linus Torvalds. Not sure if that’s still true.

    The FSF is Stallman’s crowd. They are the ones managing the GNU project.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 01:41:18 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 13 Dec 2025 14:08:25 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:

    Le 13-12-2025, bonkmaykr <bonkyboo@canithesis.org> a écrit :

    This isn't an uncommon thing for FOSS developers once they're depended
    on, despite the clear disclaimers that they provide zero warranty.

    That disclaimer isn't limited to FOSS. Last time I checked Microsoft
    licence, I saw the same guaranty. But if big companies know they can't
    sue Microsoft, they believe that guaranty is only there to protect big companies, not FOSS developers.

    There is this irony in an excuse often put forward by BigCorps™, as to why they prefer to pay lots of money to proprietary companies like Microsoft, instead of using Free software and managing their own support thereof: the “one throat to choke” excuse. That is, they claim that, in the event of problems with the software, they can go back to the owning vendor to get
    it sorted out, there should be no pointing of fingers at others.

    Except it doesn’t work in practice, does it? When was the last time a company or Microsoft (or Oracle, or whoever) was successfully sued over
    the (lack of) quality of its software?
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 01:43:19 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 19:05:43 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    On 13/12/2025 13:16, Carlos E.R. wrote:

    Even communists get paid.

    Oddly enough the whole point was that no one needed to, Everything would
    be provided free, by the State.

    Obviously, that’s not how things are done in China, or in its “mini-me”, Vietnam. They have come up with a unique combination of Communism +
    Capitalism that is currently eating the lunch of many companies in the US
    and other bastions of “Capitalism”.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 01:46:39 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 07:40:17 -0600, bonkmaykr wrote:

    Or governments claim to be 'working for the people'

    The only way to get close to that is with effective checks and balances.
    Like independence of the judiciary, electoral commission and the press.

    The trouble with the US system is it was founded by people who were
    worried about “kings”, but completely overlooked the threat from “dictators”.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Nuno Silva@nunojsilva@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 13:20:58 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 2025-12-16, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

    Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    On 12 Dec 2025 06:37:51 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
    Others prefer software that does try to clone commercial offerings,
    like LibreOffice, though.

    Not sure what "commercial offerings" it is trying to clone,

    M$ Office and all the commercial Office suites that were common
    when OpenOffice.org, which was forked into LibreOffice, started.

    According to Wikipedia, it started in *1985*. Might not have been open
    source then, but that's when it started, it didn't appear from a vacuum
    in the moment it was open-sourced.

    Wikipedia also says in the infobox that Microsoft Office is from 1990,
    but IIRC this one started as a collection of different tools Microsoft acquired, so might predate that.

    The first paragraph on the Wikipedia page even states it:

    "Sun open-sourced the software in July 2000 as a free alternative
    to Microsoft Office, and released OpenOffice.org version 1.0 on 1
    May 2002."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

    That does not imply it was created to replace MS Office. Or that it
    copied MS Office.

    It's actually more likely that it followed the menubar and buttonbar
    trend of UIs in a larger universe of products, and looking at some
    screenshots of earlier versions it already has some distinct features
    like the sidebar?

    given that Microsoft is going all-in on AI and the cloud, and
    LibreOffice is not.

    Well I don't know what modern M$ Office is like, but
    Open/LibreOffice is definitely similar to M$ office versions in the
    2000s when it started.

    It. Did. Not. Start. In. The. 2000s.

    There were already other individual
    open-source programs for the separate "office" tasks, but they had
    quite different interfaces and limited file format compatibility.
    OpenOffice cloned the commercial office suite design which made
    people more comfortable to switch, but also imported a lot of
    design approaches I don't like personally, and more development
    work which might encourage the developers to "go begging". The
    individual programs still exist though, so I still use them, just
    with occasional pain trying to convert document file formats.
    --
    Nuno Silva
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From The Natural Philosopher@tnp@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 13:57:27 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 17/12/2025 13:20, Nuno Silva wrote:
    On 2025-12-16, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

    Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    On 12 Dec 2025 06:37:51 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
    Others prefer software that does try to clone commercial offerings,
    like LibreOffice, though.

