I think this is a common experience, because of quality control issues and manufacturing being outsourced to contractors.
Here Apple talking about iPods shipping with a Windows Virus on it... straight from Apple's site. Click here . Apparently, a contractor was to blame.
Only programs running as Administrator can write to the system folder in Windows, just like Apple allows just any program with root access to do whatever it wants(utter lack of security?). We laugh at your utter sense of superiority and the ignorant Mac zealots that modded you up for conforming to their world view.
CFS won not because it was a better scheduler at the time, but because Inglo worked with the developers to make it better, instead of fighting everyone who questioned anything about it.
That was certainly not how I read it when it happened. I came off with the impression that Kolivas was ripped off of his ideas by Inglo and that Linus was wrong in brushing Inglo off and going with Inglo.
The LKML email linked reinforces my suspicion. Habits and attitudes don't die easily. We see ANOTHER guy complaining that his patch was half bakedly ripped off with no explanations whatsoever and a tangential acknowledgement.
FOSS projects are about helping everyone, and listening to new Ideas. Something Kolvias was having a hard time doing.
Did you even read the linked email? Inglo seems to be talking in patches and with no discussion. If something were to happen to him or if he quits due to any reason, there would be no one who would understand the code and the features behind it enough to maintain it.
Did you even read the article? They don't update anything if you turn off the updates. NOTHING. Please read that again. They only update WU if you choose 'Do not install updates, but keep me informed of them". MS claims the updating is needed so as to keep the user informed of updates available. And the rest of your rant is incoherent and meaningless so as to not even merit a response.
You're right. MS has posted a blog here which pretty much confirms what you said. What I am really interested to see is if Slashdot will post a correction.
You're right. Except that it does not happen that way. Even when you're on Microsoft's Site. The activex control for Windows Update runs only on their site, and detects that the user is running an old version and asks explicit permission from the user to update it and only then are any changes made to your system.
Well, this is Slashdot, after the article has been proven to be total FUD, and almost all the up-modded comments have been shown to be paranoid rantings with no justification, people like you turn up to STILL create more FUD and get modded up groupthink. Sigh.
Though the best fix could come from Microsoft not allowing arbitrary untrusted code to be run.. The second that there is even a hint of MS doing that, everyone on Slashdot would cry wolf about MS and DRM blocking access to what the user wants. That is exactly what happened with Trusted Computing. And who gets to decide what is trusted code and what is not? Will small software vendors have to pay to get their code certified? And will I be prevented from running code that I or a friend made?
That is not really a solution. What if the user wants to install programs that legitimately need admin access(Eg. Virus scanners, graphics drivers, etc) ? And don't mention badly written apps and games that need admin access to run with no reason. With your solution they will have to logout and then login as an admin, which they won't put up with.
Microsoft already tried to solve this in Vista. Even administrators run with user credentials until they need Admin access at which point they are hit with a UAC prompt which people already whine about and you want people to run only with user credentials?
I fail to see how that behavior makes a difference here. The user clicks on a link that ends in.JPG, and the browser asks him to run or save an SCR file. No hiding the extension is involved here. If the user runs it, BAM. If he saves it, THEN he or someone else would not be able to see the extension and would run it(Though I think XP SP2 pops up a warning about it being a file from the internet zone, not sure if the full filename shows up in the warning though).
Hiding the extension is a very most annoying thing though, it's the first setting that I change on a new install of Windows.
The saddest part about Slashdot is that people read the summary or sometimes a misleading articles, assume things and then comment away which is modded up by moderators who don't have much clue either. Then you see someone picking out holes in the summary and article and usually getting modded up(a good thing!). And then one looks at all the modded up wrong comments and thinks "WTF were these people thinking up when they were posting/modding up this crap?"
All Skype does is auto link URLs and make them launch in the default browser on the machine, just like almost every modern IM app does whenever you send them a link. The link looks like it's a JPG but is a.SCR, which infects the user only if they click "Run" in the dialog opened up by the browser(IE, FF, Opera, Safari etc.) According to your logic, it's Slashdot's fault if someone links to a virus EXE here and some clueless readers run it and then the virus autoappends a link to the posts that the Slashdot user posts.
So what solution do you propose to stop stupid users from hurting themselves, but without severely restricting or inconveniencing their activities? I mean, it's fashionable to bash the IT industry, but can you come up with a solution?
