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Windows Operating Systems Software Bug

Bill Gates: Windows Patched Faster than Linux 679

Posted by CowboyNeal from the arguing-over-who-sucks-less dept.
petard writes "In a very interesting interview published by the Register, Bill Gates made several interesting claims about Longhorn. Many of them have been extensively covered recently, including plans to force users to patch automatically. Surprisingly, everyone seems to have overlooked his statement that Microsoft fixes bugs faster than Linux developers do. 'We've gone from little over 40 hours on average to 24 hours. With Linux, that would be a couple of weeks on average.' Either he's lying or woefully misinformed; their recent performance seems to be more on the order of 3+ months, or over 2000 hours."
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Bill Gates: Windows Patched Faster than Linux More

Bill Gates: Windows Patched Faster than Linux

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  • Maybe? (Score:3, Funny)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) * on Thursday October 16, 2003 @06:16PM (#7234852) Homepage
    Maybe they meant they make bugs faster?
    • ...his personal desktop. "It's good to be da king!" (-:
      • *I* think he's referring to the time until a bug gets fixed in the source tree. Furthermore, what measures as a "bug" may differ. Many "bugs" in open source software are feature requests, etc. The measurement may be from the time that Microsoft filter personnel classify something as a "bug" (i.e. a reported severe security hole may sit around for months before it reaches developers flagged as a MUSTFIX bug with MS's internal bug tracking system, for all I know). Finally, security-related bugs may differ

        • Re:YA *I* think he's referring to... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @06:56PM (#7235293) Journal
          By "time until fixed in the source tree", I'm just pointing out that Microsoft may take months to roll out a patch to users in a hotfix or service pack.

          Also, to be fair, I suspect that few users immediately apply kernel patches in the Linux world. They wait until RH's up2date or Debian's apt-get sucks down the latest and greatest. A fair comparison should might say "Microsoft does not attempt to supply a 'rapid-release' patch for technical users at all, unlike the Linux community. However, it's time-to-Joe-end-user-release is comparable to that of Red Hat." or something along those lines.

          I certainly feel that, at least applying the immediately obvious and most useful criteria, Microsoft does *not* fix bugs (release patches) more quickly than the Linux community.

        • Re:YA *I* think he's referring to... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by tdemark ( 512406 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @07:06PM (#7235365) Homepage
          Actually, I think he's referring to the time between Microsoft admiting there is a bug and the time a patch is available.

          Example: Today's Windows bug. Microsoft announced it today and patched it today. That's less than 24 hours to "fix" it.

          This type of logic makes perfect sense to the PR or marketing departments.

          - Tony

          • Re:YA *I* think he's referring to... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Mattcelt ( 454751 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @08:01PM (#7235807)
            My thoughts exactly. The fact is, MS usually waits until it is ready to release a patch before it announces the vulnerability, and whines loudly when someone decides to notify the user community before the hotfix is available.

            The problem is, the bug may be discovered independently by some knowledgable crackers and taken advantage of for months while stolid MS works at its own pace to 'fix' the problem. (Which, incidentally, often a) doesn't fix the whole problem, or b) introduces other problems.)

            Worse yet, when the user community doesn't have knowledge of a problem and a cracker does, the user, who may have been able to obviate the problem through another means (blocking RPC at the firewall, or whatever), is now left defenseless until MS gets around to telling them about the problem.

            So if MS can keep everybody's mouth shut about the problem until it's ready to release the patch, of course they're going to have an incredible record for getting patches out quickly.
        • a reported severe security hole may sit around for months before it reaches developers flagged as a MUSTFIX bug with MS's internal bug tracking system

          That was exactly my first thought.

          given that this is currently a senstive Microsoft weak point, I'd be expecting at least a bit of coloring of the truth.

          I've come to the conclusion that corporations advertise according to their weaknesses; e.g. Hyundai advertising their "dependability" when they are in fact the most unreliable cars I've seen, or any kids

    • Re:Maybe? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Illbay ( 700081 )
      Interesting how in this case "faster" means "more often."

      HINT TO BILL: Maybe hardly EVER needing a patch is a GOOD THING.

      • Re:Maybe? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Randolpho ( 628485 )
        And you're aware of some elusive Open Source software program that "hardly ever" needs a patch?

