You cannot block port 445 (which zotob uses) since that is what is used in part for file and print sharing.
Whyever not? Or are you claiming that file and printer sharing (as opposed to using one of the stronger client-server protocols for these things) is a good idea?
It was just hyped big time by a few big media outlets. And really the patch was out, and you know Windows 2000 needs a firewall. I blame it more on crappy IT administration.
Anyhow, how does a firewall help one when an infected machine gets in the building (like a laptop)? You cannot block port 445 (which zotob uses) since that is what is used in part for file and print sharing.
While we didn't get hit where I work I can sympathize with companies that did. When you're working in a large environment it can take some time to test patches to make sure they work as advertised (esp. on mission ciritcal servers). One week lead time is really intense.
Not at all. libfoo would be installed in/opt/libfoo/lib. If there is a security update to libfoo, then you just delete/opt/libfoo and untar the new version into/opt. Since/opt/libfoo/lib was already on the library search path, this wouldn't even need the library path to be updated.
Ah ok, that is a little different than what some linux distros are doing.
This makes far more sense than the current state of things in the Linux world at the moment with applications scattered hither and yon. It doesn't seem to resolve the issue of orphaned libraries when an application is uninstalled and no other application is using thea lib. I suppose ya can't have everything.:-)
One install scheme (I think it originate on SunOS, but I could be wrong) which I've always liked was to install every app into/opt/appname/. Underneath that, an application could create its own directory hierarchy that mirrored the system hierarchy. For this to work really well, you need a dynamic linker and periodic script that adds/opt/*/lib to the linker path. The advantage of this approach is that you can install an app (or library) by just un-tarring it into/opt, and uninstall it by just deleting its directory.
This type of filesystem organization is beautiful in its simplicity but how does one handle security updates / bug fixes for different libraries contained in/opt/*/lib/?
Unless I'm missing something you're relying on the application vendor to provide those updates on a timely basis. That doesn't give me a warm fuzzy for a couple of reasons: 1) The number of updates that this system would seemingly require ought to rise dramatically since each vendor has to patch (insert random lib). 2) The variability from vendor to vendor and their responsiveness to patching vulnerable / buggy libs that their application may use.
I know that there are a few linux distributions trying this sort of filesystem organization out. Can someone elighten me as to how these library issues are addressed?
Fascinating. Can you cite any references to support your statement?
Gladly...
Identity management looks esp poor for RH when you compare that old krufty Netscape thing that RH bought vs. a stable and extremely mature (over 1 billion served) eDirectory product which is light years ahead of even Active Directory.
I freely admit that some of these articles are a bit long in the tooth however the directory services software landscape hasn't changed dramatically in the last few years. MS' last AD schema change was in 2003 and that wasn't an earth shattering update or anything.
It's difficult to see how this makes them an actual meaningful competitor to RH though.
Red Hat is getting a too big for their britches. RH's product is way more expensive than Suse and is not demonstrably better than what Suse is offering.
RH looks really beaten when you look at their end to end enterprise solution stack. Novell looks miles better than RH and has decades of experience playing in this sandbox. Identity management looks esp poor for RH when you compare that old krufty Netscape thing that RH bought vs. a stable and extremely mature eDirectory product which is light years ahead of even Active Directory.
Suse has many of the same support agreements from the big boys like IBM, Oracle, etc. Except for a solution that is already deployed or maybe wanting to go with the market leader (for safety) why would someone deploy RHL vs Novell? I can't think of a reason off the top of my head. Maybe someone can enlighten me.
It will be interesting to see if they drop java in the forthcoming project. In 9.3 they distribute it on the cd. They pay Sun for this priviledge, so I find it hard to believe they would be so charitable in the future.
This really doesn't matter much in the end. They'll just add it as an upgdate you can dl in YAST like they do with nvidia drivers, etc.
is probably the single most important reason to use Windows, Outlook 2k3 + Exchange/SBS + ACL is a good business solution (even if it is >2000$) until Linux can replicate the suites functionality and ease of use (for admin+users alike) our enterprise will be sticking with a Windows thanks
Funny that you mention Exchange for a couple of reasons...
First because MS decided that Exchange 2003 was going to be their new cash cow. So 2k3 is licensed *per client*. Which means if you have 5000 clients you are going to be paying through the nose! $2,000? Hah! That'll run ya ~$200,000 for a few thousands clients or so...
