Gates on Spyware and OS Competition 690
Ant writes "CNET's News.com has an article that says Microsoft plans to offer its own anti-spyware software." prostoalex writes "Both OsNews and InfoWorld talk about Bill Gates' speech at the Computer History Museum in California. Gates is noting that Linux is taking over, and claims that 10 years forward Linux and Windows will be the only OSs left in the market."
800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Insightful)
MS PHB: "Well, let's get to work on patching it."
MS Engineer 2: "Wait, couldn't we not patch it and instead sell the patch together with others as a piece of software with an annual update fee?"
MS PHB: "Congratulations, you just got promoted."
Paranoia (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like you need to get your tinfoil hat resized again.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Insightful)
I've met quite a few software engineers, and none of them would suggest that. (Nor would a PHB promote them, they'd take credit for it instead.)
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:4, Insightful)
As it is, serious mission critical software developed by honest companies generally works well, as do bridges. Software sold by sleazy business folk is sold before the engineers are satisfied with its quality, and it always "collapses."
All that is to say, engineers aren't the ones releasing unfinished software that doesn't work right.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:4, Insightful)
"Microsoft need to do something about security" - Microsoft release XPSP2 - "Microsoft changed a bunch of securty settings and now my badly written app does not work anymore".
Reason is obvious if you translate it to cars (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two kinds of people who complain about MS. Those with somekind of hatred towards MS for whatever reaso
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:3, Funny)
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:4, Informative)
Are you saying it doesn't work? 'Cause in my tests, it seems to consistently deny connections from externally, which is, after all, the point. It will prevent pretty much any external worm attack, in fact. I think that's hard to describe as "yields no benefit whatsoever".
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:3, Insightful)
If they are really are the ones who know the most about protecting Windows from spyware, then almost every Windows user is doomed.
Heck, Mr Gates himself faces the very same spyware problem.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:4, Funny)
He uses Firefox.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:3, Interesting)
Before I worked at Microsoft as an intern last summer (I'm a college student), I was under the same impression about the amount of brainpower they had.
I worked specifically for MSN Ads, and everywhere I looked (I also talked to my friends in other departments) I found sloppy coding practices, FUD, and general CYA-motivated B.S.
9/10 people I met didn't know what they were doing, but they were too good at political maneuvering for it to matter. The people that knew what they were doin
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Informative)
My advice as a veteran is to stick with smaller companies. Not only will you make a bigger impact but you'll also be appreciated. You definately wait till you are married and have kids before you get your soul sucked out by a large company. Of course by then you'll have lost the will to live anyway so it won't matter so much
good luck.
Linux:Microsoft::Kids:Establishment (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is a very large company. It has an established hierarchy, and people who have worked for years to reach their positions, and now have guaranteed status. They're concerned about someone walking in and taking what they've spent a long time getting and rely on.
Linux is a loose network of some of the most devoted-to-work people, who want to stir things up and change the world, even if it results in a lot less money for them. It is a hypercompetitive meritocracy -- you can't work up any type of "status" that you can live off for years (well, maybe if you work at IBM).
Microsoft/Linux is just another example of a neverending struggle. It's just a little more blatant than most.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Insightful)
I've worked in a 120,000-employee corporation in 2002, and almost every single person I met there actually had a clue. There was no political bullshit, we had clear objectives and reasonable timelines, the only hassle was that it'd take a few days to get specific software and hardware.
A colleague of mine worked for a subsidy of IBM last year, and told me it was the same way there, no bullshit, no slacking and no sloppiness, of course that makes only two small examples, but that's just to say such generalizations are bad overall.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the least of their problems. The big problem is when the 800lb gorilla will patent anti-spyware software. How will the other simians react to that?
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Windows itself _IS_ Spyware ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen to yourself, you sound like an idiot. I know Microsoft Windows code is closed-source. But here's a fundmental fact that nobody understands- it's open-source to every employee working under windows in Microsoft. That's about 14000+ employees mind you, and they belong to every nationality you can think of, even those you can't spell. Maybe their livelyhood depends on them keeping quiet, but I'm sure you are the one spreading FUD around.
Stop scaring the people. Stop this nonsense. I'm surprised you didn't find a place for terrorists in your comment somewhere.
Re:Windows itself _IS_ Spyware ! (Score:5, Insightful)
1- 14K+ employees workin in the OS? I don't think so.