        'cause I still haven't found one. :)
  • The real question is which OS needs to be patched faster.


    • The reality is that no one can produce, however we have tried, a perfectly bugless software.

      And there is no way we can be certain that our softwares don't have any unintentional vulnerability either.

      Nobody likes software patches, but it is a necessity if we want to make our softwares work better.

      The question is not how fast one makes the patch - although it's very important - the keypoint in making patches is how EASY we can make our patch-delivery system works.

      No doubt that the Linux patches, at least

      • Re:Patching Faster vs. Patching Easier (Score:4, Informative)

        by AstroDrabb ( 534369 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @08:52PM (#7236159)
        I am not saying that the Linux patching process is cumbersome, but we gotta admit that the average users (not sysadmins) just can't begin to understand how to patch their Linux boxes.
        What? Have you ever used Red Hat's up2date tool? It is easier then windows update. It is just a GUI app that you click Next in about 3 times, wait for the new packages to download and your done. What in the world could be hard about that? Red Hat even has a little icon that sits in the notification area and turns a bright red with an exclamation point when there are updates available. Clicking on that brings up the uber-newbie friendly GUI to download them. No terminal (command line) involved. No rebooting involved (unless you upgrade the kernel). You can install ALL the updates at once with NO reboot between them, unlike many MS updates, especially service packs that require a reboot. Please don't mention chain loader, no average Joe is going to be able to use that.
  • Can *you* tell the difference listening to marketing folks?
    • Marketing? I think he is just stoned :) People believe all sorts of daft things when they are stoned... I even believe I make sense :p
    • For my sins I've done extensive work with WinCE. Often we've found serious bugs for which no fix ever came about. I've never seen a fix come out in less than a month. When you do get fixes they're in the form of "QFEs". Currently you need to download a gigabyte of this shit to fix WinCE3.0.

      In comparison, I've seen Linux fixes come out in less than 30 minutes. Likely having Linux hackers spanning all time zones helps a lot to improve bug fixing time. Report bug at 6pm, patch available 8am.

  • 'Fast' Bug Fixing (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Raven ( 30575 ) * on Thursday October 16, 2003 @06:17PM (#7234869) Homepage
    Bill Gates is a very intelligent man... who is currently acting like a very intelligent trained monkey, spouting defensive FUD. But that's nothing new.

    I wouldn't be surprised if MS does make pages in under 24 hours. But I bet the process looks like this.

    - Microsoft notified about a problem.
    - Notification email sits in Exchange server for a week due to problems with a corrupted mailbox.
    - Flunky reads email, decides it would never happen in real life, demotes to low priority.
    - MS Updates their problem tracking database. Issue is lost in the db move.
    - Another flunky goes through and re-adds all the issues from emails.
    - Smarter employee upgrades importance, flags it as 'do now!'
    - Issue languishes for another few weeks.
    - Vulnerability 'approved for fix!'
    - Programmers fix it in under 24 hours.
    - Patch enters testing queue.
    - Patch is tested in an inadequate number of systems that all include only MS software an no 'unusual' configurations like, say, not using IE as default browser.
    - Patch is sent to deployment team.
    - Wait another week.
    - Deployment team packages fix, places it on wu.ms.c.
    - Fix breaks on many systems, system admins tear out hair, MS pats themselves on backs for their fine bug fixing system.

    Myrddin.
  • Lie?

    Or when did it become not illegal??
  • Didn't you know that Bill Gates' watch runs Windows CE and it crashed some months ago do to an exploit in RPC in the second hand. Now it just goes really slow. What is a month to you or me is 2 hours to him. He now talks that slowly as well.
  • 'Whuaaaaaaa?'
  • Gates is assuming that when you do something enough times you get better at it than people who don't do it as often...
  • wouldn't patch time depend on the bugs involved?
  • Quoth Bill: But apart from Photoshop, I can't think of desktop applications where you would need more than 4 gigabytes of physical memory

    He's broadening his outlook (so to speak). I can remember a time when he couldn't think of any reason why you'd need more than 640K.
    • This quote won't go down in history though, primarily because whether or not he thinks it is important, very soon more than 4GB will be available on the desktop. We were stuck with 640KB for a good 5 years past the point when it inconvenienced us. We will get past 4GB before it is a significant problem, whether or not he thinks it is important.
    • I can't believe he talked about a non Microsoft product...
  • ... including plans to force users to patch automatically...

