Evironment, education, experience. Grow up in New Orleans. Spend 15 years in higher education. Keep reading, living, looking and most of all questioning it all and it's amazing what you might think of. Try not to addle yourself with alcohol too much and never fry those brain cells with "drugs". I like being physically fit, but it's just not happening right now.
If you like editplus, you might like KDE's kwrite.
Would you recomend free software if it were known to be coded by someone with a record of putting malicious back doors in their programs?? Even if they swear up and down that they're reformed and don't do such naughty things anymore??
I would not recomend any such sofware, free or not. I trust the people at Debian to filter out backdoors and spyware. That's something you can do when with free software. I will trust Sun and other reputable comercial software if forced to. I will never trust Microsoft which has backdoord multiple programs, written their EULAs so that they can continue doing this and don't alow 3rd party compilation and verification of their source code for any reason.
A memory is a nice thing to have. You might consider using yours when chosing an OS to "touch any computer other than a goat box."
>>"Would you recomend free software, such as Debian or Red Hat, on the desktop?" and "What makes Microsoft software so insecure?"
>If you're gonna ask those questions, then you don't need a security analyst, you need a frontal lobotomy!
Yeah, I know, the answers are so obvious that even the popular press has noticed. For instance, the BBC recomending recomending against using Internet Explorer. For every article about the poor state of Microsoft security, there's a billion in M$ marketing. Every chance to get an opinion that's not paid for is worth taking.
My questions were purposfully simple. I want them to register with whatever question parser they have and include common keywords. Next question is "Does GNU Linux offer better security than Windows?" Wow, got both Linux and GNU keywords in that one.
Have you though of any better questions to ask The good man?
[free software on the desktop]... is not relevant to a discussion about security. This is an attempt to slip ideology into a technical discussion. Back away.
Nope, the use of free software is a practical security consideration on the desktop. Like it's "server" counterparts, there's a rational user model, greater choice, higher quality, easier upkeep and lower cost. These lead to greater security through extra barriers, diversity, fewer bugs and more time and money spent on things that matter. The ideology makes it this way but a consultant does not have to mention that in a short answer such as the one above. Anone who would ignore free software as an option on the desktop is blinding themselves for one reason or another.
I may not be very bright, but I'm not blind and I use free software. This message was posted from a currently stable Debian box sitting behind a Debian packet filtering firewall. To the best of my knowledge, I've never been rooted and the strange things that used to happen to my Windoze computers don't happen anymore. This proves that free software, such as Debian and Red Hat, is not difficult to install or keep up.
It's only a matter of time before places like Key Largo build up statistics that proving that free softare is more secure than it's comerical counterparts.
An anonymous coward bitches and moans and asks, " Why is Slashdot posting advertisements from random security consultants?" He then points out how many smart people there are in New York City and concludes by asking, "Why are we supposed to be interested in this crap?"
AC, there may be many bright people in New York, but you are not one of them if you overlook this. Some of us might be interesed in asking pointed questions that millions of people will see when the sit in on the USA Today chat this particular consultant is about to have. My questions are, "Would you recomend free software, such as Debian or Red Hat, on the desktop?" and "What makes Microsoft software so insecure?" Other people here could have better questions.
I highly recomend everyone to go and post questions about free software solutions to security problems. The answers he provides will be seen by the chat crowd and may be turned into an article for printed USA Today. There are 750,000 Slashdotters all interested in free software and security? This interest should be reflected in the questions. Follow the link and submit as many good questions as you can think up.
Henry Ford... made it practical for them to own them.... he also specifically encouraged the aftermarket car parts industry, even going so far as to choosing his own manufacturing techniques so that they'd be easy to copy. Thus somebody with a broken Model T didn't have to send away to Michigan for parts. This relationship extends to this day.
Do you think for one instant this spirit survives? Detroit, at great costs, changes their body styles yearly and supports a far greater than needed diversity of models. They do this to make it impossilbe to keep a car running beyond it's "planned obsolescent" date. To get body pannels and parts, you go to a junk yard. Sure, some parts are interchangable and third parties can sell them, but your old car is going to be ugly fall appart around you.
