McAfee, Macromedia Flirting With F/OSS Community

xbsd writes "Those computer industry specialists claiming that the end of Linux is fast approaching may be interested in two recent movements inside the industry. Two weeks ago, McAfee, one of the world leaders in computer security products, launched its first commercial antivirus solution for Linux, and just yesterday, Macromedia announced that it is joining the Eclipse Foundation and plans to deliver a next-generation rich Internet application (RIA) development tool code-named Zorn based on the popular open-source IDE."

Comments

End of OSS?

[XFilesFMDS1013]

Who actually believed the people who were saying that Linux et. al. were going to fail? I mean, there's millions of people who want to use a better OS, and more importantly, many of those people also want to help to make their OS better.

Re:End of OSS?

[N3Roaster]

Plenty of people believed Linux would fail. Many still do. There are a lot of people who simply don't get the notion that mortals can build something as complicated as an operating system. It's assumed that the people who know how and would be working on that sort of thing would be doing it in a corporate setting, completely ignoring the fact that lots of people developing Linux do so in a corporate setting. Take a random computer using non-geek who has never knowingly encountered Linux (or had a bad introduction to it), present a superficial overview of open development and Free software (on the level that they might encounter in a newspaper) to that person, and you've probably got someone right there who thinks it would never work. To be fair, it's pretty amazing that it does.

Re:End of OSS?

[EvanED]

Shows his lack of background knowledge. He brings up the fact that Mac OS X uses a BSD kernel (which, if you've ever written assembly code on both platforms you know it's very unlike Linux), and then somehow tries to relate that to Linux's lack of easy-to-use menus?

His point -- or at least what I infer his point to be -- is that with MacOS you get the benefits that come with *nix (multiuser, security, yadda) with the ease of use of, uh, MacOS.

(And from almost all levels, yes, Linux and BSD are not unlike each other. The same commands run on each, the same calls are available on each. Even most programmers don't touch assembly, and that's a lower level than most people will touch. From your C code up there are relatively few, relatively minor differences.)

Re:End of OSS?

[ErikTheRed]

Who actually believed the people who were saying that Linux et. al. were going to fail? I mean, there's millions of people who want to use a better OS, and more importantly, many of those people also want to help to make their OS better.

It's the same group that thought the Internet was 'just a fad.' And remember how that group included Microsoft?

from McAfee's datasheet...

[brer_rabbit]

from the first line of McAfee's datasheet...

The world reverberated from the effects of viruses such as Nimda, CodeRed, and more recently, Slammer, Mydoom, Netsky, and Bagle.

well, the Windows world reverberated....

Re:from McAfee's datasheet...

[insidious777]

I don't think you understand. The main payload of those viruses was not the one listed on the McAfee's site under "payload". The huge problem was that it brought coorperations and isp's computers to a screeching halt because of the sheer volume of traffic they generated. The members of the linux world using those servers suffered as well.

A solution that monitors traffic through linux servers for Windows viruses warrents an opening like that, since 99.9% of the viruses it catches will be windows viruses. If they were mainly targeting the product at linux desktops, I don't think there would be many sales. Well, except to coorperations whose IT departments need antivirus software to make managers comfortable, which I guess could be a healthy number.

Re:Eclipse Faster

[Black Art]

Fedora Core 4 has binaries for Eclipse in the "core" repository, as well as SRPMS.

http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/core/development/ SRPMS/

McAfee is not big deal, but Macromedia is

[WindBourne]

WHile I would rather see a real FOSS version of flash, shockwave, etc. I am happy to see Macromedia starting to take interest in OSS platforms. But sad that it takes the OSS world developing competition to get them to notice it.

As to McAfee moving to Linux, well, that is not a big deal. It will make many of the PHB's and MS techs feel better about it, but it is like hanging a lock on the handle of a safe. It is the safe that is doing the real work, not a simple lock that attaches to the handle. McAfee will be a waste of money.

Re:McAfee

[Professor_UNIX]

I wonder how much of their corporate culture has survived from the old days? To what degree is "McAfee" just a brand name?