    Most Windows admins know that patches should be installed only when they are really needed, because M$ has a bad history of releasing patches that break systems instead of fixing them, Windows XP SP 1 is an example.
    This doesn't sound good to me, unless they are willing to test their patches extensively before forcing users to install them.

    • More than just breaking systems Microsoft has a poor history of forcing new changes in licensing in patches. The license text that gives them complete access to my computer (IIRC) for installing SP 1 is the main reason I haven't done so. Now they'll have the option to force me to accept the terms of a license I didn't have any real option to turn down. I wonder what the possible legal implications of this are? Must I adapt to a new license at such time? Am I not allowed to continue to use the unpatched soft
  • Gates: "I can't think of desktop applications where you would need more than 4 gigabytes of physical memory."

    Heh, so, 20 years from now, will we laugh at that like we do with the old quote "640K ought to be enough for anybody"?

    Here's hoping to yes =)
  • I'll give MS credit for being faster on average. Sometimes, linux apps have patches out in a matter of hours. Other times... not so fast. Or the patch would put you out-of-sync with the distro you're using, unless you wait for the "approved" patch.

    Long story short, I think the "windows-vs-linux" thing is a lot like "cars-vs-SUV's". Someone call someone else a Nazi so we can move on. :-)
  • Yes, Microsoft is faster at patching things AFTER the weaknesses they've known about for the previous ten months are finally exploited, AFTER people that report their problems months earlier don't see a fix and publicize the vulnerabilities.

    Microsoft is indeed very quick at fixing things after their corrupted servers have DDOS'd the rest of the Internet. Congratulations Microsoft!
  • I really wonder if Microsoft has so many more bugs and so many more patches than Linux.

    I mean, after I install an average workstation of redhat 9.0 I see a lot more patches downloaded from up2date than the 36 or so for a fresh XP Pro install. Of course I mean for all the apps, not just core kernel stuff.

    Minor version numbers for *nix packages seem to increase faster, which is a good thing because that means more holes getting patched faster [than Windows].

    I guess my comment is that we need to see mor

  • Linux the kernel or Linux the system? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mark19960 ( 539856 ) <{moc.gnillibyrtnuocwol} {ta} {kraM}> on Thursday October 16, 2003 @06:26PM (#7234984) Journal
    It seems that Microsoft is attacking the system, not the kernel.
    I havent really heard anything about Linux, really.
    I have heard about the SSH issues, ect, but never about Linux. SSH, OpenSSH,ect. are just parts of a Linux system, or BSD for that matter.
    has there actually been a Linux KERNEL exploit in the last few years?
    and besides, when there is a Linux KERNEL exploit its fixed in hours, or minutes! I think it would be impossible for M$ to match that.
    this article qualifies for more M$ Fud.

    • Re:Linux the kernel or Linux the system? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday October 16, 2003 @06:58PM (#7235308) Homepage Journal

      When is the last time a vulnerability in the windows kernel was found? To be fair, we will include vulnerabilities in the HAL, since in Linux the kernel contains that functionality as well.

      OpenSSH is a part of Linux as much as RPC or Windows Messaging is a part of Windows.

      If a linux kernel exploit is fixed in minutes, then it was a pretty dumb bug. Microsoft has been good lately about doing proactive security reviews, and they often find holes before anyone else does. Linux mostly seems to do reactive fixes, at least from where I'm sitting. Which is to say, at a Windows XP machine, but right next to a gentoo Linux system.

      • OpenSSH is a part of Linux as much as RPC or Windows Messaging is a part of Windows.

        Wow, you mean theres no way at all I could run a box without OpenSSH? You should tell that to my workstation I'm writing this on right this second.

        Sure, you can turn off RPC after you install windows, but I had Debian installed without any servers at all. Do you think you could log in and shut off RPC fast enough to avoid picking up a worm or two while on a network (like, say, when you register XP over the internet)? J

    • It seems that Microsoft is attacking the system, not the kernel. I havent really heard anything about Linux, really.

