"Is it possible to build software that is 100% resistant to computer viruses? Can software be coded with no possible pathways for a virus to spread?"
Good question. To answer it, we'd need a rigorous definition of "virus", but let's take a whack without this: "An entity is a virus if it can induce a program to reproduce it."
First, trivially, yes it is possible. Here's a program that does not spread viruses:
void main(void){}
So we the real question is "can any interesting programs be made virus-free?" And what is interesting? Well, minimally, it needs to accept input and produce output. The input to a program (actually, to a function) is called the "domain". The output is called the "range". If there is no overlap between domain and range (say, you input an integer and it outputs a color) then you clearly cannot induce the program to reproduce the input in the output. But that doesn't put us in the clear. A pair of programs that complement each other such that the range of A overlaps the domain of B (and vice versa) could be induced to reproduce the virus.
Note that domain/range overlap doesn't guarantee there exists a virus that can exploit the program. It is a necessary but no sufficient condition. --
Is any research being done to compare computer virus/security hole propagation patterns? I'm sure the CDC (that's "center for disease control", not "cult of the dead cow") would have a lot of useful input on this "ubervirus" problem.
I'm not an expert so I'm not going to try to defend the following statement, I'm just going to make it. I recently finished "Chaos" by James Gleick. He mentioned that one of the places you can find chaotic behavior was in the spread of an epidemic. In fact, efforts to step up vaccination (and other disease prevention techniques) actually caused an increase in the rate of infection (sometimes and short- to mid-term). Apparently this has something to do with perturbing an oscillating phenomena.
I bring this up as a warning to those who think we should all immediately rush out and start locking things down. We might make it worse if we do. I know this statement sounds ridiculous--I'm just saying that maybe we should slow down and think before rushing off to act. Do the research, ask the questions. --
"The very same thing, of course, is happening to "geeks, Goths and freaks" all over the United States today, post-Columbine."
This MUST be a typo. Surely you mean "post-Columbian". I'm sure you don't mean to imply that, previous to 2 years ago, the mildly-to-radically different were accepted with open arms by all segments of society. --
This isn't the Slashdot Big Brother wreaking havocl; rather, it's bug ridden code wreaking havoc! There's a bug in the Slashcode somewhere that causes this to happen. We're working on it, and hopefully, we'll have it squashed soon. (Actually, it hasn't happened in a while, so it may have been fixed.)
If you see one of these comments, don't freak out. Let us know about it. We'll push the comment back into range, and try to figure out what caused it.
In other words, anything below -1 is a bug. Since "below -1" is not supported, posts at that level are effectively deleted.
As for asking CmdrTaco: I've given up trying to communicate directly with His Holiness. 3 years ago he responded to comments. 2 years ago he responded to emails. Now: nothing. --
(read before moderating) I think Slashdot would testify. Why? Because I think they've already caved to Microsoft.
That's a big accusation, where did I get it from? Well, if you'll recall we never heard anything more about the Slashdot vs MS thing. Surely MS would have responded by now. But even more damning is this: About a week ago I was reading at -1. There's some troll at that level who keeps cut 'n' pasting various texts (porn stories, howto's, etc). In one story I found he had posted an entire MSDN "Q article". When I refreshed the page, that post was GONE.
So Slashdot is removing (MS only?) copyrighted materials. Fine, that's their right, after all reproduction of copyrighted material is against the law. My point is not that they shouldn't have done it (although I don't like it). My point is that Slashdot HAS bowed to "the man" before and would therefore probably do it again.
And, either way, I think we'd ALL appreciate an update on the MS story.... --
"Upside Today reaches the same concusion as Penguinista regarding Reality On The "Purchased" Linux Reviews."
They make fun of the idea at the beginning, but then the article goes on to cite REAL journalistic (or research) flaws in other publications. So Upside's position seems to be "it doesn't happen, and even if it did everybody is doing it". That's not an answer.
In any case, I don't read software reviews, especially for Linux. Here's what I do with a software review:
1) Read the description fo the software 2) Check license as listed in review 3) If license is not free (libre AND gratis) or desc is not interesting, turn the page 4) If the license IS free and the desc is interesting, download the software and try it myself. --
First, we probably need to know what kind of work these desktops will be doing. For instance, if they'll just be running a word processor and a few other little apps, why not just make them all X terminals connected to departmental servers?