As for the DMCA, Detroit is slow but it won't be long before they follow the printing industry's lead on banning 3rd party sales on anything with a chip in it. It's already difficult, if not impossible, to get information on your car's computer. Ever seen a service manual that would help you make a real mod there? It makes me sick.
it's harder to spoof the window. Password boxes using data that only the OS knows and personalized for that computer are better. At least, if all dialog boxes looked one way, then up came a popup that looked compeltely different, it's pretty damned obvious it's a fake, and you don't want to put sensitive stuff in it.
I wonder if the net nasties can tell which theme I'm running for Window Maker right now? I've never seen an unrequested window pop up on me for a while, but every now and then an advert shaped like an M$ error message will slip by saying things like, "warning your browser is unoptimized."
It's not like the stuff on passport security is critical... It's only your email, your identifying information, your credit card number and...... Well it's not like it's life-threatening...
I've seen a lot of smart ass posts from people who say, "Big deal, I never put any of that information into my passport. It's just for hotmail." Because this "service" is supposed to work everywhere, is it possible vendors have filled in the missing information for you? After all, because my wife has a hotmail account she was given a passport she never asked for that contained all the information demanded by hotmail. She also makes web purchases from time to time. A participating vendor could have already loaded her and me by association. Someone tell me it's not so or how I can verify it without an M$ OS.
"One name one login." how utterly M$. That shit won't work anywhere that has a clue. Are you going to take Microsoft's word that someone is who they claim they are and just let them romp around your systems?
Can I have this backend too? Not that I want to know your dogs names but I want to spoof your secure windows;)
In windows, Microsoft spoofs your backend! It's one of those private details you have to turn over to qualify to use the eXTortion replacements, LongDong and UXB.
Senator Holling's wet dream computer landscape is only two years away and the industry did it to themselves? I hope "professional" versons of "home" equipment are available. This M$ kernel in BIOS thing is not acceptable to people who have real computing to do, news to write, presses to run, medical records to keep and other stuff that needs to work and should not be leaked to TIAA/M$/Disney/AOL Corp. I have to ask myself if I've got enough known good, non bugged hardware to outlast the comming dark age of computing.
A greater concern is an app that takes a screen capture of your desktop or the contents of certain windows, and sends it off to another machine.
Oh yeah, Microsoft's woderful remote hardware control tools, such as the plug and play deamon that listens to an open port. I'm sure everyone's seen it before, but I must post the results of such weakenesses. View the sum of stupid, Ha-Ha. Don't worry Microsoft has issued the uber patch, had the month long security hug and changed their security model to include M$ rooting you at will! Dancing pet names and total lack of control of files on your hard drive should make you feel so much more secure. Oh yeah!
Is it true? I heard that the next version of Media Player will have a custom graphic for each user. I will display images of your loved ones, pets and property being threatened. While everyone will have the same images of meat cleavers, assault weapons, pitchforks and firebrands all shaking to the beat. The pictures of pets and property, however, will be unique to each luser. If you pull up another company's media player or juke box, the music will dissapear. If you copy the music file or pull up a music sharing client, the pets will cry and the house will burn. Spyware will report you to the RIAA so that these visions can come true, cool!
...[this] remind people that they're dealing with confidential material, Biddle said.
What kinds of attacks would those be? The over the shoulder snoop sort?
This is classic "protection". It will remind you that Bill Gates knows where you live and the names of your cats just in case you get funny ideas about infringing on copyrights or alternte software. "Yes sir, I'll pay the windoze tax. Thank you so much for all you do for me!"
What you're talking about is a legitimate use that gives you the SAME powers as the RIAA has for their own copyrighted works. The RIAA can claim that you might use this to infringe on their copyrights.
Sure, that's what they said about Sony's DAT. Then poof, it was encumbered with DRM that kept you from making copies of your own music, recitations, bird calls, introspective silence, farts or anything as if it were owned by Micahel Jackson. We should not forget that twarted technology or the laws that did it.
It's taken this long to come up with an equivalent device. Want to bet the RIAA won't try to squash it? I would not bet on their failure.
Because the US is not a communist country. The US govt. protects the rights of individuals. It shouldn't be promoting a social agenda at the expense of individual rights, including the right to own IP.
Ideas are not property. Neither or songs, poems, short and long storries.
