but seriously, copyright laws are changing. I think the point is this: When I purchase a prduct i want a box, a cd and a manual. I don't pay for anything less. If I puchase a product that contains a Key, I assume that the key entitles me to use the software inside. If the key doesn't allow me to run the software, it's not valid. If the software was sold used with a valid CD key, and the key wasn't valid (e.g. the game wasn't playable) then the Sale should be reversed.
Blizzard is wrong, and is technically breaking their EUL,. However, since the EULA is only legally binding if you have expensive lawyers, and you're the vendor, this player should probably just attempt to get his money back. (or whatever he paid)
I apologize if i've insulted you; I should have consulted your profile, but you know as well as I how many people are uninformed about theway that the internet works, and quite a few of them post here.
While I agree that the govenment should be mnitoring the internet, and I agree that my EULA with my ISP has provisions regarding my privacy, It doesn't mean that it won't happen. and it doesn't mean that private parties somewhere in connection won't do the same thing and supply the FBI with anonymous tips. I suggest doing anything quetionable online be hide closed doors (ssl). that's my point. several others have made it, but I think expecting people to be honest, and not self serving, paranoid, or malicious is fallacious.
I guess the most important part of my reply is that diversity in ideology is what makes linux different.
I don't think you can expect to "competing" organizations to use the same tools, especially if the one doesn't make them availale to the other.
I guess as far as gates comment he makes the same mistake, not compareing environments to environ ments. gnome has good interoperability for gnome apps, kde for kde apps, they have pretty good ineroperability with each other's apps too. they're better at it than I would expect them to be.
I MAY be out of touch with the community, I think everyone makes that mistake somewhere. At the same time, I argue that the majority can be out of touch with reality. sometimes reality is important
I think that OSS ideals have made GNU?linux what it is, and really, I think that OSS ideal WILL blow the pants off of MSFT. I think that more / better interoperability will occur, the problem, is that groups like gnome and KDE need to create a recomended system software list so that we can talk about GNU/LINUX/GNOME GNU/LINUX/KDE GNU/LINUX/XFCE
and address per enviroment application support / interoperability. The community ought to encourage devolopers to devop libraries like the mpd client library or the bittorrent library so that applications can be written for KDE & gnome. Seperately.
I think you've lost sight of what Linux is, and why it's here. Linux isn't the environment. It's not even the command-line, it's just the kernel. It's definitely NOT windowing environments.
I think a lot of the misconception regard the differences between Linux and GNU software relates to what is what, and who wrote it, what they believe and if you agree with that. Whether they're written by RM Stallman et al, or Linus et al, or by distribution developers is important.
Linux is the kernel. The kernel, just like the CPU in your computer, is extremely interoperable. It works with all kind of peripheral applications, you access it using external commands, shells, etc. Linus wrote it because, to an extent he agreed with RMS ideology about software: that it should be free as in freedom, as in beer, and that you should be able to do anything with it.
Richard M. Stallman, creator of GNU (GNU's not UNIX), wrote many of the other applications terminal junkies get fired up about: bash, emacs, less, man and others. The GNU system applications and the kernel are what make up a complete Linux base system. Anything above that is written by the gnome group or kde, or someone else. These things are written for Linux but are other applications, just like null-soft winamp, AOL, Aqua, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or Flash.
On top of that, many distributions have designed "ease of use" solutions for X11-based graphical display servers. Interoperability has very little to do with configuration changes from distro to distro; that has more to do with the base OS, ifconfig, bash, sysvinit, and the flat files in/etc. Deficiencies of that software are the ones that ought to be addressed here. So if you have complaints about GUI features not being present cross-distribution: complain to Novell, Red Hat, et al that they're not supporting Linux upstream*. Distros are there so you can choose the way you want to learn to do it. Learn it once, or learn it again because you see a better way to do it. Most change isn't bad.
