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Vista Security The 'Longest Suicide Note in History'?
rar42 writes "The Inquirer is reporting on an analysis of Vista by Peter Gutmann — a medical imaging specialist. This isn't the usual anti-Microsoft story — just a professional looking at what is going to happen to his computer if it is upgraded to Microsoft Vista. From the article: 'Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost,' says Gutmann."
I've seen Vista in action, and sure it's pretty and everything. I'm just not willing to trade the whole purpose of my computer for some graphical niceness. My computer is my media machine. I download video and watch it. Legally circumventing the TV licence fee. I'm not paying for a product so I can pay for more products. No way.
I saw it coming a while ago. When I heard of Longhorn in preparation I knew that it would fail. For several reasons, but mostly one simple thing.
Microsoft tried to protect its interests with XP, using the WGA scheme, and service packs that checked for validity and so forth. Consumers *hated* those measures. How many false positives has the WGA detected? More than enough. Virii, spyware, spam, it's taken too much toll on the users' ability to perform their tasks. Now, when you buy a PC, you have to have Anti-this, anti-that, firewall and so forth. Those services eat ressources. People running 3 year old machines that have installed all those things can expect lag while webpages load because of all that padding to prevent infection of their system, and then even after waiting for too long, non-responsive windows and so forth, they will STILL get spyware/adware and always spam.
Well no sh*t Sherlock!
Microsoft has long ago decided it's in the money making business, not customer satisfaction business. Companies used MS because that was the only viable alternative for a while, and even today, many industries still rely on Windows 2000 rather than XP, for the simple reason that it works with what they've invested in. However, Linux and OSX have been working VERY hard to get ahead, and thankfully, these systems are designed to fit the customer/users' needs.
Linux? Do anything you want with it. Run webservers, databases, phone systems, rendering, and even desktop applications on it. All that flexibility for very little cost of actual software. You're not paying for software AND support, you're paying only support.
As XP came out, Linux wasn't ready for prime time. RedHat was providing an Entreprise version, as were SuSE and Mandrake, but in all honesty, there was a gap that existed, Windows wasn't evil enough, and there weren't quite yet enough advantages to Linux to warrant the switch, retraining everyone and so forth.
Today however, after Service Pack 2 failed to properly secure XP, and all those DRM addons have been force fed into media player, and all other wmv portable players, well, simplicity, stability and functionality seem to have somewhat disappeared from the leading OS on the market. Apple has reminded everyone that alternatives do exist, like OSX, and, because it is Unix based, Unix has appeared once more on the radar of common knowledge. If Apple can make Unix look and work well, then why can't Linux? Oh sure, there are more than enough Macboys out there preaching OSX, but not everyone likes Aqua, or an already made system that will lock you into some things you don't want to be force-fed (iTMS' DRM for instance). But it reminded people of that newcomer on the playing field, Linux.
In the past few years, I've watched gnome go from a squarish desktop reminiscent of OS 9 and in some ways windows 3.11 to a full featured Desktop that offers as much integration, and much more logic, than the XP interface ever did. KDE has made at least as much progress, and we're seeing more options than ever, and from all the development that has happened since 2002 a LOT of good things have come out. Openoffice 2 pioneered the use of the ODF, Firefox has been gnawing stronger and stronger on the share of Internet Explorer, and even Safari in some respect.
Ubuntu is probably the biggest advantage Linux can get to date. I am ready to claim that anyone, anywhere, that really wants to use an alternative to windows, can burn an Ubuntu disc and use their computer freely, to satisfy their needs (save gamers, and even they aren't going to lose for very long, some major games already have native releases, like the UT and Quake series).
It is time that players like Adobe invest in the alternative, because the tide is coming, and it would hurt for them to be behind.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.