While the idea of a monoculture has appeal, the common arguments for it assume a lack of diversity, which doesn't help in this case. Because it isn't lack of diversity that's the problem. MS is just too big and easy a target to ignore.
Apple has a greater installed base than Linux. Yet there are no exploits or viruses against Apple OS's to my knowledge, although OS X must open the door a little wider these days.
Programs used under Linux have their own security concerns, naturally. But these programs are used by many other OS's which have their own kinds of vulnerability. You can boil most security concerns with the Linux kernel down to one goal: privileged access. Remember, buffer exploits happen everywhere.
What really makes Microsoft a big target is the scope for attack: privileged access is the easy part. Network attacks are simple, destruction and/or theft of data a matter of social engineering. The latest MS worms are capable of all these attacks, impossible on other OS's. THAT is why it's the premier target. The flow-on effects of the different kinds of attack simply don't exist elsewhere.
One of those nice googling accidents brought me to the Almeda County Computer Resource Center, where computer recycling for non-profit is already in full swing, and I've counted at least two major efforts in my own state plus another australia-wide organization.
It seems that old puters + Linux for recycling is good business these days
As already mentioned here, SCO wants to undo the AT&T/BSD judgement in 1994. On the face of it, it looks like a good target, but there's one small problem:
The case ended in a settlement to avoid a judgement favouring BSD
Now why SCO thinks reopening this case is a good idea becomes murky. The University had a good case, and still does.
So what didn't that settlement cover? Because if AT&T avoided having to remove certain things, then SCO is likely to still have them. How could that possibly advance their case? Class??
I'm currently fighting an anti-XP battle at my organization; so far I'm winning on the basis of security flaws, but this FUD makes my job harder.
Most people could make a list of the number of MS OS bugs that have taken months or years to be fixed, if at all.
What they seem to be proposing is a pissing contest over the number of days it takes to fix a bug, which makes me wonder when they intend to start. When they can actually fix a bug within days? When they decide that a vulnerability is "allowed" to be public?!
I notice that Ballmer is taking the easy out by targeting Red Hat. Not a bad divide and conquer tactic, but a piecemeal approach could well backfire, because it's so easy to refute. A bigger problem is making yourself heard over the (soon to be) tidal wave of FUD noise...
Read the biography to understand why a movie was a bad idea even when Douglas was working on it. The short version is, if they've been rewriting the script for 20 years (and subsequently rewritten Douglas' many versions), what kind of script do you think is going to result?
This is just an exercise in rights mining: it won't please anyone, and will probably bury comedy SF as a genre.
Alston was a communications disaster, presiding over failed Telstra rollouts/privatizations, 3G rollouts, HDTV rollouts; if it rolled, he screwed it up.
OTOH, Williams has possibly been the worst Attorney-General in living memory, and he's being replaced by the most embarrassing Immigration Minister of all time so he can replace Alston! This I gotta see.
Yup, it's the good ol' Disaster Shuffle. Take yer partners for a foot-stomping good time:)
now this is tricky...make a good movie from it without trashing the story
don't waste marketing dollars on flashy ads. if the word of mouth is already good, it's a waste, if not, it's even more of a waste.
profit!!!
We can all name movies that have done this, and 9/10ths of them were all put together by a small group of people in pre-production, no script-teams, no auctions.
If a canny band of concerned New Zealanders can achieve the Everest of story adaptations with LotR (and the story behind Matrix I is also instructive), then Hollywood has nowhere to hide and no excuses left.
Seeing the mention of apparently dubious Linux compatibility added to UnixWare made me think that perhaps all this is really a pre-emptive strike to protect it! They may merely be trying for a ruling that allows them to avoid GPL encumbrance on their product by rendering parts of it unworkable, particularly as applied to Linux kernel code.
I know it's a stretch, but with Boies involved, something's got to make sense:)
In the DRM article, it's posited that the new slaves of copyright will be computer administrators. Naturally, they'll have to be vetted for a good "copyright history", and have the right pieces of paper. If hardware is being forced into software compliance-checking, how long do you think it will be before the admins themselves are? Before the big tick in the box from Microsoft is the difference between this industry and another?