Also, only administrators should be worrying about interoperability, software installation, ip addressing, network configuration, boot up, accounts, etc. The "user's" point of view isn't really relevant there, a good administrator should know GNU/Linux, the base OS, configured with flat files, in terminal. It's easier anyway, once you've been trained to do it that way, because it doesn't change, because that's actually what GNU/Linux is.
I think you need to get past your bad experiences in the GUI environment and evaluate the OS. I agree there needs to be A GNU installer framework, perhaps even GNU selected GUI configuration utilities, among other things, but many distributions ideologies will get in the way. Red Hat wouldn't use it, now; Suse has YAST; Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, and derivatives use the gnome / KDE controls or else the terminal and would use them, but even so, there will inconsistency as long as Linux is free as in freedom. You can't expect an OS that's based on user input to be the same across multiple branches and ideologies; choose wisely. I choose Linux, because no matter which distribution I use, I can still fix it, rely on it, and be happy so many have put hard work into it.
*Few distros make fixes and actually let the original authors know, and help them catch all of Linux. This results in some other minor changes from distro to distribution.
** I hope this hasn't just been a big pointless rant, I've spent about an hour trying to write it well.
FYI not all government sites end in.gov darpa.net for example is the defense advanced research projects administration network. the city of fort collins is fcgov._com_ Obviously they don't have a right to willy nilly snoop on your traffic whether or not it does. that's why we have illegal search and seizure laws. However, without "snooping on your connection at all" there are lots of websites that have publicly available access logs. It's legal for anyone to see who's visited the site, becuase the owner of the information makes it available (who knows why). that's all that the patriot act refers to: reading access logs, perhaps for terrorist websites or other ones pertaining to illegal activity, can help them narrow down a list of a terrorist's contacts to those who are actually involved.
I'd do your reserch before you continue what's becomming a flame war quickly, becuase I know I will, and I'm in classes preparing to take my CCNP and I'll expect your replay to contain the accronym RFC and TCP/IP in it before I'll care again.
this is all paranoid.
I believe in personal privacy, but the informatin about who you called isn't enough to incriminate you, all that the PATRIOT ACT does here is allow them to find people you know, and so that if they find hard evidence against you that it's admissable. it's not the same as going on a raid to examine and collect unregistered guns and finding a meth lab. If so, the whole lab is inadmissable, this allows for this information to be collected while its relavant. how incriminating are the phone calls you make? the websites you visit OFTEN? these are the things that matter. also, who you've called is called circustantial evidence, unless the content is monitored, something not covered in section 216. apply all of this to internet requests.
Are you just trolling or what?
The internet is a collaboration between the government, post-secondary education, and business. business has has onlybeen ivolved in the internet for about 20 years give or take maybe 10 depending on where you place the birth of the internet on the timeline.
the government owns lots of the internet, as do foreign governements, etc. The internet is infrastructure, just like roads, brideges power lines, etc; it's inconcievable to think that the government doesn't own any of it.
also, my eula, with my ISP only garantees that they won't knowly share my personal information with anyone outside the company, and that no one in the company will read my e-mail.
it goes over a public network, it's just several parents have posted, do your research.
ok, I thought ogg was the open sandard sound format
but I understand. it's still better than saying "apple has a format" and "linux has a format" and "M$ has a format" we know what the formats are. they're defined. also, someone pointed out that the diferentiation with the various standards pertains to OS USE (i.e. desktop vs Server) which actually makes sense, you don't really want to require application compliance for the desktop and a server the same way, then linusx becomes widows, running X on a server, etc
Microsoft has "standards" API's etc, that aren't defined, documented, etc.
