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Microsoft Word Security Flaw
JWL-23 writes: "cnn.com is reporting that a Microsoft Word flaw may allow file theft. Furthermore, they plan on not fixing Word 97, leaving millions of users out in the cold. Yet another reason to try OpenOffice.org." It still takes more than running Word to expose the contents of your hard drive though.
>Well, that sounds like an excellent motivator to
>try harder to get it right the first time!
Name one major software product that has been bug-free from initial release.
For that matter, name one major software product that has ever been bug-free at any point in its lifetime.
-l
"play up what a nightmare Microsoft malware is, and how easy and free OS software is"
No, I'd say use your head and give some insightful advice, rather than spout off like a ranting zealot. Don't "play up" anything. Give the truth.
Don't lie about how easy it is to install and configure the OSS equivalents. Don't pretend they're going to be 100% compatible. And in gods name, stop with the "microsoft owns your soul" rants. Once that user realises you lied, there goes your credibility, your 'stroke'. Next time they'll ask for advice from the kid at the counter of the local Office Depot.
If OSS is going to 'empower' people, it won't be through a bunch of FUD and politics. Let it sink or swim on its own virtues.
This isn't a message directed at you, but rather to all who want to actually help open source be taken seriously.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
FTA:
But, referring to Microsoft engineers, McGee said "there's only so far back they can go."
No. There's only so far back they WILL go. There is a HUGE difference. Microsoft has CHOSEN not to support it, it's not that they can't.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Open source developers are more responsible than closed source developers? Could you please tell me why?
It's so difficult to define what constitutes a "major" problem, and what the seller should be obligated to fix.
Does it work as a word processor? Will it allow you to read, write, print, and format documents? Well if it didn't do those, then I would say it is a major problem. If it emailed personal information to random people on start up, then I would call it a problem, or if it caused your firewall software to crash everytime you opened a .doc file, I would call it a major problem.
If you discover a bug like this and the author isn't willing to fix it, you can always fix it yourself. Why would you ever want to leave this decision to someone else?
Perhaps because I am not a software engineer, and I know that my mother barely knows how to poerate the mouse, let alone debug complex software.
The problem here, is that someone found a way to exploit a Microsoft Word Feature. Now we can tell them to do things in the name of security, oh wait, isn't that what we all complain Bush is doing?
A very famous man once said something along the lines of "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security".
You are giving up features for temporary security. Anything Microsoft does will be a temporary fix. There are enough hackers out there that hate microsoft that no matter what, they will find a new way to exploit the software. Now before I hear any, "that's because microsoft sucks, use linux" comments, if all the people out there trying to find cracks and exploits for MS Software were instead going agains Linux, or other open sourced applications, you'd find just as many problems.
Don't believe me. Put up an appache web page on a linux box, or what ever opensourced so. Now have the only line on the page say "You can't hack this box". Get a link somewhere that people are going to see it, and then talk to me in a month as to how safe your page was.
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