Well, Ok, then, the government will just regularly read your email, your snail mail and put video cameras in every room of your house just to make sure that you're not doing anything illegal.
You're a law-abiding citizen so I'm sure you'd have no problem with any of that, right?
Don't say I'm being ridiculous, they already read email, they'd love to be able to read snail mail without court order and they already put cameras all over some public places with the result being the harassment of innocent people who happen to look the same as others who are criminals.
We do NOT have to give up privacy to protect freedom. We may have to give up convenience (longer lines at airports and the like) but that's not the same thing.
Don't let the terrorists run your life. They want us to give up some freedoms, that's one of their major goals.
Let's not start with that, OK? It's simple bigotry, nothing more or less. Yes, I'm a Democrat. Well, not an official member of the party (I'm never one to toe any line), but I almost always vote Democratic, more because I disagree with them less than because I agree with them more.
You wouldn't be surprised that most of my friends are Democrats, but you apparently would be surprised to find out that they are pretty much all very distrustful of the government.
We vote Democratic because we are fiercely in favor of protecting the environment, we want to keep religion out of the government and out of public schools, and we think that one should be allowed to do whatever one wants in the privacy of the home (be gay, smoke pot, but obviously not plot acts of terrorism).
Many in the Republican party want some sort of theocratic government, want me to be thrown in jail for a long time for smoking a joint and some would even love to making being gay illegal. I can't vote for people like that.
Don't get me wrong, there are things about Democrats I strongly dislike as well (like their anti-gun stance), but all things considered, like I said above, I disagree with them less than I disagree with most Republicans.
I am astounded at the number of people so far who seem perfectly willing to give up their free speech rights and to allow the government to read all their personal correspondence in the name of fighting terrorism.
A simple question: should it be ok for the government to open any letter in the US Mail without court order? My guess is that you wouldn't want that. So why should they be able to read our email? It's simple: they shouldn't.
One of the things that makes this country great is our freedom from government interference in our daily lives. One of the terrorists' primary goals is to make us less free. Giving up our free speech and privacy helps them attain that goal.
And no, this article isn't spitting on anyone's graves. How can telling folks to get involved in government and to call or write your representative and tell them what you think be a bad thing? If you're willing to give up your privacy, then contact your rep. and tell them! I'm not willing to give up any of my rights, no matter how terrible this tragedy is, and I do intend to contact my local rep.'s.
Also, someone above said that the people who died don't care about personal privacy. I strongly disagree. I'm sure if there were some way to contact them and ask, "Should we give up our rights to fight terrorism?", very few would say yes.
Look, with a court order, the government can read mail, tap phone lines and confiscate computer equipment. We don't need any more laws giving the government more power over our daily lives.
Don't let the horror of this tragedy blind you. We must maintain our freedoms. Is this article a bit paranoid and perhaps over-reacting a bit to these possibilities? Maybe, but there is nothing wrong with being vigilant against the intrusions of an over-zealous government, and there is certainly nothing wrong with getting involved, deciding what you really want from government, and telling them.
...and it can be turned on. It's simply a minor philosophical point. MS thinks spell-check should be on by default, KOffice folks think the opposite.
Any installations of MS Office or KOffice at a place of business would have standard installs, so if they wanted spell-check available to their employees, they'd make sure it was turned on before the started using it. Individuals have a choice either way.
Regarding MS's grammar checker, it's completely useless IMO. I have it turned off on my Win98SE partition at work, not only because I don't need it, but also because it just doesn't work, AFAIC.
That's exactly the post I was going to make, but you've done it for me (and everyone else).
The bottom line for KOffice AFAIC is that if you have lots of complicated MS Word & Excel documents around, and/or you receive lots of them from others, KOffice probably isn't a good choice for you.
If, however, you'd like to use a Free, Open platform and don't need many of the `advanced' features of MS Office, KOffice is a very good choice.
I and my very non-computer savvy parents use it at our respective homes and are very happy with it.