Second because you have OpenXchange (from Novell) which will emulate an Exchange server and talk to Outlook clients. Not to mention Evolution (Novell again) which will talk to an Exchange 2k/2k3 server with their connector software.
I've owned quite a few consoles in my day, and I've never bought one at launch. In fact, I will wait for the next generations of console to drop to under $150 before I even consider buying one.
Also, by the time the consoles hit that magic $150 price point there are plenty of cheap (but quality) pre-played games.
The point is that 2k starts its EOL cycle in June and goes into extended support (security updates only). Why would they spend all this time back porting stuff from XPSP2 to an EOL product. Guess what, 98 isn't getting IE7 either, is that an anti-trust violation or simply because 98 is in EOL status?
Maybe because ~60% of their corporate userbase is still Win2k? Or how about the fact that they haven't released an enhancement to Win2k in over two years? C'mon folks, Win2k is only 12 months older than XP. The question real question is why wouldn't MS give Win2k users some love considering that the browser wars are starting to heat up again?
So let's sum up the past two years of "Mainline Support" from MS for Win2k users: no Service Pack 5, none of IE6 security enhancements in XP will make it to Win2k and no IE7 for Win2k users.
MS is really giving Windows 2000 users the middle finger. MS is partly responsible for the security mess that is Windows 2000 and they should do *something* to help fix the situation. It isn't my fault as a user that MS hasn't released an operating sysytem for going on four years now. Why would I now pay for an OS that is over 3.5 years old?
It is really starting to feel that, at least part of the reason MS is going on an on about security is just another ploy to try to get customers to upgrade to the next greatest version of their product more quickly.
If this story is accurate, then this is a huge misstep by MS. MS is really opening the door for Firefox to further accelerate its adoption.
I agree. Stories aren't things that can be put together piecemeal, and generally don't adapt well to the traditional open source paradigm.
With your post you have complete ignored any literary work created more than two hundred years ago, which includes some of the finest examples of western literature. The list looks a little something like this: William Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Beowulf, any western folk tale / legend / myth / fable you can think of. All of these works were the result of someone taking a story, modifying it and / or combining it with other stories to create a "new" story. All of these great works benefited from a large creative commons that these storytellers could "borrow" from. It is only a very recent phenomenon where artists are walled off from one another's ideas and words and are forced largely to their own devices. We, as a society, have sadly bought into the notion that literature is a pursuit that can only be handled by one person of a very small group of people, mostly in the name of personal and corporate riches.
Don't you think it is a sad commentary on our society that if William Shakespeare were alive and writing today he would be labeled a plagiarist? William Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest playwright in the history of the western world would be an anathema in literary circles today.
Keeping in mind Linspire is totally Desktop-centric, I can see why they might have a radically different view on the permissions system from most existing Linux users.
I've already read lots of lengthy posts trashing this contrarian point of view. And they have a lot of good points, as yours does, but ultimately this reads like a single-user vs. multi-user culture clash.
When you say that it is a "single-user vs. multi-user" culture clash I think you are quite right. We're just beginning an age of interconnectivity and Microsoft is still living like it is still a single-user world. This is a computing culture change which will take time. Culture changes are frequently much more difficult than any technical hurdles which must be overcome.
I think it is a great fallacy to believe that security and desktop usability are mutually exclusive concepts. OSX is a great example of a unix based OS with as good (or better) usability than what MS provides and still provides a secure system. In OSX the default user doesn't run as root. It works just fine for Apple and their users *expect* a high degree of usability. Apple's users are frequently non-technical (artists for example) who just want to use their computer (just like good ol' granny). Why would this not work elsewhere? I agree that it is indeed time to reexamine our ideas about security but we need to find ways to strengthen the model *AND* improve usability wherever possible instead of making life easier for malcontents.
Disclaimer: I haven't ever owned a Mac (although the Minis are darn cool [me want!])...
"Because running Camelot would require a considerable amount of data management, we initially planned on using Oracle to store account and character information. However, Oracle's quoted license fee of more than $900,000 quickly removed them from contention. Once we got over our shock and amusement at Oracle's pricing, we turned to a Linux-based freeware solution, MySQL, to manage Camelot's data storage, which so far has worked admirably.
