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Microsoft Proposes Cooperative Research With OSDL
turnitover writes "According to eWEEK.com, Microsoft has proposed to work with OSDL for a 'facts-based analysis of Linux and Windows.' Could this just be a case of the fox contracting security for the hen house?" Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy, declined to comment on the specifics of what was discussed when he met with OSDL's CEO Stuart Cohen, only to say that they met.
Otto von Bismarck once said, "Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied." Well, now Microsoft has officially denied that it hates Linux. I guess it's time to start believing, then.
First off, Linux FSs have ACL available and they are the same as Windows (but as in chairman gate's word, "we want to be equal, just more equal", eh comrade?). Most Linux rarely use ACL, since Unix style permission accomplish about 95% of ACLs work with ablout 10% of the hassle. But keep in mind, that is up to each distro to decide. After all that is freedom for you
MS is adding the same style unix permission, because people have not used ACLs. They are way too much work for all except the most secured of systems. And yes, MS's longhorn willfinally gain the simplicity such as sudo.
Nobody said that MS was trying to stop the projects only learn from them to better design their own products. IOW, they finally want to join the free market.
I was reading that Longhorn will finally have GNU/Unix-like user permissions.
That's probably not the case. Windows ACL is much better than the "standard" unixy permissions, and much grainier. SELinux is trying to come close to what Windows already offers.
I am not trying to defend MS or anything, but a statement like that was clearly not thought through.
Anyway, my thoughts on such news is that MS now acknowledges that Linux is a genuine market player that they need to play nice with, much more so than they do with Apple for example.
Don't think so. SELinux is a MAC (mandatory access control) framework. ACLs - by their nature are a DAC (discretionary access control) mechanism. MAC and DAC work together - if DAC access succeeds, then MAC can still override it. The graininess of the access control has got nothing to do with it.
The point about MAC based systems is that they enforce system security policy between system subject, objects and actions. In other words, an SELinux policy can say "allow this program to perform only the following actions to this file, and no other". So that, even if a cracker compromises the app on the Linux box, he can't get the cracked app to execute other actions on that file, or even the permitted actions on another file.
I know that people have produced MAC enhancements for Windows in the past, but didn't think that type enforcement et al were present in standard Windows releases. However, I am willing to be informed otherwise
--Ng