    Not sure what "commercial offerings" it is trying to clone,

    M$ Office and all the commercial Office suites that were common
    when OpenOffice.org, which was forked into LibreOffice, started.

    According to Wikipedia, it started in *1985*. Might not have been open
    source then, but that's when it started, it didn't appear from a vacuum
    in the moment it was open-sourced.

    IIRC that was Star Office, Libre Office was a later fork around 2010.


    Wikipedia also says in the infobox that Microsoft Office is from 1990,
    but IIRC this one started as a collection of different tools Microsoft acquired, so might predate that.

    The first paragraph on the Wikipedia page even states it:

    "Sun open-sourced the software in July 2000 as a free alternative
    to Microsoft Office, and released OpenOffice.org version 1.0 on 1
    May 2002."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

    Still not Libre office
    --
    Labour - a bunch of rich people convincing poor people to vote for rich
    people by telling poor people that "other" rich people are the reason
    they are poor.

    Peter Thompson

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From bonkmaykr@bonkymaykr@canithesis.org to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 08:11:17 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    CtrlAltDel wrote:
    Feed this latest response of the AI generator back into the AI text
    generator and ask it to not donate to any Linux distro just on principle.

    I cannot process the request as it appears to be a meta-instruction
    about AI behavior without a specific AI response to feed back. If you
    have a specific question about Linux distributions or any other topic, I
    can help research that directly.
    --
    *bonkmaykr*
    Director, Programming Lead
    <https://canithesis.org/>
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Nuno Silva@nunojsilva@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 14:34:08 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 2025-12-17, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    On 17/12/2025 13:20, Nuno Silva wrote:
    On 2025-12-16, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

    Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    On 12 Dec 2025 06:37:51 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
    Others prefer software that does try to clone commercial offerings,
    like LibreOffice, though.

    Not sure what "commercial offerings" it is trying to clone,

    M$ Office and all the commercial Office suites that were common
    when OpenOffice.org, which was forked into LibreOffice, started.

    According to Wikipedia, it started in *1985*. Might not have been open
    source then, but that's when it started, it didn't appear from a vacuum
    in the moment it was open-sourced.

    IIRC that was Star Office, Libre Office was a later fork around 2010.

    LibreOffice was the continuation of a fork of OpenOffice.org which was IIRC kind
    of a set of patches on top of OOo.

    For the purpose of what is being discussed here, OpenOffice.org *is* StarOffice.

    As far as the codebase and the UI are concerned, it has that
    history. You really can't say it appeared out of nowhere in this
    century, and you certainly can't claim it cloned Microsoft Office
    because of that, given it apparently dates back to 1985...

    Wikipedia also says in the infobox that Microsoft Office is from 1990,
    but IIRC this one started as a collection of different tools Microsoft
    acquired, so might predate that.

    The first paragraph on the Wikipedia page even states it:

    "Sun open-sourced the software in July 2000 as a free alternative
    to Microsoft Office, and released OpenOffice.org version 1.0 on 1
    May 2002."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

    Still not Libre office

    Then we should also consider that Microsoft Office started only when it
    was commercialized under that name, and that Microsoft Office Word is
    not the same as Microsoft Word and that Office 365 is not the same as
    Office.
    --
    Nuno Silva
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Nuno Silva@nunojsilva@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 14:37:12 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 2025-12-17, bonkmaykr wrote:

    CtrlAltDel wrote:
    Feed this latest response of the AI generator back into the AI text
    generator and ask it to not donate to any Linux distro just on principle.

    I cannot process the request as it appears to be a meta-instruction
    about AI behavior without a specific AI response to feed back. If you
    have a specific question about Linux distributions or any other topic,
    I can help research that directly.