It used to work, now it crashes Mozilla (since about 0.9.1, I think). When I click on a RV link (like at espn.com) the window opens where Real is supposed to go, then all the Mozilla windows just go away. *poof!*
BTW, I'm using Debian Potato and I install Mozilla into ~/mozilla and drop rpnp.so and raclass.zip into ~/mozilla/plugins.
I don't think it could have been random people, a.t. This was a very coordinated attack. This required a great deal of planning and knowledge of American airports and our commercial airline system.
Is that something that is fairly easy to do? I'm a fairly seasoned Debian user (I can configure a server with IMAP, IMP, Sendmail, ProFTPd, etc.), but I've heard it can be a real pain.
You'll never have to worry about monopoly issues because of the GPL. Microsoft is able to maintain their monopoly because their code is a secret. They can kill off DRDOS by making Win3.1 not run on it, they can kill off WordPerfect by making it not run on Win95, they can blunt the advance of Lotus Notes by making it not run on Win98.
None of that could ever happen with Linux because the code is open. And even if some closed-source, higher level apps on Linux become common enough to break other things, you'll still have HPaq and IBM competing with each other, so there will never be an across-the-board, monolithic monopoly as there is with Microsoft (unless HPaq & IBM merge...:)
Like it or not (and believe me, I don't much), there are a lot more Windows users out there than Linux users. Now that Linux is on everyone's radar screen, they want to find out what's up. Slashdot has (arguably) the most open discussion forum, and people generally feel the need to vociferously defend their choices, and the more anonymous they are, the more vociferous they become.
I also wouldn't put it past Microsoft to pay people to come here and post good things about MS. Another basic human characteristic is that the more times you hear something, the more likely you are to believe it, no matter how absurd it is. Microsoft is nothing if not extremely shrewd about marketing and basic human psychology.
I see that the www.cptech.org website is using Red Hat. Do you also use Red Hat on the desktop? KDE or GNOME? (or something else?) Staroffice? Abiword? MySQL? IMP or Squirrelmail?
We're obviously nerds here and we'd love to hear about the network layout at CPT.
I had always been able to start downloading large files (uhh,.iso's! yeah, that's it!;) and then start playing a game on top of it, like Warcraft II, under Win98SE. The desktop would disappear and the game would play on. When I noticed the lights stop flashing on my DSL router, I would save the game and go 'inspect' my downloads. Win98SE was very stable doing this (well, for Windows anyway). It usually wouldn't crash but maybe once per playing/downloading session.
I thought I'd try W2K since Linux, although I love Debian, just isn't quite there (I love Free Agent and Windows Media Player 6.4. Pan doesn't quite do it for me, and while there are progs to run most mpegs quite well, I haven't found a good.avi viewer for Linux. *sigh* Oh, well, my requests for Linux are getting more esoteric, which is a sign of progress, I guess...). The first time I tried W2K in this situation, it locked up after about 60 seconds of game play (this was on a fresh install to an empty partition). Hit the reset button, try again, crash after 60 seconds.
I then wiped out the partition, and reloaded Win98SE with the.tar.bz2 image I had taken of the install, and started downloading the same.iso;) and started playing the same game, and continued until the.iso;) was done. No crash.
Now, imagine if the hard drive maker, or the memory maker, or the video card maker (etc., you get the point) tried to do the same thing? Compaq would have dumped them in a second and gone to a competitor.
Now, listen carefully:
THEY CAN'T DO THAT WITH WINDOWS BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE!!!
This is precisely what is a legal definition of a monopoly (as opposed to an absolute monopoly. Many people say Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly because you can buy a copy of Red Hat and install it. These people are confusing a legally defined monopoly and an absolute monopoly like what AT&T had.)
It's technically legal for Microsoft to have this monopoly, but it's illegal to abuse it by forcing other products down computer manufacturers throats (First Explorer, Office, MSN, now Windows Media Player, Windows Messaging, etc.)
To all you Microsoft apologists out there: Do you REALLY want Microsoft in control of EVERYTHING to do with computing? Because, without the anti-trust case, that's exactly where we'd be heading. Without this "government interference", every computing experience would be handled by Microsoft. We'd all use Windows, Explorer, Office, MSN, Media Player, Windows Messaging, Passport, etc. and then Microsoft could charge whatever they want for all this.
