Sorry, wrong. Mugabe turned into a tinpot dictator, rigging elections, having his opponents beaten up, etc. He tries to look like an advocate of the common people, but in place of a realistic land redistribution program he has encouraged thugs to take over and destroy productive farms. Zimbabwe now has food shortages due entirely to Mugabe and his buddies. He really did go bad.
Most of these accusations can be made against several presidents / prime ministers of leading Western nations as well.
Knighted in 1994 for his outstanding services to the British empire, the president of Zimbabwe is now a villain... for failing to continue to act like a puppet; and acting against the 'ethos' of those who gave him the title.
SELinux probably works just great for what it was designed for - NSA top-secret systems. There's always a tradeoff between security and usability, and right now, SELinux is just above yanking the power cord.
"Microsoft's lawyers are not stupid...."
on
GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
·
· Score: 1
From Stallman's piece:
Microsoft's lawyers are not stupid, and next time they may manage to avoid those mistakes. GPLv3 therefore says they don't get a next time. Releasing a program under GPL version 3 protects it from Microsoft's future attempts to make redistributors collect Microsoft royalties from the program's users. Someone knows what these 'mistakes' are? Does it mean Novell's lawyers were stupid / pretending to be fools... in order to confuse the Free Software market?
I think this is a subtle but neat sidestep by the GPL authors. Let's say IBM tivo-ises it's hardware, and only 'TPM approved' apps will run. They stand to get exposed as enemies of Free Software amongst the user community. It's difficult to think of any 'general-purpose-hardware' manufacturer adopting tivo-isation, because the market would buy from the competition instead.
Of course, if one is buying AS400s aka white elephants, there's hardly any point complaining about vendor lock-in since no one else makes AS400s. Should be interesting to see if Dell or HP dares to make a Tivo-PC that boots a specific kernel / distro.
These 'crackdowns' are normal practice every time Microsoft releases a new Operating System. But with Vista, the dealers are now forced to innovate, and cannot afford to be lazy and pirate Windows... because:
Vista requires much more h/w resources than pirated Windows 98 / 2000 which satisfies all the needs of the Indian home user / small corporate user. Dealers simply cannot push the latest and greatest specs with 1GB RAM for the home segment. Huge unsold stocks of P4 motherboards, 256MB RAM with built-in display controllers and 8MB VRAM (shared with the main RAM)lie with these vendors. This is just not good enough for Vista, but Win2K runs blazingly fast.
Even now, brands like HP and Dell offer FreeDOS with the PCs... and actively encourage dealers to 'install' whatever the customer demands...the Indian PC market is very sensitive to price. Couple of years ago, HP was offering Mandrake Linux... but this stopped when customers complained that the bundled HP printers and scanners weren't supported in Linux!
In short, even if all the vendors called off their boycott and went in for Windows, they'll have to liquidate exisitng 'Build Your Own' stock and order fresh 'Vista-capable' inventories. Even after that, supporting Vista in the Home segment is a nightmare - beginning with the UAC... lack of support for peripherals like scanners, sound cards, video cards, etc.
For once, adopting and adapting to Linux could be less cumbersome and more profitable for these guys, thanks to Microsoft.
'Oracle, NEC, IBM, HP, Hitachi and Dell are among 10 IT equipment and software vendors that are forming a consortium to develop and sell Linux-based servers and computers for the Japanese market.
With the possible exception of IBM... all the other vendors above are the worst offenders when it comes to NOT promoting choice, adherence to standards, avoiding vendor-lockins etc. which is what the Open Source philosophy is all about. These vendors have Linux offerings and Open Source partnerships more as a PR exercise, than to promote the Open Source philosophy. Even IBM still maintains separate Linux and AIX offerings... and still maintains ambivalence over it's future... whether it will have 2 separate OSes or just AIX or Linux.
Does not bode well for Open Source in Japan, I guess. RedHat might've made a big impact, but it's not listed.