Rights are things that take positive government action to suppress, speech, prayer and other things that are naturally free. There is no such thing as a right to profit from anything, much less the right to profit from IP. You have the right to say, write or sing as you please. Don't expect your sang somthing will keep others from doing the same.
Your rights of free press and speech are violated by copyright. That's the sort of thing you see in "Communits" countries, an exlusive franchise supposedly to benifit all. It's a compromise that was designed to encourage publications and it was only supposed to work for 14 years, then the work would belong to everyone the same way it would without copyright enforcement. If you would pay for restrictions on your speach and writings without something in return, you are a slave.
DRM'd works offer nothing in return for their protection and do not deserve protection. They don't even live up to the degenerate "fair use" concept.
"IP rights" lead inexorably to communism. If you apply the same concepts to all works, as people try with patent law, what you end up with is a system of big companies enjoying government protection in their exclusive markets. Because these comapnies are "protected" by the government, they are it's creatures and are subject to regulation. Such an economy is communist.
Apple computers will work untill the cows come home?
They will work until tax money taken, "for the children", is spent in schools rather than their administration, bussing, lunches and other nonsense.
Louisana is a showcase of shuch schemes. We spend more on education per capita and student than all but two or three states, and have the second or thrid lowest standardized test scores. The money does not go to teachers or equipment that matters.
He's wrong though. The average public school is a dumping ground of old computers, all of which would run just fine with free software. Baton Rouge had a lab with freeBSD where the students could do anything they wanted. I know one student who was told to help reduce inventory by removing computers they had so many.
Remember all that stuff a few years back, that implied that the problem with stability was that people weren't keeping their systems properly updated and that "self-healing" systems would fix that? Well, now, we all but have them, and, in fact, it's made things worse.
Sure, I remember. I also remember anyone with any sense was looking to get away from Microsoft as fast as they could. Everyone predicted that M$ would simply use this tool to continue the anti-competitive parctices that were making the platform unstable and unusable. Everyone had already bemoaned the dll hell and knew that throwning more stuff into the same pit would bring less stability not more. Now it's in the EULA that you HAVE to let them do this. I'm sooooooo glad, I moved to free software and put up with a few warts that have been fixed.
The lockdown our shill says is so reasonable will not work. His world is steadily contracting, but so is the world his IT managers work in. Microsoft is going to keep tossing dumb stuff like this that breaks their own software even if you completely sell your soul to the beast. Isn't that the reason people bought into Microsoft stuff to begin with, all the programs that were available? The idea was that competition would provide good quality software. Well, where is that competition now? Want to cure your IE browser vulnerabilities? Right, just trie to remove IE. How about Outlook, the source of our shill's woe? All you are left with on M$ is M$, locked down and out. It's no wonder his IT dudes are so edgy. They know, in the end, that they won't be able to keep Microsoft out. As it is, users can "improve" Outlook with colors...
The closed source software distribution model has been taken to it's ultimate form by M$ and it's a dismal failure. Their passport and DRM junk are last ditch efforts to lock their existing user base in. It's not going to work and much of IT will be destroyed as users exercise the "I'm not buying it." option. Microsoft's clamp downs are due to the inadequacies of their own tools. It's disgusting how they continue to shift the blame onto their users and administrators.
The free software model gives greater system control, stability and user freedom. There's no reason to lock the user down when you give them a trusted and free source of software to chose from. Even if you do decide not to give root to your users, they can still write and install software in their home directories. The whole Star Office program can be installed in a user's home direcory stand alone. Nasties like Gator don't exist in the free software world and they can easily be removed if they are created. All of this with great uptimes too.
I don't think the issue has been presented to the courts in this manner (there haven't been many copy protection schemes for thinks like books, e.g., they aren't printed on red paper to stop photcopying). I would say that a court would hodl a content producer can use DRM, but if you hack the DRM, thus allowing you to make copies, you can make copies for various fair uses. However, the hacking itself (i.e, bypassing the DRM) may be illegal under the DMCA. This probably trumps the fair use right (remember, its source is statutory -- not constitutional) in that if you can't make copies legally, you can't exercise your fair use right/privilege.
