You do realize IE6 is a free download for 98/2000 and up, don't you?
If this were an OSS program, everyone on Slashdot would be falling over themselves posting to "upgrade to the latest version, it's fixed." But when it's Microsoft, suddenly there's some sort of unnamed hassle when it comes to just downloading a setup program and running it.
I guess you missed the article Slashdot posted a while back that actually showed that because Linux was the most-used OS on the net, it was also the most-breached.
I also think the fact that GNU got hacked twice, Debian, Gentoo, and GNOME were also compromised, all in the span of six months in 2003, one should take pause and note that things are only as secure as their admins.
Man, you clearly feel stupid for having your flawed code pointed out.
Even pseudo-code should mention an unsigned integer.
That fact that you keep using the word "fuck" in all your replies signifies that you have the social skills of a small reptile. Get out and experience life a little bit. There's more to it than posting flawed pseudo-code to a Microsoft article.
Only on Slashdot is it an issue that you have to download a newer version of something to fix a flaw. "Where can I download the patch for IE5?" It's called IE6.
Why do you think Linus Torvalds is so popular? He's so down-to-earth about these things and interested in the technology and not the technicalities. This SCO mess forced him into it, but even then he still spits out the choice quotes, like the infamous "crack" comment.
He wasn't asking for them to work together. He was wondering why we still have to keep installing two different collections of libraries and packages so we can run each other's apps.
They DO need to converge. You say KDE is uber-customizable, and GNOME is focusing on KISS usability issues. Why the hell aren't they one desktop project that is both uber-customizable yet focusing on KISS usability issues?
I think the thing that keeps me going back to Gnome is both its simplicity and its speed. KDE feels way too much like an overload of thrown-in features, although the 3.2 release really impressed me.
I often switch back and forth between the two as new releases come out--I will be using Gnome again when its new version is released.
People know who Apple is. They know what a Mac is. It's like how everyone knows Netscape even though few use them anymore.
Apple maintains an up-to-date running x86 port of Darwin. The day their marketshare dips too low for them to stay alive, they'll release OS X for x86. It's their last card, and you know they'll always keep it in their deck. So, I'm not worried about Apple, and Apple isn't worried--they know they always have that last trick up their sleeve that would automatically throw them into the game big-time.
OS X would blow the doors off of Windows if it came out for x86.
I love that you use the word forced to talk about pre-installed Windows, but then put quotes around it when talking about pre-installed Linux.
I thought the point of Linux was choice. "Forcing" someone to use Linux will just frustrate them when they go over and see what their buddy is doing in Windows XP/OS X.
1) Open Office is good enough. Open Office used to kind of suck. A lot of bugs have been fixed in it, and you can sit down and actually do work in it. Office applications are the big barrier out there.
I've been hearing out the Linux office apps are "good enough" since 1998.
2) Big companies are backing Linux. IBM's been behind Linux for a while, and now Novell, HP to some extent, etc. The mainstream folks now are willing to go with Linux.
I've been hearing how "companies are backing Linux" since 1998.
It will still take time. There is no magical 12 month window. However, Linux users are increasing. Not many folks move from Linux to Windows, and there's a steady flow of users to Linux.
I'd really like to see where this "steady flow of users to Linux" is. Is there an empirical study you can point to that illustrates this massive influx you speak of?
Remember that about ten years ago, there were just a handful of Linux users looking out at the wide world and what might happen. I'd venture to guess that the number of Linux users has done better than double each year, and that's pretty respectable growth.
I've be very, very surprised if Linux users are actually doubling each year. I know it's easy to think Slashdot represents the entire world, but people seem to forget that this place is a niche of society. Geek society.
Remember when Linux wasn't a serious server OS? There were folks that said that it was a toy, and that you needed a real UNIX system if you wanted to do serious work. Well, damn, Linux seems to have tromped all over and overrun those "serious UNIX systems" on the server.
Yes, that's the server market. Linux's strong point.
Has Linux become a major desktop player yet? No. Has it gotten more desktop users each year? Yes. Has it gained more corporate support each year? Yes. Is the software getting better faster than Windows? You bet.
Yes, we hear this every year. But it's not like OS X and Windows don't progress as well. Windows has seen three or four major releases since 1998, and OS X seems to have a new version every year. People breathlessly report how Linux is making progress and will soon overtake its competitors as though those competitors are suddenly at some sort of standstill. Longhorn has a really revolutionary set of technologies going into it that will be hard to compete with.
Actually, if you'd do a little research, this has been spoken about by Microsoft developers several times in the past. It takes an entire day to compile and build Windows, and they use a very custom process.
Amusingly, as processors have gotten faster over the years, Windows has also grown in complexity, and it has apparently always taken an entire day to compile a Windows build.