I don't think Microsoft are asking. I wrote the blog entry the question refers to, and I don't work for Microsoft, nor was I acting on their behalf. (And I don't imagine I've made myself any friends in Microsoft with that blog entry.) I know the guy who submitted the question to Ask/. (MythMoth) - he doesn't work for Microsoft either. In fact as far as I know he mainly runs Ubuntu these days, and he's been a Java developer for years.
Thanks for taking the time to post a rejoinder. My query wasn't on your identity, but on the utility of getting an answer to your question. How does it help anyone if UAC is a developer's fault, the marketing guy's vision fault, or a Segmentation Fault;-)?? The only people with power to engineer the OS are the developers, and they are driven by their marketing bosses. Hence the title of my post.
But I want the culture to get better. So my goal was to encourage developers write apps that work properly for non-admin users. Culture is something that gets built-ip over time... in this case, a couple decades. I dont think it can be changed by an Ask-Slashdot query. If Microsoft decide to jettison legacy support, and start afresh the Unix way, the entire IT culture - developer to end user - would see a sea-change, but I'm not holding my breath, after seeing Vista and UAC.
"The fundamental problem with Windows Security architecture is that the Operating System thinks it is better, wiser and more powerful than the user. In Unix, the user is the boss. The user is boss in Windows. If you're the admin of a Windows box, it'll let you do anything, including shooting yourself repeatedly in the foot if you so choose.
I believe in Vista, even the Admin user is restricted... the Operating System is the boss. One can't install an unsigned driver, even if it is the intended action, with Vista. I believe there are numerous other examples where this is true.
Can you point to a single concrete example of where Windows "thinks it is better, wiser and more powerful than the user"? I've been using Windows for almost as long as I've been using Linux. (12 years and 15 years respectively.) I can't think what you might be referring to - could you be specific please?
Why, I thought it would be obvious to anyone who's used Unix-like systems for a year, let alone 15. If I install ANY FLAVOUR of Linux in a 4GB partition, and I copy that entire partition to a spare partition using the simple 'tar' command... I can rest assured that if the OS crashed, it's a simple matter of running a 'tar' command to get it back working - WITH ALL APPLICATIONS, SETTINGS etc. INTACT. Try doing that with Windows.... ANY version.
I wouldn't actually want it to work that way though. While I don't run as root most of the time, it's important to me to be able to control my box. Which is exactly how it is. So I'm surprised by what you've written.
You have misunderstood me. The first thing a Unix user does, is to create an account and a home directory, and work with that. But THE POSSIBILITY of logging as 'root' and seeing everything that's going on still exists. In such an environment, it is not practical to hide malicious programs so easily, as with Windows. And therein lies the reason why the Unix philosophy of empowering the user, wins easily over the Windows philosophy of asking for a million passwords and prompts... lulling him into a false sense of security.
Should we not help Microsoft developers, just because this is Slashdot?
Please read my post in full. Every single Microsoft developer knows, or definitely ought to know... that UAC is a piece of junk. The insecurity with Windows is inherent.... the OS, or Microsft or Bill Gates.. ow whoever made that design decision... think that they own YOUR computer. It is impossible to secure the operating system as long as this fundamental issue is resolved.
Since this is a design decision taken at the very highest levels in Microsoft, it is futile to debate the issue on Slashdot.
Rather than ask the user for permission on every operation, what other ways could Microsoft have improved Vista's security?
Excuse me, how would such a knowledge help anyone but Microsoft developers? No one but those developers have access to source code, certainly not Slashdot readers.
The fundamental problem with Windows Security architecture is that the Operating System thinks it is better, wiser and more powerful than the user. In Unix, the user is the boss.
If admin users can examine every single running process themselves, and there are no obscure registry settings, binary blobs, TPM, DRM and other 'heuristic' aka guesswork techniques to deal with.. the system can be made secure. The reason is simple: If there is a malicious code that is poisoning the system, the root user can examine it and simply delete it.