Here's a simple guidline: If it's not human readable and it does not alow "fair use" as described by US code, then it does not desrve US Government copyright protection. Why should the government protect things which will never enlarge the public domain and take such a toll on the useful arts? If a company wants to make money by by publications that don't conform to the intent or purpose of copyright laws, they should go it alone and rely on their repulsive technology. What's not copyrightable should not be protected by DMCA so all's fair.
Passport is not the kind of thing you should take lightly. This might be amusing if Microsoft were not a monopoly and they were not trying to foce this "one name one passport" as the end all for comerce, identification and control. "Kids Passport" is especially creepy and Orwellian. Microsoft is too big to ignore and the evil things they do should not be understood as just another fact you can't do anything about, such as the world being round.
Sure, it's buggy. Police States are always incompetent. They also reasure their victims with crap like, " Sign in on any computer that has Internet access..NET Passport uses powerful online security technology and follows a comprehensive privacy policy to help protect your profile information. You manage your information-sharing options." The Nazis were equal dullards but look how far they got. Incompetence does not keep you from being nasty, thourough and powerful.
Paranoid yet? You should be. Microsoft is bussy building tools and attitudes the most UnAmerican administration would value. They are just the kind of hacks the Nazis picked up and stuck into government and university positions. The time to fight the maddness is now, before it becomes official.
Is Google better than calling Sun and saying 'My server crashed; fix it now'. Google's good, but it's no match for qualified, expert support.
The prospect of a computer crashing is hardly a selling point. In sun's case it's a spurrious point as well.
Why not be the expert? Sun is worth their money, are you? You can, like google does, replicate the reliability of Sun with gnu/linux on comodity hardware. Do your homework and see which solution will cost your company less money. Comodity equipment or fancy stuff. Free software running on sun equipment might be part of your planning. Only you know what your company needs. When free software gets the job done with the least amount of trouble and money, advocate it. I would not blindly recomend free software, but I would not let the sun safety blanket blind me either, you have to get the company's work done.
Anyway, I don't see why you think that being associated with "smut" does them any harm - most people like smut.
Sure, I can picture bent over banner adds on the New York Times. They used to do pop-ups and might still. They would think twice is everyone thought of smut when they thought of pop ups.
Binestar was answering the orignial poster's question about "24/7 support" for free software. He points out that Google is open 24 hours 7 days a week anywhere you have internet. Anyone who'd tell you that Google is not the best place to find answers is dishonest. Even if you are stuck with the most back water closed source propriatory nightmare, Google will find you a contact. Binestar got that right.
I did not see anything about demos, installs or Gnome skins outside of your flames. Nor was there any good reason to flame free software as a "summer project".
Your points about presenting a whole solution are useful when you need to replace a whole system in a lethargic micormanaged work environment. All that "Oracle, Sybase, HP, Compaq, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, IBM, SAP, etc... certifications" blah blah is so much dated marketroid bable with good bad and out of business mixed up. Wake up boss, HP is Compaq, Microsoft is worthless, Sun is good and IBM uses Linux. Well, OK, You've got a point about selling a "solution" in such an environement. It's negligence to not do your homework about the bottom line anywhere.
At the same time, it's a good idea to talk to people you trust about what free software is all about. It is important that management understands that free software is simply a co-operative community of software writers and users. They should know that such communities have always created the software that some companies tried to comercialize in a closed source way in the 1980s. The closed source experiment is just about out of gas, becasue the free software community has ignored it to create viable alternatives. Corporate managers understand co-operative research as well as they understand bottom line issues. Free software is not such a great leap at reasonable companies and most people are tired of being jerked around by comercial software pimps.
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Evironment, education, experience. Grow up in New Orleans. Spend 15 years in higher education. Keep reading, living, looking and most of all questioning it all and it's amazing what you might think of. Try not to addle yourself with alcohol too much and never fry those brain cells with "drugs". I like being physically fit, but it's just not happening right now.
If you like editplus, you might like KDE's kwrite.
I would not recomend any such sofware, free or not. I trust the people at Debian to filter out backdoors and spyware. That's something you can do when with free software. I will trust Sun and other reputable comercial software if forced to. I will never trust Microsoft which has backdoord multiple programs, written their EULAs so that they can continue doing this and don't alow 3rd party compilation and verification of their source code for any reason.
A memory is a nice thing to have. You might consider using yours when chosing an OS to "touch any computer other than a goat box."