Standards mean that we can compare software, even (especially) different branches of the same software (i.e. linux) on an even playing field. we can say " Redhadt defines their standards this way, suse this other way, and gentoo a third." this information lets me build ebuild that work in suse, and rpms that work with gentoo. they're standard formats like ogg, aac, or mp3.
why use a !doctype statement, when almost all doctypes are or can be unique: because its better to know or be able to find out, than to not know
you can add the hostname and theip to/etc/hosts (linux) or search for hosts in hidden and system files on your windows drive and add it there, that will give you a way to resolv the hostname to the ip and properly access the vhost
Um, it pretty much doesn't matter, you can't have a multi-platform format without downloading a mutli-platform player like vlc, or quicktime (which deosn't run well on linux at all). If one switches from wmv one has to download a new codec for mediaPLayer anyway, better to just dl vlc, for multimedia, or use real, but I'll never bother. bittorrent's also a good idea.
isn't that the one that comes with aol preinstalled "for your convieninece" and isn't that a celeron with intel extreme Graphics? vs radeon 9700. not to mention that normally the performance to price ratio from MAC to x86 makes OS X a $1500 OS. I think considering all that. . . and the fact that the mini is 6.5 x 6.5 x 2 instead of 24 x 7 x 20 and sits quietly anywhere. a difference of under $100 is substantial, and definitely makes it way better than comperable dell system.
btw: somewhat wrong. apple keyboard costs 29.00 [-student discount 26.00] and includes the very neccesary usb hub. bluetooth not actually required get your facts straight.
Buy a mounse at office depot for $10 (or $14 NOW, I guess here, or your local computer retailer. Compare to base-line dell offering with intel extreme graphics, intel celeron CPU, etc.
mac mini still plays ut2005 without lag, only slightly jumpy running @ 800x600 32bit etc, etc.
This competes with any base-lline x86 system very well.
I like that I can pick My display or buy the apple dvi to rca connector and use my TV. you won't see that sort of a thing on a pc either, nor at that form factor sie, quality, etc.
NO, And I agree that there are few of our voices on slashdot. THose of f us more completely devoted to christ are more likely to to be imeshed in their bible than slashdot. If you'll think about it you'll relize it's true. THe world willnot be won or lost on slashdot, and evne though there are many who read it, slashdot has very little actual influence on the state of the world.
Moreover, I'd like to point out that not all sects of christianity believe in Creation; the roman catholic church for example believes / typically teaches Divine evolution, and if I felt it worth My time, I'd argue this point with the Pope myself. However, I am eFree, and Believe that God created the earth in 3 literal 24 hour days. I cannot prove this except in the same way I prove my savior lives, and intend to do so as I have done, ever since I've been a sinner saved by grace.
God Bless You - Remember that no one cares about the truth, except those that know it.
I find it Ironic that you say "Thank God" and then call this ruling sense. I think you need to get yourself staightened out. If you believe God exists, then how can you believe he didn't create the universe?
You should have told them that the problem would continue to re-occur unless they expanded the IT budget for personnel, since you were more qualified, but definitely worth more. At least, the moron should have been fired IMO.
Active Directory:
It will fix most of these problems.
Active Directory is pretty easy to use. You can probably get a book on windows 200/2003 server and it will cover some of the basics with active directory. All you really need to know is the basics.
Running a domain is one of the only ways to really secure a windows network.
You might also be able to get some support by posting on the activewin.com forums. I've seen some pretty good stuff there.
I'm even willing to help you out if I can. My e-mail address whould be public on my profile here, if not reply to post, or send me a personal message (I think slashdot supports that)
I don't have a lot of experience with AD, but the opportnity to have a reall situtaion to work with is intruiging
Also, I am full-time linux user, at home, I don't do windows, but in that type of operating environment don't even consider [linux] as I see you haven't. That's way more work than you obviously have time for.
XP is a decent product, and it's not terribly hard to harden. Take a Windows XP box, turn on auto-updates, run FireFox, and be done with it "Windows Update?" that's the thing I disable on any system I install. "But why?' you may ask. I'll tell you why: becuase they don't work. Typically they break functionality, and restart services I've specifically disabled. I don't need extra services running on linux or windows, but they scare the heck out of me on windows, I never know when a service will have a hole discovered.
