Well, I was, after all, responding to him. This diversion is of your
making.
This "diversion" started as a response to a question you posed in a public
forum.
Absolutely, making implementation of protection imperitive.
Yes, Microsoft really needs to do something. For the sake of my friends
who use Windows, I hope they finally get it right with Vista. But based on
past history I seriously doubt that they will.
Now you're just being silly.
"Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they don't exist"
If Linux doesn't need AV and there are no viruses that target it, then
why are there Linux-compatible AV programs?
Because Windows needs them. Linux is widely used for email and web servers
so it needs to be able to check for infected traffic destined for Windows
machines. On desktop machines, there's the danger of a Linux user
downloading a document or program and then passing it on to a Windows user.
Now there _are_ a few recent commercial A/V programs for home users that
purport to protect Linux itself against viruses. However, their
rather alarming sales pitches are lacking in solid details and in contrast
to their Windows-virus brags they seem exceedingly reluctant to list all
of those nasty Linux viruses they're supposed to protect me against. In
other words, the a/v half of the package is nothing but snake oil. The
other half is usually an intrusion detector, but Linux already has plenty
of excellent intrusion detectors for free.
The same can be said of Windows. Many vulnerabilities are detected,
reported, and eliminated long before an exploit hits. You only here
about the ones that aren't.
Now you're contradicting yourself. You just admitted earlier that Windows
developers are "...re_acting, not pro_active". (see above)
But honestly now, how many users - especially home users - are going to
know what to do with source code?
When everyone has the source code, there are bound to be a few people in
any large pool of users who know how to work with it. That's already been
proven to work for adding features and bugfixes.
You're mixing up two different animals. Note that I used the phrase
"hobbiest nature of the home user distributions", and I did so
intentionally. Linux has a good share of the server market for the exact
reasons you stated. But this discussion is about home users, and Linux
has not gotten past the hobbiest phase for this part of the market.
The same Linux kernel used for servers, mainframes, and corporate desktops
is used on home machines. Many of the same GUI and desktop applications
used on government/corporate desktops are also used on home machines. The
primary software difference between a corporate system and a home system
is the installers designed to help a nontechnical home user install and
configure the OS by himself. Given that we're asking for Linux to be
installed aftermarket on frequently-undocumented hardware designed for
another OS by a user with no technical skill and no previous Linux
experience, I think the open-source developers have done a fantastic job
here.
Don't get me wrong, I like Linux and use it frequently. Were you to
check the source of my many posts over the years, you'd find knode as
the agent quite often.
It was clear right from the beginning that you're trolling, though I
didn't figure you for a reverse troll.
This is often a point of contention, as with Windows what you purchase
is a license to use the software, not ownership of it. The agreement is
that you use it subject to their conditions for use, not yours.
I wouldn't be so sure:
:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sale_Doctrine
:
: The first-sale doctrine as it relates to computer software is an area
: of legal confusion. Software publishers claim the first-sale doctrine
: does not apply because software is licensed, not sold, under the terms
: of an End User License Agreement (EULA). The courts have issued
: contrary decisions regarding the first-sale rights of consumers. Bauer
: & Cie. v. O'Donnell and Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus are two US Supreme
: Court cases that deal with copyright holders trying to enforce terms
: beyond the scope of copyright and patent, by calling it a license. Many
: state courts have also ruled that a sale of software is indeed a sale
: of goods under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) at the point where
: funds are exchanged for the physical copy of the software. The licensed
: and not sold argument is held mostly in the 8th and 7th Circuits while
: other circuits tend to support the opposite, thus leading to
: conflicting court opinions such as seen in the 3rd Circuit Step-Saver
: Data Systems, Inc. v. Wyse Technology and fifth circuit Vault Corp. v.
: Quaid Software as opposed to the 8th Circuit Blizzard v. BNETD
: (Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway Inc (2004)), which have not
: been resolved by the Supreme Court.
:
: Federal district courts in California and Texas have issued decisions
: applying the doctrine of first sale for bundled computer software in
: Softman v. Adobe (2001) and Novell, Inc. v. CPU Distrib., Inc. (2000)
: even if the software contains an EULA prohibiting resale. In the
: Softman case, after purchasing bundled software (A box containing many
: programs that are also available individually) from Adobe Systems,
: Softman unbundled it and then resold the component programs. The court
: ruled that Softman could resell the bundled software, no matter what
: the EULA stipulates, because Softman had never assented to the EULA.
