Full Disclosure mailing list archives
RE: M$ Getting Better?
From: "joe" <mvp () joeware net>
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 16:49:54 -0400
You realize of course this is silly? You start off with saying that the majority needs to realize that they shouldn't be using MS because they are bad and that they hold majority because they are criminals and do bad things and that people should go buy something that isn't MS. Then you go on about how ANYONE who holds majority is a bad thing. Will you just continually run around complaining about whomever is on top? Or is it simply that MS happens to be on top now and you aren't happy with that? What is it that you really want, diversity of choices, no one to get too far ahead of anyone else, or you don't want MS to be in the market at all? You have the former in your hand already. The middle is very difficult given normal markets unless there is complete and total and easy interaction between the competitors with no clearly better product in any category including price, security, and functionality. The latter seems to be closer to the truth because you think they are bad though I wouldn't hold your breath in your shoes as if it got very bad and MS was as evil as you say they are, they could simply buy Red Hat and SUSE set the developers up writing Mine Sweeper 2. BTW, you can push for and support and say how good your favorite flavor of OS is without tearing at other OSes or whining how bad they are. People telling me I shouldn't buy MS software because they are criminals or that they suck just makes me laugh. People telling me look at this really cool feature here, makes me look. There are many folks out there pushing open source solutions who never even say MS and do a good job of it because they are clear headed, open minded, and pushing the good things about the stuff they are pushing. They aren't sitting there going M$ sucks because you can search on fines and see that they are criminals or that the entire Windows line sucks and needs a redesign because I heard that on FD once and sounds cool to say. I disagree that you can't have security with a single majority used product. It just takes work to lock the product down which is occurring. Having multiple products is good for choice, so you can choose the correct tool for the correct application. However, having multiple tools can also be administratively intense and costly, especially when trying to integrate the solutions for a strong woven overall solution. Having two many products or vendors within a single company actually hurts security as it becomes too much to maintain, manage as all Oses and products have to be patched at some point. The centralized on a given product/vendor, the easier to do that overall management. What I am saying is that running Windows, Linux (multiple flavors at multiple revs with multiple custom mods), BSD (multiple flavors at multiple revs with multiple custom mods), Unix (multiple flavors), OS/400, VMS all together doesn't make a company safer, it makes them more insecure or costly. They either have to hire more people who have good knowledge of each of the platforms or they hire a few people who are good at a couple of them and cover for the others. Ask anyone who has worked in a sufficiently large company and they will tell you that large diversity in platforms is a nightmare to deal with. -----Original Message----- From: full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com [mailto:full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com] On Behalf Of Eric Paynter Sent: Monday, June 21, 2004 1:21 PM To: full-disclosure () lists netsys com Subject: RE: [Full-disclosure] M$ Getting Better? On Mon, June 21, 2004 8:43 am, joe said:
Last time I heard, IE was the most popular browser with something like 70%+ of the browsing done with IE. As for browsing OSes I think I recall hearing that XP was over 50% of the machines and that Windows machines as a whole accounts for over 90%.
All you have to do is search google for the words "Microsoft" and "fined" to see how many times they have been convicted of braking the law to maintain that market share. They use unfair and illegal tactics to hold the fort. That's why people don't like them. Are you happy doing business with criminals?
Why do you feel you have to go around whining? It is almost as if you are trying to justify your decision.
No, not justify. The reason is to attempt to bring awareness to the fact that the only reason Microsoft holds the balance of power is because people continue to support them. And that alternatives are available, but they are struggling. Until the majority starts to realize that there are alternatives, MS will hold their seat of power. But with more awareness, the alternatives will grow. So people go around "whining" to spread awareness of the alternatives. Perhaps with greater awareness, MS will be held accountable by their (ex-)customers, who will vote with their dollars by not purchasing MS products.
When you break up with a g/f (or b/f?) do you go around telling everyone how horrible that person is or do you just go find someone else. If the former, you have deeper issues. If the later, apply that your OS choice and be done with it, I think you may be happier.
See above... it's not a significant other we're talking about here. It's a dominant market player who controls innovation and has severly hurt the high-technology industry. A better analogy is a tyrant dictator who needs to be unseated. Only through education can people begin to realize just how unethical Microsoft has been. And perhaps with that education, they will stop buying products from the company that regularly violates the law and inhibits innovation. Then we will see the alternatives grow and real innovation will occur.
No company that sells a product for real money can win against a product that is free unless the product being sold offers some sort of value that doesn't exist in the free one.
Not true. The company that sells a product for real money can win against a product that is free because they have real money for marketing. And they use it to convince (non-technical) CEO's and other large-dollar decision makers that the alternatives are not safe. The other products, whether free or for sale, have no defense because they simply don't have the resources to combat the multi-billion dollar marketing campaigns that MS puts forward. And before people say this is too off topic, I suggest it is strongly on-topic. Having a single product account for a clear majority of the market is dangerous from a security perspective because it reduces diversity. As we've seen time and time again, a single worm can bring the entire global network to its knees. The dominance of one system means the dominance of one exploit. We need more diversity to maintain security of our systems. If MS continues to grow and stamp out the alternatives, we will continue to be in very very bad shape and we will continue to see mass e-epidemics occur. No matter how secure MS makes their products, there will always be vulnerabilities found. -Eric _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
Current thread:
- RE: M$ - so what should they do?, (continued)
- RE: M$ - so what should they do? joe (Jun 21)
- Re: M$ - so what should they do? Valdis . Kletnieks (Jun 21)
- Re: M$ - so what should they do? Valdis . Kletnieks (Jun 21)
- Re: M$ - so what should they do? Nick FitzGerald (Jun 21)
- Re: M$ - so what should they do? Aditya, ALD [ Aditya Lalit Deshmukh ] (Jun 22)
- Re: M$ - so what should they do? Valdis . Kletnieks (Jun 21)
- RE: M$ - so what should they do? joe (Jun 21)
- Re: M$ - so what should they do? Valdis . Kletnieks (Jun 21)
- RE: M$ Getting Better? joe (Jun 21)
- RE: M$ Getting Better? Eric Paynter (Jun 21)
- RE: M$ Getting Better? joe (Jun 21)
- RE: M$ Getting Better? Eric Paynter (Jun 21)
- Re: M$ Getting Better? Nasir Ghaznavi (Jun 21)
- RE: M$ Getting Better? Todd Burroughs (Jun 22)
- RE: M$ Getting Better? joe (Jun 22)