>If you're gonna ask those questions, then you don't need a security analyst, you need a frontal lobotomy!
Yeah, I know, the answers are so obvious that even the popular press has noticed. For instance, the BBC recomending recomending against using Internet Explorer. For every article about the poor state of Microsoft security, there's a billion in M$ marketing. Every chance to get an opinion that's not paid for is worth taking.
My questions were purposfully simple. I want them to register with whatever question parser they have and include common keywords. Next question is "Does GNU Linux offer better security than Windows?" Wow, got both Linux and GNU keywords in that one.
Have you though of any better questions to ask The good man?
Nope, the use of free software is a practical security consideration on the desktop. Like it's "server" counterparts, there's a rational user model, greater choice, higher quality, easier upkeep and lower cost. These lead to greater security through extra barriers, diversity, fewer bugs and more time and money spent on things that matter. The ideology makes it this way but a consultant does not have to mention that in a short answer such as the one above. Anone who would ignore free software as an option on the desktop is blinding themselves for one reason or another.
I may not be very bright, but I'm not blind and I use free software. This message was posted from a currently stable Debian box sitting behind a Debian packet filtering firewall. To the best of my knowledge, I've never been rooted and the strange things that used to happen to my Windoze computers don't happen anymore. This proves that free software, such as Debian and Red Hat, is not difficult to install or keep up.
It's only a matter of time before places like Key Largo build up statistics that proving that free softare is more secure than it's comerical counterparts.
AC, there may be many bright people in New York, but you are not one of them if you overlook this. Some of us might be interesed in asking pointed questions that millions of people will see when the sit in on the USA Today chat this particular consultant is about to have. My questions are, "Would you recomend free software, such as Debian or Red Hat, on the desktop?" and "What makes Microsoft software so insecure?" Other people here could have better questions.
I highly recomend everyone to go and post questions about free software solutions to security problems. The answers he provides will be seen by the chat crowd and may be turned into an article for printed USA Today. There are 750,000 Slashdotters all interested in free software and security? This interest should be reflected in the questions. Follow the link and submit as many good questions as you can think up.
So, how about a web page pointing to DeCSS? Can that violate the DMCA or is it "protected" by it? You blew that one out of your ass.
Do you think for one instant this spirit survives? Detroit, at great costs, changes their body styles yearly and supports a far greater than needed diversity of models. They do this to make it impossilbe to keep a car running beyond it's "planned obsolescent" date. To get body pannels and parts, you go to a junk yard. Sure, some parts are interchangable and third parties can sell them, but your old car is going to be ugly fall appart around you.
As for the DMCA, Detroit is slow but it won't be long before they follow the printing industry's lead on banning 3rd party sales on anything with a chip in it. It's already difficult, if not impossible, to get information on your car's computer. Ever seen a service manual that would help you make a real mod there? It makes me sick.
I wonder if the net nasties can tell which theme I'm running for Window Maker right now? I've never seen an unrequested window pop up on me for a while, but every now and then an advert shaped like an M$ error message will slip by saying things like, "warning your browser is unoptimized."
I've seen a lot of smart ass posts from people who say, "Big deal, I never put any of that information into my passport. It's just for hotmail." Because this "service" is supposed to work everywhere, is it possible vendors have filled in the missing information for you? After all, because my wife has a hotmail account she was given a passport she never asked for that contained all the information demanded by hotmail. She also makes web purchases from time to time. A participating vendor could have already loaded her and me by association. Someone tell me it's not so or how I can verify it without an M$ OS.
"One name one login." how utterly M$. That shit won't work anywhere that has a clue. Are you going to take Microsoft's word that someone is who they claim they are and just let them romp around your systems?
In windows, Microsoft spoofs your backend! It's one of those private details you have to turn over to qualify to use the eXTortion replacements, LongDong and UXB.
Senator Holling's wet dream computer landscape is only two years away and the industry did it to themselves? I hope "professional" versons of "home" equipment are available. This M$ kernel in BIOS thing is not acceptable to people who have real computing to do, news to write, presses to run, medical records to keep and other stuff that needs to work and should not be leaked to TIAA/M$/Disney/AOL Corp. I have to ask myself if I've got enough known good, non bugged hardware to outlast the comming dark age of computing.