The only exception to this rule would be rootkits... and by rugged designs like SE Linux, removal of LKMs, etc. the possibilities for such rootkits can be minimised largely.
And finally, if there exists a simple mechanism for restoring an entire filesystem with file level backups (on separately dsignated partitions for instance), ease of restoration is guaranteed in case of security breach. Windows Vista's System State image rollback is simply more complexity without any added benefits from the simple tar command.
If Vista must be really secure, the registry has to be removed, the device drivers must be open source, the entire OS kernel must be available free for inspection and rectification, the DRM, TPM and PVP kludges must be knocked out... in short Windows should be a mere operating system. I bet that every single OS developer at Microsoft realises the above truth... they're just trying to create a situation where the market tries to follow their Defective by Design philosophy.
Why is it surprising that developers (open or closed source) have adopted the useful parts of each others' development models? They don't exist in vacuums...
Once upon a time, Open Source developers were called all sorts of filthy names... like gypsies, hippies, communists etc. etc.
Now that 'Enterprise Customers' have adopted these software systems into their networks, the Closed Source world would like to inform you that they have changed... since it's now apparently fashionable to be a hippie.
For instance, at last year's Open Source Think Tank meeting, participants were expecting open-source software to achieve greater predominance. However, licensing and support issues have slowed the adoption of open-source solutions at the enterprise level.
Licensing and Support issues with 'Closed Source' software is precisely what drove enterprises to Open Source! Enterprise care a hoot about GPL v2 and GPL v3 wars.. they aren't interested in redistribution.. just that the Damn Thing Works (TM) !
From TFA: On Sunday, Microsoft and Novell said Dell has agreed to buy Suse Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft and that the computer maker will set up a services and marketing program aimed at getting users of open-source platforms to switch to the new Suse Linux offering.
"Dell is the first major systems provider to align with Microsoft and Novell in this collaboration, and we intend to lead in this space," Rick Becker, a vice president in Dell's product group, said in a statement.
The pact between Microsoft and Novell is primarily aimed at the growing number of major companies and government agencies that rely on both Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft's patent-protected Windows and Novell's open-source Linux platform to run their computers....
Home PCs will still likely run Ubuntu. There's hardly any point running Enterprise Servers (which is nothing but marketing speak, anyway) in one's Home PC. And nothing can prevent corporates from installing Dell's Ubuntu-based Home offerings in company networks.
It's no joke. They really do believe they invented the idea:
Patent #6,775,781..
So effectively, Microsoft is saying, "We patented this beautiful stuff.. but people laugh at us everyday. We made it part of Vista, and that has been suicidal. Actually, we like this suicide stuff... and Hell is quite enjoyable... we like to see everyone commit suicide and join us here.. it's getting a bit lonely in this lovely place...."
Vista is Microsoft's proof that whatever they make, the users will just buy, the news agencies will simply extol, and the market will slowly adopt and adapt to. But with UAC, Microsoft went one step further and called everyone else IDIOTS.
Now lets see if half of those people that voted for Linux on the ideastorm site actually buy a machine. Because if this flops it will seriously hurt Linux in the mainstream market.
I find this conclusion more sensationalistic than the typical Slashdot summary. Linux in any market has got to where it is INSPITE OF DELL AND HP, not BECAUSE OF Dell or HP. So what if this flops, or Dell pretends that it is a flop by pricing Linux options more expensive than Vista? Linux, the open source, standards-compliant distribution NEVER DEPENDED on Dell, it's the other way round.... now that Vista is hurting Dell, the customer and Microsoft.
What has Vista got to do with it? Linux (and Ubuntu) gained a user base large enough to gather some attention.
For the first time, the learning curve, legacy hardware and software compatibility and cost of adoption for the latest Windows operating system (Vista) is greater than a well-known Linux distribution. Microsoft must be congratulated for this stupendous engineering effort.
Why? So you don't have to bother with the details of how it is set up?
Don't get me wrong, I just talked about wanting to see this a couple days ago, but if you already know how to do something, what does it matter to you that it is pre-loaded?