Second, even if you want local installs, you can still do it "remotely". Create a floppy that will do a remote boot/install. Send a copy of the floppy to every person. That instantly parallelizes the task, reducing the load on your IT people. Of course, this only works if the users are competent to put a floppy in the drive (and answer any questions you can't automate). That goes back to #1: Are these 2500 people engineers or typists?
Third, you need more than an install method. You also need to plan for machines that wig out (bad hardware, corrupt software, new users on old machines, etc). You also need to plan for hardware upgrades. That seems simple, but it isn't always. For instance, suppose your vendor suddenly started shipping USB mice? Sounds dumb, but I've seen dumber (from Gateway, anyway).
This is what I would do, given no other information about what kind of users they were:
A) Setup a server for each "group". Put all their apps and home dirs on the server. B) Create a "kiosk image" of a linux machine that is essentially just an X terminal. C) Send out floppies with a minimal Linux install and a script that auto-downloads a given HD image and writes it to disk. It may have to do a small amount of configuration. It may not, though. Consider: dhcp for networking, NIS for user auth. Put ALL servers in the fstab file and have the floppy just mount one of them. D) As new machines enter the building, create images on them yourself. If people need new images, have them put the floppy back in (or get a new one). E) You may have to have some kind of "autoupdater" for updated packages...but you may not too. If you don't install much on the desktop and can always just download a new image you don't have to worry about updating specific packages.
Well, that's enough until someone pays me....8^) --
Don't compare "current power plant efficiency" to "possible power plant efficiency". I'm not saying we should make power plants more efficient (although we probably should).
Compare "car efficiency" to "power plant efficiency". What's better: 1 billion semi-efficient power plants with a size/weight restriction (cars) or 100 plants where you can design to maximize efficiency rather than aerodynamics, size, noise, etc? --
"...but solar powered cars are not going to be powerful enough since nature puts a limit on the efficiencies of GaAs solar cells at 25%."
Percentages are meaningless unless we know the base values. For instance, if the surface area of your car doesn't get enough sun to have 25% run your car, just put a battery in your car that you charge from a solar plant that IS strong enough.
But even if we stick with burning fossil fuels in the electric plants we are still better off. Why? Because it's easier to optimize a plant for fuel consumption/low pollution than it is to optimize a car for the same thing. Plus you can re-engineer a plant whereas once you sell the car it's gone. --
1) This is offtopic, we're talking about "outside the cities". Suburbs are NOT outside the cities (no matter what you "I've got an apartment on 5th Avenue" types think).
2) "...infrequently and down only the major roads, but it'd be -something-..." Yeah, something useless. Let's say I live in the suburbs (which I don't). I could easily be 5 miles or more from a "major road". How do I get there? Biking and walking are great as long as the weather is nice. And then I suppose I just hope that the bus has a pickup time that fits my schedule? Ridiculous. --
"finally, *could* you take a bus? are there no busses or trains? can you simply not be inconvenienced?"
Let me introduce you to the real world. From age 7 to age 16 I lived in a small town in Iowa. How small? Around 1200 people. That's right, fewer people than are in some high schools. And were weren't the smallest town around (check out Oskaloosa, IA on a map sometime--or better, Ivy, IA). The nearest "big" town was 20 miles away. No bus service in town or between towns. Heck, there weren't even lines on the roads (except the two highways that went through town).
And *I* was a "town boy". Every inch of land that wasn't in town belonged to someone's farm. Each of those farmers need vehicles to haul grain/hay/equipment--can't take those things on the bus. They needed transportation for emergencies--don't want to wait for a bus while your child is bleeding to death.
Yes, they chose to be farmers. I'm clear on the concept, you can stop repeating it. Your original claim was "...people outside of cities *could* constrcut decent mass transit...". If by "decent" you mean "it saves the environment" then this claim is simply false. --
They are semi-expensive, but as you note they are first generation (or close to it). Also, because they have all that electricity available, they are slightly top-heavy with electric features by default (power everything, AC, etc). That puts the price up a little, too.
However, as for mileage: According to Consumer Reports both of these cars got closer to 40 MPG city. --
Yeah, now that you've changed it. You are now talking about choosing to live somewhere and then being stuck with gasoline. But you started out talking about choosing to use gasoline even for people "outside the cities". Your implied strongly that people "outside the cities" could/should choose mass transit. --
"You can choose to live this way, and it's fine, but if all of a sudden the inefficiency costs you, what can i say? Maybe all that space you put between yourself and your fellow man isn't as great or as necessary as you thought it was."
