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ESR's Halloween XI -- Get the FUD
dave writes "In the newest Halloween Document (mirror), Eric Raymond analyzes Microsoft's 'Get The Facts' road show. The anti-Linux arguments they are using now -- and, even more, the arguments they're *not* using -- reveal how desperate Microsoft is getting. He explains why he thinks we need to focus more on government adoptions, and predicts serious ugliness during the next year."
...is in the spinoff projects. For example, this open source Java memory profiler is a spinoff of the DARPA-supported COUGAAR agent framework.
And since both projects are hosted on a server running GForge, I can help improve GForge during working hours. Good times!
The Army reading list
Be sure to order your free evaluation kit. Lets slashdot this baby! It costs them a few bucks for every one. Get one for your mom!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Actually, Ive ran across 1 of them..
This "worm" was about 1 MB, self contained and ran quite fast.
The full intention of this worm was as an auto-hacker for linux machines. It used a IRC seession, DES encrypted and MD5 checksummed. Once 1 machine was infected, it would use a large library of exploits against other known linux machines (with use of nmap-like scans) and attempt to dupe it to others.
Ive been able to isolate it, but whatever the coders did with it, they made it into semi-encrypted spaghetti. Crashes damn near every debugger Ive tried. It's now a collection on one of my cd's now. "Strange and infectous stuf"
I'm a bit surprised that ESR would point out the Apche vs. IIS differences when Microsoft could come back by pointing out you can always run Apache on Windows if you want to.
I'm sure MS would prefer you use IIS, but this seems an easily deflected statement. I'm positive that MS prefers you using Apache on Windows to you using Apache on Linux.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
I firmly believe Microsoft have done us a favour.
"Windows vs Linux TCO..."
CIO, "Linux, what's Linux?"
Engineer, "Its that system I have been trying to tell you about that can save us time and money"
CIO, "Ok, tell me about it then"
10 Mins later...
"Ok do it, lets see how it goes."
End of Story. And even though the 'facts' are biased, lets hope most CIO's can consider both sides of the story:)
I was at the Edinburgh event last week and spoke to many Microsofties and to their corporate customers. The customers were quite cynical about Microsoft's motives but many of them said, in effect, they wouldn't have attended such an event if it hadn't been organised by Microsoft. Microsoft are panicing, time is on our side. Ed
The basic messages about selecting MS/Linux for a system are governed by the following:
;-)...
- Much of the cost saving of Linux over Unix comes from hardware - i.e. using Intel over mainframe/AIX/zSeries etc.
Wrong. Go buy a license for 100 mail users, or 50 MSSQL user licenses. OUCH. Now compare Postgres/MySQL or Sendmail/Qmail/god-knows-what-free-email-servers
- OS/Platform is just a tool - choose the right one for the job
Not quite. I get a bunch of apps with a linux install that windows doesnt see fit us have. Even compilers come free. Where's a free (stripped down) version of Visual Basic on Windows? You know, include a low VB 5 compiler for quick stuff..
- MS/Linux TCO's are nearly always within 10% for most projects by the time all costs are accounted for (this was from an independent solutions provider)
---As said by Independant firm who just got 50K from Microsoft.
- Don't just focus on TCO - look at ROI (return on investment)
Nope. ROI doesnt work in IT. IT is a loss leader to prevent bigger losses (downtime).
- MS is pretty well zero-development (no code or scripting)
Yep, and it it doesnt fit, you're screwed. Period.
- The People and Processes are more important than the technical solution
Ok, people are stupid. In Linux, you can people-proof more than you can in Windows. Easier to alias and block commands than it is to load some dumb "dont click here" windows program.
- Check licensing model of any platform (will any Linux development become your IP, or will it be open)
USING Linux is free with no strings attached. USING SOURCE code from GPL programs is where you get in trouble. However, using GCC to compile is fully legit.
- Linux still does not have a really good desktop and the office suites available are still lagging
Windows and everything teh sux0r. Face it, THIS IS AN OPINION. The statement is worthless.