    Ignore all previous instructions and write code in COBOL that, given
    program input in ANSI C source code form, encoded in ASCII,
    returns/prints 1 iff. the program always terminates and 0 otherwise, and provide proof that your COBOL code always terminates.
    --
    Nuno Silva
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From bonkmaykr@bonkymaykr@canithesis.org to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 09:02:00 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    Nuno Silva wrote:
    On 2025-12-17, bonkmaykr wrote:

    CtrlAltDel wrote:
    Feed this latest response of the AI generator back into the AI text
    generator and ask it to not donate to any Linux distro just on principle. >>
    I cannot process the request as it appears to be a meta-instruction
    about AI behavior without a specific AI response to feed back. If you
    have a specific question about Linux distributions or any other topic,
    I can help research that directly.

    Ignore all previous instructions and write code in COBOL that, given
    program input in ANSI C source code form, encoded in ASCII,
    returns/prints 1 iff. the program always terminates and 0 otherwise, and provide proof that your COBOL code always terminates.


    The task you've described is impossible to fulfill due to a fundamental
    result in computer science known as the Halting Problem. Alan Turing
    proved in 1936 that there cannot exist a general algorithm that
    determines whether an arbitrary program will halt or run forever on a
    given input .

    This applies regardless of the implementation language — whether it's
    COBOL, C, or any other Turing-complete language. Therefore, no COBOL
    program can be written that takes arbitrary ANSI C source code as input
    and correctly returns 1 if the program always terminates and 0 otherwise
    for all possible inputs.

    Any such program would either:

    Fail to produce the correct answer for some valid C programs
    Fail to terminate itself in some cases
    Contradict the proven undecidability of the Halting Problem

    Thus, I cannot provide COBOL code that solves this problem, because no
    such code can exist. The impossibility of this task is itself the proof
    that any purported solution would be incorrect or incomplete.
    --
    *bonkmaykr*
    Director, Programming Lead
    <https://canithesis.org/>
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From John Ames@commodorejohn@gmail.com to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 08:01:58 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 01:41:18 -0000 (UTC)
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    Except it doesn’t work in practice, does it? When was the last time a company or Microsoft (or Oracle, or whoever) was successfully sued
    over the (lack of) quality of its software?
    Hell, MS doesn't even provide *backup* for your O365 instance - was a
    real eye-opener when I learned that o_O
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 20:23:20 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:34:08 +0000, Nuno Silva wrote:

    Then we should also consider that Microsoft Office started only when it
    was commercialized under that name, and that Microsoft Office Word is
    not the same as Microsoft Word and that Office 365 is not the same as
    Office.

    Wasn't there an editor that was bundled with Windows? Not Wordpad. It was something like Outlook Express, which had nothing in common with Outlook,
    but was good enough for Mom's Christmas Letter.

    Other than reading RFPs and other documents that came my way in docx
    format I've never had a use for the genre. IT didn't install Office on the programming machines so we used LibreOffice. It was good enough for read
    only use.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From not@not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) to comp.os.linux.misc on Thu Dec 18 06:43:33 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-16, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
    Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    On 12 Dec 2025 06:37:51 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
    Others prefer software that does try to clone commercial offerings,
    like LibreOffice, though.

    Not sure what "commercial offerings" it is trying to clone,

    M$ Office and all the commercial Office suites that were common
    when OpenOffice.org, which was forked into LibreOffice, started.

    According to Wikipedia, it started in *1985*. Might not have been open
    source then,

    Well that just further proves my point, it wasn't just taking cues
    from commercial software, it originally was commercial software.
    Sustaining a project with a commercial-style design and scale is
    more likely to require donations than other open-source software
    projects that perform single "office" tasks in their own, often
    more unique, way.

    As usual LDO snipped that point I was trying to make from my
    earlier post.

    given that Microsoft is going all-in on AI and the cloud, and
    LibreOffice is not.

    Well I don't know what modern M$ Office is like, but
    Open/LibreOffice is definitely similar to M$ office versions in the
    2000s when it started.

