... just like a Volvo is not 100% secure. But the Volvo is more secure than a 1960 Yugo.
So, I'd rather choose the system that while not perfect is pretty good than a crappy system whose vendor chooses to put out press-releases about security instead of actually dealing with the problems.
As usual, in theory, Windows is great:
In theory, everybody uses those super-fine-grained permissions in Windows. (In real life those permissions are so complicated that most ignore them)
According to MS-PR theory, Linux is very dangerous because "everybody" can put evil backdoors in. (In real life there has never been a case of a intentinal backdoor in any OSS-project with more than 1 contributor while there have been numerous examples of such backdoors in CSS)
In theory and in all total cost of ownership studies, the cost of viruses, worms and security problems on Windows is zero. (In real life millions are paid for virus scanners and much more is lost in productivity)
In theory, viruses/trojans/worms are only written for the market-leader platform. (In real life, Apache leads the market and has not had a single worm comparable to Code Red or Nimda)
In theory, Microsoft's latest "security initiatives" are a big success. (In real life the biggest epidemies like MS Blaster happened after those initiatives started.)
In theory, Windows is great. In real life it's a buggy, insecure piece of trash that should be avoided whenever possible.
OSS available through many sources and variations, everybody can pick one which offers adequate security
For some, running as root on Lindows is adequate, most will be satisfied with a standard-distribution (Mandrake, SuSE, debian), few will need the tight security of OpenBSD and even fewer will want to use a non-x86 CPU where the pre-packaged exploits don't work.
That's the beauty of OSS and one of the reasons why there are no and never will be virus/worm epidemies on Linux that are comparable to those we see on Windows.
Thats a great attitude. "Its not confusing, you just don't understand it."
Even though the post you replied to is probably a troll, it's closer to the truth than you might think.
If you compare early 90's Linux to the dominating OS at the time, MS DOS, it indeed doesn't look bad at all. DOS essentially provided nothing for applications except a filesystem and a few drivers. Linux had that functionality very early, too.
Because Microsoft maneuvered themsleves into a very difficult situation:
If they release often, customers will be pissed because of the big transition costs involved with every upgrade. Also, most customers don't need the upgrades anyway or do you know anybody who really needs any features of MS Office after Office97?
If they don't release often, customers will be pissed because they don't get anything for their money.
In this environment, the OSS-idea of "upgrade when you want for free" just became a lot more appealing.
I think I have not chosen the best words, but OpenOffice runs on more Windows-versions, new versions will continue to run on all Win32 versions - which is a big advantage against MS Office IMO.
So you mean they do in 2 years what KDE and MacOSX are already doing?
Probably I'm "obviously" not getting it, so maybe you can explain what features exactly will be different from KDE today and why they will make life easier.
Why is it that the Microsofties always want the "common people" to follow "the law" in every small detail but have no problem with Microsoft breaking the law, lying in court and faking evidence?
I for one say that the big lesson learned from the Microsoft trials is:
It's OK to break the law when you can get away with it
From what I've heard from Longhorn, "WinFS" was the only thing that sounded interesting for me. The rest (like a sidebar or applets - or graphics effects like transparency through "Avalon") seems more like catching up to the various Linux DEs and MacOSX. The only other thing is DRM, which might be a major modification, but which I don't really want anyway.
So, can anybody point out which features would be really worth an upgrade, because I can't see any. I don't care about Eyecandy, also there should be something else than eyecandy...
Once someone learns how to get Linux out to the masses without requiring the secret handshake to join the club[..]
when you should have talked exclusively about Fedora.
And this is trolling, sorry. It's exactly the sime like bashing Windows for being slow on a 200MHz CPU. It's not Windows' fault being slow on that CPU just like it's not SuSE's or Mandrake's fault when Fedora doesn't support KDE well.
Nobody requests you to try every distro, nobody expects you to like everything, but just a little fairness in critique would be nice.
I still use Mozilla 1.2 and although I have installed 1.4 I never made the switch because I'm too lazy to install all the plugins that work just fine on 1.2
I never really saw any reason to upgrade, all the Mozilla versions since 1.0 look, feel and act the same for me.
And honestly I don't see any reason to upgrade at all until Mozilla does SVG.
they wouldn't understand the whole "install multiple files across to multiple directories" thing.
Yeah, right. It's just sooo much more complicated than "install multiple files across multiple directories in the file system and install multiple settings across multiple directories in the registry"
Well, if you want an easy KDE install, use SuSE or Mandrake. KDE is automatically installed and preconfigured and all hardware configuration is integrated in it.
RedHat (and Fedora) is not a desktop distribution, the RedHat managers said so themselves.
Complaining about RedHat on the desktop is like complaining that a rackmount-server is a crappy computer because it's graphics card sucks.