      There have been local root compromises and remote DoS issues this year. I'm not sure about remote root compromises. (I've just patched the systems without trying to understand every single detail in security advisories.)

      and besides, when there is a Linux KERNEL exploit its fixed in hours, or minutes!

      Dream on.

  • Posting to an MS article!!!
  • That will be a nightmare. Even when MS tries to issue what they think are legitimate security patches they do horrible things (like render Outlook Express unable to receive attachements that don't end in extensions MS approves - this is supposed to stop viruses but it doesn't have any override so I can't receive tarballs or stuffit files at all wihtout asking the sender to rename it to a .zip extension and resend it). Imagine what it will be like when they force you to install patches to break your DivX c
    • Jason believes:
      this is supposed to stop viruses but it doesn't have any override
      Not true, you can override it. It's still an insanely stupid option, but you can turn it off by going to Tools->Options->Security and disable the option called 'Do Not Allow Attachments blah blah'.

  • Yep (Score:2)

    by Feztaa ( 633745 )
    their recent performance seems to be more on the order of 3+ months

    Not only that, but most linux vulns get patched within a few hours.

    Most of the time, I hear about the patch before I hear that there was ever a vuln. Contrast this with the 30+ known IE vulnerabilities that haven't been patched in years.

    Go figure.
  • "Either he's lying or woefully misinformed; their recent performance seems to be more on the order of 3+ months, or over 2000 hours."

    This is quite an odd assertation, as the link only details one security flaw, and only mentions the date it was discovered, not the date it was patched. Besides, it would be utterly incompetent (and dare I say malicious?) to draw a conclusion from one datapoint.

  • Bah! The suits at Microsoft are running scared (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Trolling4Dollars ( 627073 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @06:31PM (#7235049) Journal
    Why do you think they are giving Linux so much attention these days? I think this means we are now in between the "They laughed at us" and "They tried to fight us" part.

    And if we follow Mahatma Gandhi's approach, the best approach is to keep doing what we do while letting MS bash away. Eventually it will become quite evident as to which side is interested in doing good for their fellow man.
  • Bill Gates in 1981:
    "Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM."
    Bill Gates in 2003:
    "64 bit is coming to desktops, there is no doubt about that," he said. "But apart from Photoshop, I can't think of desktop applications where you would need more than 4 gigabytes of physical memory, which is what you have to have in order to benefit from this technology."
    He must have skipped the lecture on exponents.
  • Our Prime Minister too told the press some outageous comment on Mussolini about "... just recluding dissindent to exclusive summer resorts..." He backed off claiming he had drunk too much wine during the interview... watch Billy say the same... ;-)
  • What is going to be important, Gates told reporters yesterday, is security. Microsoft invested over $100 million to refocus on building products that strive to be secure by design, by default and by deployment. In the Windows Division development work was put on hold while Microsoft conducted security training, threat modeling, source-code review and penetration testing.

    Blasphemy. Pure unadulterated blasphemy. Note, he says it's going to be important. All this time, and secure by default is now going
  • My favorite study on this question was "Linux vs. Microsoft: Who Solves Security Problems Faster?" [csoinformer.com] by Jim Reavis [csoinformer.com]. The data is from 1999 and 2000, but it is nicely systematic. At least back in 2000, Linux was much faster than Microsoft, averaging 11 days vs. 16 days.

    Crispin
    ----
    Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
    Chief Scientist, Immunix Inc. [immunix.com]
    Immunix: [immunix.com] Security Hardened Linux Distribution

  • He was misheard. He was really claiming to generate bugs faster than Linux.

    (though, truth be told, they generate more bugs than a 5-month-long New York City garbageman strike)
  • Amazingly enough there appears to be little discussion of the fact that the recent MSRPC fixes *still* leave the host vulnerable - that's after 2 previous patches. Still no word from Microsoft on a fix, but a DoS exploit has been around for over a week now.
    • RPC is a gateway into many services inside of window.

      Saying that they "still haven't fix that rpc hole" is like saying that they "still haven't fixed that windows hole".

      The bug you are referring to exploits a defect the SMB (windows filesharing) authentication code. The previous two patches covered different problems inside of DCOM (ie: one was not related to the other, aside from the fact it was exploitable).