Oh yeah, Microsoft's woderful remote hardware control tools, such as the plug and play deamon that listens to an open port. I'm sure everyone's seen it before, but I must post the results of such weakenesses. View the sum of stupid, Ha-Ha. Don't worry Microsoft has issued the uber patch, had the month long security hug and changed their security model to include M$ rooting you at will! Dancing pet names and total lack of control of files on your hard drive should make you feel so much more secure. Oh yeah!
Is it true? I heard that the next version of Media Player will have a custom graphic for each user. I will display images of your loved ones, pets and property being threatened. While everyone will have the same images of meat cleavers, assault weapons, pitchforks and firebrands all shaking to the beat. The pictures of pets and property, however, will be unique to each luser. If you pull up another company's media player or juke box, the music will dissapear. If you copy the music file or pull up a music sharing client, the pets will cry and the house will burn. Spyware will report you to the RIAA so that these visions can come true, cool!
Windows ____________ through Annoyances~
Yep, that will work, considering just about everything Microsoft does is annoying.
Make a form of your post, you can reuse it for any story. Come to think of it, I've seen too much of your all time favorites. You suck.
What kinds of attacks would those be? The over the shoulder snoop sort?
This is classic "protection". It will remind you that Bill Gates knows where you live and the names of your cats just in case you get funny ideas about infringing on copyrights or alternte software. "Yes sir, I'll pay the windoze tax. Thank you so much for all you do for me!"
Sure, that's what they said about Sony's DAT. Then poof, it was encumbered with DRM that kept you from making copies of your own music, recitations, bird calls, introspective silence, farts or anything as if it were owned by Micahel Jackson. We should not forget that twarted technology or the laws that did it.
It's taken this long to come up with an equivalent device. Want to bet the RIAA won't try to squash it? I would not bet on their failure.
Ideas are not property. Neither or songs, poems, short and long storries.
Rights are things that take positive government action to suppress, speech, prayer and other things that are naturally free. There is no such thing as a right to profit from anything, much less the right to profit from IP. You have the right to say, write or sing as you please. Don't expect your sang somthing will keep others from doing the same.
Your rights of free press and speech are violated by copyright. That's the sort of thing you see in "Communits" countries, an exlusive franchise supposedly to benifit all. It's a compromise that was designed to encourage publications and it was only supposed to work for 14 years, then the work would belong to everyone the same way it would without copyright enforcement. If you would pay for restrictions on your speach and writings without something in return, you are a slave.
DRM'd works offer nothing in return for their protection and do not deserve protection. They don't even live up to the degenerate "fair use" concept.
"IP rights" lead inexorably to communism. If you apply the same concepts to all works, as people try with patent law, what you end up with is a system of big companies enjoying government protection in their exclusive markets. Because these comapnies are "protected" by the government, they are it's creatures and are subject to regulation. Such an economy is communist.
They will work until tax money taken, "for the children", is spent in schools rather than their administration, bussing, lunches and other nonsense.
Louisana is a showcase of shuch schemes. We spend more on education per capita and student than all but two or three states, and have the second or thrid lowest standardized test scores. The money does not go to teachers or equipment that matters.
He's wrong though. The average public school is a dumping ground of old computers, all of which would run just fine with free software. Baton Rouge had a lab with freeBSD where the students could do anything they wanted. I know one student who was told to help reduce inventory by removing computers they had so many.
I can just imagine this in my /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://xp.us.microsoft.com/home winmain DRM
then:
apt-get update .... ..."
hits
apt-get upgrade
submit? (y/n) y
c: ls
Blue Screen of Death, "module Explorer.exe
Sure, that's how Bill Gates would heal my computer.
Sure, I remember. I also remember anyone with any sense was looking to get away from Microsoft as fast as they could. Everyone predicted that M$ would simply use this tool to continue the anti-competitive parctices that were making the platform unstable and unusable. Everyone had already bemoaned the dll hell and knew that throwning more stuff into the same pit would bring less stability not more. Now it's in the EULA that you HAVE to let them do this. I'm sooooooo glad, I moved to free software and put up with a few warts that have been fixed.
