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Microsoft, Monocultures, Security FUD & Other Fun
techiemac writes "Dan Geer, who has been mentioned on Slashdot before due to his warnings about Microsoft's "monoculture" has just been written up by AP for his warnings about the widespread use of Microsoft products and the serious security flaws that are being discovered. This story is quickly becomming big news (Yahoo is currently carrying it on their front page). For those who don't know, Dan Greer was fired from @Stake Inc for his criticism of Microsoft (they are a big client of @Stake Inc). " Somewhat related, there has been interesting reaction pieces on ORA and OSDN to a recent, some say ill-informed article run on DevX.
it was called 'UNIX'
How is this interesting? There is a lot of crappy software out there...and not all for MS products.
Do you know how long it took me to find a good CD burning program from linux? The sad thing is, it still doesn't compare to Nero.
One of the few reasons I keep Windows around.
Also, I'd like you to write an OS that works perfectly. I'm not defending MS here, but seriously... I dare you to.
Linux is great...but there are also a shit-ton of people constantly working on it to make it better / more secure...and don't get me started on how easy it is to hack if you aren't up to date on all the latest patches, kernal updates, knowing what to turn on and when, blah blah blah.
Everyone needs to stop whining about shit like this.
mod down - it's a troll
Hallowed are the Ori
Yet another sickening blow has struck what's left of the *BSD community, as a soon-to-be-released report by an independent commission doing a year-long study concludes: *BSD is dead and mummified. Here are some of the commission's findings:
.005% of internet servers. "It's just not reliable," said Christine McGee, VP of Technology for eBay, Inc. "Nor do we find it a very modern OS. I would recommend Linux to anyone contemplating a server OS, or maybe Windows, before I would recommend a BSD."
Fact: the *BSDs have balkanized yet again. There are now no less than twelve separate, competing *BSD projects, each of which has introduced fundamental incompatibilities with the other *BSDs, and frequently with Unix standards. Average number of developers in each project: fewer than five. Average number of users per project: there are no definitive numbers, but reports show that all projects are on the decline.
Fact: *BSD has no support from the media. Number of Linux magazines available at bookstores: 5 (Linux Journal, Linux World, Linux Developer, Linux Format, Linux User). Number of available *BSD magazines: 0. Current count of Linux-oriented technical books: 1071. Current count of *BSD books: 6.
Fact: XFree86 is dropping support for *BSD. The remaining core group believes that the *BSDs have strayed too far from Unix standards and have become too difficult to support along with Linux and Solaris x86. "It's too much trouble," said one anonymous developer. "If they want to make their own standards, let them doing the porting for us."
Fact: Many user-level applications will no longer work under *BSD, and no one is working to change this. The GIMP, a Photoshop-like application, has not worked at all under *BSD since version 1.1 (sorry, too much trouble for such a small base, developers have said). OpenOffice, a Microsoft Office clone, has never worked under *BSD and never will. ("Why would we bother?" said developer Steven Andrews, an OpenOffice team lead.)
Fact: servers running OpenBSD, which claims to focus on security, are frequently compromised. According to Jim Markham, editor of the online security forum SecurityWatch, the few OpenBSD servers that exist on the internet have become a joke among the hacker community. "They make a game out of it," he says. "(OpenBSD leader) Theo [de Raadt] will scramble to make a new patch to fix one problem, and they've already compromised a bunch of boxes with a different exploit."
Fact: NetBSD, which claims to focus on portability (whatever that is supposed to mean), is slow, and cannot take advantage of multiple CPUs. "That about drove the last nail in the coffin for BSD use here," said Michael Curry, CTO of Amazon.com. "We took our NetBSD boxes out to the backyard and shot them in the head. We're much happier running Linux."
Fact: There are almost no FreeBSD developers left, and its use, according to Netcraft, is down to a sadly crippled
Fact: DragonflyBSD, yet another offshoot of the beleaguered FreeBSD "project", is already collapsing under the weight of internal power struggles and in-fighting. "They haven't done a single decent release," notes Mark Baron, an industry watcher and columnist. "Their mailing lists read like an online version of a Jerry Springer episode, complete with food fights, swearing, name-calling, and chair-throwing." Netcraft reports that DragonflyBSD is run on exactly 0% of internet servers.
With these incontroverible facts staring (what's left of) the *BSD community in the face, they can only draw one conclusion: *BSD is dead and mummified.