Also, without "interference", NONE of the major companies currently supporting Linux to varying degrees (IBM, HP, Compaq, Dell, etc., etc.,) would have had anything to do with Linux. The repurcussions from Microsoft would have been much too severe.
Not to mention all the security problems that would arise out of all of this. Melissa/Love Bug/Sircam/Code Red anyone?
I am pleased and relieved that the case is going the way it is. This will preserve some measure of computing freedom for us all.
I'm sure what you meant was, "If I'm running KDE, can I uninstall Konqueror?" (The above reply doesn't seem to understand that's what you're talking about)
2 points here:
1.) Yes, you most certainly can run KDE without Konqueror. You can run Konqueror with Gecko (Mozilla's rendering engine) or you can not install Konqueror at all. Since it's Free Software, you can hire a C hacker and do ANYTHING with it (or do it yourself if you can).
2.) KDE doesn't have a legal monopoly. Microsoft does. This forces them to act differently than everyone else who doesn't have a monopoly
...but that doesn't take into account the hundreds of 'minor' plugins written by small companies for their specific needs and customers. Again, look around this discussion and you'll see all the developers who are seriously annoyed by this. They will have to now commit twice the resources that they had to before. Now multiply that by the number of people not participating in this discussion and you see the scope of the problem.
Many of these small companies/developers don't have the resources to develop plugins for Netscape and IE, so what do they do? Given the market share, of course they'll choose to develop for IE.
Now you see the real problem: this makes it impossible to run these particular plugins on anything but Windows with IE. You also perhaps see the real reason why Microsoft is doing this.
Just because 95% of the people choose to use Microsoft's OS's and software doesn't make them a monopoly.
Maybe not in the purest, Webster definition, which incidentally is:
Main Entry: monopoly
Pronunciation: m&-'nä-p(&-)lE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -lies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
...but the most conservative, business-friendly appeals court in the US disagrees with you, and unanimously no less (7 to 0).
Microsoft has a legal monopoly because of the immense market share they have. All it takes is one gas station not selling Standard Oil, and anyone can go buy from them. With Windows, you can't just go out and get something else, at least not without a great deal of cost and hassle. First you have to install a new OS on your computer (something almost all users are incapable of), then you have to replace all of the programs you have invested hundreds/thousands of dollars in to work on the new OS. Not to mention the fact that most of these programs aren't even available on other platforms the run on Intel-compatible PC's.
These are the reasons (more or less) why MS has a legal monopoly (which is different from an absolute monopoly).
What MS can't do is use their currently held monopoly in OS's to FORCE competitors into using their standard. For example, if they didn't allow ANY RFC 822 compatible client to run on Windows (therefore forcing their standard on all Windows users) then they'd be in trouble.
...and making it so that Netscape plugins don't run under IE? Aren't they forcing people to use their API if they want their plugins to work under the most popular browser which just so happens to come automatically in the OS that has been ruled a monopoly unanimously by the most conservative and business-friendly appeals court in the US?
There may not be an RFC number for Netscape plugins, but ask any developer of plugins if they mind having to create 2 kinds of plugins (one for Netscape and one for IE) instead of just one?
Look around at the responses in this discussion and you'll see that there are several people here that are already very annoyed about this. Multiply that by all the people who (obviously) aren't a part of this particular discussion and you see that MS has created a significant difficulty for developers and users alike.
And don't kid yourself that this is "for security purposes", this is purely another monopoly play by a confirmed monopolist.
If you do a Windows Update from the Start menu and choose Recommended Install (or whatever it is) it will install Outlook Express automatically. You have to choose Custom Install and deselect OE in order to not install it.
If as many people tried to comprimise UNIX systems as often as they do Microsoft systems, you can bet that we'd be seeing some pretty serious UNIX viruses.
Your basic premise is correct that there are more people trying to break MS systems than Unix/Linux systems, but U/L will never be as vulnerable for a number of reasons:
1.) There are several flavors of Unix and dozens/hundreds of distributions of Linux, not to mention all the different version numbers of each of those. This would dramatically impede the spread of any worm. Almost every MS-based site has IIS 5.0 and it is this homogeneousness the allows things like Code Red to spread so quickly and effectively.