You need to get out of NYC more often. Yes, these people are choosing to live there--and I'm glad they are. Have you ever heard of "farmers"?
In any case, the cure you proposing (living close together) is worse than the disease (high fuel prices). In fact, "disease" is just the word. As is violence. Not much gang warfare or disease transmission when it's just you and the fam out in the middle of nowhere. --
"Now, of course, people outside of cities *could* constrcut decent mass transit..."
They could construct it--but why? People "outside of cities" by definition have low population densities. "Mass" transit requires high populations.
Of course, being from NYC you may consider anything with less than 10 million people "outside of a city". Are you aware that there are individual humans who live no closer than 10 or even 20 miles from the next human? --
You can already buy half-electric cars from major manufacturers. Honda and Toyota both came out with hybrid cars this year. Check out the "Insight" and the "Prius". --
"I'm attempting to propose that vendors of Linux applications shouldn't make any claims whatsoever about distrobution support..."
Try all you like, it's not going to happen. Example: RedHat switched to glibc before other distros did (at 5.0, I think). So if I released a product for RedHat 5.0, I MEANT RedHat 5.0. It wouldn't work on Slackware 1.2.
You could argue "well, they should say 'glibc' not 'RedHat'"--and that's exactly what my company does. We say "RedHat 6.0 (or greater) OR any 'equivalent' distribution", where "equivalent" means "libraries blah, foo and bar".
But that STILL leaves aside testing. One of the absolute musts to do real testing is to have a baseline to compare against. So port your software to Distro X and test it. At that point you might as well release it. Then you can use that release the baseline for further tests. --
I'd like a link to more information on the Loki installer, I've never heard of it.
However, I'll note that it STILL doesn't solve the problem of testing these different distros. No responsible business person is going to tell you "sure, we'll support it on Distro X" without testing it first. --
"Well, I hate to burst your bubble, folks: Linux (and even the FreeBSD to a lesser extent) is just as overweight as most other operating systems these days. The kernel alone (when compiled), can take up anywhere from 700K to 1.2MB, depending on the configuration and whether drivers are compiled in. The GNU C library is likewise huge, nearly twice the size of the comparable BSD C library."
1) 700K - 1.2MB is "just as overweight as most other operating systems"? I challenge ANYONE to run Windows95/98/NT/2K, any non-free Unix or MacOS with less. Yeah "most of that is DLLs/Systemware"--so? If the OS requires it it's part of the OS.
2) Bloat IS bad in a piece of software--but libraries are a whole different beast. It isn't a "piece of software"--it's a library of software that's largely non-interdependent. Larger libraries generally means more available subroutines--but the subs don't call themselves so the bloat isn't a maintenance nightmare. --
X has some...unpleastness, but it's also incredibly flexible and useful. Remote display absolutely ROCKS. Window manager independence makes be drool. Widget choice makes me horny. Etc.
I'm not saying we should keep the problems as some kind of testament to the good features--I'm saying let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. --
I can't speak for Kaydara, but I know WE aren't being lazy. We want to use vendor-specific installs for each distro--but that requires work for each one. So the plan is: Do one, release. Do another, release. Do another, release.
Yes, the choice of RedHat first is based on market share--what do YOU suggest? That they pick "Joe's Linux" first? --
They download a copy of RedHat Linux 6.2. They port their software to RedHat Linux 6.2. They test only on RedHat Linux 6.2. They release RPMs.
Now that the product is out the door, they will likely test on other distros, doing porting where necessary (different libs or locations, for instance). Anyway, that's what my company is doing. --
...I have so many sarcastic comments I don't know which one use to use.
I know! A new poll!
[ ] This isn't freshmeat [ ] Hollywood loves Linux because it saves them money [ ] Imagine how many pictures you could take with a beowulf cluster of these thing [ ] It runs on a handheld! (150 external cameras not included) --
The original scheme (boycott) requires a very large percentage of users to take action. That won't happen.
Your scheme (complain) takes a large number but 1) they don't have to be MS users and 2) it can be much smaller than in the first scheme.
There are a few keys:
1) Don't just say "it doesn't work"--give a fix if possible. 2) Don't just say "I had problems"--say you won't be coming back. 3) Don't burn yourself out complaining to big companies (especially MS-friendly ones). For instance, don't bother email Fox or NBC about their pages. Try local business, tech-savvy companies and so on. --
Slashdot Mirror
"Is it possible to build software that is 100% resistant to computer viruses? Can software be coded with no possible pathways for a virus to spread?"