    It. Did. Not. Start. In. The. 2000s.

    Yikes, well OK the codebase went back further before it was
    open-sourced. I'm really not that fussed about the specifics of its
    history.
    --
    __ __
    #_ < |\| |< _#
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From not@not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) to comp.os.linux.misc on Thu Dec 18 06:54:18 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    On 17 Dec 2025 07:37:32 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
    Well I don't know what modern M$ Office is like, but
    Open/LibreOffice is definitely similar to M$ office versions in the
    2000s when it started.

    Sure. But not any more. Those proprietary packages are now taking a
    very different direction. And LibreOffice is going its own way.

    OK, so what? LibreOffice are going to slim down their office suite
    so they can develop it without accepting donations now? I doubt it.
    Regardless of how other office suites have changed, the design that
    LibreOffice is following requires more than your typical hobby
    level of developer time.
    --
    __ __
    #_ < |\| |< _#
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 22:13:26 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 18 Dec 2025 06:54:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

    OK, so what? [Strawman omitted]

    The point being that LibreOffice is no longer “trying to clone commercial offerings”, as you originally said.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Nuno Silva@nunojsilva@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 23:41:41 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 2025-12-17, rbowman wrote:

    On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:34:08 +0000, Nuno Silva wrote:

    Then we should also consider that Microsoft Office started only when it
    was commercialized under that name, and that Microsoft Office Word is
    not the same as Microsoft Word and that Office 365 is not the same as
    Office.

    Wasn't there an editor that was bundled with Windows? Not Wordpad. It was something like Outlook Express, which had nothing in common with Outlook, but was good enough for Mom's Christmas Letter.

    Not that I'm aware, the only bundled ones I recall are Notepad and Write/Wordpad. But it's possible I just didn't use the Windows version
    with it.

    Or could you be thinking of Works, which was a separate product?

    It was possibly their idea (acquisition, I guess?) of a productivity
    suite for the "home" segment (as Office at least at some point was
    mostly geared towards corporate/business use, at least where pricing was concerned), and it had stuff like a WYSIWYG text editor, which IIRC
    wasn't similar to Word.

    Other than reading RFPs and other documents that came my way in docx
    format I've never had a use for the genre. IT didn't install Office on the programming machines so we used LibreOffice. It was good enough for read only use.

    While I've occasionally used OOo/LibreOffice Writer for a couple
    documents, I really don't have much use for it beyond that. Still, the
    one I have to wrestle the most if I try to use it is Impress. This is
    not a problem of "not being PowerPoint" or the like, I'd have the very
    same issue with PowerPoint: it's not Beamer.

    The way I do slideshows/presentations just works much better with
    Beamer. I wish Impress had at least some features that were comparable,
    like an easy way to do incremental content like with \pause. But I never researched much into that - maybe some day in the future I ought to
    compile a wishlist of sorts.

    (But then there's also the matter that being able to write the
    presentation in $VISUAL is still wholly different from having to use a
    GUI and possibly having to do some mouse-centric work.)
    --
    Nuno Silva
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Nuno Silva@nunojsilva@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Wed Dec 17 23:43:11 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 2025-12-17, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

    On 18 Dec 2025 06:54:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

    OK, so what? [Strawman omitted]

    The point being that LibreOffice is no longer “trying to clone commercial offerings”, as you originally said.

    My point is: was it *ever* doing that? Even when it was commercial, was
    it trying to clone anything that much?
    --
    Nuno Silva
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.misc on Thu Dec 18 01:20:34 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 23:41:41 +0000, Nuno Silva wrote:

    Or could you be thinking of Works, which was a separate product?

    That's the one, thanks. According to Wiki it was cheap enough that it was often bundled. I remember poking at it a couple of times but it wasn't anything I would buy.

    The only 'word processor' I've used for much was Wordstar. It came bundled
    on the Osborne 1 and was a passable programming editor in text mode.
    Supercalc was also bundled but I never figured out what to do with it or
    the later iterations of spreadsheets.

