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Microsoft Windows: A Lower Total Cost of 0wnership
bahamutirc writes "Dave Aitel of Immunity, Inc. has written an excellent report detailing the lower Total Cost of 0wnership Microsoft Windows has over Linux. Dave takes a unique approach in comparing the two operating systems, and the results are not surprising. The paper was submitted to Bugtraq today and is available in PDF and Open Office."
LOL, the O from Ownership is a zero how L337. You have been 0wned by microsoft.
Honestly though, I love the graph in the article titled "Difficulty of owning Windows vs Difficulty to make this graph". When I saw that, I thought the article would be total Microsoft bashing, but hey, they ended up recomending to use Windows. I'd have to say that this true in the business world, almost everyone that I've talked to who uses a computer at work for word processing, etc is totally afraid of linux and think it is this scary beast. Until people can work with linux and not be afraid to try things, ms will win.
Boxing Equipment Reviews
Lol I love it! I didn't actually realise that it was Total Cost of '0'wnership ;)
This is a very clever way of making a very valid point - I can forsee this report landing on a free IT purchaser's desks mixed in with all the "real" (or MS-funded) TCO reports, because it is so well designed.
And my favorite quote? "As clearly demonstrated, other than the toy OS Mac OS X, Windows has the lowest TC0 on the market." I love it!
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
uh, the article is satirical...
Heh, you can't argue the fact that more people knows windows than linux. Just that alone should makes it easier to hire less administrators or cheaper admins.
Forget the (sic) part - the title of the document is indeed '0wnership'. This is a good case where those who don't RTFA will be totally off topic...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Ignoring the few privilege elevation exploits we've seen over the years, why in the world would anyone install an untrustworthy program as root?
Seriously, of all the ways my modest little linux server has been nailed over the years, it's never been the installation of software itself.
Some heavy-duty software insists on root installation, but this is only ever well-known stuff for which md5s are available.
I agree, what a dumbass.
The article contains a graph "Difficulty of owning Windows vs difficulty to make this graph" on page 3. I think it is safe to assume the whole thing is just a bad joke which the editors at slashdot seem to have fallen for.
And we should be able to mod posters as "Didn't RTFA" / "RTFA, but didn't get that it was a joke"...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Why has he supported Microsoft in his statements and abandoned them in the delivery mechanism? We can access them in a PDF (Adobe) or an Open Office document. Where's the MS Word version? How ironic.
Not really. He knows that if his document gets posted to a anti-MS site such as Slashdot, and if the people see versions of the document that are in MS format, they will immediately dismiss his article as FUD - regardless of what other versions might be available.
I try to read on in his document but I keep coming to "0wned" and I realize that I am not dealing with a professional. I suppose his intended audience (Bugtraq) might be familiar with how 31337 he is but I just can't believe he would bother to spend the time writing up a "paper" with those stupid misspellings.
:-P
Wow... you just don't get it, do you?
Can someone tell me why the heck this was modded insightful? More like -1: Don't Get It.
Dave Attell has a great job. I wish I could go around the country - or even other countries at times - doing stand-up (which isn't that easy) and then strolling around town, getting drunk and partying afterwards. What a lucky man.
Come on people, are we so paranoid that we cannot understand a parody anymore? Don't get so serious, it was one of the most fun thing I've read in a long time. And we get angry when they call us "zealots". Our advantage over the rest is that we are FREE to mock up ourselves (and mock with others, for sure) and this "paper" was amazingly competent in doing that.
Good job! I do expect people realize it's unique "point of view".
Well, considering this is a fairly humorous joke, you still haven't.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Yeah, and the post was a joke (as some people have so kindly noticed). Sadly most people are too clueless to see the humor.
I've worked IT for over two decades, and only the young'uns use "l33t speak," and even then it is only when they are feeling playful.
I tend not to underestimate someone for the phrases they use.
I try not to underestimate anyone, but I do use the words that come out of their mouths to gauge them. If they sound like cretins, they usually are, which isn't a dangerous thing to know, but a useful one.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
I wasn't particularly impressed. First it was the glamor shots of the employees, then the pie chart and the 0 in ownership. I guess I'm starting to get old when I expected to see something marginally professional from people have their own Incorporated entity.