It's interesting that the headline says "Microsoft Receives XML Patent"--and then the summary says they're NOT receiving an XML patent, but gee, this sure sounds like XML, so it's Microsoft being evil, and we'll plaster a headline saying they're somehow magically receiving an XML patent.
In other words, they're receiving an XML patent--but then they're not really. Wonderful, Slashdot. Shouldn't you be off reporting how "Microsoft Is Violating Human Right In China" or something?
"#43 Posted by psneddon on 13 Feb 2004 - 01:09 Just my opinion / thoughts.
1) The software that builds and compiles Windows is very complex I doubt anyone could turn the source into a working system easily. Maybee it would be possible to compile certain parts. Plus even if you could it would take hours if not days to go through the process.
2) I don't see how this will let anyone find any obvious flaws, microsoft have software that does this all the time. I'm not saying its not a security risk but its not as simple as the journalists make out - as always.
3) This exact same scare happened about 7 years ago, I remember they were selling the source to NT4 at a local market on CD, doubt it was the real source code."
You nailed it. And it's our jobs, as techies, to make sure that the majority of users are using what's best for everyone. They turn to us for that.
It's time for people to stop with the condescending attitudes and recognize that the majority of people don't WANT to learn about the "open source browser Mozilla." They just want a browser that works. Why can't it be okay for most people to have lives and not spend their hobbies installing browsers and operating systems? And for us to the ones who care about all that? Why does all of society have to care about what we care about? That seems to be the attitude I see coming up repeatedly among Slashdotters.
People here keep saying they want everyone to keep track and know about all this stuff. Sorry--they don't have time nor inclination. Why can't that role lay upon us, the computer people who actually give a shit about this crap? I don't get this incessant need for everyone to think the same way tech nerds do.
Slashdot Mirror
Computers (let alone OSs) don't leak code by themselves. This is as such irrelevant information.
It was hacked. Did you not get that implication? Sorry.
You do realize IE6 is a free download for 98/2000 and up, don't you?
If this were an OSS program, everyone on Slashdot would be falling over themselves posting to "upgrade to the latest version, it's fixed." But when it's Microsoft, suddenly there's some sort of unnamed hassle when it comes to just downloading a setup program and running it.
I guess you missed the article Slashdot posted a while back that actually showed that because Linux was the most-used OS on the net, it was also the most-breached.
I also think the fact that GNU got hacked twice, Debian, Gentoo, and GNOME were also compromised, all in the span of six months in 2003, one should take pause and note that things are only as secure as their admins.
Man, you clearly feel stupid for having your flawed code pointed out.
Even pseudo-code should mention an unsigned integer.
That fact that you keep using the word "fuck" in all your replies signifies that you have the social skills of a small reptile. Get out and experience life a little bit. There's more to it than posting flawed pseudo-code to a Microsoft article.
"Gayer than AIDS?"
Not only is it extremely juvenile to label things "gay," but lots of people who have AIDS aren't homosexuals.
I would have figured Slashdot would be posting things at least a little more mature than a SomethingAwful post.
Several. Someone even almost infected the kernel development tree itself through Bitkeeper.
Go to LinuxSecurity sometime and check out all the endless exploits that are announced for packages whose source code has been available for years.
What's you're saying is, anyone who feels someone is trolling with a baseless anti-"M$" bash is a "Microsoftie?"
Isn't that a bit of a tinfoil view of the world?
Only on Slashdot is it an issue that you have to download a newer version of something to fix a flaw. "Where can I download the patch for IE5?" It's called IE6.
Why do you think Linus Torvalds is so popular? He's so down-to-earth about these things and interested in the technology and not the technicalities. This SCO mess forced him into it, but even then he still spits out the choice quotes, like the infamous "crack" comment.
He wasn't asking for them to work together. He was wondering why we still have to keep installing two different collections of libraries and packages so we can run each other's apps.
They DO need to converge. You say KDE is uber-customizable, and GNOME is focusing on KISS usability issues. Why the hell aren't they one desktop project that is both uber-customizable yet focusing on KISS usability issues?
I think the thing that keeps me going back to Gnome is both its simplicity and its speed. KDE feels way too much like an overload of thrown-in features, although the 3.2 release really impressed me.
I often switch back and forth between the two as new releases come out--I will be using Gnome again when its new version is released.
People know who Apple is. They know what a Mac is. It's like how everyone knows Netscape even though few use them anymore.
Apple maintains an up-to-date running x86 port of Darwin. The day their marketshare dips too low for them to stay alive, they'll release OS X for x86. It's their last card, and you know they'll always keep it in their deck. So, I'm not worried about Apple, and Apple isn't worried--they know they always have that last trick up their sleeve that would automatically throw them into the game big-time.
OS X would blow the doors off of Windows if it came out for x86.
I love that you use the word forced to talk about pre-installed Windows, but then put quotes around it when talking about pre-installed Linux.
