Slashdot Mirror
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."
Does this mean McAfee is going to start releasing virii for linux too?
By the way, the most effective and affordable AV program of the Windows world, namely Grisoft's AVG, already runs on Linux. Prepare for competition, McAfee!
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
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.
By Macromedia, you mean Adobe right? Super F/OSS friendly Adobe.
I love the fact that people went to all the trouble of getting Eclipse to compile with gcj and then didn't supply any binaries for use by the general public.
How we know is more important than what we know.
To scan for Windows viruses. You can use it on
samba file servers in a windows network, for example.
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....
Microsoft bought a Rumanian company that produced border protection (protect MS clients by filtering on Linux hosts) and turned around to "cut off [McAfee's] air supply" with an MS client antivirus offering. Of course they shut down the Linux border filters.
In return, McAfee fills the vacuum by offering a Linux-hosted border filter.
Works for me.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
When will they release anti-virus software for macs?
we had a virus that corrupted MSIE (mshtml.dll) Mcafee was instantly disabled, that 100mb install became useless all because Mcafee based their application dialogs on the MSIE component
we cancelled our contract with them soon after as we realised that if Mcafee dont understand security (they understand marketing though) so we will have to find someone who does understand security, and knows not to base the last line of defence on the biggest exploitable product on a windows system
ClamAV is looking good because of the costing though reliabilty and accurate is still a concern
-SJ
McAfee have had scanners for Linux for a while. They claim this is the first on-access scanner, though.
Fedora Core 4 has binaries for Eclipse in the "core" repository, as well as SRPMS.
/ SRPMS/
http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/core/development
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
McAfee started out as a shareware company, selling an antivirus program for MS-DOS and Macintosh.
They acquired a bunch of smaller companies, then started calling themselves "Network Associates" soon after they acquired that company.
While they haven't ever been open source, they've usually (always?) had a product you could download and use without first paying them for it. And I think they have always given out free updates.
I wonder how much of their corporate culture has survived from the old days? To what degree is "McAfee" just a brand name?
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
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.
Perhaps this is Macromedia's way of bringing something like the equivilent of what MacroMedia UltraDev set out to accomplish (basically Dreamweaver used as a dev tool). Is it possible Macromedia's involvement will be basically to skin Eclipse to make it more familiar to current Dreamweaver users?
Yes you really need virus protection on Linux. The situation is dire. There are thousands of viruses being brewed up around the world to infect Linux boxen. Be afraid, be very afraid!!
But now McAfee has come to your rescue. Only $49.95 for complete peace of mind.
I feel so much better already.
The parent is first to mention that Adobe DID buy Macromedia (for $3.4B). Adobe isn't exactly nice with its patent arsenal (which it used to sue Macromedia), and hasn't made known any intention to support F/OSS.
Zorn is german for "anger, rage"
while (!asleep()) sheep++
Gee... I hope we get dinner, a good bottle of wine, and a movie before we get screwed.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Put this in your root crontab:
0 0 * * * echo "You're runnng Linux, you don't have a virus."
Do you have ESP?
Make it truly open, or piss off.
We've had plenty enough of your proprietization of the Internet, thanks.
I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.
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
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
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.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
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.
Digital Citizen
Adobe also helped put Dmitry Sklyarov in jail. Adobe is not an organization we ought to do business with because they treat people so badly. Bad laws don't deserve respect either, and I realize that Adobe is not a legislative body. However, the damage Adobe helped bring on is real, and their actions against Sklyarov show us that they're willing and able to wield that power against others. We should hold in contempt those that would stump for and use the power bad laws give them to stifle our freedoms.
Digital Citizen
Maybe you can't create Flash content on Linux, but that's what I do. And I'm not talking about Laszlo.
My current workflow is this: I describe my SWF in XML and include all assets I'm going to use. An Open Source compiler adds the code I've written in Eclipse after the SWF has been assembled and the Ant build then launches Firefox with it. The next version of an Eclipse plugin that allows for viewing the SWF inside Eclipse has been announced, and it will support Linux, too (sorry, the latter is only free-as-in-beer).
Have a look here.
So far, Macromedia has been quite supportive of the community, they seem to understand it's for the benefit of all.
As far as the Shockwave plugin is concerned... personally, I don't miss it.