It does not "inject code" into Explorer any more than Notepad injects code into Explorer to run itself. An "infected user" is probably not the right person to listen to in such technical matters. FSecure has complete details on it if you're really interested here
Uh. IE7 on Vista runs in a sandbox(note that this is to mitigate the damage caused by buffer overflows in IE code and not intended to sandbox executable/virus code), and warns you square whenever that boundary is breached(by opening a PDF, EXE or SCR, for example).
Additionally, if the EXE requests admin privileges(required to install a rootkit, for example), the infamous UAC dialog appears. And if someone gives admin access when they wanted to view a JPEG, how is it Windows' or Skype's fault?
Also, most versions of windows I have used(since 95) ask before opening executable files(even.SCR)
So, Windows does not "still" allow un-sandboxed applications to run just clicking links. If users expect a JPEG but get a.scr or exe they have plenty of time/opportunity to click NO.
This is not Windows or Skype's fault. It's just clueless users getting owned.
The highlights of the collaboration are:
Microsoft will give Novell access to the test suites for Silverlight to ensure that we have a compatible specification. The same test suite that Microsoft uses for Silverlight.
Microsoft will give us access to the Silverlight specifications: details that might be necessary to implement 1.0, beyond what is currently published on the web; and specifications on the 1.1 version of Silverlight as it is updated.
Microsoft will make the codecs for video and audio available to users of Moonlight from their web site. The codecs will be binary codecs, and they will only be licensed for use with Moonlight on a web browser (sorry, those are the rules for the Media codecs[1]).
Novell will implement Silverlight 1.0 and 1.1 and will distribute it for the major Linux distributions at the time of the shipment. We will offer some kind of one-click install for Linux users (no "Open a terminal and type su followed by your password..." as well as RPM and DEB packages for the major distros and operating systems.
Licensed codecs on Linux should put corporate types to rest. The restriction that it must be used only in Moonlight sucks though.
Yes, it could be a trap. But this is not about Java(now open sourced) v/s.NET.
This is about Flash v/s Silverlight. Flash is closed source and bloated, and you can code for it only in ActionScript.
Silverlight/Moonlight is language neutral, so the developers can use any language that has a.NET backend available(Python, Ruby, C# etc. etc.)
The caveat is that there are no development tools for Silverlight except on Windows(Can you develop Flash on Linux?) and that MS can pull support for Linux in Silverlight 3.0. We will have the source code, but the cooperation might be stopped and the Mono team will be back to reverse engineering as they did with 1.0.
All in all, in the absence of a true FOSS technology in this sphere, I think Silverlight is a big leap over Flash.
Would you buy a paperback that had an advertisement in between every twentieth word on the page?
That's your average website.
Keyword: Buy. You're buying the paperback, but not paying to read your average website.
The argument that we need to "pay" for these sites to stay in business is similarly bogus. We are all paying for out bandwidth from the ISP's and paying quite a lot in most cases.
And how much of what you pay for ISPs reaches the websites you access and read? Zero.
We would have more access to more information of higher quality and it would be generally free (because of the ads). This hasn't happened at all.
That has happened. The evidence is before your eyes. Slashdot(and all the sites that it links to), Google, NYTimes.com and almost every other site are of good quality and generally free.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this is a common experience, because of quality control issues and manufacturing being outsourced to contractors. Here Apple talking about iPods shipping with a Windows Virus on it... straight from Apple's site. Click here . Apparently, a contractor was to blame.
Only programs running as Administrator can write to the system folder in Windows, just like Apple allows just any program with root access to do whatever it wants(utter lack of security?). We laugh at your utter sense of superiority and the ignorant Mac zealots that modded you up for conforming to their world view.
That was certainly not how I read it when it happened. I came off with the impression that Kolivas was ripped off of his ideas by Inglo and that Linus was wrong in brushing Inglo off and going with Inglo.
The LKML email linked reinforces my suspicion. Habits and attitudes don't die easily. We see ANOTHER guy complaining that his patch was half bakedly ripped off with no explanations whatsoever and a tangential acknowledgement.
FOSS projects are about helping everyone, and listening to new Ideas. Something Kolvias was having a hard time doing.Did you even read the linked email? Inglo seems to be talking in patches and with no discussion. If something were to happen to him or if he quits due to any reason, there would be no one who would understand the code and the features behind it enough to maintain it.
Did you even read the article? They don't update anything if you turn off the updates. NOTHING. Please read that again. They only update WU if you choose 'Do not install updates, but keep me informed of them". MS claims the updating is needed so as to keep the user informed of updates available. And the rest of your rant is incoherent and meaningless so as to not even merit a response.