Linux is much more than a kernel or an operating system. It is an attitude. The attitude that motivates people to aim for open-ness, conformance to standards, living up to specifications, giving power and freedom to the user (okay, this one is because of GPL, the license used by Linux), etc. Dell pre-loading Linux indicates that a commercial entity believes it is possible to make a profit by delivering truth and conformance. Empowering the user is actually profitable for any vendor... IT hardware vendors have got by so far without doing so.
I see the parent is talking in jest.. but seriously... does Qantas contemplate AIX on every single client desktop for running a non-browser AIX-specific application? Linux is only one small part of the 'Open Source' stack. The ability to run 'standards compliant, open-protocls-based systems on commodity hardware' is the benefit of the 'Linux' approach. Merely changing the server(s) to AIX will not do, for other customers who simply cannot see any value for the dollars spent.
has my full support. In the name of providing video sharing services or Search engines, these sites indulge in mass copyright violation that requires the owners of copyrights (server admins) to set things like robots.txt etc.
MySQL is today what it is and where it is, because of the quality and utility of the code it's putting out in the database world. People who invest in MySQL, the product do so because of it's suitability and superiority; not because of the financial reputation or stability of the company itself.
By going in for an IPO, Mr.Marten Mickos may be right in that the company will be flush with funds, but then, people will be able to invest in MySQL, the company -- without caring for MySQL, the product or service or technology. Even companies like RedHat making over a billion dollars a year face enormous challenges everyday, in staying loyal to their philosophies and the customers; and avoiding takeovers by unprincipled thugs of all hues in the share markets.
If Mr. Mickos thinks the company is going to get more business because it will now be a public firm, I think that optimism is misplaced and will be short-lived. That new business is going to come from MySQL's reputation of being a public company, not based on the technological superiority or suitability about the product. Should MySQL indeed care for such customers, given that the current mindshare and marketshate has come from the Open Source loving community?
No one can prevent a firm from having an IPO, but I would be very surprised if MySQL can resist a takeover for even 12 months from the IPO. What that would do to employee morale which Mr. Mickos talks about, remains to be seen.
I glanced at the headline, and it dodn't make sense at first. How can MS win when there's Viruses aplenty in a Monoculture? I clicked on the article and it was then I realised it wasn't Viruses, but Virtues.
I think Polyculture is a Virtue. In the IT world faced with a few hefty gorillas, it's "United we Fall, Divided we Stand" that works. Had Open Source been a monoculture, it would've been a sitting duck for predators like MS or Oracle to gobble up at their leisure.
The only common culture that unites the Open Source world is the culture of writing clean, readable, efficient, honest code that works as intended (advertised). These virtues are alien to a Monoculture that is Microsoft. Multiple desktops, multiple browsers (I wish Konqueror, Firefox and Galleon had comparable userbases), multiple programming languages, IDEs, compilers etc. are the precise reason why Open Source wins, and keeps winning. Even if some of these projects are bought over / subverted/destroyed, the 'culture' of Open Source lives on in the remaining forks, and that sustains the philosophy.
Monoculture is a wet-dream for viruses, it has no virtues for the intellectually inclined.
Apparently, this was 1. some kind of call-back program that would somehow tunnel out through the firewall, connect to the hacker's control console and accept instructions from there.
Such a thing is rather complex, and probably not pre-existing within word. It was brought in by 2. the trojan itself.
1. Excuse me... how would such a call-back program be initiated, and how would it perform the desired function? Does it not mean that Word has the provision / bug of being able to initiate external programs that can perform actions at a higher privilege than the user reading the document? Is that not a serious architectural bug in Word AND IN Windows as well?
2. I think 'the trojan' is a weak and misleading description for this program. It is an exploit for a hole in the operating system... nothing less.
