The amount of outright and tongue-in-cheek racism present in most of the replies is disappointing and outstanding.
And here I thought at least most of us were past that.
This is a really great way to put it, and it's something that's worth taking a serious look at. I've seen several articles and posts about the use of Linux in developing nations, all with too little regard for the very point you are making here.
... To believe otherwise is naive.
I think the article's fear is right on. The idea that every file on my computer is indexed along with web pages, email, etc, means that there is one less barrier between my personal content and hackers, not to mention intellectual property theft. How can you honestly not see how dangerous this is?
This may be fine for people who have machines filled with data they don't care about, but what about authors, musicians, programmers?
Though I like and use Google's internet search engine, I don't see the necessity moving that to my personal desktop. That's what the file system is for. This type of 'marginal-improvement' feature is the kind of thing that caused the growth and burst of the dot-com bubble, and will continue to plague IT unless we approach such things with more skepticism.
When it all comes down to it, if you don't know how to find files, email, and documents on your own machine with the current tools available, you need some serious help with organization. If your excuse is that 'your file-system is too big' then you probably have so much data that anyone who finds a way in will know their hard-earned work was worthwhile.
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The amount of outright and tongue-in-cheek racism present in most of the replies is disappointing and outstanding. And here I thought at least most of us were past that.
Agreed
Agreed.
This is a really great way to put it, and it's something that's worth taking a serious look at. I've seen several articles and posts about the use of Linux in developing nations, all with too little regard for the very point you are making here.
... To believe otherwise is naive. I think the article's fear is right on. The idea that every file on my computer is indexed along with web pages, email, etc, means that there is one less barrier between my personal content and hackers, not to mention intellectual property theft. How can you honestly not see how dangerous this is? This may be fine for people who have machines filled with data they don't care about, but what about authors, musicians, programmers? Though I like and use Google's internet search engine, I don't see the necessity moving that to my personal desktop. That's what the file system is for. This type of 'marginal-improvement' feature is the kind of thing that caused the growth and burst of the dot-com bubble, and will continue to plague IT unless we approach such things with more skepticism. When it all comes down to it, if you don't know how to find files, email, and documents on your own machine with the current tools available, you need some serious help with organization. If your excuse is that 'your file-system is too big' then you probably have so much data that anyone who finds a way in will know their hard-earned work was worthwhile.