I'll give you that there are many linux distributions which are not secure, especially red hat. I've stopped running htem, for the most part, simply becuase of all the unnneccesary services loaded initially. I see all kinds of security hole posted for linux applications, but most of them are in version ".x" e.g. prerelease, so I don't really expect less. Sometimes an older omne will have a security hole but typically the comment along side it is:" we're not sure how you'd use this but there's genuinely a flaw here; so we fixed it. "
Getting everyone in the Windows world to that point is the stated goal of the MS security initiative. Mostly I think windows takes a bad rap on slashdot more becuase of "trusted computing" amd "microsoft security model" , etc, than becuase there's a huge gap. But I do know that IE _IS_ the root of their problems and SP2 is just a sign of that. Since they say they can get as much scrutiny as they say they can, of their OS, then, these sorts of things shouldn't be happeneing. Linux only has theses in post-release becuase A) they rease as beta/ prebeta, and B) becuase of deeply hidden flaws like the one recently found in the kb5 lib.
The Slashdot headline made it seem like a MS rep said point blank that to make Windows secure would take until 2011. And that is pretty clear.Also I'd like to point out that newspaper headlines are almost always misleading, but I'm sure I would have drawn the smae conclusion, even though the though of Microsft changing the focus that much is just unbelievable.
there's only a couple problems with that:
1. Yes, you're correct that _most_ windows users don't care about security, or privacy, for that matter, but those people using firefox apparently _do_, since that's the primary reason I tell people to use it.
2. Also, I don't want more span drones, and So I think that all OS's should be reasonable secure, and tht no web browser should get away with the type of security vulnerabilities exibited by IE. Mozilla is absolutely taking a step in the right direction. The idea that people in government office might potentially use IE, scares me. I'm glad that there's a choice users and admiistrators can make.
Um, so you're going to compare the stability of windows with the least stable portion of the whole linux xommunity, if you want true stability run Debian or slackware. FC in My experience is the most unstable OS I've seen since win95a. As for Mandrake 10: it just was released, they're obviously using the M$ model of release, then patch.
Slashdot Mirror
SHH RIAA doesn't need any extra help.
but seriously, copyright laws are changing.
I think the point is this: When I purchase a prduct i want a box, a cd and a manual. I don't pay for anything less. If I puchase a product that contains a Key, I assume that the key entitles me to use the software inside. If the key doesn't allow me to run the software, it's not valid. If the software was sold used with a valid CD key, and the key wasn't valid (e.g. the game wasn't playable) then the Sale should be reversed.
Blizzard is wrong, and is technically breaking their EUL,. However, since the EULA is only legally binding if you have expensive lawyers, and you're the vendor, this player should probably just attempt to get his money back. (or whatever he paid)
I apologize if i've insulted you; I should have consulted your profile, but you know as well as I how many people are uninformed about theway that the internet works, and quite a few of them post here. While I agree that the govenment should be mnitoring the internet, and I agree that my EULA with my ISP has provisions regarding my privacy, It doesn't mean that it won't happen. and it doesn't mean that private parties somewhere in connection won't do the same thing and supply the FBI with anonymous tips. I suggest doing anything quetionable online be hide closed doors (ssl). that's my point. several others have made it, but I think expecting people to be honest, and not self serving, paranoid, or malicious is fallacious.
I guess the most important part of my reply is that diversity in ideology is what makes linux different.
I don't think you can expect to "competing" organizations to use the same tools, especially if the one doesn't make them availale to the other.
I guess as far as gates comment he makes the same mistake, not compareing environments to environ ments. gnome has good interoperability for gnome apps, kde for kde apps, they have pretty good ineroperability with each other's apps too. they're better at it than I would expect them to be.
I MAY be out of touch with the community, I think everyone makes that mistake somewhere.
At the same time, I argue that the majority can be out of touch with reality. sometimes reality is important
I think that OSS ideals have made GNU?linux what it is, and really, I think that OSS ideal WILL blow the pants off of MSFT. I think that more / better interoperability will occur, the problem, is that groups like gnome and KDE need to create a recomended system software list so that we can talk about GNU/LINUX/GNOME GNU/LINUX/KDE GNU/LINUX/XFCE and address per enviroment application support / interoperability. The community ought to encourage devolopers to devop libraries like the mpd client library or the bittorrent library so that applications can be written for KDE & gnome. Seperately.