Frankly, I wonder how you can speculate with any accuracy regarding this problem, since the article is extremely short on meaningful data regarding the bug exploit.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, wrong. Mugabe turned into a tinpot dictator, rigging elections, having his opponents beaten up, etc. He tries to look like an advocate of the common people, but in place of a realistic land redistribution program he has encouraged thugs to take over and destroy productive farms. Zimbabwe now has food shortages due entirely to Mugabe and his buddies. He really did go bad.
Most of these accusations can be made against several presidents / prime ministers of leading Western nations as well.
Knighted in 1994 for his outstanding services to the British empire, the president of Zimbabwe is now a villain... for failing to continue to act like a puppet; and acting against the 'ethos' of those who gave him the title.
SELinux probably works just great for what it was designed for - NSA top-secret systems. There's always a tradeoff between security and usability, and right now, SELinux is just above yanking the power cord.
I simply yank the network cable instead.
Some good network security tools that I use.
I think this is a subtle but neat sidestep by the GPL authors. Let's say IBM tivo-ises it's hardware, and only 'TPM approved' apps will run. They stand to get exposed as enemies of Free Software amongst the user community. It's difficult to think of any 'general-purpose-hardware' manufacturer adopting tivo-isation, because the market would buy from the competition instead.
Of course, if one is buying AS400s aka white elephants, there's hardly any point complaining about vendor lock-in since no one else makes AS400s. Should be interesting to see if Dell or HP dares to make a Tivo-PC that boots a specific kernel / distro.
These 'crackdowns' are normal practice every time Microsoft releases a new Operating System. But with Vista, the dealers are now forced to innovate, and cannot afford to be lazy and pirate Windows... because:
Vista requires much more h/w resources than pirated Windows 98 / 2000 which satisfies all the needs of the Indian home user / small corporate user. Dealers simply cannot push the latest and greatest specs with 1GB RAM for the home segment. Huge unsold stocks of P4 motherboards, 256MB RAM with built-in display controllers and 8MB VRAM (shared with the main RAM)lie with these vendors. This is just not good enough for Vista, but Win2K runs blazingly fast.
Even now, brands like HP and Dell offer FreeDOS with the PCs... and actively encourage dealers to 'install' whatever the customer demands...the Indian PC market is very sensitive to price. Couple of years ago, HP was offering Mandrake Linux... but this stopped when customers complained that the bundled HP printers and scanners weren't supported in Linux!
In short, even if all the vendors called off their boycott and went in for Windows, they'll have to liquidate exisitng 'Build Your Own' stock and order fresh 'Vista-capable' inventories. Even after that, supporting Vista in the Home segment is a nightmare - beginning with the UAC... lack of support for peripherals like scanners, sound cards, video cards, etc.
For once, adopting and adapting to Linux could be less cumbersome and more profitable for these guys, thanks to Microsoft.
'Oracle, NEC, IBM, HP, Hitachi and Dell are among 10 IT equipment and software vendors that are forming a consortium to develop and sell Linux-based servers and computers for the Japanese market.
With the possible exception of IBM... all the other vendors above are the worst offenders when it comes to NOT promoting choice, adherence to standards, avoiding vendor-lockins etc. which is what the Open Source philosophy is all about. These vendors have Linux offerings and Open Source partnerships more as a PR exercise, than to promote the Open Source philosophy. Even IBM still maintains separate Linux and AIX offerings... and still maintains ambivalence over it's future... whether it will have 2 separate OSes or just AIX or Linux.
Does not bode well for Open Source in Japan, I guess. RedHat might've made a big impact, but it's not listed.
I don't think Microsoft are asking. I wrote the blog entry the question refers to, and I don't work for Microsoft, nor was I acting on their behalf. (And I don't imagine I've made myself any friends in Microsoft with that blog entry.) I know the guy who submitted the question to Ask /. (MythMoth) - he doesn't work for Microsoft either. In fact as far as I know he mainly runs Ubuntu these days, and he's been a Java developer for years.
;-)?? The only people with power to engineer the OS are the developers, and they are driven by their marketing bosses. Hence the title of my post.