I thought the point of Linux was choice. "Forcing" someone to use Linux will just frustrate them when they go over and see what their buddy is doing in Windows XP/OS X.
1) Open Office is good enough. Open Office used to kind of suck. A lot of bugs have been fixed in it, and you can sit down and actually do work in it. Office applications are the big barrier out there.
I've been hearing out the Linux office apps are "good enough" since 1998.
2) Big companies are backing Linux. IBM's been behind Linux for a while, and now Novell, HP to some extent, etc. The mainstream folks now are willing to go with Linux.
I've been hearing how "companies are backing Linux" since 1998.
It will still take time. There is no magical 12 month window. However, Linux users are increasing. Not many folks move from Linux to Windows, and there's a steady flow of users to Linux.
I'd really like to see where this "steady flow of users to Linux" is. Is there an empirical study you can point to that illustrates this massive influx you speak of?
Remember that about ten years ago, there were just a handful of Linux users looking out at the wide world and what might happen. I'd venture to guess that the number of Linux users has done better than double each year, and that's pretty respectable growth.
I've be very, very surprised if Linux users are actually doubling each year. I know it's easy to think Slashdot represents the entire world, but people seem to forget that this place is a niche of society. Geek society.
Remember when Linux wasn't a serious server OS? There were folks that said that it was a toy, and that you needed a real UNIX system if you wanted to do serious work. Well, damn, Linux seems to have tromped all over and overrun those "serious UNIX systems" on the server.
Yes, that's the server market. Linux's strong point.
Has Linux become a major desktop player yet? No. Has it gotten more desktop users each year? Yes. Has it gained more corporate support each year? Yes. Is the software getting better faster than Windows? You bet.
Yes, we hear this every year. But it's not like OS X and Windows don't progress as well. Windows has seen three or four major releases since 1998, and OS X seems to have a new version every year. People breathlessly report how Linux is making progress and will soon overtake its competitors as though those competitors are suddenly at some sort of standstill. Longhorn has a really revolutionary set of technologies going into it that will be hard to compete with.
Things are worth as much as people will pay for them. Consumers are the ones that deem a monetary value on something.
I can name instances in which all those items cost something.
Actually, if you'd do a little research, this has been spoken about by Microsoft developers several times in the past. It takes an entire day to compile and build Windows, and they use a very custom process.
Amusingly, as processors have gotten faster over the years, Windows has also grown in complexity, and it has apparently always taken an entire day to compile a Windows build.
It's interesting that the headline says "Microsoft Receives XML Patent"--and then the summary says they're NOT receiving an XML patent, but gee, this sure sounds like XML, so it's Microsoft being evil, and we'll plaster a headline saying they're somehow magically receiving an XML patent.
In other words, they're receiving an XML patent--but then they're not really. Wonderful, Slashdot. Shouldn't you be off reporting how "Microsoft Is Violating Human Right In China" or something?
Companies and universities have had access to Windows source for decades.
No, this "won't be the day that changes everything." Don't be so melodramatic...
"#43 Posted by psneddon on 13 Feb 2004 - 01:09
Just my opinion / thoughts.
1) The software that builds and compiles Windows is very complex I doubt anyone could turn the source into a working system easily. Maybee it would be possible to compile certain parts. Plus even if you could it would take hours if not days to go through the process.
2) I don't see how this will let anyone find any obvious flaws, microsoft have software that does this all the time. I'm not saying its not a security risk but its not as simple as the journalists make out - as always.
3) This exact same scare happened about 7 years ago, I remember they were selling the source to NT4 at a local market on CD, doubt it was the real source code."
I'm seeing filesizes of 245.37MB.
I think this might be a hoax.
A day with SCO is like a day without sunshine, I know that's what you're thinking.
Why is it I'm suddenly frightened that I woke up this morning to an inch of snow in New Mexico?
How in the holy hell is this a Troll? I was serious.
For that matter, why are we still using an antiquated 8-based system?
Everything else in our world pretty much revolves around the number 10, even our fingers and toes.
How does that make them organized?
You nailed it. And it's our jobs, as techies, to make sure that the majority of users are using what's best for everyone. They turn to us for that.
It's time for people to stop with the condescending attitudes and recognize that the majority of people don't WANT to learn about the "open source browser Mozilla." They just want a browser that works. Why can't it be okay for most people to have lives and not spend their hobbies installing browsers and operating systems? And for us to the ones who care about all that? Why does all of society have to care about what we care about? That seems to be the attitude I see coming up repeatedly among Slashdotters.
People here keep saying they want everyone to keep track and know about all this stuff. Sorry--they don't have time nor inclination. Why can't that role lay upon us, the computer people who actually give a shit about this crap? I don't get this incessant need for everyone to think the same way tech nerds do.