The lockdown our shill says is so reasonable will not work. His world is steadily contracting, but so is the world his IT managers work in. Microsoft is going to keep tossing dumb stuff like this that breaks their own software even if you completely sell your soul to the beast. Isn't that the reason people bought into Microsoft stuff to begin with, all the programs that were available? The idea was that competition would provide good quality software. Well, where is that competition now? Want to cure your IE browser vulnerabilities? Right, just trie to remove IE. How about Outlook, the source of our shill's woe? All you are left with on M$ is M$, locked down and out. It's no wonder his IT dudes are so edgy. They know, in the end, that they won't be able to keep Microsoft out. As it is, users can "improve" Outlook with colors ...
The closed source software distribution model has been taken to it's ultimate form by M$ and it's a dismal failure. Their passport and DRM junk are last ditch efforts to lock their existing user base in. It's not going to work and much of IT will be destroyed as users exercise the "I'm not buying it." option. Microsoft's clamp downs are due to the inadequacies of their own tools. It's disgusting how they continue to shift the blame onto their users and administrators.
The free software model gives greater system control, stability and user freedom. There's no reason to lock the user down when you give them a trusted and free source of software to chose from. Even if you do decide not to give root to your users, they can still write and install software in their home directories. The whole Star Office program can be installed in a user's home direcory stand alone. Nasties like Gator don't exist in the free software world and they can easily be removed if they are created. All of this with great uptimes too.
Here's a simple guidline: If it's not human readable and it does not alow "fair use" as described by US code, then it does not desrve US Government copyright protection. Why should the government protect things which will never enlarge the public domain and take such a toll on the useful arts? If a company wants to make money by by publications that don't conform to the intent or purpose of copyright laws, they should go it alone and rely on their repulsive technology. What's not copyrightable should not be protected by DMCA so all's fair.
Sure, it's buggy. Police States are always incompetent. They also reasure their victims with crap like, " Sign in on any computer that has Internet access. .NET Passport uses powerful online security technology and follows a comprehensive privacy policy to help protect your profile information. You manage your information-sharing options." The Nazis were equal dullards but look how far they got. Incompetence does not keep you from being nasty, thourough and powerful.
Paranoid yet? You should be. Microsoft is bussy building tools and attitudes the most UnAmerican administration would value. They are just the kind of hacks the Nazis picked up and stuck into government and university positions. The time to fight the maddness is now, before it becomes official.
The prospect of a computer crashing is hardly a selling point. In sun's case it's a spurrious point as well.
Why not be the expert? Sun is worth their money, are you? You can, like google does, replicate the reliability of Sun with gnu/linux on comodity hardware. Do your homework and see which solution will cost your company less money. Comodity equipment or fancy stuff. Free software running on sun equipment might be part of your planning. Only you know what your company needs. When free software gets the job done with the least amount of trouble and money, advocate it. I would not blindly recomend free software, but I would not let the sun safety blanket blind me either, you have to get the company's work done.
Sure, I can picture bent over banner adds on the New York Times. They used to do pop-ups and might still. They would think twice is everyone thought of smut when they thought of pop ups.
I did not see anything about demos, installs or Gnome skins outside of your flames. Nor was there any good reason to flame free software as a "summer project".
Your points about presenting a whole solution are useful when you need to replace a whole system in a lethargic micormanaged work environment. All that "Oracle, Sybase, HP, Compaq, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, IBM, SAP, etc ... certifications" blah blah is so much dated marketroid bable with good bad and out of business mixed up. Wake up boss, HP is Compaq, Microsoft is worthless, Sun is good and IBM uses Linux. Well, OK, You've got a point about selling a "solution" in such an environement. It's negligence to not do your homework about the bottom line anywhere.
At the same time, it's a good idea to talk to people you trust about what free software is all about. It is important that management understands that free software is simply a co-operative community of software writers and users. They should know that such communities have always created the software that some companies tried to comercialize in a closed source way in the 1980s. The closed source experiment is just about out of gas, becasue the free software community has ignored it to create viable alternatives. Corporate managers understand co-operative research as well as they understand bottom line issues. Free software is not such a great leap at reasonable companies and most people are tired of being jerked around by comercial software pimps.
Yes, just like we know that Slashdot submissions never have typos.
Your point? Oh, never mind, I don't care about Microsoft "releases" or typos.