Thanks for taking the time to post a rejoinder. My query wasn't on your identity, but on the utility of getting an answer to your question. How does it help anyone if UAC is a developer's fault, the marketing guy's vision fault, or a Segmentation Fault
But I want the culture to get better. So my goal was to encourage developers write apps that work properly for non-admin users.
Culture is something that gets built-ip over time... in this case, a couple decades. I dont think it can be changed by an Ask-Slashdot query. If Microsoft decide to jettison legacy support, and start afresh the Unix way, the entire IT culture - developer to end user - would see a sea-change, but I'm not holding my breath, after seeing Vista and UAC.
"The fundamental problem with Windows Security architecture is that the Operating System thinks it is better, wiser and more powerful than the user. In Unix, the user is the boss.
The user is boss in Windows. If you're the admin of a Windows box, it'll let you do anything, including shooting yourself repeatedly in the foot if you so choose.
I believe in Vista, even the Admin user is restricted... the Operating System is the boss. One can't install an unsigned driver, even if it is the intended action, with Vista. I believe there are numerous other examples where this is true.
Can you point to a single concrete example of where Windows "thinks it is better, wiser and more powerful than the user"? I've been using Windows for almost as long as I've been using Linux. (12 years and 15 years respectively.) I can't think what you might be referring to - could you be specific please?
Why, I thought it would be obvious to anyone who's used Unix-like systems for a year, let alone 15. If I install ANY FLAVOUR of Linux in a 4GB partition, and I copy that entire partition to a spare partition using the simple 'tar' command... I can rest assured that if the OS crashed, it's a simple matter of running a 'tar' command to get it back working - WITH ALL APPLICATIONS, SETTINGS etc. INTACT. Try doing that with Windows.... ANY version.
I wouldn't actually want it to work that way though. While I don't run as root most of the time, it's important to me to be able to control my box. Which is exactly how it is. So I'm surprised by what you've written.
You have misunderstood me. The first thing a Unix user does, is to create an account and a home directory, and work with that. But THE POSSIBILITY of logging as 'root' and seeing everything that's going on still exists. In such an environment, it is not practical to hide malicious programs so easily, as with Windows. And therein lies the reason why the Unix philosophy of empowering the user, wins easily over the Windows philosophy of asking for a million passwords and prompts... lulling him into a false sense of security.
Should we not help Microsoft developers, just because this is Slashdot?
Please read my post in full. Every single Microsoft developer knows, or definitely ought to know... that UAC is a piece of junk. The insecurity with Windows is inherent.... the OS, or Microsft or Bill Gates.. ow whoever made that design decision... think that they own YOUR computer. It is impossible to secure the operating system as long as this fundamental issue is resolved.
Since this is a design decision taken at the very highest levels in Microsoft, it is futile to debate the issue on Slashdot.
Rather than ask the user for permission on every operation, what other ways could Microsoft have improved Vista's security?
Excuse me, how would such a knowledge help anyone but Microsoft developers? No one but those developers have access to source code, certainly not Slashdot readers.
The fundamental problem with Windows Security architecture is that the Operating System thinks it is better, wiser and more powerful than the user. In Unix, the user is the boss.
If admin users can examine every single running process themselves, and there are no obscure registry settings, binary blobs, TPM, DRM and other 'heuristic' aka guesswork techniques to deal with.. the system can be made secure. The reason is simple: If there is a malicious code that is poisoning the system, the root user can examine it and simply delete it.
The only exception to this rule would be rootkits... and by rugged designs like SE Linux, removal of LKMs, etc. the possibilities for such rootkits can be minimised largely.
And finally, if there exists a simple mechanism for restoring an entire filesystem with file level backups (on separately dsignated partitions for instance), ease of restoration is guaranteed in case of security breach. Windows Vista's System State image rollback is simply more complexity without any added benefits from the simple tar command.