2.) Unix/Linux systems in general are easier and safer to patch. Almost every MS patch requires a system restart and it is not at all unusual for the patch to break something else. I have never had a security update break anything on my Debian systems, nor have I ever had to restart the whole system. The service updated (such as the recent Horde/IMP updates) is restarted and the user doesn't even know, even if he/she is using the system at that moment (I know this because I did it as a test case here at work. Someone was reading their email on our IMP system while I upgraded the system. Yeah, a bit dangerous, but we're a small company and no one would have gotten in trouble. Regardless, she didn't even know anything had happened).
3.) Security holes are much more frequent on MS systems. We all have heard about the fact that the last known remote root exploit for Apache was over 3 1/2 years ago. There have been a few security patches since then, but nothing nearly so troublesome as Code Red. I read somewhere that there have been over 40 serious holes in IIS this year alone, although I don't remember where I read it and it may be apocryphal.
Bottom line is that while it may be true that if as many people who are attacking MS systems starting attacking Unix/Linux systems, we might see more issues on U/L, it is also true that Unix & Linux are better engineered from the start, easier to upgrade and more varied, all of which make them much more secure inherantly than MS solutions.
First I would like to say HUGE KUDOS to all the KDE developers. 2.2 is FABULOUS!! Fast, beautiful, functional and flexible. I truly can't thank you enough.
Now for the nitpick.;)
Konqueror still doesn't render ESPN.com properly. I go there pretty much every day, so it's an important issue for me personally. Fortunately, Mozilla 0.9.3 does render it properly, but I'd rather not have to keep 2 browsers around.
Other than that, I couldn't be more pleased. Thanks again!
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Ok, then, the government will just regularly read your email, your snail mail and put video cameras in every room of your house just to make sure that you're not doing anything illegal.
You're a law-abiding citizen so I'm sure you'd have no problem with any of that, right?
Don't say I'm being ridiculous, they already read email, they'd love to be able to read snail mail without court order and they already put cameras all over some public places with the result being the harassment of innocent people who happen to look the same as others who are criminals.
We do NOT have to give up privacy to protect freedom. We may have to give up convenience (longer lines at airports and the like) but that's not the same thing.
Don't let the terrorists run your life. They want us to give up some freedoms, that's one of their major goals.
tho perhaps not with Democrats
Let's not start with that, OK? It's simple bigotry, nothing more or less. Yes, I'm a Democrat. Well, not an official member of the party (I'm never one to toe any line), but I almost always vote Democratic, more because I disagree with them less than because I agree with them more.
You wouldn't be surprised that most of my friends are Democrats, but you apparently would be surprised to find out that they are pretty much all very distrustful of the government.
We vote Democratic because we are fiercely in favor of protecting the environment, we want to keep religion out of the government and out of public schools, and we think that one should be allowed to do whatever one wants in the privacy of the home (be gay, smoke pot, but obviously not plot acts of terrorism).
Many in the Republican party want some sort of theocratic government, want me to be thrown in jail for a long time for smoking a joint and some would even love to making being gay illegal. I can't vote for people like that.
Don't get me wrong, there are things about Democrats I strongly dislike as well (like their anti-gun stance), but all things considered, like I said above, I disagree with them less than I disagree with most Republicans.
I am astounded at the number of people so far who seem perfectly willing to give up their free speech rights and to allow the government to read all their personal correspondence in the name of fighting terrorism.
A simple question: should it be ok for the government to open any letter in the US Mail without court order? My guess is that you wouldn't want that. So why should they be able to read our email? It's simple: they shouldn't.
One of the things that makes this country great is our freedom from government interference in our daily lives. One of the terrorists' primary goals is to make us less free. Giving up our free speech and privacy helps them attain that goal.
And no, this article isn't spitting on anyone's graves. How can telling folks to get involved in government and to call or write your representative and tell them what you think be a bad thing? If you're willing to give up your privacy, then contact your rep. and tell them! I'm not willing to give up any of my rights, no matter how terrible this tragedy is, and I do intend to contact my local rep.'s.