Everyone developing games should at least investigate open source solutions for their servers. It's saved us a pile of money and has been stable and reliable. In fact, prior to Camelot's launch, it was axiomatic that MMORPGs were unstable and prone to crashing during their first month or so." - Gamasutra
Did you even bother to read what I wrote? These are mostly Gnome applications written in the C# language. They don't use ASP.NET or ADO.NET.
Your point would be well made if all Mono wanted to do was implement C# but obviously Mono looks do to much more than that. I never meant to imply that these early adopter apps use ASP/ADO.NET as they clearly do not. I was merely commenting on the the larger issue touched on by the great grandparent which is the possibility of MS trying to damage Mono somehow (by using an IP / patent club in my example).
Who is to say that MS won't at some later date apply for a patent to some core part of.NET and come after Mono / Novell / Gnome for using it? MS is openly hostile to OSS in general and towards Linux in particular. When asked directly if Mono infringed on MS' IP, MS' silence was deafening.
Depending on the good graces of someone who will go to great lengths to stop Linux is something we ought to consider *very carefully* before embracing Mono with both arms.
The non-standardized parts of.NET are only an issue if you use Mono to deploy your Windows-based ASP.NET or ADO.NET applications on Linux.
Note that Mono very openly encourages and advertises Mono's support for these questionable portions of.NET. Also, ASP and ADO aren't exactly some dusty corner of.NET spec which we can safely assume will infrequently be used.
Your risk and exposure to Microsoft IP results from your choice of using ASP.NET and ADO.NET in the first place; the existence of Mono, if anything, reduces your risk and exposure somewhat, but, of course, it can't completely eliminate it.
Saying that the patent issue is a "red herring" is an enormous stretch. Mono's web site acknowledges that is an issue and even tries to come up with mitigating factors. Heck, Miguel even acknowledges that this is an issue which deserves debate, discussion and may result in the FOSS community having to route around patent damage. I'm not sure why you're trying to paint this as a non-issue when all sides have agreed that it is an issue worthy of discussion.
I fear the day when Microsoft will come and snatch this out from under the Mono team,
There is nothing to "snatch": these are applications implemented in a non-Microsoft toolkit using an open language standard.
This isn't 100% accurate since there is also the issue of patents to consider. In order to implement some parts of the.NET standard there would be some "use" of MS patents (I'm talking about ASP.NET and ADO.NET in particular). MS has never said anything about letting people use these parts of.NET and could easily go after Mono over this issue. Even the Mono team acknowledges this as an issue but they promise they'll somehow code around the patent or they just won't implement parts of the standard. Certainly not an optimal solution.
I don't see how writing Gnome applications in C# benefits Microsoft any more than writing Gnome applications in C++ or Python.
MS gets to say that their solution (C#) is cross platform and usable on numerous platforms. In short, publicity.
I experienced this exact same problem. Unfortunately the files were cloaked from the command line as well.:-(
We did pretty much what the other guy did... Access the machine through a network admin share, terminated the malware procs and deleted the associated files.
No serious DBA uses MySQL. Oracle, Sybase, PeopleSoft(soon to be oracle), IBM...
MySQL is what they use to teach you structured query in school. Databases have come a long way in FEATURES in the last 10 years...
Any decent craftsman will use the correct tool for the work at hand.
Sometimes the right tool is the most feature packed product you can find (Oracle). Other times the smaller tool with fewer features but better performance is preferable (MySQL).
The best thing to do is to just *try* all these things. SuSE isn't free, but there is an FTP install that should cover everything you need for gaming (the commercial extensions wont help you here and the drivers for nvidia are downloaded at install time or during a later online update).
Actually you can get Suse for free now too w/o the pain of an FTP install.
Suppose you are at least right that Linux's emergence as an alternative in the market has forced Microsoft to make some changes under the hood. So what? In the grand scheme of things how do they lead to the conclusion "MS is going to have a very difficult time in coming years?" To an uninitiated such as myself none of these changes seem significant. Wake me up when microsoft posts an unusually bad year and oss posts a good one.
I'd be more inclined to agree with something reasonable...
'It seems likely Microsoft will be giving up some market share to Open source software in coming years.' Being dramatic lends nothing to this conclusion.