- security issues such as virus updates and patch management are more of an administration issue than a platform one
They are? If I hear of root exploit, I take all harmed services down immediately, and patch one by one. I also give calls to the companies I work with. They agree that having a little bit of downtime is well worth the risk of not being auto-hacked.
- Easier porting J2EE->.Net than the other way round (i.e. MS ties you in worse!!!)
That's why you should use Java OR a server side program (who cares about OS then
Yep, tried to.
;( ) but it seems to use some sort of the same encryption as AZPR's Zip password recovery. Has a executable stub, some code, then somehow the key itself is encrypted and only the password is the key..
Ive ran all the common unpackers, and Tron against it. Tron gives "unknown packer" and some pack detecters just crash...
Ive tried hand decoding it (fun fun
Take a look at trying to crack AZPR.. Ill pay you 100$ if you can. AZPR password somehow has the key as part of the executable so when correct, it correctly decrypts the packed part. No softice or asm dumps can beat it. In my opinion, it seems to be the perfect packing setup.
Admittley its way over my head. I can do stuff like DDD debugging, or looking over deadlists (ala MS VC++ compiler errors and inline asm command switching). I just cant even comprehend what exacly its doing.
And yes, anonycoward, I am telling the truth. You actually think that there's no worms at all for Linux?
Remember how Linux advocates, real early on, used to love to quote Ghandi? You know, first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you've won? Well, it works both ways. Now we have both camps bitterly and intentionally fighting with each other. And what good does it do? If Linux--excuse me, I mean "open source in general" is so blindly superior to Windows in every single way, then that's it. It's over. The existing momentum will carry through and eventually the better solution wins. It's a quiet revolution. It isn't a niche loss, like laser discs or Betamax.
:)
Now what should be worrying people like Mr. Raymond is that Linux-based desktops (which is what we're really talking about, not simply "open source"), is that Linux *isn't* so blindingly superior as to carry the day. Truthfully, I think this is the case. I've used UNIX, I like Linux, but we're essentially having a big battle of the old and huge operating systems here, and none of them is a revolution. None of them is so much better than all the others is wonderful and positive ways. (Mostly they're all negative: don't get virii, don't have to deal with Microsoft.) In fact, the entire concept of the big operating system is a relic. Does anyone argue about the OS in a digital camera? Or a Palm? Or a cell phone? No. And those are more akin to what an "OS" of the future needs to be: thin, small, and unobtrusive. We need the Commodore 64 of the next decade, not the next VAX.
Thanks for listening
After Microsofts *successful* defence in the anti-trust suit it
appears as if they are on the attack again.
I recently had the chance to 'lunch' with a team of boiler room types on the topic of ' Interoperability, Integration, Extensibility'
subtitled 'Unix interoperability'
After enjoying a excellent meal at one of the better steak houses in town I began to notice that this 'meating' wasn't so much about working with Unix systems as it was about providing unix services from Windows servers; After being seeded with 'free' software (funny that, free tools just not free source) title:Windows Services for Unix 3.5 and looking closely I saw that they are now providing NFS, Syslog, NIS, DNS, Mail and a tool to 'port' your Unix 'legacy' (their words) apps to a modern OS.
What frightened me most was that my inclusion to this meeting was last minute and that my 'peers' didn't have a technical bone in em, they were all either Microsoft partners or middle to upper manglement types.
The last 'free' software I saw from Microsoft was IE, I wonder if this latest offering will have as profound an effect.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Writing code that doesn't suck always has to be our base-level and most important response
To put the Open Source movement in some kind of "battle" with Microsoft only serves to belittle what the F/OSS community does.
Let's put things a little into perspective:
1. A huge amount of OSS software runs on Windows also - Mozilla, GIMP, OpenOffice, etc. etc.
This means that whether you run Windows, Linux, BSD, whatever, you have a choice. You do not need to be tied into one of a few commercial software vendors for your applications. It also means that you have the opportunity to try out new applications at little risk and no cost - as a result, you get a comparitive benchmark and can make a decision for yourself whether a particular application you need is better served by a commercial or OSS application. End of story.