Good question. To answer it, we'd need a rigorous definition of "virus", but let's take a whack without this: "An entity is a virus if it can induce a program to reproduce it."
First, trivially, yes it is possible. Here's a program that does not spread viruses:
void main(void){}
So we the real question is "can any interesting programs be made virus-free?" And what is interesting? Well, minimally, it needs to accept input and produce output. The input to a program (actually, to a function) is called the "domain". The output is called the "range". If there is no overlap between domain and range (say, you input an integer and it outputs a color) then you clearly cannot induce the program to reproduce the input in the output. But that doesn't put us in the clear. A pair of programs that complement each other such that the range of A overlaps the domain of B (and vice versa) could be induced to reproduce the virus.
Note that domain/range overlap doesn't guarantee there exists a virus that can exploit the program. It is a necessary but no sufficient condition.
--
Is any research being done to compare computer virus/security hole propagation patterns? I'm sure the CDC (that's "center for disease control", not "cult of the dead cow") would have a lot of useful input on this "ubervirus" problem.
I'm not an expert so I'm not going to try to defend the following statement, I'm just going to make it. I recently finished "Chaos" by James Gleick. He mentioned that one of the places you can find chaotic behavior was in the spread of an epidemic. In fact, efforts to step up vaccination (and other disease prevention techniques) actually caused an increase in the rate of infection (sometimes and short- to mid-term). Apparently this has something to do with perturbing an oscillating phenomena.
I bring this up as a warning to those who think we should all immediately rush out and start locking things down. We might make it worse if we do. I know this statement sounds ridiculous--I'm just saying that maybe we should slow down and think before rushing off to act. Do the research, ask the questions.
--
"The very same thing, of course, is happening to "geeks, Goths and freaks" all over the United States today, post-Columbine."
This MUST be a typo. Surely you mean "post-Columbian". I'm sure you don't mean to imply that, previous to 2 years ago, the mildly-to-radically different were accepted with open arms by all segments of society.
--
From the FAQ:
:-)
I found a comment Rated -2 or 6!
This is a bug, not a feature.
This isn't the Slashdot Big Brother wreaking havocl; rather, it's bug ridden code wreaking havoc! There's a bug in the Slashcode somewhere that causes this to happen. We're working on it, and hopefully, we'll have it squashed soon. (Actually, it hasn't happened in a while, so it may have been fixed.)
If you see one of these comments, don't freak out. Let us know about it. We'll push the comment back into range, and try to figure out what caused it.
In other words, anything below -1 is a bug. Since "below -1" is not supported, posts at that level are effectively deleted.
As for asking CmdrTaco: I've given up trying to communicate directly with His Holiness. 3 years ago he responded to comments. 2 years ago he responded to emails. Now: nothing.
--
(read before moderating) I think Slashdot would testify. Why? Because I think they've already caved to Microsoft.
That's a big accusation, where did I get it from? Well, if you'll recall we never heard anything more about the Slashdot vs MS thing. Surely MS would have responded by now. But even more damning is this: About a week ago I was reading at -1. There's some troll at that level who keeps cut 'n' pasting various texts (porn stories, howto's, etc). In one story I found he had posted an entire MSDN "Q article". When I refreshed the page, that post was GONE.
So Slashdot is removing (MS only?) copyrighted materials. Fine, that's their right, after all reproduction of copyrighted material is against the law. My point is not that they shouldn't have done it (although I don't like it). My point is that Slashdot HAS bowed to "the man" before and would therefore probably do it again.
And, either way, I think we'd ALL appreciate an update on the MS story....
--
"Upside Today reaches the same concusion as Penguinista regarding Reality On The "Purchased" Linux Reviews."
They make fun of the idea at the beginning, but then the article goes on to cite REAL journalistic (or research) flaws in other publications. So Upside's position seems to be "it doesn't happen, and even if it did everybody is doing it". That's not an answer.
In any case, I don't read software reviews, especially for Linux. Here's what I do with a software review:
1) Read the description fo the software
2) Check license as listed in review
3) If license is not free (libre AND gratis) or desc is not interesting, turn the page
4) If the license IS free and the desc is interesting, download the software and try it myself.
--
First, we probably need to know what kind of work these desktops will be doing. For instance, if they'll just be running a word processor and a few other little apps, why not just make them all X terminals connected to departmental servers?