  • What are his start/end times? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by k12linux ( 627320 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @06:37PM (#7235111)
    We've gone from little over 40 hours on average to 24 hours

    I'd like to know what part of the process he is talking about? Is that the time between when the hole is made public and when the patch is released? That would explain things a bit... since MS typicaly can keep the news under wraps until they release the patch simultaneously.

    Including a lot of "0 seconds between bug announcement and patch release" is bound to give you a much lower average. So, it would be possible for MS to receive 85 bug reports, surpress all but one for three months, release 85 patches and average just a bit better than 24 hours between public announcement and patch.

  • IE (Score:2)

    by hackus ( 159037 )
    The man is smokin crack.

    Half the products Microsoft produces are not patched at all and when 2000/XP are found to be lost causes to Microsoft's multiple security initiatives over the past years, products are just decommisioned.

    Yeah, they patched all the holes in Win98 permenantly this year because it is no longer supported and end of lifed.

    I still have patches comming in for my Linux 2.0.xx kernel!!!

    -Hack

    PS: Bill your doin serious weed man, you should stop that.
  • That whole article was a sad piece of PR crap.
    1. "This release is going to be driven by technology, not by a release date"
    2. "But we have to make sure that we really take on something dramatic, like 32 bit computing eight years ago, or the NT kernel in Windows XP."
    3. Gates told reporters that Microsoft won't stop the development of its browser Internet Explorer
    4. "How could we ignore the browser?," Gates responded. 'The Explorer is fully integrated with the operating system, take it away and the OS grinds to a h
  • From the article: I can't think of desktop applications where you would need more than 4 gigabytes of physical memory

    Didn't he make a statement like that a few decades ago? And wasn't he wrong? I figure that UIs in the future are going to need a LOT of RAM. In fact, this one VERY good voice recognition software that a company I'm dealing with has, requires a mimimum of 1 Gig of RAM just for their app. This is what makes it poerate so well. I'm sure there will be plenty of apps (especially in the UI

  • Granted, he's wrong. But does it really matter?

    Two or three years ago, when Linux was still struggling for widespread adoption and everyone still thought Microsoft was the greatest thing going in computing, this would have been a big deal. The press used to treat anything Microsoft said as the gospel truth, and were hugely skeptical of Linux. A comment like this from Gates would have meant a lot.

    But now Linux has made huge inroads into the server market and is already beginning to penetrate the desktop
  • reminds me of the Iraqi "Information" Minister.
    "What Americans? There are no American troops on Iraqi soil"

    Also good to note that Linux patches have been kicking more ass than Windows EVER will, from back in the day with the port 139 "bug" (Linux patch was out within hours, Windows, took ALOT longer for obvious reasons) to any in the unforeseen future.

    Hell...I think Ol' Gatesy is mistaken; bugs that are intentionally placed in software in order to patch and call it an upgrade, well....they don't count.

  • he's probably not lying... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Malor ( 3658 ) * on Thursday October 16, 2003 @06:43PM (#7235177) Journal
    Most likely, he's just reporting what he's being told. And most likely, it's being mis-measured by someone.

    Microsoft is a big company, and Windows is a very complex beast. My initial thought is that perhaps the security developers do indeed code and submit a patch within 24 hours.

    But then the patch has to wend its way through the labyrinth of QA and regression testing. Because Windows is so highly integrated, even small changes can have big unforeseen consequences, so they can't rush patches out the door without breaking things. I believe Microsoft makes patches available via their support pages well before it hits Windows Update. What *we* are measuring is the time from bug report to being in Windows Update; what *they* are probably measuring is time to patch submittal or time to initial availability via support.

    I really, really prefer the improved code separation in the Unix environment; if, say, BIND has a problem or exploit, it's highly unlikely that a patch it will break Postfix or Apache. Because things are better-separated, the developers understand their packages better and can more confidently push patches into their stable branches.

