Slashback: Snapshots, Amends, Bazaarity

Slashback brings you some follow-ups tonight about Gartner's recommendation to dump IIS, Charles Connell vs. Eric S. Raymond on Open Source project management, xStore and the GPL, and (yes) the results of Deep Space 1's latest Final Mission.

Microsoft is just as secure as the competition, says Microsoft. Jon_E writes: "According to this article Microsoft is responding to the Gartner Report which recommends that enterprises drop IIS by claiming unfair targeting due to their popularity."

Whether because of better-trained or more vigilant administrators, or some other factors, the Apache servers running many web sites certainly haven't seen the devastating outages in the past month (Code Red, Nimda) as certain large IIS installations have.

If animated, this might make a really good Saturday cartoon. cconnell writes "Last September, slashdot published my critique of Eric Raymond's essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar. There was a lively (and sometimes scorching) discussion that followed. Here is Eric's reply to my critique, which Slashdot readers might enjoy. And here is my reply to Eric."

This was not faked in the same studio as the "lunar landings." mrsmalkav writes "Deep Space 1 has passed by Comet Borrelly within 1400 miles and took some very pretty pictures of the comet's core, all while collecting lots of data about said comet. NASA's press release discusses some of the details and findings of the flyby.

This is actually really impressive given that there was very little hope for this mission. From the Mission Logs on DS1's site, '[T]o be honest, DS1's visit with the comet simply is unlikely to work as well as we hope. Many mission logs have described the difficulty of keeping this aged and wounded bird aloft, and the encounter with Borrelly will present Deep Space 1 with the greatest challenge yet in its historic trek through the solar system.'"

Saint Aardvark writes "Space.com has an article about the images taken by DS-1, and they're stunning." And eldurbarn points to the NASA Images of comet Borrelly online at JPL.

How to satisfy customers with license objections, Part II brtb writes: "Soon after Slashdot posted my DiscZerver-GPL writeup last week, xStore added a link in their Download section for information about the use of GPL software in their products. Below is the e-mail I received in response (address changed to protect the spamless). Congratulations to xStore for supporting Free Software and bringing the DiscZervers into compliance with the GPL.

From: "Support" [support@xstoreonline.com]
To: "brtb" [slashdot@brtb.org]
Subject: "RE: GPL SOURCE CODE"

xStore is committed to complying to the full letter and spirit of the GPL. We are currently investigating the allegations of non-GPL compliance and communicating with the GNU.ORG and Free Software Foundation on this issue. We will produce a response to your request that is mutually acceptable to the copyright holders of the programs we have used that fall under the GPL and xStore itself. Due to the recent acquisition of this product, we are still in the process of preparing the required source code for distribution. xStore is commited to bring the DiscZerver product into GPL compliance, if it is indeed found to be not in compliance.

In the meantime, please provide xStore with information so that we can send you, the user of this product, the package that you are entitled to. Please provide the serial number of your DiscZerver product and the 'system page' with your response. The 'system page' is located at [http://your_Zerver_name_or_IP_address/admin-cgi/s ystem]. In addition, please send us a self addressed stamped envelope suitable for mailing a CD-ROM along with $14.95 to:

xStore, Inc.
Federal Highway Center
1200 North Federal Highway
Suite 200
Boca Raton, FL 33432

After we receive your written request along with the above items, we will process it and promptly send you the disc when it becomes available.

This thanks to the mostly behind-the-scenes work of people at the FSF. Congratulations to xStore for respecting the intent of the programmers whose work they're consolidating and packaging.

Comments

Not just popularity

[dvNull]

MS gets targeted cause of their wide open security holes as well ...

Is this a first post ?

IIS Issues

[ZaBu911]

Now, I know this isn't a time to pontificate on the merits of apache hosting...

so I will give Microsoft some benefit of the doubt.

People like us, linux advocates, write these viruses for this sort of thing to occur.

Bad k1dd135, bad.

- z;)Bu911

Re:what does an ion engine do?

[AndrewHowe]

That would leave you a bit stupid when you get to your destination... Perhaps you meant 'neutral'?

Poor Apache users!

[Sloppy]

The attempt to rank vendors according to their security success rate is a risky business. The aim of most virus writers is usually for their worm to achieve its biggest impact, and so will target platforms that are widely used. "Microsoft is targetted as it is so popular, rather than the system being the least secure," said Cluley.

Then I must conclude that there are twice as many worms developed for Apache, than IIS. I feel sorry for all you poor Apache users. Your worm problems haven't received nearly as much publicity and sympathy. It must be a conspiracy.

Target, yes... insecure, definitely!

[Wee]

Microsoft may be secure, but when everyone is trying to crack YOUR software, it don't matter if your competition is half as secure as you...

Microsoft products are rarely considered to be secure. Outlook is a laughing stock, and IIS is a running joke in the industry I'm in (managed services). So much so that we've been wondering whether or not to charge customers who insist on using IIS an extra fee for all the time we spend monitoring and patching their boxes. History has shown that if we get a new customer who demands to use IIS, then we can be reasonably assured that we'll have multiple headaches dealing with it so we might as well charge them. We (thankfully) never even considered supporting Exchange. We're going to ban IE from all NOC machines as well. Weaning people off Outlook may be harder, though. (Mirapoints help us mitigate that threat.)

The "competition"? That would be Apache, Opera, Eudora (or Pine for some of us), qmail, etc. The "competition" is not half as secure. It is far more secure, everything else being equal (i.e., everything is installed properly, configured correctly, etc). That's my opinion, to be sure, but a colo full of servers running about everything you can think of formed it for me and I stand by it.

You are the target, and you will be breached...

That statement is specious at best. The only way to be completely secure is to have a standalone box. Which isn't an option, and therefore silly to say.

MS software will never be completely secure. Yes, things like wu-ftp and such can be insecure as well. Anything can be. But at least most free/OS packages try to be secure. MS software isn't even trying to be secure. Hell, they apparently aren't even trying to be half-assed.

When will they get that through their thick skulls???

I'm wondering when people will stop drinking the MS koolaid and realize that there are many better, cheaper, more stable and more secure options available to them.

-B