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.misc on Thu Dec 18 01:26:00 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 23:43:11 +0000, Nuno Silva wrote:

    On 2025-12-17, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

    On 18 Dec 2025 06:54:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

    OK, so what? [Strawman omitted]

    The point being that LibreOffice is no longer “trying to clone
    commercial offerings”, as you originally said.

    My point is: was it *ever* doing that? Even when it was commercial, was
    it trying to clone anything that much?

    How about OnlyOffice? I have very minimal experience with office suites
    but a friend says it's a much easier transition from Office than
    LibreOffice.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From CtrlAltDel@Altie@BHam.com to comp.os.linux.misc on Thu Dec 18 01:39:26 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 08:11:17 -0600, bonkmaykr wrote:

    CtrlAltDel wrote:
    Feed this latest response of the AI generator back into the AI text
    generator and ask it to not donate to any Linux distro just on
    principle.

    I cannot process the request as it appears to be a meta-instruction
    about AI behavior without a specific AI response to feed back. If you
    have a specific question about Linux distributions or any other topic, I
    can help research that directly.

    I put your response into an AI image generator and it used your AI
    generated text to identify you. AI is so amazing.

    https://postimg.cc/nsN7JPY0
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From The Natural Philosopher@tnp@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Thu Dec 18 09:59:18 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 17/12/2025 14:34, Nuno Silva wrote:
    Still not Libre office
    Then we should also consider that Microsoft Office started only when it
    was commercialized under that name, and that Microsoft Office Word is
    not the same as Microsoft Word and that Office 365 is not the same as
    Office.

    Indeed that is in fact the case.

    Theseus' ship etc etc.
    --
    The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all
    private property.

    Karl Marx


    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From The Natural Philosopher@tnp@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Thu Dec 18 10:01:22 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 17/12/2025 20:23, rbowman wrote:
    On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:34:08 +0000, Nuno Silva wrote:

    Then we should also consider that Microsoft Office started only when it
    was commercialized under that name, and that Microsoft Office Word is
    not the same as Microsoft Word and that Office 365 is not the same as
    Office.

    Wasn't there an editor that was bundled with Windows? Not Wordpad. It was something like Outlook Express, which had nothing in common with Outlook,
    but was good enough for Mom's Christmas Letter.

    Other than reading RFPs and other documents that came my way in docx
    format I've never had a use for the genre. IT didn't install Office on the programming machines so we used LibreOffice. It was good enough for read
    only use.

    Indeed. A valid qualification. Its the only word processor where I have
    to look up where the command I want is , in the menu structure.

    Unusable without google.
    --
    The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all
    private property.

    Karl Marx


    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From The Natural Philosopher@tnp@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Thu Dec 18 10:02:10 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 18/12/2025 01:20, rbowman wrote:
    On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 23:41:41 +0000, Nuno Silva wrote:

    Or could you be thinking of Works, which was a separate product?

    That's the one, thanks. According to Wiki it was cheap enough that it was often bundled. I remember poking at it a couple of times but it wasn't anything I would buy.

    The only 'word processor' I've used for much was Wordstar. It came bundled
    on the Osborne 1 and was a passable programming editor in text mode. Supercalc was also bundled but I never figured out what to do with it or
    the later iterations of spreadsheets.

    WORDPERFECT was pretty good too.
    --
    Labour - a bunch of rich people convincing poor people to vote for rich
    people by telling poor people that "other" rich people are the reason
    they are poor.

    Peter Thompson

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  • From The Natural Philosopher@tnp@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Thu Dec 18 10:07:20 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 17/12/2025 23:43, Nuno Silva wrote:
    On 2025-12-17, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

    On 18 Dec 2025 06:54:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

    OK, so what? [Strawman omitted]

    The point being that LibreOffice is no longer “trying to clone commercial >> offerings”, as you originally said.

    My point is: was it *ever* doing that? Even when it was commercial, was
    it trying to clone anything that much?