Also, someone above said that the people who died don't care about personal privacy. I strongly disagree. I'm sure if there were some way to contact them and ask, "Should we give up our rights to fight terrorism?", very few would say yes.
Look, with a court order, the government can read mail, tap phone lines and confiscate computer equipment. We don't need any more laws giving the government more power over our daily lives.
Don't let the horror of this tragedy blind you. We must maintain our freedoms. Is this article a bit paranoid and perhaps over-reacting a bit to these possibilities? Maybe, but there is nothing wrong with being vigilant against the intrusions of an over-zealous government, and there is certainly nothing wrong with getting involved, deciding what you really want from government, and telling them.
...and it can be turned on. It's simply a minor philosophical point. MS thinks spell-check should be on by default, KOffice folks think the opposite.
Any installations of MS Office or KOffice at a place of business would have standard installs, so if they wanted spell-check available to their employees, they'd make sure it was turned on before the started using it. Individuals have a choice either way.
Regarding MS's grammar checker, it's completely useless IMO. I have it turned off on my Win98SE partition at work, not only because I don't need it, but also because it just doesn't work, AFAIC.
That's exactly the post I was going to make, but you've done it for me (and everyone else).
The bottom line for KOffice AFAIC is that if you have lots of complicated MS Word & Excel documents around, and/or you receive lots of them from others, KOffice probably isn't a good choice for you.
If, however, you'd like to use a Free, Open platform and don't need many of the `advanced' features of MS Office, KOffice is a very good choice.
I and my very non-computer savvy parents use it at our respective homes and are very happy with it.
Cheers..................
I downloaded everything fresh from scratch and all is well. Maybe something got corrupted somewhere....
It used to work, now it crashes Mozilla (since about 0.9.1, I think). When I click on a RV link (like at espn.com) the window opens where Real is supposed to go, then all the Mozilla windows just go away. *poof!*
BTW, I'm using Debian Potato and I install Mozilla into ~/mozilla and drop rpnp.so and raclass.zip into ~/mozilla/plugins.
Any ideas???
All right, I've got some karma to burn, so here goes:
Did any of you click the link? It's at Stile Project and is an image of the goat sex guy.
Please, folks, click the links before you moderate!
I don't think it could have been random people, a.t. This was a very coordinated attack. This required a great deal of planning and knowledge of American airports and our commercial airline system.
Is that something that is fairly easy to do? I'm a fairly seasoned Debian user (I can configure a server with IMAP, IMP, Sendmail, ProFTPd, etc.), but I've heard it can be a real pain.
You'll never have to worry about monopoly issues because of the GPL. Microsoft is able to maintain their monopoly because their code is a secret. They can kill off DRDOS by making Win3.1 not run on it, they can kill off WordPerfect by making it not run on Win95, they can blunt the advance of Lotus Notes by making it not run on Win98.
:)
None of that could ever happen with Linux because the code is open. And even if some closed-source, higher level apps on Linux become common enough to break other things, you'll still have HPaq and IBM competing with each other, so there will never be an across-the-board, monolithic monopoly as there is with Microsoft (unless HPaq & IBM merge...
Like it or not (and believe me, I don't much), there are a lot more Windows users out there than Linux users. Now that Linux is on everyone's radar screen, they want to find out what's up. Slashdot has (arguably) the most open discussion forum, and people generally feel the need to vociferously defend their choices, and the more anonymous they are, the more vociferous they become.
I also wouldn't put it past Microsoft to pay people to come here and post good things about MS. Another basic human characteristic is that the more times you hear something, the more likely you are to believe it, no matter how absurd it is. Microsoft is nothing if not extremely shrewd about marketing and basic human psychology.
Is that true? I thought ME was also based on DOS.
I see that the www.cptech.org website is using Red Hat. Do you also use Red Hat on the desktop? KDE or GNOME? (or something else?) Staroffice? Abiword? MySQL? IMP or Squirrelmail?
We're obviously nerds here and we'd love to hear about the network layout at CPT.
Cheers..........