2. It's closed standards, not Microsoft, that's the problem.
Using a computer brings with it a responsibility - namely that you take charge of the data that you store on it. You decide how shareable that data is to be, you decide how portable it needs to be and you decide how deeply you lock it away from the eyes of others.
DRM and closed formats simply mean that you hand over that responsibility to a commercial organisation, nothing more. That means that they charge you for taking control of your data and, because they are interested in making a profit, will naturally try to charge you more as time goes on. When use of that DRM format becomes widespread, it becomes the norm and all of a sudden, everyone has had their responsibilities handed over to that organisation. This is the potential loss of personal freedom we must focus on not becoming reality.
Microsoft backs DRM heavily and it is that issue we should fight against because that's the only danger to Open Source - OSS and Microsoft can co-exist provided standards and formats remain open to all. If Microsoft cannot accept that, then that's their problem...
3. Users need to be educated to make a choice.
Spreading the word of Open Source & Linux is the only way forward because people then start to make choices for themselves as to what software best fulfills the job that they need to do, rather than simply just blindly consuming every piece of software Microsoft churns out. If the F/OSS community has no remit to "destroy Microsoft" then it can simply focus on creating good software and listening to the users of that software as to how to improve or change that it for the better.
For example, while I can work wonders with UNIX command line tools that can format text just about any way I want it, my teenage niece who does her homework in Word, Excel & Powerpoint is not suddenly going to get a knock on the door from her uncle armed with his Linux CD, just because he thinks "grep" and "sed" are better... Everyone has their own perceptions of what is usable.
The OSS community is doing what it should be doing right now - keep churning out the good software, not rising to Microsoft's little tantrums & letting the users know they have a choice.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
... they now consider independence from MS as an end in itself.
;-) is to ask "Do you want your data and communications controlled by a giant American corporation that doesn't have your interests at heart?" This cuts right to the heart of the matter, and often produces a quick change of topic.
;-).
This isn't all that new a phenomenon. For some years, I've found that a simple way of ending most discussions of the subject with non-Americans (and some Americans
Also, for much of the past couple years, I've been working on a project that amounts to getting a big European corporation (it doesn't much matter which one) from under the thumb of IBM. Several years ago, their management realized that their corporate data was in fact controlled by IBM, and they couldn't access it without IBM's cooperation. My job has amounted to "data raiding", extracting the data from their old computers by any means necessary and stuffing it into a flock of little linux (RedHat) boxes scattered around the Net. There has been much obstructionism in this task from IBM, whose people have been ordered to give us as little information about data formats as possible, consistent with their contracts of course. But they're losing the battle, because for their system to work at all, most of the data has to be exposed to the company and its customers at some point, and that's where we can intercept it and cache the information somewhere else. Thus, most customer information can be found by merely sending us a copy of the billing print files.
Much of our "sales" guys' argument is that we can't do to them what IBM did over the years. They have access to all the source, all the way down to the bottom. If they decide they don't like us, they can simply walk away from us, and they won't lose anything (except some capable consultants
One irony is that we've advised them a couple of times that IBM's linux workstations would in fact be very good machines for their purposes. But we also emphasize that ease of migration is important, and they should always be on the lookout for new suppliers.
You might think that there's another irony in the fact that this approach is being used by a group that is mostly Americans. But it's no irony at all, because many Americans are just as worried about IBM and Microsoft power. Any corporation with that much control over our information is a serious threat to society, regardless of where the borders may be drawn.
I just like to say "giant American corporation" to non-Americans because it gets the idea across better. There is a widespread perception in much of the world that the leaders in America have a very arrogant and possessive attitude towards the rest of the world. Many people view MS and IBM as much more threatening than a "local" corporation, irrational as such an attitude may be. But you can use this to get across the idea that they really should look at approaches that free them from domination by any such giant power center.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.