Once someone learns how to get Linux out to the masses without requiring the secret handshake to join the club, then and only then is Microsoft in deep trouble.
I'd say once people realize that Gnome and Redhat are crappy on the desktop and try a true KDE-based distro like SUSE or Mandrake, Microsoft is in deep trouble.
I mean it's not rocket-science. I don't think you would buy a Cobalt-box as a desktop either, why do you choose a distribution whose makers themselves said it isn't targetted on the desktop?
Nonsense, people run DOS/Win3.1/Win9x/WinNT because the apps require it. That's the only reason.
Microsoft does not and never had a particularily good user interface. It's just "good enough" for those poor beggars who don't know about multiple desktops and the 3rd mouse button.
If Photoshop, Adobe Flash and the latest games would require DOS, people would run that too, BTW.
It's funny that such anti-Linux comments pop up frequently, yet the posters don't seem to have problems with the US-Army's (and many other governmental organization's) "Microsoft-only" policy.
which is somewhat a prerequesite for Linux on the desktop. If admins in companies have experience with Linux on servers, only then they will evaluate it on the desktops. It seems Microsoft has already lost the Korea-server market without any hope of gaining ground (When you run Linux, you have more choice of webhosters, have better support and on top pay less.) the desktop is next. It will take much longer than on the servers, but it will happen, especially when the government is helping.
Re:From sSomeone who pitches those PHB's...
on
Why PHBs Fear Linux
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, right.
I always hear Linux zealots claiming that "Windows is a cancer", "Windows is unamerican" and "Windows destroys the economy".
The reason PHBs are afraid of Linux is because Microsoft is better at spreading FUD (the "F" stands for fear).
He's saying the tangible parts of the system (the hardware) will be virtually free while the freely duplicated software will not be. Fabrication plants cost millions, each chip has a real cost, each resistor has a real cost. Software, once written, can be copied countless times..
Yeah, I also thought this.
But before the Linux-era, Billy was actually correct: At DOS-times, computers cost about 5000$, while DOS itself was less than 100$ (full version) IIRC. Today computers typically cost less than 1000$ but Windows XP (full version, crippled) costs 200$ or (full version, uncrippled) 300$.
On Windows-servers the ratio of the total system price which is going to Microsoft is even higher.
Also, Microsoft is doing much more against piracy these days (WPA, BSA-audits, etc.) than 20 years ago, which de-facto translates into yet another price increase.
Even though Bill Gates seems to have the delusion that this can go on like nothing happened, he is wrong: On servers, Microsoft already feels the heat from Linux and the desktop domination already shows some cracks.
Actually, it's sure as hell NOT news to the license-possessed maniacs who keep bringing it up. Of course they know that Qt is available under the GPL but they pretend not to know to spread FUD.
Small mistakes on a large scale can be catastrophic.
The microbe-huggers might disagree, but if the biggest "catastrophy" is some microbes dying, I don't see a downside at all. Oh, and by the way we still could take these precious microbes and let them live in petri-dishes.
Yeah, I know that a microbe is probably happier under the sun, so we probably should discuss the ethics involved in hurting microbe's feelings...
I really wonder what you guys eat, if you care so much about microbes' feelings, you certainly should feel very guilty when you eat higher life forms like plants or even animals.
Slashdot Mirror
So, I'd rather choose the system that while not perfect is pretty good than a crappy system whose vendor chooses to put out press-releases about security instead of actually dealing with the problems.
As usual, in theory, Windows is great:
In theory, Windows is great. In real life it's a buggy, insecure piece of trash that should be avoided whenever possible.
For some, running as root on Lindows is adequate, most will be satisfied with a standard-distribution (Mandrake, SuSE, debian), few will need the tight security of OpenBSD and even fewer will want to use a non-x86 CPU where the pre-packaged exploits don't work.
That's the beauty of OSS and one of the reasons why there are no and never will be virus/worm epidemies on Linux that are comparable to those we see on Windows.
Even though the post you replied to is probably a troll, it's closer to the truth than you might think.
If you compare early 90's Linux to the dominating OS at the time, MS DOS, it indeed doesn't look bad at all. DOS essentially provided nothing for applications except a filesystem and a few drivers. Linux had that functionality very early, too.
If they release often, customers will be pissed because of the big transition costs involved with every upgrade. Also, most customers don't need the upgrades anyway or do you know anybody who really needs any features of MS Office after Office97?
If they don't release often, customers will be pissed because they don't get anything for their money.
In this environment, the OSS-idea of "upgrade when you want for free" just became a lot more appealing.
I think I have not chosen the best words, but OpenOffice runs on more Windows-versions, new versions will continue to run on all Win32 versions - which is a big advantage against MS Office IMO.