If Vista must be really secure, the registry has to be removed, the device drivers must be open source, the entire OS kernel must be available free for inspection and rectification, the DRM, TPM and PVP kludges must be knocked out... in short Windows should be a mere operating system. I bet that every single OS developer at Microsoft realises the above truth... they're just trying to create a situation where the market tries to follow their Defective by Design philosophy.
There are only 6 known users of Vista...
4 of them are tech-support staff in Microsoft
1 of them is CowBoyNeal
and the last one is YOU!
Yes, YOU!!!! Get the patch from Microsoft, and there's Nothing for you to see here... Move along.
Why is it surprising that developers (open or closed source) have adopted the useful parts of each others' development models? They don't exist in vacuums...
Once upon a time, Open Source developers were called all sorts of filthy names... like gypsies, hippies, communists etc. etc.
Now that 'Enterprise Customers' have adopted these software systems into their networks, the Closed Source world would like to inform you that they have changed... since it's now apparently fashionable to be a hippie.
For instance, at last year's Open Source Think Tank meeting, participants were expecting open-source software to achieve greater predominance. However, licensing and support issues have slowed the adoption of open-source solutions at the enterprise level.
Licensing and Support issues with 'Closed Source' software is precisely what drove enterprises to Open Source! Enterprise care a hoot about GPL v2 and GPL v3 wars.. they aren't interested in redistribution.. just that the Damn Thing Works (TM) !
From TFA:
On Sunday, Microsoft and Novell said Dell has agreed to buy Suse Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft and that the computer maker will set up a services and marketing program aimed at getting users of open-source platforms to switch to the new Suse Linux offering.
"Dell is the first major systems provider to align with Microsoft and Novell in this collaboration, and we intend to lead in this space," Rick Becker, a vice president in Dell's product group, said in a statement.
The pact between Microsoft and Novell is primarily aimed at the growing number of major companies and government agencies that rely on both Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft's patent-protected Windows and Novell's open-source Linux platform to run their computers....
Home PCs will still likely run Ubuntu.
There's hardly any point running Enterprise Servers (which is nothing but marketing speak, anyway) in one's Home PC.
And nothing can prevent corporates from installing Dell's Ubuntu-based Home offerings in company networks.
It's no joke. They really do believe they invented the idea:
Patent #6,775,781..
So effectively, Microsoft is saying, "We patented this beautiful stuff.. but people laugh at us everyday. We made it part of Vista, and that has been suicidal. Actually, we like this suicide stuff... and Hell is quite enjoyable... we like to see everyone commit suicide and join us here.. it's getting a bit lonely in this lovely place...."
Thanks, but no thanks!
Vista is Microsoft's proof that whatever they make, the users will just buy, the news agencies will simply extol, and the market will slowly adopt and adapt to. But with UAC, Microsoft went one step further and called everyone else IDIOTS.
And now it wants everyone to imitate them?
No, what Ballmer said is that he's hoping he can get his own uncle to buy a Zune before he dies.
Before who dies? Ballmer, or his uncle? I think Zune will die a lot earlier than that.
Now lets see if half of those people that voted for Linux on the ideastorm site actually buy a machine. Because if this flops it will seriously hurt Linux in the mainstream market.
I find this conclusion more sensationalistic than the typical Slashdot summary. Linux in any market has got to where it is INSPITE OF DELL AND HP, not BECAUSE OF Dell or HP. So what if this flops, or Dell pretends that it is a flop by pricing Linux options more expensive than Vista? Linux, the open source, standards-compliant distribution NEVER DEPENDED on Dell, it's the other way round.... now that Vista is hurting Dell, the customer and Microsoft.
What has Vista got to do with it? Linux (and Ubuntu) gained a user base large enough to gather some attention.
For the first time, the learning curve, legacy hardware and software compatibility and cost of adoption for the latest Windows operating system (Vista) is greater than a well-known Linux distribution. Microsoft must be congratulated for this stupendous engineering effort.
Why? So you don't have to bother with the details of how it is set up?
Don't get me wrong, I just talked about wanting to see this a couple days ago, but if you already know how to do something, what does it matter to you that it is pre-loaded?