Oh, I do so agree. It's like the Onion - how can they expect to be taken seriously as a newspaper when all their articles are so poorly researched? I mean, it reads like they make it all up or something!
So tragic that the partial l337 mis-spell ruined it.
I can see the author mentally doing "lines"... .....
I must spell it 0wn3d I must spell it 0wn3d
See that long UID - that's what you get for lurking too long
I would have to say.. /. is actually windows users.
The reason these guys are not getting the joke is that about 85% of
They might have been able to get the joke if they had not been busy installing service packs, fending off viruses and email trojans, having their browser constantly puking popups and getting hijacked, dealing with network popup spam and the million other things that bother them on a daily basis before it bluescreens and they shut it down out of frustration at the end of the day.
So, I enjoy sitting here watching the Mac and windows guys (both of whom didn't understand the joke it seems) posting away about not understanding it, or trying to defend that macos as toy comment. (which we used to call macs "beige toasters" on usenet.. that was a popular flame war that went on for years.)
back to work I guess..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
...while still taking the report seriously ? Holy crap, this entire discussion has got to be the saddest thing I've ever seen.
/. comments. God damnit.
Talk about FUD ! I see people ranting about how biased TCO studies are when they haven't even read the fucking article. Jesus Christ. Microsoft may fund piece of shit studies, but at least that includes some studying. That ranks slightly better than complete knee-jerk reactionary
--LordPixie
p.s. Pseudo-Apologies for picking on the parent post. He was definitely not the only offender.
This is clearly an attempt at SATIRE. It's supposed to use lame script kiddie speak. The article has its tongue planted so firmly in its cheek, half the Slashdotters missed it completely.
Go back and read the article again. Slowly. Run off the assumption that it is not serious. Apply a bit of reading comprehension and critical thinking. For the love of god...
--LordPixie
Yeah, but in this case a compromise had to be made and only change the O in order to fool more people into misinterpreting the meaning, thus enhancing the joke overall. :)
However, seeing it in .swx and .pdf makes us realize that he's talking about the total cost of overrunning a system, not the total cost of maintaining a system. It makes us Slashdotters actually RTFA. And if you haven't, you definitely should. It's hillarious. Though, I would have called it the Total Cost of Pwnzrship myself.
My, how humor is lost on some people.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
People forget that writing is a form of thought. In a sense, it even reflects the soul of the person who writes.
The beauty of a satire like this is that it exposes not just the absurdity of the text being parodied, but the spiritual depravity that made such texts posssible. It shows the texture and opagueness of the shutters that have been drawn over the souls of people who actually believe that such writing can possibly have meaning.
On a more practical note, the primary means that such people employ when constructing their deceptive texts is to make up non-sensical nouns or noun phrases and then treat them as if they had meaning. For instance, this satire contains the following sentence fragment: "These three things, Vulnerability Detection, Exploit Development, and Attack Execution, were used by Immunity to determine the costs to 0wn the different operating systems." As technical people, we read sentences like this all the time. Generally, such sentences mean absolutely nothing. We repeat phrases like "Attack Execution," too embarrassed and too confused to admit even to ourselves that we have no idea of what they mean, or even if they are capable of meaning. These are entirely exploitative sentences and phrases, and have no substance whatsoever beyond what we endow them with by virtue of our blindness and fear.
Here, of course, the phrases are designed to have a meaning opposite to their apparent value. In other words, they are means of describing not legitimate forms of software analysis, but security exploits. Yet the fact that the parody has a level of meaning generally missing from the text being parodies is just part of the joke.
As a form of thought, the texts being parodied here are primarily viral. They infect not just the reader, but the writer, and ultimately, an entire society.
George Orwell said it best in his Politics and the English Language essay. You can find it on Project Guttenberg and other sites, here is the Australian link : http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200151.txt
Personally, when I see such buzz-word-infested langiage, I imagine an avalanche sliding down the mountain valley, long stripped of vegetation to stop it. That is the purpose of such a language - to get you in a programmed channel of thought.