Now, no one is saying that MS is going anywhere tomorrow, next year, or even ten years. It is crazy to think otherwise. It took MS ten years to effectively kick IBM out of the OS / Office suite market. Add to the equation that MS is sitting on billions in cash (that isn't going to evaporate overnight). Shoot, all the companies MS beat in the great grandparent of this post (IBM and Novell) are still very much in business. However, MS losing any substantial amount of market share to anyone is a "big deal" in that it is an inflection point away from the MS monoculture we see today. Large change happens slowly but I think we're at the very beginning of one that is worth taking note of.
One other thing to consider... Almost all of MS' profits come from the sale of Windows and Office. Because of this they are almost unassailable in other markets and any company competing against MS is competing against their money generating cash cows, Office and Windows. If those two bulwarks are challenged in a substantial way then you are turning the screws on the other unprofitable areas of MS (of which there are many).
Look at the XBOX for instance... It has lots hundreds of millions of dollars and MS is unfazed by this. MS is able to write this off as the cost of getting into the market due to the horde of cash they have accumulated. What other company would be able to do this? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
I wasn't *trying* to be dramatic. Sorry if I left you with that impression. I'm willing to go 50/50 with you and say it was 50% me being more dramatic than I intended and 50% the internet and your expectation (and mine for that matter) of a typical/.er's incoherent rant.;-) Anyhow, thanks for the thoughtful reply. I hope I cleared up my viewpoint a bit. We still might not agree but I hope I've at leas made myself more clear.:-)
There's one big difference. In each of those cases, Microsoft was there to burst the bubble and take away the market share. This time around there is no "other Microsoft".
When Novell collapsed, it was because Microsoft was rising. Same with IBM (fortunately for them, they reshaped their business from software to services). No one is going to grind Microsoft into the dirt anytime soon.
This is true to a limited extent. Why was MS able to unseat these titans (IBM and Novell as you've mentioned) from their thrones? MS created an environment in which these old companies could not compete (i.e. MS was much less expensive). So MS is used to providing the lowest price point for software that is "good enough" and in some ways a bit better (usability [I'm talking corp. accounts here since that's where the real money is]) than their competitors.
Now Linux has come along and done much the same thing that MS did in the 90's. Software that is "good enough" (from a usability perspective) and in some ways better than Windows (reliability, transparency, etc.) and priced anywhere from free to "cheaper than what MS is charging for their software." Ballmer himself said that MS is used to competing on price and they can't do that with Linux. Now MS has to rely on studies describing TCO, RIO and all those other acronyms that corporate America loves to talk about to attempt to justify their higher prices (does this sound familiar?).
MS is going to have a very hard time in the coming years. Linux has already forced them to do a number of things they weren't eager to do such as "releasing" source code, creating a crippled version of XP, restarting IE development, etc. To say that no one is there waiting to eat their lunch denies the MS' own reactions to this new competition.
However, we can provide these children with a free open-source operating system that runs will on older machines, and comes with thousands of applications, tutorials and how-to's.
Except THAT ISN'T WHAT THEY NEED OR WANT.
They need food water and vaccines, how fucking Stallman-compliant your operating system is way down the list of priorities.
The aid agencies which are responsible for distributing the aid certainly do though. Keeping costs down enables more "food, water and vaccines" to reach the people who need it.
Also, having a viable (but inexpensive) technology infrastructure enables governments and people to better prepare for and react to disasters such as locust plagues, tsunamis, famine etc.
Oh... yeah... IE is great... no need to change it until longhorn...
In all fairness, that statement was about features. Not security.
Security is a feature, especially when you think about it in today's terms. Microsoft has been pushing security enhancements as a feature since they started talking about XP SP2 many moons ago. Security enhancements have been the center piece of OS enhancements we've seen from MS lately.
If the rumor is true, MS is making a *huge* mistake by delaying IE enhancements until Longhorn. Firefox will have a very respectable share of the browser market by then and will be very difficult to dislodge. It would seem that MS will be getting a pop quiz on how they will compete with Open Source Software in the very near future... Probably much earlier than they expected.
The next few years it be very interesting to see how Microsoft reacts to a competitor they can't bleed dry (bankrupt).
Laugh all you want, but my dad can remember kids being whacked on the (left) hand with a steel ruler in elementary school if they didn't use their right hands when writing.
It was a private religious school. I'll let you guess which religion.)