Linux is much more than a kernel or an operating system. It is an attitude. The attitude that motivates people to aim for open-ness, conformance to standards, living up to specifications, giving power and freedom to the user (okay, this one is because of GPL, the license used by Linux), etc. Dell pre-loading Linux indicates that a commercial entity believes it is possible to make a profit by delivering truth and conformance. Empowering the user is actually profitable for any vendor... IT hardware vendors have got by so far without doing so.
I see the parent is talking in jest.. but seriously... does Qantas contemplate AIX on every single client desktop for running a non-browser AIX-specific application? Linux is only one small part of the 'Open Source' stack. The ability to run 'standards compliant, open-protocls-based systems on commodity hardware' is the benefit of the 'Linux' approach. Merely changing the server(s) to AIX will not do, for other customers who simply cannot see any value for the dollars spent.
has my full support. In the name of providing video sharing services or Search engines, these sites indulge in mass copyright violation that requires the owners of copyrights (server admins) to set things like robots.txt etc.
MySQL is today what it is and where it is, because of the quality and utility of the code it's putting out in the database world. People who invest in MySQL, the product do so because of it's suitability and superiority; not because of the financial reputation or stability of the company itself.
By going in for an IPO, Mr.Marten Mickos may be right in that the company will be flush with funds, but then, people will be able to invest in MySQL, the company -- without caring for MySQL, the product or service or technology. Even companies like RedHat making over a billion dollars a year face enormous challenges everyday, in staying loyal to their philosophies and the customers; and avoiding takeovers by unprincipled thugs of all hues in the share markets.
If Mr. Mickos thinks the company is going to get more business because it will now be a public firm, I think that optimism is misplaced and will be short-lived. That new business is going to come from MySQL's reputation of being a public company, not based on the technological superiority or suitability about the product. Should MySQL indeed care for such customers, given that the current mindshare and marketshate has come from the Open Source loving community?
No one can prevent a firm from having an IPO, but I would be very surprised if MySQL can resist a takeover for even 12 months from the IPO. What that would do to employee morale which Mr. Mickos talks about, remains to be seen.
I glanced at the headline, and it dodn't make sense at first. How can MS win when there's Viruses aplenty in a Monoculture? I clicked on the article and it was then I realised it wasn't Viruses, but Virtues.
/destroyed, the 'culture' of Open Source lives on in the remaining forks, and that sustains the philosophy.
I think Polyculture is a Virtue. In the IT world faced with a few hefty gorillas, it's "United we Fall, Divided we Stand" that works. Had Open Source been a monoculture, it would've been a sitting duck for predators like MS or Oracle to gobble up at their leisure.
The only common culture that unites the Open Source world is the culture of writing clean, readable, efficient, honest code that works as intended (advertised). These virtues are alien to a Monoculture that is Microsoft. Multiple desktops, multiple browsers (I wish Konqueror, Firefox and Galleon had comparable userbases), multiple programming languages, IDEs, compilers etc. are the precise reason why Open Source wins, and keeps winning. Even if some of these projects are bought over / subverted
Monoculture is a wet-dream for viruses, it has no virtues for the intellectually inclined.
Apparently, this was 1. some kind of call-back program that would somehow tunnel out through the firewall, connect to the hacker's control console and accept instructions from there.
Such a thing is rather complex, and probably not pre-existing within word. It was brought in by 2. the trojan itself.
1. Excuse me... how would such a call-back program be initiated, and how would it perform the desired function? Does it not mean that Word has the provision / bug of being able to initiate external programs that can perform actions at a higher privilege than the user reading the document? Is that not a serious architectural bug in Word AND IN Windows as well?
2. I think 'the trojan' is a weak and misleading description for this program. It is an exploit for a hole in the operating system... nothing less.
Frankly, I wonder how you can speculate with any accuracy regarding this problem, since the article is extremely short on meaningful data regarding the bug exploit.