I think you've lost sight of what Linux is, and why it's here. Linux isn't the environment. It's not even the command-line, it's just the kernel. It's definitely NOT windowing environments.
/etc. Deficiencies of that software are the ones that ought to be addressed here. So if you have complaints about GUI features not being present cross-distribution: complain to Novell, Red Hat, et al that they're not supporting Linux upstream*. Distros are there so you can choose the way you want to learn to do it. Learn it once, or learn it again because you see a better way to do it. Most change isn't bad.
I think a lot of the misconception regard the differences between Linux and GNU software relates to what is what, and who wrote it, what they believe and if you agree with that. Whether they're written by RM Stallman et al, or Linus et al, or by distribution developers is important.
Linux is the kernel. The kernel, just like the CPU in your computer, is extremely interoperable. It works with all kind of peripheral applications, you access it using external commands, shells, etc. Linus wrote it because, to an extent he agreed with RMS ideology about software: that it should be free as in freedom, as in beer, and that you should be able to do anything with it.
Richard M. Stallman, creator of GNU (GNU's not UNIX), wrote many of the other applications terminal junkies get fired up about: bash, emacs, less, man and others. The GNU system applications and the kernel are what make up a complete Linux base system. Anything above that is written by the gnome group or kde, or someone else. These things are written for Linux but are other applications, just like null-soft winamp, AOL, Aqua, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or Flash.
On top of that, many distributions have designed "ease of use" solutions for X11-based graphical display servers. Interoperability has very little to do with configuration changes from distro to distro; that has more to do with the base OS, ifconfig, bash, sysvinit, and the flat files in
Also, only administrators should be worrying about interoperability, software installation, ip addressing, network configuration, boot up, accounts, etc. The "user's" point of view isn't really relevant there, a good administrator should know GNU/Linux, the base OS, configured with flat files, in terminal. It's easier anyway, once you've been trained to do it that way, because it doesn't change, because that's actually what GNU/Linux is.
I think you need to get past your bad experiences in the GUI environment and evaluate the OS. I agree there needs to be A GNU installer framework, perhaps even GNU selected GUI configuration utilities, among other things, but many distributions ideologies will get in the way. Red Hat wouldn't use it, now; Suse has YAST; Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, and derivatives use the gnome / KDE controls or else the terminal and would use them, but even so, there will inconsistency as long as Linux is free as in freedom. You can't expect an OS that's based on user input to be the same across multiple branches and ideologies; choose wisely. I choose Linux, because no matter which distribution I use, I can still fix it, rely on it, and be happy so many have put hard work into it.
*Few distros make fixes and actually let the original authors know, and help them catch all of Linux. This results in some other minor changes from distro to distribution. ** I hope this hasn't just been a big pointless rant, I've spent about an hour trying to write it well.
FYI not all government sites end in .gov darpa.net for example is the defense advanced research projects administration network. the city of fort collins is fcgov._com_ Obviously they don't have a right to willy nilly snoop on your traffic whether or not it does. that's why we have illegal search and seizure laws. However, without "snooping on your connection at all" there are lots of websites that have publicly available access logs. It's legal for anyone to see who's visited the site, becuase the owner of the information makes it available (who knows why). that's all that the patriot act refers to: reading access logs, perhaps for terrorist websites or other ones pertaining to illegal activity, can help them narrow down a list of a terrorist's contacts to those who are actually involved.
I'd do your reserch before you continue what's becomming a flame war quickly, becuase I know I will, and I'm in classes preparing to take my CCNP and I'll expect your replay to contain the accronym RFC and TCP/IP in it before I'll care again.
this is all paranoid. I believe in personal privacy, but the informatin about who you called isn't enough to incriminate you, all that the PATRIOT ACT does here is allow them to find people you know, and so that if they find hard evidence against you that it's admissable. it's not the same as going on a raid to examine and collect unregistered guns and finding a meth lab. If so, the whole lab is inadmissable, this allows for this information to be collected while its relavant. how incriminating are the phone calls you make? the websites you visit OFTEN? these are the things that matter. also, who you've called is called circustantial evidence, unless the content is monitored, something not covered in section 216. apply all of this to internet requests.