: Specifically, the ruling decreed that software purchases be treated as
: sales transactions, rather than explicit license agreements. In other
: words, the court ruling argued that California consumers should have
: the same rights they would enjoy under existing copyright legislation
: when buying a CD or a book.
Personally I found it easier to switch to open source than take on a
multinational company and its horde of lawyers. Software-wise it turned
out to be a move for the better, anyway.
I don't necessarily like this business model either, but it is what it
is. One of the nice things about Linux is the ability to modify it, but
one must be knowledgable enough to do so for this to be of benefit.
The benefits are greater and more direct for the user who can modify the
code himself. However, individuals also benefit from the ability of
other users to add features and bugfixes.
You may not be the only one, and this is precisely what market demand is
all about. If Microsoft's business model continues to become cumbersome
and restrictive to the OEM system manufacturers, eventually one of them
may move away from the platform (and hopefully do better than Lindows).
While their software sucks (IMHO), Microsoft isn't stupid when it comes
to business. Yet, everything they're doing lately appears unbelievably
dumb. I am truly mystified as to what they're really up to.
Reread what I stated already, study up on the changes in Vista. They
really are quite substansive.
Where have we heard this before?
Right, and inconvenience if you will, that makes using official channels
easier.
One would hope so, since one of the goals of a consumer-friendly
distribution is to hide technical complexity.
Not unlike Windows in many respects, except for the implementation of
WGA.
Windows doesn't have any real equivalent of Linux repositories. Sure, you
can download and update stuff directly from MS but you can't download or
update all of your other installed applications unless you only use MS
apps. You also can't select and install new applicaitons from a field
of 15,000 using a simple point-and-click installer.
You missed the point. It may seem secure precisely because it's not
targeted.
But it -is- targeted. Linux was a multi-user networking OS when Windows
was still single-user, and its design is based on UNIX, a mature and
highly-respected multi-user networking OS even back then. In a large
corporate multi-user system there are bound to be hackers, corporate
spies, and employees with grudges who are have already been assigned user
accounts on the machine. So, Linux developers are hardly babes in the
woods when it comes to OS security and networks. In addition to that
expertise, top security experts worldwide are able to freely examine the
source code in search of design weaknesses - an advantage that Windows
doesn't enjoy. (Not that it matters, since Microsoft ignores the security
community's advice anyway)
Should that condition change, you may find it's not as secure
as is thought.
No, -you- missed the point. Secure design is independent of market share.
Safes made of 12" armor plate are more secure than safes made of cheap
sheetmetal whether they have 0.0001% of the market or 100%. PGP encryption
is just as secure no matter how many people use PGP. Linux email clients
won't automatically execute worm-infected email attachments no matter how
many people send them.
Oh, and your Mac story is getting dangerously close to the tired old
excuse that any OS that enjoys Windows' market share will inevitably be
penetrated just as often as Windows because it will be targeted just as
much. In other words, that the maximum security any consumer OS can
achieve is determined by market share rather than software design, and
that Windows has already achieved that maximum. That leads to some bizarre
conclusions:
- No matter how much better it's designed, no consumer OS that achieves
Windows' market share can ever be any more secure than Windows is.
- The only way for any other consumer OS to achieve greater OS security
than Windows offers, is to have less market share than Windows has.
- Windows can't be made any more secure through software fixes because
it's already reached the maximum OS security allowed by its market
share.
- If Microsoft increases its market share, Windows will become less
secure. If another OS takes away some of Windows' market share, Windows
will become more secure.
If a majority of regular old home users (grandma, old aunt sally, your 8
year old niece) become the base of linux home users, then the answer
should be obvious. Currently, the majority of Linux users are fairly
computer literate users, just as early Win3.x users were. With the
expansion into everyday lives of millions of non-technical users, it's
easy to get things to spread. Remember, "I love you...."
No matter how many email worms people send to Grannie, her Linux email
client still isn't going to execute them. She'll also have a new security
measure soon that Windows-using grannies won't: virtual machine
technology. Whereas Microsoft strongly discourages home users from running
Vista Home in a VM by requiring that they first buy a $300 version of
Vista, open-source developers are just about finished making VM software
part of the core OS. Once that's complete, setting up a VM is totally free
and just a matter of a few mouse-clicks. I can easily see consumer
friendly distro's automatically installing a small Internet-browsing VM as
part of the normal OS installation. Grannie would benefit from the
improved security of a VM without even knowing what a virtual machine is
or that her web-browser and email client were running in one.
)