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Open Source is 'Not Reliable or Dependable'
Exter-C writes "News.com is reporting that Jonathan Murray, the vice president and chief technology officer of Microsoft Europe has made claims that 'some people want to use community-based software, and they get value out of sharing with other people in the community. Other people want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model.'"
That's the title of the article at news.com.com.com.com. Perhaps you can address your question to the editors there.
Because, after all, what is "reliable" or "dependable"? By whose standards?
I just loaded FC5 on a machine cleanly. I then had it do a yum update. Once completed, firefox was unable to start as a regular user. (Root could start it.) Turns out that somehow the ${HOME}/.mozilla directory was chown root.root for some reason. I changed it and all was well again.
So yeah, it's "imperfect."
But GOOD-FREAKING-GOD! This is Microsoft claiming this? As if they set the standard for reliability and dependability? All this while their EULA states that their software is not guaranteed to be suitable for any purpose at all. That just OOZES customer-service, reliability and dependability.
Ridiculous...
`how did slashdot editors managed to understand "ther people want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model.'"" to "OpenSource is unreliable"'
.. community-based software .. Other people want .. reliability .. dependability .. commercial software' - Jonathan Murray
Because in an interview with the BBC a Microsoft 'technology` officer stated:
01. Some people go with commercial software because it is reliable and dependable.
02. Some people go with Open Source software because of its collaborative nature.
By linking the two statements in the same sentence, he misleadingly implied that Open Source was neither reliable or dependable. Now do you see How did you not manage to underatand this?
'some people want
davecb5620@gmail.com
I'm sure that users of many non-free, proprietary software systems experience similar reliability. However, most of my friends and relatives who don't use FLOSS are always complaining of crashes, viruses, etc... Most of them also get that nasty build-up in between their teeth as well.
From the article: "Open source is unreliable" so you can't trust Firefox or OpenOffice.
"The biggest unreliability with Windows is the stupid things that users do."
Knowing how ignorant of computers the average user is, I would have believed you, but there are two reasons I don't. One is experience with Windows myself. No matter how well you secure it -- limited user privileges, behind a router, use ZA, Avast!, WinPatrol and PeerGuardian -- something will happen to it. And limited user privileges is not the answer to security problems anyway. There are too many programs that require admin access, unlike modern *nix systems. Also unlike *nix, user accounts are not in any separate. If user A gets a virus, the system has a virus. On *nix if user A gets a (hypothetical) virus, you can delete that user account and make another because the system is not infected.
Another reason is an experiment I pulled with two people who were poor enough that they got little from Windows because they didn't have the money to buy third-poarty software. Understand, they knew practically nothing about computers as well, so of course their Windows installation was ruined in no time flat. I explained the difference between a user account and root and then switched them to Xandros. I also pointed them to the Xandros forums, where they could learn everything else they needed to know. Knowing that all this software was free was a big thing to them so they were willing to give it a shot. My experiment worked and their computers are reliable and secure -- yes, I checked up on them. These people still just the basics; log in as root, update and use APT to get more software. They know little else about *nix and nothing about security other than to update. They don't need to.
In conclusion, people who claim that Windows can be just as secure as *nix don't know *nix and certainly don't understand the difference between the security models of the OSes. Furthermore, it's inaccurate to claim how secure Windows can be since security requires so much software to secure it, which is not required with an OS that is designed to be secure in the first place, which Windows never was.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
It's not necessarily a good thing, although this is RHEL 3, which has many security fixes backported into the 2.4.21 kernel. (The 2.6 series is not necessarily inherently more secure.) Plus, the system in question doesn't have untrusted local users, which means that local privilege-escalation vulnerabilities, among the most common kernel-based security flaws, are not a concern.
But really, the point was not to show best practices, it was to show that such a system is reliable, no matter what the Microsoft marketing grunts may say. (For that matter, it has been reliable despite not having its kernel upgraded recently!)
I think you're on the right track. What Microsoft wants people to believe is that with commercial development, help is only a phone call away. It doesn't matter if the quality of the support is good or not. What matters is that it's there. In addition, commercial software is created by a tangible entity where the programmers are specifically hired by the company because they're good programmers. Open source is created by volunteers who aren't getting paid and so have less incentive to make good software. Of course, that's all perception and the reality doesn't matter. Instead of just dismissing everything that Microsoft said, I think the community instead needs to discuss ways to better educate the public so that they have a positive perception of open source. For now, the perception is that open source software is software that's only used by hobbiests and is too complictated for the average user. If you ever need help, you get that from going to forums or sending emails and not knowing if you'll even get help or when you'll get it. Not only that, but the support doesn't come from people trained to help the common user, it comes from tech-oriented hobbiests that they won't be able to understand. That, I think, is what has to be dealt with.
--- Don't ever trust a woman until she's dead- B.B. King
Well, the majority of M$ computers ARE infected. It does not take long and it requires no "stupid" action by the user. Indeed, no action is required other than plugging the thing in. Study after study has shown this, but here are two for you:
Things have gotten worse not better and the numbers match personal experience all of us have. I've seen people bringing broken computers into stores. I've seen broken computers in banks, you know, the ones so far gone nothing can be done. While a user can help the process by going to net nasty sites, it's still not the user's fault. Their computer should not fail them that way.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Offsite backup.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
The problem is that people who run windows run the whole MS "stack". They run IE, office, outlook etc. In fact most corporations will not even allow you to load non MS software on your machine.
Just today you had the zero day word virus going around for example.
If you loaded linux (or switched to a mac) you would be much better off because your entire stack gets to be different.
evil is as evil does