Are you just trolling or what? The internet is a collaboration between the government, post-secondary education, and business. business has has onlybeen ivolved in the internet for about 20 years give or take maybe 10 depending on where you place the birth of the internet on the timeline. the government owns lots of the internet, as do foreign governements, etc. The internet is infrastructure, just like roads, brideges power lines, etc; it's inconcievable to think that the government doesn't own any of it. also, my eula, with my ISP only garantees that they won't knowly share my personal information with anyone outside the company, and that no one in the company will read my e-mail. it goes over a public network, it's just several parents have posted, do your research.
In fact, he opposite is true of almost everything microsoft has done.
ok, I thought ogg was the open sandard sound format but I understand. it's still better than saying "apple has a format" and "linux has a format" and "M$ has a format" we know what the formats are. they're defined. also, someone pointed out that the diferentiation with the various standards pertains to OS USE (i.e. desktop vs Server) which actually makes sense, you don't really want to require application compliance for the desktop and a server the same way, then linusx becomes widows, running X on a server, etc
thank you for your extremely insightful & informative comment, you clearly don't belong here. . . read the article. . . bah!
Microsoft has "standards" API's etc, that aren't defined, documented, etc. Standards mean that we can compare software, even (especially) different branches of the same software (i.e. linux) on an even playing field. we can say " Redhadt defines their standards this way, suse this other way, and gentoo a third." this information lets me build ebuild that work in suse, and rpms that work with gentoo. they're standard formats like ogg, aac, or mp3. why use a !doctype statement, when almost all doctypes are or can be unique: because its better to know or be able to find out, than to not know
you can add the hostname and theip to /etc/hosts (linux) or search for hosts in hidden and system files on your windows drive and add it there, that will give you a way to resolv the hostname to the ip and properly access the vhost
moreover when has a vendor ever charged reasonable prices for a bto addon?
Um, it pretty much doesn't matter, you can't have a multi-platform format without downloading a mutli-platform player like vlc, or quicktime (which deosn't run well on linux at all). If one switches from wmv one has to download a new codec for mediaPLayer anyway, better to just dl vlc, for multimedia, or use real, but I'll never bother. bittorrent's also a good idea.
isn't that the one that comes with aol preinstalled "for your convieninece" and isn't that a celeron with intel extreme Graphics? vs radeon 9700. not to mention that normally the performance to price ratio from MAC to x86 makes OS X a $1500 OS. I think considering all that. . . and the fact that the mini is 6.5 x 6.5 x 2 instead of 24 x 7 x 20 and sits quietly anywhere. a difference of under $100 is substantial, and definitely makes it way better than comperable dell system.
btw: somewhat wrong. apple keyboard costs 29.00 [-student discount 26.00] and includes the very neccesary usb hub. bluetooth not actually required get your facts straight.
Buy a mounse at office depot for $10 (or $14 NOW, I guess here,
or your local computer retailer. Compare to base-line dell offering with intel extreme graphics, intel celeron CPU, etc.
mac mini still plays ut2005 without lag, only slightly jumpy running @ 800x600 32bit etc, etc.
This competes with any base-lline x86 system very well.
I like that I can pick My display or buy the apple dvi to rca connector and use my TV. you won't see that sort of a thing on a pc either, nor at that form factor sie, quality, etc.
NO, And I agree that there are few of our voices on slashdot. THose of f us more completely devoted to christ are more likely to to be imeshed in their bible than slashdot. If you'll think about it you'll relize it's true. THe world willnot be won or lost on slashdot, and evne though there are many who read it, slashdot has very little actual influence on the state of the world. Moreover, I'd like to point out that not all sects of christianity believe in Creation; the roman catholic church for example believes / typically teaches Divine evolution, and if I felt it worth My time, I'd argue this point with the Pope myself. However, I am eFree, and Believe that God created the earth in 3 literal 24 hour days. I cannot prove this except in the same way I prove my savior lives, and intend to do so as I have done, ever since I've been a sinner saved by grace. God Bless You - Remember that no one cares about the truth, except those that know it.