    I worry a little about the way the Unix desktops are becoming increasingly interdependent, with lots of libraries and lots of integration... are we going to end up in the same place, eventually? Microsoft doesn't employ idiots, and considering the amount of trouble they've had scaling, well.... I just hope the free software developers are thinking about this.
    • Microsoft doesn't employ idiots perhaps, but they are ruled by the marketing departmenet. They add features based on what customers want and stability isn't what most customers want. I bitched about rebooting Win9x twice a week at my last job and someone asked what the big deal was. He didn't believe a computer could stay up and running for two weeks, let alone the year or two that some machines are up, essentially zero reboots between kernel upgrades.

      Linux is different in that its developers add features

    • Re:he's probably not lying... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sheldon ( 2322 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @09:54PM (#7236550)
      "And most likely, it's being mis-measured by someone."

      It's certainly being mismeasured by the Linux community. While I haven't done a thorough study, I make note of a Konqueror patch that came out last year.

      - Linux community touted it as proof patches were fast, because it was into the source tree in 90 minutes
      - It took one month before KDE released a new binary compiled with the patch
      - It took an additional month before Redhat incorporated this into a patch for their Linux distribution.

      The issue also impacted IE, and it took Microsoft two weeks to release a binary patch on Windows Update.

      The Linux community claimed 90 minutes, when it was really two months.

      Microsoft counted it accurately as two weeks.

      Just reporting good news to yourself doesn't make you better.

      • Re:he's probably not lying... (Score:4, Funny)

        by horza ( 87255 ) on Friday October 17, 2003 @03:17AM (#7237875) Homepage

        - Linux community touted it as proof patches were fast, because it was into the source tree in 90 minutes
        - It took one month before KDE released a new binary compiled with the patch
        - It took an additional month before Redhat incorporated this into a patch for their Linux distribution.

        The Linux community claimed 90 minutes, when it was really two months.

        Or overnight for those of us using Gentoo.

        Phillip.
  • Gates: We invented personal computing

    God what a lying idiot he is! Apple, TRS-80, S100-systems, ABC80 (in Sweden), PET, C64, Amiga, Sinclair, etc. Plus many other that I haven't mentioned. All predates the PC. They didn't invent jack shit, they are just a bunch of shoddy cloners!

    More modern GUI systems? Xerox! Mac! Microsoft don't invent. They clone, embrace, extend and extinguish, leaving the ground deserted and barren where they have passed by.
  • He could have at least thought of something better to say than that. I mean geez I don't know any Windows diehards who would agree with him about Windows patching. They might argue about which is more secure, but not about who is better at getting patches out quickly. Every admin myself included has real issues with the quality of MS's patching. Beyond the length of time it takes to get patches there is the cross your fingers and hope the patch doesn't blow up your server factor. Then there is the patch fo
  • Conectiva [conectiva.com] routinely releases patches that are months late.

    Take, for instance, the most recent, CLA-2003:762 [insecure.org], released October 14 for a glibc bug from August 14 [mitre.org].

    My all-time favorite, however, is CLA-2003:628 [insecure.org], released in April 2003 for a vulnerability in vixie cron announced in March 2001 [mitre.org]!

    So, if you count Conectiva, Gates is probably right about it taking a couple of weeks on average, even if everyone else does it in 24 hours.

    760 days for Conectiva + 1 day each for 50 other distributions is about 16 days
  • Bill Gates probably has no idea how long it takes for Linux to get patched. And he doesn't have to know, because there are few if any consequences for dishonesty for a person with power.
  • Gates also claims Microsoft invented personal computing.

    Bwa-ha-ha!

    ISTR that Gates and Allen started Microsoft to offer products for the personal computers already in existence. To quote from the Microsoft Museum "Microsoft History Trivia" document, the appearance of the MITS Altair 8800 inspired Gates and Allen to develop a BASIC language for it.

    Microsoft can't even be trusted to get their revisionist history straight.

  • Everyone's talking, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by banky ( 9941 ) <gregg@neurob[ ]ing.com ['ash' in gap]> on Thursday October 16, 2003 @06:51PM (#7235244) Homepage Journal
    ..no one is posting any hard data, any more than he is. This post [slashdot.org] references actual numbers, but other than "what a freaking liar/what a misinformed idiot" no one is offering proof on the matter.

  • But of course (Score:2, Funny)

    by JamesP ( 688957 )
    I mean, MSBlast patched my box in no time...