I grew up a lefty in public schools and I was constantly being "corrected" with a ruler for using "the wrong hand" by my teachers. Handedness "correction" was, at least in my area of the country, way more of a societal norm than a religious thing. Needless to say I don't think I ever had a left-handed desk the entire time I went through school until after high school. Now I get to blame my sloppy handwriting on having to use the "wrong desk.";-)
All that "correction" really only made my handedness very ambiguous although I still tend to prefer my left hand. I write with my left hand (I *can* use my right), scissors with my right or left, eat and drink left handed, brush teeth right handed, bat left handed (baseball) , catch right handed (baseball again), shoot hoops right handed, play tennis left handed (a big advantage) and play guitar right handed.
The real question is if this term is long term. Right now IE is really loosing its share because it really sucks a lot. But when/if longhorn comes out with the new version of IE hopefully they would fix the major issues such as popup blocking control, Better support for the standards, and stronger security settings. Microsoft isn't dumb and they know more then what there people in marketing let on. Sure people are switching to other browsers right now. But if the next version of IE with there copy of windows gets updated.
Microsoft cannot wait until Longhorn to update their browser. If they wait until 2006 to do something that will be way too late and Firefox will have a very sizeable chunk of the browser market. Microsoft's real problem is that they've said that there will be no new features (only bug fixes) for IE users on Win 98/ME/2000 which is roughly half of their user base. They are leaving 50% of their user base out in the cold which makes them ripe pickings for Firefox. Not being infested with Spyware is precisely what users care about. I'll bet once they get a taste of the good life (sans spyware) they won't want to go back to using Internet Explorer.
What about the color management software in the Win and OSX? Many internal filters will have to interface with them. Though there are some OSS CMS projects.
One can always write a thin wrapper so that the filters simply call the wrapper to do 'foo' which the wrapper would then pass on to the CMS software.
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You cannot block port 445 (which zotob uses) since that is what is used in part for file and print sharing.
Whyever not? Or are you claiming that file and printer sharing (as opposed to using one of the stronger client-server protocols for these things) is a good idea?
Because you'll break Active Directory.
It was just hyped big time by a few big media outlets. And really the patch was out, and you know Windows 2000 needs a firewall. I blame it more on crappy IT administration.
Actually Windows 2000 does have a firewall. It just doesn't have a purdy gui.
http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1559
Anyhow, how does a firewall help one when an infected machine gets in the building (like a laptop)? You cannot block port 445 (which zotob uses) since that is what is used in part for file and print sharing.
While we didn't get hit where I work I can sympathize with companies that did. When you're working in a large environment it can take some time to test patches to make sure they work as advertised (esp. on mission ciritcal servers). One week lead time is really intense.
Not at all. libfoo would be installed in /opt/libfoo/lib. If there is a security update to libfoo, then you just delete /opt/libfoo and untar the new version into /opt. Since /opt/libfoo/lib was already on the library search path, this wouldn't even need the library path to be updated.
:-)
Ah ok, that is a little different than what some linux distros are doing.
This makes far more sense than the current state of things in the Linux world at the moment with applications scattered hither and yon. It doesn't seem to resolve the issue of orphaned libraries when an application is uninstalled and no other application is using thea lib. I suppose ya can't have everything.
One install scheme (I think it originate on SunOS, but I could be wrong) which I've always liked was to install every app into /opt/appname/. Underneath that, an application could create its own directory hierarchy that mirrored the system hierarchy. For this to work really well, you need a dynamic linker and periodic script that adds /opt/*/lib to the linker path. The advantage of this approach is that you can install an app (or library) by just un-tarring it into /opt, and uninstall it by just deleting its directory.
/opt/*/lib/?
This type of filesystem organization is beautiful in its simplicity but how does one handle security updates / bug fixes for different libraries contained in
Unless I'm missing something you're relying on the application vendor to provide those updates on a timely basis. That doesn't give me a warm fuzzy for a couple of reasons:
1) The number of updates that this system would seemingly require ought to rise dramatically since each vendor has to patch (insert random lib).
2) The variability from vendor to vendor and their responsiveness to patching vulnerable / buggy libs that their application may use.
I know that there are a few linux distributions trying this sort of filesystem organization out. Can someone elighten me as to how these library issues are addressed?
Fascinating. Can you cite any references to support your statement?
Gladly...