I had always been able to start downloading large files (uhh, .iso's! yeah, that's it! ;) and then start playing a game on top of it, like Warcraft II, under Win98SE. The desktop would disappear and the game would play on. When I noticed the lights stop flashing on my DSL router, I would save the game and go 'inspect' my downloads. Win98SE was very stable doing this (well, for Windows anyway). It usually wouldn't crash but maybe once per playing/downloading session.
.avi viewer for Linux. *sigh* Oh, well, my requests for Linux are getting more esoteric, which is a sign of progress, I guess...). The first time I tried W2K in this situation, it locked up after about 60 seconds of game play (this was on a fresh install to an empty partition). Hit the reset button, try again, crash after 60 seconds.
.tar.bz2 image I had taken of the install, and started downloading the same .iso ;) and started playing the same game, and continued until the .iso ;) was done. No crash.
I thought I'd try W2K since Linux, although I love Debian, just isn't quite there (I love Free Agent and Windows Media Player 6.4. Pan doesn't quite do it for me, and while there are progs to run most mpegs quite well, I haven't found a good
I then wiped out the partition, and reloaded Win98SE with the
W2K isn't always more stable in all situations.
...for those that just don't get it yet.
First, read this.
Now, imagine if the hard drive maker, or the memory maker, or the video card maker (etc., you get the point) tried to do the same thing? Compaq would have dumped them in a second and gone to a competitor.
Now, listen carefully:
THEY CAN'T DO THAT WITH WINDOWS BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE!!!
This is precisely what is a legal definition of a monopoly (as opposed to an absolute monopoly. Many people say Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly because you can buy a copy of Red Hat and install it. These people are confusing a legally defined monopoly and an absolute monopoly like what AT&T had.)
It's technically legal for Microsoft to have this monopoly, but it's illegal to abuse it by forcing other products down computer manufacturers throats (First Explorer, Office, MSN, now Windows Media Player, Windows Messaging, etc.)
To all you Microsoft apologists out there: Do you REALLY want Microsoft in control of EVERYTHING to do with computing? Because, without the anti-trust case, that's exactly where we'd be heading. Without this "government interference", every computing experience would be handled by Microsoft. We'd all use Windows, Explorer, Office, MSN, Media Player, Windows Messaging, Passport, etc. and then Microsoft could charge whatever they want for all this.
Also, without "interference", NONE of the major companies currently supporting Linux to varying degrees (IBM, HP, Compaq, Dell, etc., etc.,) would have had anything to do with Linux. The repurcussions from Microsoft would have been much too severe.
Not to mention all the security problems that would arise out of all of this. Melissa/Love Bug/Sircam/Code Red anyone?
I am pleased and relieved that the case is going the way it is. This will preserve some measure of computing freedom for us all.
I'm sure what you meant was, "If I'm running KDE, can I uninstall Konqueror?" (The above reply doesn't seem to understand that's what you're talking about)
2 points here:
1.) Yes, you most certainly can run KDE without Konqueror. You can run Konqueror with Gecko (Mozilla's rendering engine) or you can not install Konqueror at all. Since it's Free Software, you can hire a C hacker and do ANYTHING with it (or do it yourself if you can).
2.) KDE doesn't have a legal monopoly. Microsoft does. This forces them to act differently than everyone else who doesn't have a monopoly
...quite correct. My bad... :)
...but that doesn't take into account the hundreds of 'minor' plugins written by small companies for their specific needs and customers. Again, look around this discussion and you'll see all the developers who are seriously annoyed by this. They will have to now commit twice the resources that they had to before. Now multiply that by the number of people not participating in this discussion and you see the scope of the problem.
Many of these small companies/developers don't have the resources to develop plugins for Netscape and IE, so what do they do? Given the market share, of course they'll choose to develop for IE.
Now you see the real problem: this makes it impossible to run these particular plugins on anything but Windows with IE. You also perhaps see the real reason why Microsoft is doing this.
(IANAL)
Just because 95% of the people choose to use Microsoft's OS's and software doesn't make them a monopoly.
Maybe not in the purest, Webster definition, which incidentally is:
Main Entry: monopoly
Pronunciation: m&-'nä-p(&-)lE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -lies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
...but the most conservative, business-friendly appeals court in the US disagrees with you, and unanimously no less (7 to 0).