Consider that at least as big a problem as "non-compliant" software is the people problem. Your average user will have an appliance that will only operate in a fashion mandated by the DRM keepers. And your commercial network will be overseen by regularly-retested DRM admins. The new gatekeepers. The new priesthood.
Call it paranoia, but if it's possible, they'll try it.
I find the apathy on this site towards the possible gagging of a media organization disturbing. On a TV report this week, I learnt a lot about al-Jazzeera. Yes, they are pan-Arabic. Yes, they are critical of the US. They've also been threatened by every single Arab country in the region - closed down, ambassadors recalled, physical attacks. And it was bombed by the US in the first Gulf War when it reported the killing of civilians in a supposedly military target.
You can't have it both ways, even in a war. The Net is being used for some of the most blatant propaganda I've ever seen, but shutting down the Arab side of the argument isn't going avoid bigger problems later.
...but I can't escape feeling that esr is looking on the rosy side a bit.
He does make a few assumptions about the way companies are likely to turn in the current economic climate that I'm not sure I buy. This isn't an industry known for paying a lot of attention to consumer pressure, and I think it's only consumer pressure that would make a big difference to the fortune 500 companies.
Even if Wall Street are uncertain about the business model, from their point of view the alternative is worse, i.e. the killing off of a market. I don't think they're ready to jump at all.
The same point applies to Linux on the desktop: OEM's may well find it more difficult to pay the "Microsoft tax", but Mom & Dad don't want to build their own computer and don't want to leave their relatively safe GUI environment. So I don't see the OEM's jumping and I'm certain noone else in the industry wants them to, either.
What I don't see being addressed here is the squeeze that the telecommunications sector is putting on the internet-related side of the software industry (rapidly becoming most of it). I believe it is getting more and more expensive for the average consumer. If Microsoft cannot make the transition, who else can?
If you look at it the Microsoft way, then free software is only there to provide communities that you can sell to, providing it doesn't get in your way.
If you look at it the FSF way, commercial software is only a hindrance to the march of progress.
The truth is in between: freely-available and commercial software have lived side by side for years, and however Bill and Richard want to cancel each other out, its not going to change any time soon. Whether its GNOME or KDE on any proprietory OS isn't the point, its that users are getting something useful.
We currently have almost a symbiotic relationship that is producing great results, and excluding one from the other isn't realistic, much less productive.
..when Microsoft OS's and applications are the biggest black market in China. I believe Steve Ballmer was actually quoted as saying that while he wasn't happy about the piracy, he admitted it was a useful foothold.
It's good to see Linux getting *somewhere*, however, and as long as the internationalization effort continues, I think we stand a chance. Just don't underestimate the task!
I personally side with Robert X Cringley and other commentators: Microsoft should open up the OS.
Not only does it provide a remedy, it faces the fact that operating systems historically become free: applications run the "new economy", and there are enough API standards out there to make porting much less of the nightmare it used to be.
I really don't think this hurts MS, it would probably entrench the Windows/NT in fact.
After all, a level playing-field is what we're after, isn't it?
forget boycotting the whois database - provide an alternative! why should we rely on NSI for this information?
and somehow, i dont think we'd succeed in boycotting the root servers, either, unless someone is going to donate the machines and we can convince the rest of the world to follow us.
but the whois database could be better implemented anyway. and it should be free.
Unfortunately, no such luck. They very cleverly made sure that it can't be amended for two years - due to our roughly 3-year federal election cycle, that means either in the run-up to an election, or just after. The cynicism of it appalls everyone over here.... It also effectively kills the only part of the net that's really making money down here - adult sites/portals.
Because it is simply unworkable, this means the only way for the legislation to be effective is to shut sites down. Only massive civil disobedience and corporate pressure could affect this.
Slashdot Mirror
While the idea of a monoculture has appeal, the common arguments for it assume a lack of diversity, which doesn't help in this case. Because it isn't lack of diversity that's the problem. MS is just too big and easy a target to ignore.
