[cxr]

> Linux succeeded and defeated Microsoft in every single way that matters to open source people

So when someone gets a job where they're required to use Windows and spend all day in IE11 and Microsoft Office, let's say at a very large semiconductor company, they're hallucinating?

[remram]

The fact that there exists people who don't get to use X is not proof that X is not the most common, or that they are hallucinating.

[cxr]

I think I got whiplash from this episode of HNers Moving the Goalposts.

[remram]

Yet you moved the goal post from "Linux defeated Microsoft in open source" to "there isn't anyone using Windows at all". Or are we all hallucinating your comment?

[cxr]

Try undertaking to recognize the actual premises of ∀x-style statements and ∃x-style statements that you encounter in the wild, scooter.

The goalpost was set at "Linux succeeded and defeated Microsoft in every single way that matters to open source people". Ignore the record of what was actually claimed if you want (the quotes you're throwing around are works of your imagination), but that is not merely a claim that either Windows or Linux is "the most common".

The observation that that there exists some X where P does not hold is precisely the way to counter a claim that for all X, P is true.

[remram]

First let me say that talking with you is really annoying, way worse than anyone else I've interacted with on this site. Removing the "must be hallucinating", "try undertaking to recognize", "scooter" would turn your comment more into thoughtful discourse than sneer (you might want to check out the HN guidelines). I am trying to politely argue, pointed out that your comment didn't make sense to me hoping for a clarification, and got shit on, twice. Nice.

To attempt to answer you (I might regret this): what did you take "every single way that matters to open source people" to mean? By gazing through your insults into your comment, trying to find the "∀x statement" you think you saw, I have to assume that you think that means "every one developing open source code isn't using Microsoft?" Is your made-up acquaintance working at a semiconductor company primarily developing open source software there (rather than, say, semiconductors)?

Is the "∀x statement" about "x: way that matter"? Am I to take "non-free software is being used for making semiconductor at a large company" as an example of something that should matter to open source people?

You seem so convinced that there is a logic statement written right there with quantifiers and everything that you don't hesitate to use ridicule on complete strangers and question their grasp of logic. It's funny but couldn't really count as an argument (assuming you were trying to argue rather than just get some bile out).

[cxr]

> First let me say that talking with you is really annoying, way worse than anyone else I've interacted with on this site.

This is not an uncommon reaction from people who are accustomed to bullshitting their way into arguments and who typically "win" those arguments by being just enough of a nuisance—and where the stakes are just low enough—that the likeliest outcome tends to be that the other party decides to move on rather than exhaustively refuting the bullshit. When you find people doing this with you, you are not "winning". In fact, that it happens is a consequence of how annoying others find it to interact with you.

An example (of someone who was similarly incredulous that everyone didn't just let the lame contrarian quips go unremarked upon—and of the sort of company you're in): <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27906289>

> what did you take "every single way that matters to open source people" to mean?[...] I have to assume that you think that means "every one developing open source code isn't using Microsoft?"

No, you don't have to assume that. The only possible reason to assume something so self-serving is because you refuse to engage in a good faith resolution.

On the issue that is under discussion, there's no ambiguity here—at all.

The original statement—which you distorted twice—is a for all X statement: "Linux succeeded and defeated Microsoft in every single way that matters to open source people":

For all X, where X is some thing that "matters to open source people", the condition C is true, where C is the claim that "Linux succeeded and defeated Microsoft [on those Xs]".

The fact that you are unable to parse this out of a very straightforward passage like the one that appears in the part of the comment I quoted, but that you _are_ able to just, like, make some shit up about where the goalposts were set suggests very much that you are not making any attempt whatsoever to actually understand the issue, and you are just in the business here of issuing low-effort quips (like your first two here[1][2]) that don't actually track the discussion. But setting that aside, let's move on to the actual issue of the claim.

The following scenario results in a contradiction of the statement that I responded to:

It is 1997. Ned is working for a very large semiconductor company. At Ned's company, they are required to use Microsoft products. Ned instead wants to use Linux. He is an open source people, and this is what matters to him.

Now, it is 2022. Ned is still working for that very large semiconductor company where they are still required to use Microsoft products—he's not allowed to use Linux. This still matters to him.

It is therefore undeniably refuted via proof by contradiction; the statement that "Linux succeeded and defeated Microsoft in every single way that matters to open source people" is false.

Having now dealt with that, let's read back the transcript and look at your multiple attempts to move the goalposts, e.g. from "every single way that matters to open source people", to something that you plucked out of the air entirely—that is, whether one of Windows/Linux is merely "the most common". That is absolutely _not_ where the goalposts were set, and that's just the first instance of distortion. The second is where you go on to manufacture a quote: '"there isn't anyone using Windows at all"'—which appears nowhere except in your comment where you present it as a quote. Not only is this bullshit, it is the kind of bullshit that is against the rules here on HN.

Do not do this kind of thing. And certainly don't do this sort of thing while making a big deal about how annoyed _you_ found yourself over the course of carrying out this (entirely avoidable! excruciating!) back-and-forth that you alone were responsible for foisting onto the discussion.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31774010

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31777366