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Even Microsoft's flagship product Vista has Six unpatched vulnerabilities.

These are all unpatched widely known vulnerabilities, and are only the ones in Microsoft's own product. Consider all the third party vulnerabilities, in downloadable codecs for example, that the design of Microsoft's platforms makes it so easy for crackers to exploit.

In comparison, all of the major Linux based distros have an excellent record of closing known vulnerabilities within days if not hours, before the holes get a chance to be exploited. Also SELinux is becoming more widely deployed to secure applications against such threats..At least with Linux there are existing concrete mechanisms in place ( Vulnerability and threat mitigation features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora ), and currently deployable ( Writing policy for confined SELinux users ) to provide a locked down secured environment for Linux desktop users inside an organization.

Also from a more abstract point of view, read Increased security through open source.

If your using the Microsoft platform, then your abetting the people deploying botnets.

Also from a more abstract point of view, read Increased security through open source.

1. Rush, a ruby shell. Rush strikes me as a very cool project. This slideshow is a good introduction.
2. iPython with the "sh" profile. About halfway into this article they discuss it.
3. Hotwire, an "object-oriented hypershell"

There was never any talk about yum-based upgrades. Upgrading a live system is total insanity.

You're probably thinking of PreUpgrade, which is like a yum-based upgrade but without the insanity.

See the interview here for more info:
http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/15/interview-fedora-developers-seth-vidal-and-will-woods/

Read the Risk report: Three years of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 that was published a few weeks ago.

Truth Happens recently posted a link to an article that proposed ways that artists could be paid for their work in a world in which everything's free. In brief, they are

1. Immediacy -- You want something now, and you're willing to pay the artist to speed production of a work.

2. Personalization -- You want something tailored to your needs specifically, like an art request, or a piece of Free / Open-Source Software that does what you need it to do.

3. Interpretation -- Or consultation. Like what Red Hat does, in providing paid support for free software.

4. Authenticity -- Like an artist's seal of approval, it lets you know that your recording is of the actual artist's work (and is certified virus-free).

5. Accessibility -- You could pay clearinghouses of data to keep track of all your songs and such for you. At its lowest level it's paid storage, but it could be more than that.

6. Embodiment -- Anyone can download the .pdf for free, but if you really like it and have the money, who wouldn't want the deluxe collector's edition with gold-engraved cover and bookmark? Or an actual DVD box to go on your shelves.

7. Patronage -- You know you could download that .pdf for free, but you've been following this guy's career for so long that you don't mind paying a few bucks to download the file from his server. Besides, your cash fills up his donation meter and ensures next month's update, or wins the "donation war" for what feature to implement next.

8. Findability -- Not everyone knows how to use P2P networks, or even wants to learn how.

Some of us get everything from the P2P networks. But others, who may not object to borrowing CDs or books from their friends, may still find getting copies of people's work anonymously to be somewhat disquieting. Moreover, they may not know how. These are often the people who buy songs from iTunes and Amazon, because $1 seems like a reasonable price to them for the service they receive.

If you think about it, part of the reason that iTunes is so successful in this age of free downloads is because it combines just about everything on the list. You get authentic recordings immediately, which are automatically sorted on your PC or Mac complete with cover art. You can find songs easily on their store, and you get personalized recommendations as to what other songs you might like. Yes, I know iTunes has DRM, but I also know a lot of people don't even think about it. It's true that we need to educate them about it, but I'm just saying it doesn't factor into their decisions.

I found the article extremely relevant, because I hope to make a living as a content creator selling e-books and physical copies thereof. Maybe what we need is more widespread awareness of how to make money? At any rate, the world I see this evolving into is one in which large, "gateway" institutions like TV stations and book publishers are fewer and farther between, but one in which large numbers of individual content creators can make a living off of their work, and have thriving microcommunities built up around each of them.

Pay attention to the very important point that Red Hat uses different metrics to Microsoft. Watch this video at redhatmagazine.comand don't compare apples to oranges.

Well I can't imagine it would be screaming fast, though there is little technical information on the Sugar GUI. It would really be good to see even a simple comparison vs fluxbox or something similar. Fluxbox ran nicely on a 333 MHz PII w/128MB of RAM that I used to have. However, we had in the early 80's reasonably fast, if simple, GUIs that ran in <32 KB of RAM on 8-bit 1 MHz CPUs, so even smaller is possible.

The lightweight fvwm and other window managers are definitely simple enough, the question remains can the be made all simple, candy-looking. Again, though, what are the requirements for Sugar and how does it compare?

Red Hat Magazine posted a HOWTO explaining Fedora 8 booting from a USB key.

It is one of the more interesting features in Fedora -- users can build their own customized spin of the distro, and then run it on a USB key. Totally custom and portable.

Option 1: Continue to use MS formats, and continue to pay. Save money now in the short term.

Option 2: Break free from MS formats, and help develop a better, free format. Outlay some money to break free, never pay again (unless you're feeling charitable. :). Yes, it will be expensive to convert from .doc to ODF, but won't it be worth it in the long run?

Red Hat created a logo and posters recently to help spread ODF. Print a couple of copies and stick them up somewhere. Maybe include a link to openoffice.org. :)

ODF is far from dead.

Apparently, you can make your own install disks: http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/05/31/remixing- fedora-7/

Check out Red Hat Magazine:

http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/05/31/remixing- fedora-7/

http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/03/09/understan ding-your-red-hat-enterprise-linux-daemons/

If anyone is interested, I recently wrote an alternate review of the phone: http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/03/08/review-tr olltech-greenphone-developers-sdk/