Microsoft MUST have known the security implications, and chosen to ignore it.
Ignore it? I doubt it. The people working at MS are not stupid. It's just that security carries very little weight on their Excel spreadsheet compared to the "rich features" that are connected to the cells that raise the bottom line.
I've been mostly out of MS development for years, but I don't understand your objection. Isn't MFC the *approved* Microsoft way? It used to be. If you know a way to secure this stuff, then how about posting it for the edification of all us MS bashers?
The problem deals with C and C++ where length is not always checked or enforced which creates buffer overflows.
That is not the same thing at all. With ActiveX, all you need to do is get the thing loaded, and it will run. In a buffer exploit, you have to inject executable binary code in exactly the right spot to redirect the return address to your own code, which is really very difficult. Compare the number of actual Unix/Linux buffer exploits with the number of reported possible exploits (which are generally just any use of things like sprintf or sscanf).
i mean, any operating system is vulnerable to an exploit if it's security infrastructure is sufficiently loose. if you set your entire filesystem to 777 then you're completely vulnerable on any unix-based os too.
As another pointed out, some things (like ssh) stop working. Using Linux, I made a directory owned by root and open to world - it was just scratch space for other users with nothing owned by root in it. The OS removed the "other" write permissions on the directory when the security-check cron ran and put a warning in the security log.
Be sure to notify the rest of the world that you unilaterally redefined the term free software. It's a shame there isn't a site for you Microsoft apologists where you could hang out and engage in mutual mental masturbation. Then you wouldn't get upset and feel the need to post potty-mouthed rants.
Projects which use the GPL aren't about keeping their code "free," they're about keeping their code open. When I talk about "free" I'm talking about complete freedom and both closed-sounce (Windows) and the GPL (Linux) simply do not provide complete freedom. Sure Linux is "open" (the code is viewable), but you need to figure out soon that there is a difference between "open" and "free." That's why I am not arguing that the GPL isn't an open-source license; it obviously is. But again, that doesn't make code under the GPL truly "free" (even though many people like to think it does).
Here, maybe this will help. GPL'd software is "free" as in libre, and that is how the word is used in the term "free software". All your long-winded, semantic meandering is not going to change that.
Sorry, but that's only true for short-term stockholders which is the same class as the top management, and that's a bad thing. I agree with all the rest.
If you could somehow *require* all stockholders to keep their stocks for at least a couple years before selling, then you'd see people thinking more "long-term". But things like "job cuts = profit!" are a result of shorter-term thinking. "This move means my stock is goin' up so it'll be ready to sell next month!"
I completely agree. The long-term perspective has been lost, and it makes the market more volatile. Stock ownership was supposed to be an investment and involvement with a company - not a one-night stand. The AC mentioned mutual funds, but they should be held to the same restrictions: no short-term deals. Invest in solid companies for the long term.
Well, my point is that context was slowly leaking out of the discussion thread, and it was turning into the general purpose 'BSD is baaaad because Microsoft can use it' rant.
Then I'd suggest you make your point clearly (as stated above) rather than making it look like a reading comprehension problem.
The Gates Foundation funds a lot of charitable and very good causes...more people in Gates' position should do the same.
There should not be anyone in "Gates' position" in this age. The monopolist robber barrons should have died out a century ago. John D. Rockefeller was also a well-known philanthropist and monopolist. Once you've looted the population, it's easy to give away money you could never spend in your lifetime. Perhaps Gates should fund the recovery and cleanup costs of everyone who has been hit with viruses and spyware while using his software - that would be more meaningful and more to the point.
Few of the great businessmen are. back in the late 1800's - early 1900's was the great robber barrens. They made Ellison and Gates look like minor players.
There is no real difference between the robber barrons of today and those of the 1800's. Both used money and influence to manipulate the law and the lawmakers in order to build monopolies. Same old stuff, different century. That does not make them great businessmen. I prefer to think of people like Hewlett and Packard as "great" businessmen since they built a company that was a great place to work.
The fact is, that the two companies merged. With any successful merger the outcome is that overall costs are cut, otherwise what is the point?