Identity management looks esp poor for RH when you compare that old krufty Netscape thing that RH bought vs. a stable and extremely mature (over 1 billion served) eDirectory product which is light years ahead of even Active Directory.
I freely admit that some of these articles are a bit long in the tooth however the directory services software landscape hasn't changed dramatically in the last few years. MS' last AD schema change was in 2003 and that wasn't an earth shattering update or anything.
It's difficult to see how this makes them an actual meaningful competitor to RH though.
Red Hat is getting a too big for their britches. RH's product is way more expensive than Suse and is not demonstrably better than what Suse is offering.
RH looks really beaten when you look at their end to end enterprise solution stack. Novell looks miles better than RH and has decades of experience playing in this sandbox. Identity management looks esp poor for RH when you compare that old krufty Netscape thing that RH bought vs. a stable and extremely mature eDirectory product which is light years ahead of even Active Directory.
Suse has many of the same support agreements from the big boys like IBM, Oracle, etc. Except for a solution that is already deployed or maybe wanting to go with the market leader (for safety) why would someone deploy RHL vs Novell? I can't think of a reason off the top of my head. Maybe someone can enlighten me.
It will be interesting to see if they drop java in the forthcoming project. In 9.3 they distribute it on the cd. They pay Sun for this priviledge, so I find it hard to believe they would be so charitable in the future.
This really doesn't matter much in the end. They'll just add it as an upgdate you can dl in YAST like they do with nvidia drivers, etc.
is probably the single most important reason to use Windows,
Outlook 2k3 + Exchange/SBS + ACL is a good business solution (even if it is >2000$)
until Linux can replicate the suites functionality and ease of use (for admin+users alike) our enterprise will be sticking with a Windows thanks
Funny that you mention Exchange for a couple of reasons...
First because MS decided that Exchange 2003 was going to be their new cash cow. So 2k3 is licensed *per client*. Which means if you have 5000 clients you are going to be paying through the nose! $2,000? Hah! That'll run ya ~$200,000 for a few thousands clients or so...
Second because you have OpenXchange (from Novell) which will emulate an Exchange server and talk to Outlook clients. Not to mention Evolution (Novell again) which will talk to an Exchange 2k/2k3 server with their connector software.
I've owned quite a few consoles in my day, and I've never bought one at launch. In fact, I will wait for the next generations of console to drop to under $150 before I even consider buying one.
Also, by the time the consoles hit that magic $150 price point there are plenty of cheap (but quality) pre-played games.
The point is that 2k starts its EOL cycle in June and goes into extended support (security updates only). Why would they spend all this time back porting stuff from XPSP2 to an EOL product. Guess what, 98 isn't getting IE7 either, is that an anti-trust violation or simply because 98 is in EOL status?
Maybe because ~60% of their corporate userbase is still Win2k? Or how about the fact that they haven't released an enhancement to Win2k in over two years? C'mon folks, Win2k is only 12 months older than XP. The question real question is why wouldn't MS give Win2k users some love considering that the browser wars are starting to heat up again?
So let's sum up the past two years of "Mainline Support" from MS for Win2k users: no Service Pack 5, none of IE6 security enhancements in XP will make it to Win2k and no IE7 for Win2k users.
MS is really giving Windows 2000 users the middle finger. MS is partly responsible for the security mess that is Windows 2000 and they should do *something* to help fix the situation. It isn't my fault as a user that MS hasn't released an operating sysytem for going on four years now. Why would I now pay for an OS that is over 3.5 years old?
It is really starting to feel that, at least part of the reason MS is going on an on about security is just another ploy to try to get customers to upgrade to the next greatest version of their product more quickly.
If this story is accurate, then this is a huge misstep by MS. MS is really opening the door for Firefox to further accelerate its adoption.
I agree. Stories aren't things that can be put together piecemeal, and generally don't adapt well to the traditional open source paradigm.
With your post you have complete ignored any literary work created more than two hundred years ago, which includes some of the finest examples of western literature. The list looks a little something like this: William Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Beowulf, any western folk tale / legend / myth / fable you can think of. All of these works were the result of someone taking a story, modifying it and / or combining it with other stories to create a "new" story. All of these great works benefited from a large creative commons that these storytellers could "borrow" from. It is only a very recent phenomenon where artists are walled off from one another's ideas and words and are forced largely to their own devices. We, as a society, have sadly bought into the notion that literature is a pursuit that can only be handled by one person of a very small group of people, mostly in the name of personal and corporate riches.
