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Microsoft Developing Linux Policy, Plan of Attack
Lil' Bobby Gortician writes "This new MSNBC article talks about Microsoft's developing strategy to deal with Linux. They are actually getting some of their sales people certified as Linux experts, and say 1/10th of their test servers now run Linux. My favorite quote? "There's no set architecture in Linux. All roads lead to madness"."
Well, sure, but that's not the point. The point is that it's going into a future version of an OS that's got a bad enough track record for security. Furthermore as power management is involved (and from cold boot, it would seem), this probably means changes to the BootROM/BIOS. Plenty of scope for getting it wrong ...
If they want to power up a machine from cold remotely and it is to be self-contained within the machine, then this means the Power Management ASIC needs to watch the ethernet phy and interpret some message or other. Firmware changes + networking = yuk!
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Linux will never make it to the desktop unless the major distributors agree on a standard package format.
./configure prefix=, make && make install is too archaic and relies on a good understanding of directory structure. Getting the software off can be impossible, and if you have to type in your root password... how long before that social engineering is exploited by virus writers.
Once that hill has been climbed, then developers only need to create and test one type of package to distribute their software on any Linux distribution.
The old
Also, I find it too lengthy a process to edit all those configuration files... most Mac/Windows programs just run. Sygate is a good example of a useable firewall... it requires no instructions to use.
I think this is more important than improving KDE/Gnome etc.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Games
full functionality IM
Loads of Windows-specific-only business appliactions
Support from all hardware vendors
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
During the cold war, there were always fears that some general on one side or the other would believe he had alot more nukes, enough more that launching his would leave his country in a winning position, relatively speaking I suppose.
Well guess what? If IBM has 300 Minuteman missiles, then Soviet Micrsoft has 8000 ICBM's, 27,000 tons of weaponized anthrax, 90,000 tons of VX nerve gas, and lord knows what else.
Worse, I think they know it. IBM is a has-been, a has-been that turned to the side of good (lesser evil, not-so-evil?) because it wants to recapture former glory. They're George Foreman taking one last stab at the title, and in any real fight, they can't win. Maybe they can keep from getting beat up too badly.
Could IBM get the EU decision put on hold so easil, could they get the DOJ decision gutted so easily? Microsoft did both things, one after the other.
Oh, and one other thing. Why does it seem I'm the only one that can seperate "who I want to win" from "who I think will likely win". Linux deserves to win, I want it to win... but c'mon guys. Enough with the bullshit fanboy optimism.
I have run both Windows and Linux desktops and servers, and I KNOW that I spent at least 3x as long getting linux to work right, and 10 minutes worth of maintainance on windows took an hour on linux. I never calculated TCO, but I bet they weren't THAT far off.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.