Second, even if you want local installs, you can still do it "remotely". Create a floppy that will do a remote boot/install. Send a copy of the floppy to every person. That instantly parallelizes the task, reducing the load on your IT people. Of course, this only works if the users are competent to put a floppy in the drive (and answer any questions you can't automate). That goes back to #1: Are these 2500 people engineers or typists?
Third, you need more than an install method. You also need to plan for machines that wig out (bad hardware, corrupt software, new users on old machines, etc). You also need to plan for hardware upgrades. That seems simple, but it isn't always. For instance, suppose your vendor suddenly started shipping USB mice? Sounds dumb, but I've seen dumber (from Gateway, anyway).
This is what I would do, given no other information about what kind of users they were:
A) Setup a server for each "group". Put all their apps and home dirs on the server.
B) Create a "kiosk image" of a linux machine that is essentially just an X terminal.
C) Send out floppies with a minimal Linux install and a script that auto-downloads a given HD image and writes it to disk. It may have to do a small amount of configuration. It may not, though. Consider: dhcp for networking, NIS for user auth. Put ALL servers in the fstab file and have the floppy just mount one of them.
D) As new machines enter the building, create images on them yourself. If people need new images, have them put the floppy back in (or get a new one).
E) You may have to have some kind of "autoupdater" for updated packages...but you may not too. If you don't install much on the desktop and can always just download a new image you don't have to worry about updating specific packages.
Well, that's enough until someone pays me....8^)
--
"geo" means "earth"
--
Don't compare "current power plant efficiency" to "possible power plant efficiency". I'm not saying we should make power plants more efficient (although we probably should).
Compare "car efficiency" to "power plant efficiency". What's better: 1 billion semi-efficient power plants with a size/weight restriction (cars) or 100 plants where you can design to maximize efficiency rather than aerodynamics, size, noise, etc?
--
"...but solar powered cars are not going to be powerful enough since nature puts a limit on the efficiencies of GaAs solar cells at 25%."
Percentages are meaningless unless we know the base values. For instance, if the surface area of your car doesn't get enough sun to have 25% run your car, just put a battery in your car that you charge from a solar plant that IS strong enough.
But even if we stick with burning fossil fuels in the electric plants we are still better off. Why? Because it's easier to optimize a plant for fuel consumption/low pollution than it is to optimize a car for the same thing. Plus you can re-engineer a plant whereas once you sell the car it's gone.
--
1) This is offtopic, we're talking about "outside the cities". Suburbs are NOT outside the cities (no matter what you "I've got an apartment on 5th Avenue" types think).
2) "...infrequently and down only the major roads, but it'd be -something-..." Yeah, something useless. Let's say I live in the suburbs (which I don't). I could easily be 5 miles or more from a "major road". How do I get there? Biking and walking are great as long as the weather is nice. And then I suppose I just hope that the bus has a pickup time that fits my schedule? Ridiculous.
--
"finally, *could* you take a bus? are there no busses or trains? can you simply not be inconvenienced?"
Let me introduce you to the real world. From age 7 to age 16 I lived in a small town in Iowa. How small? Around 1200 people. That's right, fewer people than are in some high schools. And were weren't the smallest town around (check out Oskaloosa, IA on a map sometime--or better, Ivy, IA). The nearest "big" town was 20 miles away. No bus service in town or between towns. Heck, there weren't even lines on the roads (except the two highways that went through town).
And *I* was a "town boy". Every inch of land that wasn't in town belonged to someone's farm. Each of those farmers need vehicles to haul grain/hay/equipment--can't take those things on the bus. They needed transportation for emergencies--don't want to wait for a bus while your child is bleeding to death.
Yes, they chose to be farmers. I'm clear on the concept, you can stop repeating it. Your original claim was "...people outside of cities *could* constrcut decent mass transit...". If by "decent" you mean "it saves the environment" then this claim is simply false.
--
They are semi-expensive, but as you note they are first generation (or close to it). Also, because they have all that electricity available, they are slightly top-heavy with electric features by default (power everything, AC, etc). That puts the price up a little, too.
However, as for mileage: According to Consumer Reports both of these cars got closer to 40 MPG city.
--
"You make my point wonderfully -- "
Yeah, now that you've changed it. You are now talking about choosing to live somewhere and then being stuck with gasoline. But you started out talking about choosing to use gasoline even for people "outside the cities". Your implied strongly that people "outside the cities" could/should choose mass transit.
--
"You can choose to live this way, and it's fine, but if all of a sudden the inefficiency costs you, what can i say? Maybe all that space you put between yourself and your fellow man isn't as great or as necessary as you thought it was."