Don't you think it is a sad commentary on our society that if William Shakespeare were alive and writing today he would be labeled a plagiarist? William Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest playwright in the history of the western world would be an anathema in literary circles today.
By frozen, I'm guessing you mean poor Sarge was cryogenically frozen, right? What's the prognosis?
Oh...they've encased him in carbonite. He should be quite well-protected -- if he survives the freezing process, that is.
When you say that it is a "single-user vs. multi-user" culture clash I think you are quite right. We're just beginning an age of interconnectivity and Microsoft is still living like it is still a single-user world. This is a computing culture change which will take time. Culture changes are frequently much more difficult than any technical hurdles which must be overcome.
I think it is a great fallacy to believe that security and desktop usability are mutually exclusive concepts. OSX is a great example of a unix based OS with as good (or better) usability than what MS provides and still provides a secure system. In OSX the default user doesn't run as root. It works just fine for Apple and their users *expect* a high degree of usability. Apple's users are frequently non-technical (artists for example) who just want to use their computer (just like good ol' granny). Why would this not work elsewhere?
I agree that it is indeed time to reexamine our ideas about security but we need to find ways to strengthen the model *AND* improve usability wherever possible instead of making life easier for malcontents.
Disclaimer: I haven't ever owned a Mac (although the Minis are darn cool [me want!])...
Your point would be well made if all Mono wanted to do was implement C# but obviously Mono looks do to much more than that. I never meant to imply that these early adopter apps use ASP/ADO.NET as they clearly do not. I was merely commenting on the the larger issue touched on by the great grandparent which is the possibility of MS trying to damage Mono somehow (by using an IP / patent club in my example).
Who is to say that MS won't at some later date apply for a patent to some core part of
Depending on the good graces of someone who will go to great lengths to stop Linux is something we ought to consider *very carefully* before embracing Mono with both arms.
Note that Mono very openly encourages and advertises Mono's support for these questionable portions of
Saying that the patent issue is a "red herring" is an enormous stretch. Mono's web site acknowledges that is an issue and even tries to come up with mitigating factors. Heck, Miguel even acknowledges that this is an issue which deserves debate, discussion and may result in the FOSS community having to route around patent damage. I'm not sure why you're trying to paint this as a non-issue when all sides have agreed that it is an issue worthy of discussion.
This isn't 100% accurate since there is also the issue of patents to consider. In order to implement some parts of the
MS gets to say that their solution (C#) is cross platform and usable on numerous platforms. In short, publicity.
I experienced this exact same problem. Unfortunately the files were cloaked from the command line as well. :-(
We did pretty much what the other guy did... Access the machine through a network admin share, terminated the malware procs and deleted the associated files.
Any decent craftsman will use the correct tool for the work at hand.
Sometimes the right tool is the most feature packed product you can find (Oracle). Other times the smaller tool with fewer features but better performance is preferable (MySQL).
Don't go squirrel hunting with an elephant gun.
The best thing to do is to just *try* all these things. SuSE isn't free, but there is an FTP install that should cover everything you need for gaming (the commercial extensions wont help you here and the drivers for nvidia are downloaded at install time or during a later online update).
Actually you can get Suse for free now too w/o the pain of an FTP install.
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=02238
Enjoy!
Now, no one is saying that MS is going anywhere tomorrow, next year, or even ten years. It is crazy to think otherwise. It took MS ten years to effectively kick IBM out of the OS / Office suite market. Add to the equation that MS is sitting on billions in cash (that isn't going to evaporate overnight). Shoot, all the companies MS beat in the great grandparent of this post (IBM and Novell) are still very much in business. However, MS losing any substantial amount of market share to anyone is a "big deal" in that it is an inflection point away from the MS monoculture we see today. Large change happens slowly but I think we're at the very beginning of one that is worth taking note of.
One other thing to consider... Almost all of MS' profits come from the sale of Windows and Office. Because of this they are almost unassailable in other markets and any company competing against MS is competing against their money generating cash cows, Office and Windows. If those two bulwarks are challenged in a substantial way then you are turning the screws on the other unprofitable areas of MS (of which there are many).