The fact is that Oracle bought out the competition and is now dismantling it. Expect to hear of more job cuts in the near future. There will also be a migration path for Peoplesoft users. Remember, you heard it here first.
Real "free" software projects don't care who takes their code. They're not afraid of being snubbed out by competition; they welcome competition.
You still haven't figured out the difference between free as in beer and free as in speech? Actually, most "free" software projects are using the GPL which is not about competition, it's about making sure the code stays "free".
That's why I used BSD (I wonder how many 'bsd is dying' responses this will generate). The whole idea behind the GPL is just stupid, not "free."
Yeah, using a BSD license is certainly giving it away to MS for "free" as in no cost. It's the difference between a handout and a hand up, and MS does not need any handouts. Get a grip on what's happening and who is working to put all OSS out of business.
However, I don't believe the product compressed images very well without loss.
The LizardTech stuff is lossy. They charge you for compression by the byte with their so-called cartridges (a fancy name for a byte-counting license). Stay as far away from these people as you can. Now maybe if their mascot did the robot on their web site, they'd be cooler, but I don't think so.
Oh, yeah? When did you see another bird to dumb to fly away when given a chance or a Kentucky Fried Pigeon? Oh, wait a sec . . . the original comparison was between gamers and regular people . . . never mind, I take it back. Just us birds here.:>
We have already heard quite a few users on here say their countries taxes are done in a Java app and it works just fine under almost any OS... why can't we have the same thing in the good old US?
And would you like to be trying to connect on April 14th? There is already a standard format for submitting returns. The IRS just needs to allow anyone to connect for submissions instead of protecting the income of companies like Intuit through limited access.
I'll take a break from Linux and boot into WinXP Home (which I bought a $89 OEM license for). I'll buy a copy of Turbo Tax from Walmart for $30 bucks and submit my return online.
I'll dust off the Windows partition to do taxes, but I sure won't be buying Turbo Tax. Three years ago, Turbo Tax installed a version of IE that I didn't want without asking. Two years ago, Turbo Tax installed spyware without asking and required activation. Remember? Last year, I bought Tax Cut, and I will again this year. Intuit lost me as a customer forever. And Tax Cut is cheaper - twenty bucks.
You don't think separate entities with common goals and interests should be allowed to pool their resources and remove inefficiencies in simultaneously advocating said goals and interests?
You really believe the BSA is anything other than the lobbying arm of Microsoft? Funny.
I'm sure you meant to say, "While Bill learned about good user interfaces as developed by Xerox and others since the user interface is going to become so important to the future of desktop computing. On the other hand, Linus was busy plagarizing algorithms from an OS developed over 20 years before without a care at all as to how users might actually interact with the the thing."
Um, no. What I meant to say was that Bill profited by ripping off ideas (and code) while decrying that other computer users did the same. Linus, OTOH, was creating a UNIX look-alike OS understood by many, that worked on x86 hardware. If you can, in your mighty AC stature, provide proof of Linus or Linux "plagarizing", I'm sure you have a ready audience here. Spit it out, clown.
So anyway, after a few pints of beer, Linus and Bill go on to describe these great plans they have for an operating system. Linus proceeds to describe what we know as a modern Linux distro, and Bill goes into a load of detail about this thing he's planning on calling 'Windows', and describes the architecture of what we'd recognise as Windows 2000 or XP.
Well, Bill continued in his theme of ripping off others like XEROX and Apple to provide his proprietary OS and make megabux, while Linus continued in his quest to provide an open, free OS for commodity hardware, and the problem is that both worked. The question is, can MS buy protection from the government and make all the little boys and girls afraid of being watched by a nanny OS, or will the FSF commandos come to the rescue? Will it be legal motions or fisticuffs? What decade? Will the Dems win in '08? So many questions.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft MUST have known the security implications, and chosen to ignore it.
Ignore it? I doubt it. The people working at MS are not stupid. It's just that security carries very little weight on their Excel spreadsheet compared to the "rich features" that are connected to the cells that raise the bottom line.