Absolutely none. Network Associates decimated many good products until they could do nothing but sell them off or spin them off into other companies at a substantial loss. TIS was absorbed into the NAI collective and they promptly ran Gauntlet into the ground as a firewall and then sold off the pieces to Secure Computing. They bought PGP, made a bunch of crappy releases and then spun it off into a separate company after they proved incompetent at marketing it. They bought Network General's Sniffer product line, ran that into the ground and promptly sold it off to a company who I believe now is named Network General. The McAfee virus scanning crap is the only original thing NAI has left I believe. To top it all off, McAfee is the absolute worst piece of shit out there. If you want a virus scanner run far away from McAfee and Symantec and just pick up AVG. It is by far the best antivirus solution out there.. and free for personal use on top of it!

Re:Oh crap.

[pohl]

You know, virii isn't, never has been, and never will be the correct plural form of virus.

It would be foolish to assume that the poster didn't know that s/he was violating the official rules. Say what you will about ESR and/or the jargon file, but this particular page could help you understand why you're wasting your efforts.

You're wrong about Flash.

[SimHacker]

Stop repeating the same old knee-jerk diatribes you've heard the other kids yelling, without checking your facts first. Complaining about Flash because ads annoy you is like complaining about water because squirt guns annoy you. Flash and water have a lot more uses than simply annoying you.

Flash is excellent for developing rich web applications, which are entirely different than home page "flash intros" that you want a button to skip, or flying hamburgers that pop up on top of yahoo's home page.

By "rich web application", I mean the entire interactive client side of the application runs in the Flash player. Well written Flash based applications are high quality, responsive, uniform across platforms, and much better than anything that is possible with html/ajax.

There are several different approaches to writing Flash based rich web applications. The worst proprietary way is using Macromedia's Flash tool. The most expensive and legally restricted way is using Macromedia's Flex server. The best and free way is using OpenLaszlo, which is open source, and IBM's Laszlo IDE for Eclipse, which is also open source.

It would be interesting to compare Macromedia/Adobe's Zorn Eclipse plug-in, with IBM's Laszlo Eclipse plug-in. I wonder who better understands how to write plug-in IDE's for Eclipse: IBM or Macromedia/Adobe? And who better understands Open Source software?

-Don

Re:Zorn? The weird guy from The Fifth Element???

[crazyphilman]

Yeah, man, she was a hottie. Especially in those "thermal bandages"... Yum!

The punk chick the big lizard was camoflaged as was kinda hot too.

And, man... All them stewardesses! With FRECKLES!!!

FRECKLES!!!! I thank God every day for freckled chicks... They're proof he likes us.

Proprietary software snake oil.

[jbn-o]

It's ironic that you should quote RMS in your signature, because he would be the first to point out that McAfee and Grisoft's programs are both proprietary software -- the opposite of free software. Thus, these proprietary programs have nothing to offer users in the free world and these organizations are merely treating the free software community as a market.

Doubly ironic that so many people consider anti-virus programs to be a part of good security because using a proprietary virus scanner is like asking a fox to guard the henhouse; you have no chance to learn what that virus scanner is doing nor do you know if you can trust it to only do what you want it to do. If, somehow, you learned that the program did something you didn't want it to do, you have no way to improve it and no legal means to distribute the improved version to help others. You are at the mercy of organizations that started this relationship by treating you badly.

When one considers that viruses are often brought in through the weaknesses of proprietary software, one sees fodder for a good joke (sadly, a joke at the user's expense) and affirmation of the importance of software freedom.

Re:we cancelled the Mcafee contract at our company

[jayloden]

Totally have to agree here. Older versions of McAfee and Norton/Symantec Antivirus weren't bad, and I used to recommend them. Current versions of both now depend on the MSIE engine, and as you pointed out, can be instantly disabled by a corrupt IE engine, or even just changed security settings.

I am the author of a small antivirus tool for Windows, and I saw first-hand how one of the viruses/worms I deal with turned up the security level on IE in all zones - making the user unable to run McAfee or Norton because they didn't have permission to use ActiveX on their own local machine.

These two programs have a reputation that was once deserved, but now is based purely on the past. I recommend AntiVir antivirus - http://free-av.com/ - now, because it's fast, free for personal use, updated at least once every 48 hours, and has a small footprint on the system - all things that McAfee and Norton fail at.

-Jay