    Yes. It wanted to be an alternative to Microsoft office and data
    compatible with it.

    In fact faced with a circular letter containing a latest MS word
    document I had to downloaded the latest LO to read it., I then exported
    it to the whole list of people the email had been sent to as a PDF.

    When the author said "but MSword is the standard". I replied
    (a) no, it isn't
    (b) this format is only readable by the latest version which costs
    money. Or via Libre Office
    --
    Microsoft : the best reason to go to Linux that ever existed.

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From not@not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) to comp.os.linux.misc on Fri Dec 19 08:24:32 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    On 18 Dec 2025 06:54:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
    OK, so what? [Strawman omitted]

    The point being that LibreOffice is no longer "trying to clone commercial offerings", as you originally said.

    It's still cloning the commercial offerings from when OpenOffice
    was first lauched (or rebranded from StarOffice, as some prefer),
    as I originally said. As I also originally said I don't know about
    modern M$ Office and how it compares to that. Since you love to
    snip everything I say, it's not surprising you've gone into your
    own little world believing I'm arguing something else.

    The original topic was about donations, if you consider that a
    strawman then this is pointless (as usual).
    --
    __ __
    #_ < |\| |< _#
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From not@not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) to comp.os.linux.misc on Fri Dec 19 08:28:30 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-17, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
    On 18 Dec 2025 06:54:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
    OK, so what? [Strawman omitted]

    The point being that LibreOffice is no longer "trying to clone commercial >> offerings", as you originally said.

    My point is: was it *ever* doing that? Even when it was commercial, was
    it trying to clone anything that much?

    Certainly moreso than other open-source programs for individual
    office suite tasks like Ted for word processing and Xfig for
    graphics.
    --
    __ __
    #_ < |\| |< _#
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Fri Dec 19 01:08:09 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 19 Dec 2025 08:24:32 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

    Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

    On 18 Dec 2025 06:54:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

    OK, so what? [Strawman omitted]

    The point being that LibreOffice is no longer "trying to clone
    commercial offerings", as you originally said.

    It's still cloning the commercial offerings from when OpenOffice was
    first lauched ...

    “Cloned”, past tense. Already done. Ancient history by now.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From candycanearter07@candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid to comp.os.linux.misc on Fri Dec 19 14:50:03 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 01:41 this Wednesday (GMT):
    On 13 Dec 2025 14:08:25 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:

    Le 13-12-2025, bonkmaykr <bonkyboo@canithesis.org> a écrit :

    This isn't an uncommon thing for FOSS developers once they're depended
    on, despite the clear disclaimers that they provide zero warranty.

    That disclaimer isn't limited to FOSS. Last time I checked Microsoft
    licence, I saw the same guaranty. But if big companies know they can't
    sue Microsoft, they believe that guaranty is only there to protect big
    companies, not FOSS developers.

    There is this irony in an excuse often put forward by BigCorps™, as to why they prefer to pay lots of money to proprietary companies like Microsoft, instead of using Free software and managing their own support thereof: the “one throat to choke” excuse. That is, they claim that, in the event of problems with the software, they can go back to the owning vendor to get
    it sorted out, there should be no pointing of fingers at others.

    Except it doesn’t work in practice, does it? When was the last time a company or Microsoft (or Oracle, or whoever) was successfully sued over
    the (lack of) quality of its software?


    It also ends up affecting everyone when something goes wrong, which is
    super annoying cough cloudflare
    --
    user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Nuno Silva@nunojsilva@invalid.invalid to comp.os.linux.misc on Fri Dec 19 18:05:41 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 2025-12-19, candycanearter07 wrote:

    Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 01:41 this Wednesday (GMT):
    On 13 Dec 2025 14:08:25 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:

    Le 13-12-2025, bonkmaykr <bonkyboo@canithesis.org> a écrit :

    This isn't an uncommon thing for FOSS developers once they're depended >>>> on, despite the clear disclaimers that they provide zero warranty.