I've been mostly out of MS development for years, but I don't understand your objection. Isn't MFC the *approved* Microsoft way? It used to be. If you know a way to secure this stuff, then how about posting it for the edification of all us MS bashers?
I happen to be an expert in PL/SQL development, and this weekend, I looked at COBOL, and guess what... it's hard!
Nah. It's not hard, it's verbose and very boring for the fingers. But it doesn't have ActiveX exploits - one saving grace. :)
The problem deals with C and C++ where length is not always checked or enforced which creates buffer overflows.
That is not the same thing at all. With ActiveX, all you need to do is get the thing loaded, and it will run. In a buffer exploit, you have to inject executable binary code in exactly the right spot to redirect the return address to your own code, which is really very difficult. Compare the number of actual Unix/Linux buffer exploits with the number of reported possible exploits (which are generally just any use of things like sprintf or sscanf).
i mean, any operating system is vulnerable to an exploit if it's security infrastructure is sufficiently loose. if you set your entire filesystem to 777 then you're completely vulnerable on any unix-based os too.
As another pointed out, some things (like ssh) stop working. Using Linux, I made a directory owned by root and open to world - it was just scratch space for other users with nothing owned by root in it. The OS removed the "other" write permissions on the directory when the security-check cron ran and put a warning in the security log.
Be sure to notify the rest of the world that you unilaterally redefined the term free software. It's a shame there isn't a site for you Microsoft apologists where you could hang out and engage in mutual mental masturbation. Then you wouldn't get upset and feel the need to post potty-mouthed rants.
Projects which use the GPL aren't about keeping their code "free," they're about keeping their code open. When I talk about "free" I'm talking about complete freedom and both closed-sounce (Windows) and the GPL (Linux) simply do not provide complete freedom. Sure Linux is "open" (the code is viewable), but you need to figure out soon that there is a difference between "open" and "free." That's why I am not arguing that the GPL isn't an open-source license; it obviously is. But again, that doesn't make code under the GPL truly "free" (even though many people like to think it does).
Here, maybe this will help. GPL'd software is "free" as in libre, and that is how the word is used in the term "free software". All your long-winded, semantic meandering is not going to change that.
2. Corporations do best for the shareholders.
Sorry, but that's only true for short-term stockholders which is the same class as the top management, and that's a bad thing. I agree with all the rest.
Hey, that was some great Oracle PR, Larry (as usual). :)
If you could somehow *require* all stockholders to keep their stocks for at least a couple years before selling, then you'd see people thinking more "long-term". But things like "job cuts = profit!" are a result of shorter-term thinking. "This move means my stock is goin' up so it'll be ready to sell next month!"
I completely agree. The long-term perspective has been lost, and it makes the market more volatile. Stock ownership was supposed to be an investment and involvement with a company - not a one-night stand. The AC mentioned mutual funds, but they should be held to the same restrictions: no short-term deals. Invest in solid companies for the long term.
Well, my point is that context was slowly leaking out of the discussion thread, and it was turning into the general purpose 'BSD is baaaad because Microsoft can use it' rant.
Then I'd suggest you make your point clearly (as stated above) rather than making it look like a reading comprehension problem.
The Gates Foundation funds a lot of charitable and very good causes...more people in Gates' position should do the same.
There should not be anyone in "Gates' position" in this age. The monopolist robber barrons should have died out a century ago. John D. Rockefeller was also a well-known philanthropist and monopolist. Once you've looted the population, it's easy to give away money you could never spend in your lifetime. Perhaps Gates should fund the recovery and cleanup costs of everyone who has been hit with viruses and spyware while using his software - that would be more meaningful and more to the point.
Few of the great businessmen are. back in the late 1800's - early 1900's was the great robber barrens. They made Ellison and Gates look like minor players.
There is no real difference between the robber barrons of today and those of the 1800's. Both used money and influence to manipulate the law and the lawmakers in order to build monopolies. Same old stuff, different century. That does not make them great businessmen. I prefer to think of people like Hewlett and Packard as "great" businessmen since they built a company that was a great place to work.
The fact is, that the two companies merged. With any successful merger the outcome is that overall costs are cut, otherwise what is the point?