See here.
Misleading articles make you wrong. YSee here.
Too bad for you the article is wrong. See here. Relax and take a deeeeep breath.
You've been FUD'ed. See here. Relax and take a deeeeep breath.
Enough of the hot air and FUD. Read The TFA is a piece of FUD. See here.
The TFA is a piece of FUD. See here.
You're right. MS has posted a blog here which pretty much confirms what you said. What I am really interested to see is if Slashdot will post a correction.
You're right. Except that it does not happen that way. Even when you're on Microsoft's Site. The activex control for Windows Update runs only on their site, and detects that the user is running an old version and asks explicit permission from the user to update it and only then are any changes made to your system.
Well, this is Slashdot, after the article has been proven to be total FUD, and almost all the up-modded comments have been shown to be paranoid rantings with no justification, people like you turn up to STILL create more FUD and get modded up groupthink. Sigh.
If you're really interested, read here .
The whole article is a piece of FUD. There are no auto updates of any files happening if you turn Automatic Updates off. See here .
Microsoft has posted a reply here.
That is not really a solution. What if the user wants to install programs that legitimately need admin access(Eg. Virus scanners, graphics drivers, etc) ? And don't mention badly written apps and games that need admin access to run with no reason. With your solution they will have to logout and then login as an admin, which they won't put up with.
Microsoft already tried to solve this in Vista. Even administrators run with user credentials until they need Admin access at which point they are hit with a UAC prompt which people already whine about and you want people to run only with user credentials?
Hiding the extension is a very most annoying thing though, it's the first setting that I change on a new install of Windows.
Two things. Firstly, MIDI are not "executable" files, like .EXE, .COM, .SCR, or .PIF
Second, I meant to say browsers in the versions of Windows(this is what TFA is about) and not other apps like Outlook. But, point taken.
The saddest part about Slashdot is that people read the summary or sometimes a misleading articles, assume things and then comment away which is modded up by moderators who don't have much clue either. Then you see someone picking out holes in the summary and article and usually getting modded up(a good thing!). And then one looks at all the modded up wrong comments and thinks "WTF were these people thinking up when they were posting/modding up this crap?"
All Skype does is auto link URLs and make them launch in the default browser on the machine, just like almost every modern IM app does whenever you send them a link. The link looks like it's a JPG but is a .SCR, which infects the user only if they click "Run" in the dialog opened up by the browser(IE, FF, Opera, Safari etc.) According to your logic, it's Slashdot's fault if someone links to a virus EXE here and some clueless readers run it and then the virus autoappends a link to the posts that the Slashdot user posts.
So what solution do you propose to stop stupid users from hurting themselves, but without severely restricting or inconveniencing their activities? I mean, it's fashionable to bash the IT industry, but can you come up with a solution?
It does not "inject code" into Explorer any more than Notepad injects code into Explorer to run itself. An "infected user" is probably not the right person to listen to in such technical matters. FSecure has complete details on it if you're really interested here
Uh. IE7 on Vista runs in a sandbox(note that this is to mitigate the damage caused by buffer overflows in IE code and not intended to sandbox executable/virus code), and warns you square whenever that boundary is breached(by opening a PDF, EXE or SCR, for example). Additionally, if the EXE requests admin privileges(required to install a rootkit, for example), the infamous UAC dialog appears. And if someone gives admin access when they wanted to view a JPEG, how is it Windows' or Skype's fault? Also, most versions of windows I have used(since 95) ask before opening executable files(even .SCR)
So, Windows does not "still" allow un-sandboxed applications to run just clicking links. If users expect a JPEG but get a .scr or exe they have plenty of time/opportunity to click NO.
This is not Windows or Skype's fault. It's just clueless users getting owned.
Yes, it could be a trap. But this is not about Java(now open sourced) v/s .NET.
This is about Flash v/s Silverlight. Flash is closed source and bloated, and you can code for it only in ActionScript. Silverlight/Moonlight is language neutral, so the developers can use any language that has a .NET backend available(Python, Ruby, C# etc. etc.)
The caveat is that there are no development tools for Silverlight except on Windows(Can you develop Flash on Linux?) and that MS can pull support for Linux in Silverlight 3.0. We will have the source code, but the cooperation might be stopped and the Mono team will be back to reverse engineering as they did with 1.0.
All in all, in the absence of a true FOSS technology in this sphere, I think Silverlight is a big leap over Flash.