I find it Ironic that you say "Thank God" and then call this ruling sense. I think you need to get yourself staightened out. If you believe God exists, then how can you believe he didn't create the universe?
You should have told them that the problem would continue to re-occur unless they expanded the IT budget for personnel, since you were more qualified, but definitely worth more. At least, the moron should have been fired IMO.
Active Directory:
It will fix most of these problems.
Active Directory is pretty easy to use. You can probably get a book on windows 200/2003 server and it will cover some of the basics with active directory. All you really need to know is the basics.
Running a domain is one of the only ways to really secure a windows network.
You might also be able to get some support by posting on the activewin.com forums. I've seen some pretty good stuff there.
I'm even willing to help you out if I can. My e-mail address whould be public on my profile here, if not reply to post, or send me a personal message (I think slashdot supports that)
I don't have a lot of experience with AD, but the opportnity to have a reall situtaion to work with is intruiging
Also, I am full-time linux user, at home, I don't do windows, but in that type of operating environment don't even consider [linux] as I see you haven't. That's way more work than you obviously have time for.
XP is a decent product, and it's not terribly hard to harden. Take a Windows XP box, turn on auto-updates, run FireFox, and be done with it
"Windows Update?" that's the thing I disable on any system I install. "But why?' you may ask. I'll tell you why: becuase they don't work. Typically they break functionality, and restart services I've specifically disabled. I don't need extra services running on linux or windows, but they scare the heck out of me on windows, I never know when a service will have a hole discovered.
I'll give you that there are many linux distributions which are not secure, especially red hat. I've stopped running htem, for the most part, simply becuase of all the unnneccesary services loaded initially. I see all kinds of security hole posted for linux applications, but most of them are in version ".x" e.g. prerelease, so I don't really expect less. Sometimes an older omne will have a security hole but typically the comment along side it is:" we're not sure how you'd use this but there's genuinely a flaw here; so we fixed it. "
Getting everyone in the Windows world to that point is the stated goal of the MS security initiative.
Mostly I think windows takes a bad rap on slashdot more becuase of "trusted computing" amd "microsoft security model" , etc, than becuase there's a huge gap. But I do know that IE _IS_ the root of their problems and SP2 is just a sign of that. Since they say they can get as much scrutiny as they say they can, of their OS, then, these sorts of things shouldn't be happeneing. Linux only has theses in post-release becuase A) they rease as beta/ prebeta, and B) becuase of deeply hidden flaws like the one recently found in the kb5 lib.
The Slashdot headline made it seem like a MS rep said point blank that to make Windows secure would take until 2011. And that is pretty clear.Also I'd like to point out that newspaper headlines are almost always misleading, but I'm sure I would have drawn the smae conclusion, even though the though of Microsft changing the focus that much is just unbelievable.
there's only a couple problems with that:
1. Yes, you're correct that _most_ windows users don't care about security, or privacy, for that matter, but those people using firefox apparently _do_, since that's the primary reason I tell people to use it.
2. Also, I don't want more span drones, and So I think that all OS's should be reasonable secure, and tht no web browser should get away with the type of security vulnerabilities exibited by IE. Mozilla is absolutely taking a step in the right direction. The idea that people in government office might potentially use IE, scares me. I'm glad that there's a choice users and admiistrators can make.
As I recall, Lognhorn won't support .NAT at all. M$ is abondoning the technology altogether.
Um, so you're going to compare the stability of windows with the least stable portion of the whole linux xommunity, if you want true stability run Debian or slackware. FC in My experience is the most unstable OS I've seen since win95a. As for Mandrake 10: it just was released, they're obviously using the M$ model of release, then patch.
Want stability, speed, less bloat try gentoo