You need to get out of NYC more often. Yes, these people are choosing to live there--and I'm glad they are. Have you ever heard of "farmers"?
In any case, the cure you proposing (living close together) is worse than the disease (high fuel prices). In fact, "disease" is just the word. As is violence. Not much gang warfare or disease transmission when it's just you and the fam out in the middle of nowhere.
--
"Now, of course, people outside of cities *could* constrcut decent mass transit..."
They could construct it--but why? People "outside of cities" by definition have low population densities. "Mass" transit requires high populations.
Of course, being from NYC you may consider anything with less than 10 million people "outside of a city". Are you aware that there are individual humans who live no closer than 10 or even 20 miles from the next human?
--
You can already buy half-electric cars from major manufacturers. Honda and Toyota both came out with hybrid cars this year. Check out the "Insight" and the "Prius".
--
"I'm attempting to propose that vendors of Linux applications shouldn't make any claims whatsoever about distrobution support..."
Try all you like, it's not going to happen. Example: RedHat switched to glibc before other distros did (at 5.0, I think). So if I released a product for RedHat 5.0, I MEANT RedHat 5.0. It wouldn't work on Slackware 1.2.
You could argue "well, they should say 'glibc' not 'RedHat'"--and that's exactly what my company does. We say "RedHat 6.0 (or greater) OR any 'equivalent' distribution", where "equivalent" means "libraries blah, foo and bar".
But that STILL leaves aside testing. One of the absolute musts to do real testing is to have a baseline to compare against. So port your software to Distro X and test it. At that point you might as well release it. Then you can use that release the baseline for further tests.
--
I'd like a link to more information on the Loki installer, I've never heard of it.
However, I'll note that it STILL doesn't solve the problem of testing these different distros. No responsible business person is going to tell you "sure, we'll support it on Distro X" without testing it first.
--
Sample paragraph:
"Well, I hate to burst your bubble, folks: Linux (and even the FreeBSD to a lesser extent) is just as overweight as most other operating systems these days. The kernel alone (when compiled), can take up anywhere from 700K to 1.2MB, depending on the configuration and whether drivers are compiled in. The GNU C library is likewise huge, nearly twice the size of the comparable BSD C library."
1) 700K - 1.2MB is "just as overweight as most other operating systems"? I challenge ANYONE to run Windows95/98/NT/2K, any non-free Unix or MacOS with less. Yeah "most of that is DLLs/Systemware"--so? If the OS requires it it's part of the OS.
2) Bloat IS bad in a piece of software--but libraries are a whole different beast. It isn't a "piece of software"--it's a library of software that's largely non-interdependent. Larger libraries generally means more available subroutines--but the subs don't call themselves so the bloat isn't a maintenance nightmare.
--
X has some...unpleastness, but it's also incredibly flexible and useful. Remote display absolutely ROCKS. Window manager independence makes be drool. Widget choice makes me horny. Etc.
I'm not saying we should keep the problems as some kind of testament to the good features--I'm saying let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
--
I can't speak for Kaydara, but I know WE aren't being lazy. We want to use vendor-specific installs for each distro--but that requires work for each one. So the plan is: Do one, release. Do another, release. Do another, release.
Yes, the choice of RedHat first is based on market share--what do YOU suggest? That they pick "Joe's Linux" first?
--
They download a copy of RedHat Linux 6.2. They port their software to RedHat Linux 6.2. They test only on RedHat Linux 6.2. They release RPMs.
Now that the product is out the door, they will likely test on other distros, doing porting where necessary (different libs or locations, for instance). Anyway, that's what my company is doing.
--
...I have so many sarcastic comments I don't know which one use to use.
I know! A new poll!
[ ] This isn't freshmeat
[ ] Hollywood loves Linux because it saves them money
[ ] Imagine how many pictures you could take with a beowulf cluster of these thing
[ ] It runs on a handheld! (150 external cameras not included)
--
The original scheme (boycott) requires a very large percentage of users to take action. That won't happen.
Your scheme (complain) takes a large number but 1) they don't have to be MS users and 2) it can be much smaller than in the first scheme.
There are a few keys:
1) Don't just say "it doesn't work"--give a fix if possible.
2) Don't just say "I had problems"--say you won't be coming back.
3) Don't burn yourself out complaining to big companies (especially MS-friendly ones). For instance, don't bother email Fox or NBC about their pages. Try local business, tech-savvy companies and so on.
--