Microsoft has a legal monopoly because of the immense market share they have. All it takes is one gas station not selling Standard Oil, and anyone can go buy from them. With Windows, you can't just go out and get something else, at least not without a great deal of cost and hassle. First you have to install a new OS on your computer (something almost all users are incapable of), then you have to replace all of the programs you have invested hundreds/thousands of dollars in to work on the new OS. Not to mention the fact that most of these programs aren't even available on other platforms the run on Intel-compatible PC's.
These are the reasons (more or less) why MS has a legal monopoly (which is different from an absolute monopoly).
...the difference between:
What MS can't do is use their currently held monopoly in OS's to FORCE competitors into using their standard. For example, if they didn't allow ANY RFC 822 compatible client to run on Windows (therefore forcing their standard on all Windows users) then they'd be in trouble.
...and making it so that Netscape plugins don't run under IE? Aren't they forcing people to use their API if they want their plugins to work under the most popular browser which just so happens to come automatically in the OS that has been ruled a monopoly unanimously by the most conservative and business-friendly appeals court in the US?
There may not be an RFC number for Netscape plugins, but ask any developer of plugins if they mind having to create 2 kinds of plugins (one for Netscape and one for IE) instead of just one?
Look around at the responses in this discussion and you'll see that there are several people here that are already very annoyed about this. Multiply that by all the people who (obviously) aren't a part of this particular discussion and you see that MS has created a significant difficulty for developers and users alike.
And don't kid yourself that this is "for security purposes", this is purely another monopoly play by a confirmed monopolist.
If you do a Windows Update from the Start menu and choose Recommended Install (or whatever it is) it will install Outlook Express automatically. You have to choose Custom Install and deselect OE in order to not install it.
Hopefully we've learned something from that.
If as many people tried to comprimise UNIX systems as often as they do Microsoft systems, you can bet that we'd be seeing some pretty serious UNIX viruses.
Your basic premise is correct that there are more people trying to break MS systems than Unix/Linux systems, but U/L will never be as vulnerable for a number of reasons:
1.) There are several flavors of Unix and dozens/hundreds of distributions of Linux, not to mention all the different version numbers of each of those. This would dramatically impede the spread of any worm. Almost every MS-based site has IIS 5.0 and it is this homogeneousness the allows things like Code Red to spread so quickly and effectively.
2.) Unix/Linux systems in general are easier and safer to patch. Almost every MS patch requires a system restart and it is not at all unusual for the patch to break something else. I have never had a security update break anything on my Debian systems, nor have I ever had to restart the whole system. The service updated (such as the recent Horde/IMP updates) is restarted and the user doesn't even know, even if he/she is using the system at that moment (I know this because I did it as a test case here at work. Someone was reading their email on our IMP system while I upgraded the system. Yeah, a bit dangerous, but we're a small company and no one would have gotten in trouble. Regardless, she didn't even know anything had happened).
3.) Security holes are much more frequent on MS systems. We all have heard about the fact that the last known remote root exploit for Apache was over 3 1/2 years ago. There have been a few security patches since then, but nothing nearly so troublesome as Code Red. I read somewhere that there have been over 40 serious holes in IIS this year alone, although I don't remember where I read it and it may be apocryphal.
Bottom line is that while it may be true that if as many people who are attacking MS systems starting attacking Unix/Linux systems, we might see more issues on U/L, it is also true that Unix & Linux are better engineered from the start, easier to upgrade and more varied, all of which make them much more secure inherantly than MS solutions.
Cheers...........
First I would like to say HUGE KUDOS to all the KDE developers. 2.2 is FABULOUS!! Fast, beautiful, functional and flexible. I truly can't thank you enough.
;)
Now for the nitpick.
Konqueror still doesn't render ESPN.com properly. I go there pretty much every day, so it's an important issue for me personally. Fortunately, Mozilla 0.9.3 does render it properly, but I'd rather not have to keep 2 browsers around.
Other than that, I couldn't be more pleased. Thanks again!
Cheers.........