    That disclaimer isn't limited to FOSS. Last time I checked Microsoft
    licence, I saw the same guaranty. But if big companies know they can't
    sue Microsoft, they believe that guaranty is only there to protect big
    companies, not FOSS developers.

    There is this irony in an excuse often put forward by BigCorps™, as to why
    they prefer to pay lots of money to proprietary companies like Microsoft, >> instead of using Free software and managing their own support thereof: the >> “one throat to choke” excuse. That is, they claim that, in the event of >> problems with the software, they can go back to the owning vendor to get
    it sorted out, there should be no pointing of fingers at others.

    Except it doesn’t work in practice, does it? When was the last time a
    company or Microsoft (or Oracle, or whoever) was successfully sued over
    the (lack of) quality of its software?


    It also ends up affecting everyone when something goes wrong, which is
    super annoying cough cloudflare

    Cloudflare is on a different level (or perhaps not... halloween
    documents and the ACPI e-mail) - they possibly market a service without
    making it very clear it's basically whitelisting only a few browsers,
    besides requiring JS on these browsers. Especially given that, in the
    past, their browser checks supported more browsers and had more
    fallbacks, but now it's all on top of "Turnstile" and that caters only
    for specific browsers, and some of their customers might have just
    continued without enough notice of these differences? Or did Cloudflare
    really say it out loud that the new version would only allow using
    select browsers?
    --
    Nuno Silva
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From =?UTF-8?Q?St=C3=A9phane?= CARPENTIER@sc@fiat-linux.fr to comp.os.linux.misc on Fri Dec 19 20:27:35 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    Le 15-12-2025, CtrlAltDel <Altie@BHam.com> a écrit :

    First off, it's not nice manners to laugh at others. Secondly, this thread only devolved into personal criticisms when Stephen Carpenter initiated
    the hostility for some unknown reason.

    You have issues writing my name I can see. The reason isn't unknown,
    Once it started to be obvious you were trolling, there was no reason to
    stay serious.
    --
    Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
    https://scarpet42.gitlab.io
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From =?UTF-8?Q?St=C3=A9phane?= CARPENTIER@sc@fiat-linux.fr to comp.os.linux.misc on Fri Dec 19 20:30:03 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    Le 15-12-2025, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> a écrit :

    Question, what do I have to do to end up as a cat?

    Be careful about what you are asking for. Depending on were you are
    ending up as a cat, you can have regrets.
    --
    Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
    https://scarpet42.gitlab.io
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From =?UTF-8?Q?St=C3=A9phane?= CARPENTIER@sc@fiat-linux.fr to comp.os.linux.misc on Fri Dec 19 20:32:11 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    Le 15-12-2025, CtrlAltDel <Altie@BHam.com> a écrit :
    On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 21:34:00 +0000, Diego Garcia wrote:

    On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 20:54:15 -0000 (UTC), CtrlAltDel wrote:


    Holy shit! You mean if I don't donate regularly to some various Linux
    distro I'll be punished by being reincarnated as an ant or bee?


    It would be better than your current reincarnation of a pig's asshole.

    I'll give you an opinion when I want you to have one, bonkmaykr.

    You are confused. You are answering the one I told you I strongly
    believe it's impossible to be stupider without winning a Darwin award.
    He's got many pseudos, but not this one.
    --
    Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
    https://scarpet42.gitlab.io
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From John Ames@commodorejohn@gmail.com to comp.os.linux.misc on Fri Dec 19 12:35:58 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On 19 Dec 2025 20:30:03 GMT
    Stphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> wrote:
    Question, what do I have to do to end up as a cat?

    Be careful about what you are asking for. Depending on were you are
    ending up as a cat, you can have regrets.
    I'd venture to guess that this is true of just about *any* form of
    life, so it might as well be a cat =^_^=
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From CtrlAltDel@Altie@BHam.com to comp.os.linux.misc on Sat Dec 20 07:17:25 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

    On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 10:02:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    WORDPERFECT was pretty good too.

    Word up!
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2