Apple has a greater installed base than Linux. Yet there are no exploits or viruses against Apple OS's to my knowledge, although OS X must open the door a little wider these days.
Programs used under Linux have their own security concerns, naturally. But these programs are used by many other OS's which have their own kinds of vulnerability. You can boil most security concerns with the Linux kernel down to one goal: privileged access. Remember, buffer exploits happen everywhere.
What really makes Microsoft a big target is the scope for attack: privileged access is the easy part. Network attacks are simple, destruction and/or theft of data a matter of social engineering. The latest MS worms are capable of all these attacks, impossible on other OS's. THAT is why it's the premier target. The flow-on effects of the different kinds of attack simply don't exist elsewhere.
One of those nice googling accidents brought me to the Almeda County Computer Resource Center, where computer recycling for non-profit is already in full swing, and I've counted at least two major efforts in my own state plus another australia-wide organization.
It seems that old puters + Linux for recycling is good business these days
As already mentioned here, SCO wants to undo the AT&T/BSD judgement in 1994. On the face of it, it looks like a good target, but there's one small problem:
The case ended in a settlement to avoid a judgement favouring BSD
Now why SCO thinks reopening this case is a good idea becomes murky. The University had a good case, and still does.
So what didn't that settlement cover? Because if AT&T avoided having to remove certain things, then SCO is likely to still have them. How could that possibly advance their case? Class??
I'm currently fighting an anti-XP battle at my organization; so far I'm winning on the basis of security flaws, but this FUD makes my job harder.
Most people could make a list of the number of MS OS bugs that have taken months or years to be fixed, if at all.
What they seem to be proposing is a pissing contest over the number of days it takes to fix a bug, which makes me wonder when they intend to start. When they can actually fix a bug within days? When they decide that a vulnerability is "allowed" to be public?!
I notice that Ballmer is taking the easy out by targeting Red Hat. Not a bad divide and conquer tactic, but a piecemeal approach could well backfire, because it's so easy to refute. A bigger problem is making yourself heard over the (soon to be) tidal wave of FUD noise...
Read the biography to understand why a movie was a bad idea even when Douglas was working on it. The short version is, if they've been rewriting the script for 20 years (and subsequently rewritten Douglas' many versions), what kind of script do you think is going to result?
This is just an exercise in rights mining: it won't please anyone, and will probably bury comedy SF as a genre.
Alston was a communications disaster, presiding over failed Telstra rollouts/privatizations, 3G rollouts, HDTV rollouts; if it rolled, he screwed it up.
OTOH, Williams has possibly been the worst Attorney-General in living memory, and he's being replaced by the most embarrassing Immigration Minister of all time so he can replace Alston! This I gotta see.
Yup, it's the good ol' Disaster Shuffle. Take yer partners for a foot-stomping good time :)
Here is the
cached interview as it's still down.
We can all name movies that have done this, and 9/10ths of them were all put together by a small group of people in pre-production, no script-teams, no auctions.
If a canny band of concerned New Zealanders can achieve the Everest of story adaptations with LotR (and the story behind Matrix I is also instructive), then Hollywood has nowhere to hide and no excuses left.
Seeing the mention of apparently dubious Linux compatibility added to UnixWare made me think that perhaps all this is really a pre-emptive strike to protect it! They may merely be trying for a ruling that allows them to avoid GPL encumbrance on their product by rendering parts of it unworkable, particularly as applied to Linux kernel code.
I know it's a stretch, but with Boies involved, something's got to make sense :)
In the DRM article, it's posited that the new slaves of copyright will be computer administrators. Naturally, they'll have to be vetted for a good "copyright history", and have the right pieces of paper. If hardware is being forced into software compliance-checking, how long do you think it will be before the admins themselves are? Before the big tick in the box from Microsoft is the difference between this industry and another?
Consider that at least as big a problem as "non-compliant" software is the people problem. Your average user will have an appliance that will only operate in a fashion mandated by the DRM keepers. And your commercial network will be overseen by regularly-retested DRM admins. The new gatekeepers. The new priesthood.
Call it paranoia, but if it's possible, they'll try it.