Probably I'm "obviously" not getting it, so maybe you can explain what features exactly will be different from KDE today and why they will make life easier.
I think you misspelled "until Microsoft stops sending out Activation Codes"
I for one say that the big lesson learned from the Microsoft trials is:
It's OK to break the law when you can get away with it
So, can anybody point out which features would be really worth an upgrade, because I can't see any. I don't care about Eyecandy, also there should be something else than eyecandy...
Once someone learns how to get Linux out to the masses without requiring the secret handshake to join the club[..]
when you should have talked exclusively about Fedora.
And this is trolling, sorry. It's exactly the sime like bashing Windows for being slow on a 200MHz CPU. It's not Windows' fault being slow on that CPU just like it's not SuSE's or Mandrake's fault when Fedora doesn't support KDE well.
Nobody requests you to try every distro, nobody expects you to like everything, but just a little fairness in critique would be nice.
I never really saw any reason to upgrade, all the Mozilla versions since 1.0 look, feel and act the same for me.
And honestly I don't see any reason to upgrade at all until Mozilla does SVG.
Yeah, right. It's just sooo much more complicated than "install multiple files across multiple directories in the file system and install multiple settings across multiple directories in the registry"
RedHat (and Fedora) is not a desktop distribution, the RedHat managers said so themselves.
Complaining about RedHat on the desktop is like complaining that a rackmount-server is a crappy computer because it's graphics card sucks.
Once someone learns how to get Linux out to the masses without requiring the secret handshake to join the club, then and only then is Microsoft in deep trouble.
I'd say once people realize that Gnome and Redhat are crappy on the desktop and try a true KDE-based distro like SUSE or Mandrake, Microsoft is in deep trouble.
I mean it's not rocket-science. I don't think you would buy a Cobalt-box as a desktop either, why do you choose a distribution whose makers themselves said it isn't targetted on the desktop?
Microsoft does not and never had a particularily good user interface. It's just "good enough" for those poor beggars who don't know about multiple desktops and the 3rd mouse button.
If Photoshop, Adobe Flash and the latest games would require DOS, people would run that too, BTW.
In theory, yes. In real life I haven't seen a single webhoster who even offers Apache on Windows.
There are a couple of people, mostly hobbyists who run Apache on their desktops over a DSL line at home, that's true, but those are hardly relevant.
So in the bigger picture, Apache = Unix.
It's funny that such anti-Linux comments pop up frequently, yet the posters don't seem to have problems with the US-Army's (and many other governmental organization's) "Microsoft-only" policy.
http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200403/ kr/index.html
which is somewhat a prerequesite for Linux on the desktop. If admins in companies have experience with Linux on servers, only then they will evaluate it on the desktops. It seems Microsoft has already lost the Korea-server market without any hope of gaining ground (When you run Linux, you have more choice of webhosters, have better support and on top pay less.) the desktop is next. It will take much longer than on the servers, but it will happen, especially when the government is helping.
I always hear Linux zealots claiming that "Windows is a cancer", "Windows is unamerican" and "Windows destroys the economy".
The reason PHBs are afraid of Linux is because Microsoft is better at spreading FUD (the "F" stands for fear).
China is looking at Linux, not Mac. In Thailand most computers are already preloaded with Linux, not MacOS. Munich is switching to Linux, not MacOS.
Also, just linking an app against winelib is much more cost-effective than having to buy new hardware and port it to some Mac-API.
Corel-Draw would not have much competition on the Linux platform, but WordPerfect will.
Yeah, I also thought this.
But before the Linux-era, Billy was actually correct: At DOS-times, computers cost about 5000$, while DOS itself was less than 100$ (full version) IIRC. Today computers typically cost less than 1000$ but Windows XP (full version, crippled) costs 200$ or (full version, uncrippled) 300$.
On Windows-servers the ratio of the total system price which is going to Microsoft is even higher.
Also, Microsoft is doing much more against piracy these days (WPA, BSA-audits, etc.) than 20 years ago, which de-facto translates into yet another price increase.
Even though Bill Gates seems to have the delusion that this can go on like nothing happened, he is wrong: On servers, Microsoft already feels the heat from Linux and the desktop domination already shows some cracks.
Actually, it's sure as hell NOT news to the license-possessed maniacs who keep bringing it up. Of course they know that Qt is available under the GPL but they pretend not to know to spread FUD.
The microbe-huggers might disagree, but if the biggest "catastrophy" is some microbes dying, I don't see a downside at all. Oh, and by the way we still could take these precious microbes and let them live in petri-dishes.
Yeah, I know that a microbe is probably happier under the sun, so we probably should discuss the ethics involved in hurting microbe's feelings...
I really wonder what you guys eat, if you care so much about microbes' feelings, you certainly should feel very guilty when you eat higher life forms like plants or even animals.