Look at the XBOX for instance... It has lots hundreds of millions of dollars and MS is unfazed by this. MS is able to write this off as the cost of getting into the market due to the horde of cash they have accumulated. What other company would be able to do this? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
I wasn't *trying* to be dramatic. Sorry if I left you with that impression. I'm willing to go 50/50 with you and say it was 50% me being more dramatic than I intended and 50% the internet and your expectation (and mine for that matter) of a typical
This is true to a limited extent. Why was MS able to unseat these titans (IBM and Novell as you've mentioned) from their thrones? MS created an environment in which these old companies could not compete (i.e. MS was much less expensive). So MS is used to providing the lowest price point for software that is "good enough" and in some ways a bit better (usability [I'm talking corp. accounts here since that's where the real money is]) than their competitors.
Now Linux has come along and done much the same thing that MS did in the 90's. Software that is "good enough" (from a usability perspective) and in some ways better than Windows (reliability, transparency, etc.) and priced anywhere from free to "cheaper than what MS is charging for their software." Ballmer himself said that MS is used to competing on price and they can't do that with Linux. Now MS has to rely on studies describing TCO, RIO and all those other acronyms that corporate America loves to talk about to attempt to justify their higher prices (does this sound familiar?).
MS is going to have a very hard time in the coming years. Linux has already forced them to do a number of things they weren't eager to do such as "releasing" source code, creating a crippled version of XP, restarting IE development, etc. To say that no one is there waiting to eat their lunch denies the MS' own reactions to this new competition.
The aid agencies which are responsible for distributing the aid certainly do though. Keeping costs down enables more "food, water and vaccines" to reach the people who need it.
Also, having a viable (but inexpensive) technology infrastructure enables governments and people to better prepare for and react to disasters such as locust plagues, tsunamis, famine etc.
Security is a feature, especially when you think about it in today's terms. Microsoft has been pushing security enhancements as a feature since they started talking about XP SP2 many moons ago. Security enhancements have been the center piece of OS enhancements we've seen from MS lately.
If the rumor is true, MS is making a *huge* mistake by delaying IE enhancements until Longhorn. Firefox will have a very respectable share of the browser market by then and will be very difficult to dislodge. It would seem that MS will be getting a pop quiz on how they will compete with Open Source Software in the very near future... Probably much earlier than they expected.
The next few years it be very interesting to see how Microsoft reacts to a competitor they can't bleed dry (bankrupt).
Laugh all you want, but my dad can remember kids being whacked on the (left) hand with a steel ruler in elementary school if they didn't use their right hands when writing.
;-)
It was a private religious school. I'll let you guess which religion.)
I grew up a lefty in public schools and I was constantly being "corrected" with a ruler for using "the wrong hand" by my teachers. Handedness "correction" was, at least in my area of the country, way more of a societal norm than a religious thing. Needless to say I don't think I ever had a left-handed desk the entire time I went through school until after high school. Now I get to blame my sloppy handwriting on having to use the "wrong desk."
All that "correction" really only made my handedness very ambiguous although I still tend to prefer my left hand. I write with my left hand (I *can* use my right), scissors with my right or left, eat and drink left handed, brush teeth right handed, bat left handed (baseball) , catch right handed (baseball again), shoot hoops right handed, play tennis left handed (a big advantage) and play guitar right handed.
The real question is if this term is long term. Right now IE is really loosing its share because it really sucks a lot. But when/if longhorn comes out with the new version of IE hopefully they would fix the major issues such as popup blocking control, Better support for the standards, and stronger security settings. Microsoft isn't dumb and they know more then what there people in marketing let on. Sure people are switching to other browsers right now. But if the next version of IE with there copy of windows gets updated.
Microsoft cannot wait until Longhorn to update their browser. If they wait until 2006 to do something that will be way too late and Firefox will have a very sizeable chunk of the browser market. Microsoft's real problem is that they've said that there will be no new features (only bug fixes) for IE users on Win 98/ME/2000 which is roughly half of their user base. They are leaving 50% of their user base out in the cold which makes them ripe pickings for Firefox. Not being infested with Spyware is precisely what users care about. I'll bet once they get a taste of the good life (sans spyware) they won't want to go back to using Internet Explorer.
What about the color management software in the Win and OSX? Many internal filters will have to interface with them. Though there are some OSS CMS projects.
One can always write a thin wrapper so that the filters simply call the wrapper to do 'foo' which the wrapper would then pass on to the CMS software.