I find the apathy on this site towards the possible gagging of a media organization disturbing. On a TV report this week, I learnt a lot about al-Jazzeera. Yes, they are pan-Arabic. Yes, they are critical of the US. They've also been threatened by every single Arab country in the region - closed down, ambassadors recalled, physical attacks. And it was bombed by the US in the first Gulf War when it reported the killing of civilians in a supposedly military target.
You can't have it both ways, even in a war. The Net is being used for some of the most blatant propaganda I've ever seen, but shutting down the Arab side of the argument isn't going avoid bigger problems later.
...but I can't escape feeling that esr is looking on the rosy side a bit.
He does make a few assumptions about the way companies are likely to turn in the current economic climate that I'm not sure I buy. This isn't an industry known for paying a lot of attention to consumer pressure, and I think it's only consumer pressure that would make a big difference to the fortune 500 companies.
Even if Wall Street are uncertain about the business model, from their point of view the alternative is worse, i.e. the killing off of a market. I don't think they're ready to jump at all.
The same point applies to Linux on the desktop: OEM's may well find it more difficult to pay the "Microsoft tax", but Mom & Dad don't want to build their own computer and don't want to leave their relatively safe GUI environment. So I don't see the OEM's jumping and I'm certain noone else in the industry wants them to, either.
What I don't see being addressed here is the squeeze that the telecommunications sector is putting on the internet-related side of the software industry (rapidly becoming most of it). I believe it is getting more and more expensive for the average consumer. If Microsoft cannot make the transition, who else can?
If you look at it the Microsoft way, then free software is only there to provide communities that you can sell to, providing it doesn't get in your way.
If you look at it the FSF way, commercial software is only a hindrance to the march of progress.
The truth is in between: freely-available and commercial software have lived side by side for years, and however Bill and Richard want to cancel each other out, its not going to change any time soon. Whether its GNOME or KDE on any proprietory OS isn't the point, its that users are getting something useful.
We currently have almost a symbiotic relationship that is producing great results, and excluding one from the other isn't realistic, much less productive.
Now I'll have to wait for patch-2.4.16-to-2.5.0.bz2! Maybe next week...
..when Microsoft OS's and applications are the biggest black market in China. I believe Steve Ballmer was actually quoted as saying that while he wasn't happy about the piracy, he admitted it was a useful foothold.
It's good to see Linux getting *somewhere*, however, and as long as the internationalization effort continues, I think we stand a chance. Just don't underestimate the task!
As far as I know, the UCITA has no force in my country (yet).
Can Apogee suck across international boundaries too?
Hmm...six degrees of /. ?
I personally side with Robert X Cringley and other commentators: Microsoft should open up the OS.
Not only does it provide a remedy, it faces the fact that operating systems historically become free: applications run the "new economy", and there are enough API standards out there to make porting much less of the nightmare it used to be.
I really don't think this hurts MS, it would probably entrench the Windows/NT in fact.
After all, a level playing-field is what we're after, isn't it?
A lot of the reaction to your post smacks to me of outraged elitism.
Are you trying to put the hacker/geek/nerd communitiy into context for the newbies here on /. and/or just attempting to define the culture?
Yes, he's technically been on the sidelines for years. Ballmer has made the real decisions, and Gates has been the "visionary".
:)
Poor guy. i hope he's brushed up on his C++ and Java
forget boycotting the whois database - provide an alternative! why should we rely on NSI for this information?
and somehow, i dont think we'd succeed in boycotting the root servers, either, unless someone is going to donate the machines and we can convince the rest of the world to follow us.
but the whois database could be better implemented anyway. and it should be free.
my $ 0.02 :)
Unfortunately, no such luck. They very cleverly
made sure that it can't be amended for two years -
due to our roughly 3-year federal election cycle,
that means either in the run-up to an election, or
just after. The cynicism of it appalls everyone
over here.... It also effectively kills the only
part of the net that's really making money down here - adult sites/portals.
Because it is simply unworkable, this means the
only way for the legislation to be effective is to shut sites down. Only massive civil disobedience and corporate pressure could affect this.