  • Angry (Score:2, Troll)

    by dolo666 ( 195584 )
    I can't keep from getting angry when I hear these kinds of totally false statements that Microsoft solves bugs quickly.

    It wouldn't be so bad I guess, if it was from some lowly person like me saying it off the cuff, but to hear it from that totally rich bastard Bill Gates say it, really makes my blood boil. He's made all his money on lies, deception and hoodwinkery!

    The sad thing is that many people believe him, because he's rich -- not because he is correct.

    Microsoft's approach to solving bugs is this:
    1.
  • "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers."

    and

    "640KB should be enough for anybody"

    also

    "I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system"

    And many more [quotesandsayings.com] ...

  • ... tout how "open source is great because problems get fixed right away!", but when MS catches up to that, all you can focus on is Bill Gates making a comment about Linux that isn't favorable. Geez, you guys find fault in every attempt Microsoft makes to address the issues you all have been noisy about.

    Funny thing is, this story was posted as an Anti-MS troll, and a lot of people fell for it.


    • You guys... tout how "open source is great because problems get fixed right away!", but when MS catches up to that, all you can focus on is Bill Gates making a comment about Linux that isn't favorable.

      You're right. Microsoft has gotten better. Whether they've caught up is a point for debate. But at least they have generally improved their reaction speed. Let's give credit where its due.

      Now - issues such as ignored bugs, fundimental design flaws, non-patches, destructive patches, so-called Respo

  • Practice makes perfect.
  • Well, I read about new Windows XP security vulnerabilities here on Slashdot earlier today and came home from work to find that XP had automatically downloaded four security updates/fixes that were awaiting a single left-click to install. I suppose the only way this can be made easier is if I went to \Control Panel\System\Automatic Updates and changed my settings to automatically apply the automatically downloaded updates, but I don't do this simply because I like to first bring up the list of updates to se
  • Bill Gates has obviously been watching our current US Presidential Administration closely.

    The bigger, and more outrageous the lie - the less people will question it's veracity. As long as proving that it's a lie takes more than 5 minutes, or involves logic that a typical American High School graduate can't grasp, you can say anything - and it's as good as truth.

  • Marketing (Score:4, Informative)

    by ralphus ( 577885 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @11:19PM (#7237056)
    Tricks. It's all tricks.

    I recently was in a Microsoft webinar regarding patch management. If you are interested, or a glutton for punishment, this [microsoft.com] was it. At one point they showed a histogram on the screen that was intended to show vulnerabilities in operating systems and how MS was beating everyone on the planet. Major Microsoft products were all broken down by release, e.g. Windows 20003, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, etc.. Linux and BSD were categorized by distribution only, e.g. Redhat, Debian, BSD etc...

    Windows 2003 appeared at the far left with only a few vulnerabilities. Windows 2003 was actually the "winner". It even "beat" BSD! Now think about that histogram for a minute. It created false divisions that did an apples to oranges comparison. The sum total of Debian vulnerabilites likely refer to all released versions of a Debian distribution with all possible packages installed while Win2003 likely refers to only a Win2003 retail box installed with the bare minimum options.

    Marketing is a black art. I have some personal experience, but NDAs to bind me. It's an art of trying to create and/or shape ideas in the mind of your customers, critics and competitors. The most successful marketing is that which makes them believe they came to the ideas you wish them to hold of their own volition.

  • Two quotes (Score:3, Funny)

    by bruns ( 75399 ) <bruns.2mbit@com> on Friday October 17, 2003 @12:20AM (#7237413) Homepage
    --------
    Gates also doesn't seem to have a lot of faith in 64 bit technologies in the consumer space. "64 bit is coming to desktops, there is no doubt about that," he said. "But apart from Photoshop, I can't think of desktop applications where you would need more than 4 gigabytes of physical memory, which is what you have to have in order to benefit from this technology. Right now, it is costly."
    ---------
    This coming from the same person who said 640kb is more then enough for anyone?

    and this one
    ---------------
    Gates is optimistic about meeting the challenge of the new security threats, he told reporters. "We have to. We invented personal computing. It is the best tool of empowerment there has ever been. If there is anything that clouds that picture, we need to fix it."
    ---------------
    I thought apple invented personal computing?

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