The fact is that Oracle bought out the competition and is now dismantling it. Expect to hear of more job cuts in the near future. There will also be a migration path for Peoplesoft users. Remember, you heard it here first.
People who produce and release software under a BSD-type license are working to put OSS out of business??
You somehow managed to miss the fact that the discussion was about Microsoft taking OSS code without giving anything back???
Real "free" software projects don't care who takes their code. They're not afraid of being snubbed out by competition; they welcome competition.
You still haven't figured out the difference between free as in beer and free as in speech? Actually, most "free" software projects are using the GPL which is not about competition, it's about making sure the code stays "free".
That's why I used BSD (I wonder how many 'bsd is dying' responses this will generate). The whole idea behind the GPL is just stupid, not "free."
Yeah, using a BSD license is certainly giving it away to MS for "free" as in no cost. It's the difference between a handout and a hand up, and MS does not need any handouts. Get a grip on what's happening and who is working to put all OSS out of business.
However, I don't believe the product compressed images very well without loss.
The LizardTech stuff is lossy. They charge you for compression by the byte with their so-called cartridges (a fancy name for a byte-counting license). Stay as far away from these people as you can. Now maybe if their mascot did the robot on their web site, they'd be cooler, but I don't think so.
3) Chickens are just birds!
Oh, yeah? When did you see another bird to dumb to fly away when given a chance or a Kentucky Fried Pigeon? Oh, wait a sec . . . the original comparison was between gamers and regular people . . . never mind, I take it back. Just us birds here. :>
We have already heard quite a few users on here say their countries taxes are done in a Java app and it works just fine under almost any OS... why can't we have the same thing in the good old US?
And would you like to be trying to connect on April 14th? There is already a standard format for submitting returns. The IRS just needs to allow anyone to connect for submissions instead of protecting the income of companies like Intuit through limited access.
I'll take a break from Linux and boot into WinXP Home (which I bought a $89 OEM license for). I'll buy a copy of Turbo Tax from Walmart for $30 bucks and submit my return online.
I'll dust off the Windows partition to do taxes, but I sure won't be buying Turbo Tax. Three years ago, Turbo Tax installed a version of IE that I didn't want without asking. Two years ago, Turbo Tax installed spyware without asking and required activation. Remember? Last year, I bought Tax Cut, and I will again this year. Intuit lost me as a customer forever. And Tax Cut is cheaper - twenty bucks.
Just some clarification - from a CPA with a masters degree in taxation . . .
Is that anything like a Dominatrix with a master's degree in pain? :)
You don't think separate entities with common goals and interests should be allowed to pool their resources and remove inefficiencies in simultaneously advocating said goals and interests?
You really believe the BSA is anything other than the lobbying arm of Microsoft? Funny.
I'm sure you meant to say, "While Bill learned about good user interfaces as developed by Xerox and others since the user interface is going to become so important to the future of desktop computing. On the other hand, Linus was busy plagarizing algorithms from an OS developed over 20 years before without a care at all as to how users might actually interact with the the thing."
Um, no. What I meant to say was that Bill profited by ripping off ideas (and code) while decrying that other computer users did the same. Linus, OTOH, was creating a UNIX look-alike OS understood by many, that worked on x86 hardware. If you can, in your mighty AC stature, provide proof of Linus or Linux "plagarizing", I'm sure you have a ready audience here. Spit it out, clown.
So anyway, after a few pints of beer, Linus and Bill go on to describe these great plans they have for an operating system. Linus proceeds to describe what we know as a modern Linux distro, and Bill goes into a load of detail about this thing he's planning on calling 'Windows', and describes the architecture of what we'd recognise as Windows 2000 or XP.
Well, Bill continued in his theme of ripping off others like XEROX and Apple to provide his proprietary OS and make megabux, while Linus continued in his quest to provide an open, free OS for commodity hardware, and the problem is that both worked. The question is, can MS buy protection from the government and make all the little boys and girls afraid of being watched by a nanny OS, or will the FSF commandos come to the rescue? Will it be legal motions or fisticuffs? What decade? Will the Dems win in '08? So many questions.