2- 14K+ employees can read and understand the code? Again I don't think so.
2- With only two or three hackers working in the compiler(s) is enough to make a backdoor that is not visible in the source, and present in every OS.
Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
what's the deal? my summer internship (a school district) uses macs like crazy.. of my experience (and i know, it is not very much) mac os x has, by far, been the most stable OS i have had to use in the workplace. i'm not sure why it would go away so suddenly.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm only semi-kidding.
OK. I'm not.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does that include Linux? I use Linux exclusively at both home and work and I would struggle to make any stability comparisons amoungst any OSes that stay up for such long periods of time. In my (limited) experience, OS X and Linux seem to be on par with eachother when it comes to stability. Obviously OS X is easier for the average user to use, so that where it wins.
I'm a big fan of *nix based OSes and I think Apple have made a good call with moving to a BSD-based platform. I agree that Microsoft seem to be overlooking Apple if they think they'll be gone in 10 years - it has seemed to me recently that OS X is rapidly gaining popular support.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Informative)
*tears out another Dvorak article, wipes, and flushes it down the toilet*
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Interesting)
I met Dvorak recently, and I have to say, he's very difficult to talk to. He's one of those guys who has no ability to just listen. A poor quality in a journalist. I found it very frustrating. His opinions aren't total crap, though. I think he's wrong WRT Mac OS, but he would have been right if Apple hadn't finally gotten a real OS by now. Until X, the OS was a toy, inferior even to Windows. Now it's for real, and it's serious. Microsoft has a long way to go if they hope to rival it.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
And from that toy sprung forth revolutions in photo, print and video graphics. The toy seems to have served many industries very well.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, Google Vs Microsoft more likely (Score:5, Insightful)
The above link has three pertinant quotes.
"Microsoft's fortunes grew with personal computers or, more specifically, supplying the software for what used to be called "IBM-compatible PCs". It is easy to forget that 20 years ago there were a number of standards competing for dominance. (Of the others, only Apple survives.)"
"Google knows it cannot remain just a search engine company, because that leaves it vulnerable if someone else comes along and does it better. That is why it keeps adding services. The best publicised has been its proposed e-mail service, Gmail, which has upset privacy activists because it will include advertising based on the content of the e-mails. But it is likely to prove extremely popular because it will make searching through e-mail much easier and quicker, and because it offers a gigabyte of storage. For most users, that means they will never have to delete another e-mail. "
"But Microsoft is vulnerable if a competitor shifts the focus away from the PC and on to the internet. And we all know the company most capable of that."
Take that all to the extreme - If network centric computing and a company like google go to the logical conclusion of their efforts, subsuming encyclopedia software (remember encarta?), email, games and eventually word processing and other applications into an always on, globally available internet technology that would free you from not just your desktop but from even needing a permanent computer of your own, wouldn't the most logical thing to beat be problems with privacy?
After all, if you can eliminate "spying" on a distributed system like that, then you've aready eliminated spyware as a matter of course (maybe by using thin clients and making all the intelligence and security reside in the server and communication layers).
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Interesting)
> almost 2 decades now. That "wizard" over at PCMag, John
> Dvorak, has been doing so for almost that long, and look at
> where that prediction has gone.
Almost? He's been there right from the start with his way off base 'predictions'. He's a troll, and it gets him paid.
"The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things."
-John C. Dvorak, SF Examiner, Feb. 1984.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
-John C. Dvorak, SF Examiner, Feb. 1984.
If you're trying to discredit Dvorak, this is a bad example. The mouse has become the single most non-productive enhancement to computing in history. People used to fly through applications using TAB and function keys. Although they usually still can, they don't.
Try waiting for a bank teller, loan processer, application taker, or yout typical computer user to do anything now and it's tap, tap, tap, reach, slide, click, tap, tap, tap, reach, slide, click, tap, tap, tap, reach, slide, click, .... just to move focus to the next text box. I find myself silently screaming TAB, dammit, TAB! TAB to the button and hit ENTER!
What's worse is I'm finding applications that no longer implement focus shifting with tab. "Web apps" are notoriusly bad. Worse yet is where most workspaces "have room" for the mouse. Mousing literally causes in pain in my neck in my workstation.
AFAIC, there's still no evidence that people actually want to use a mouse. They simply don't know of any other way.
TAB, dammit, TAB (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:3, Funny)
Dvroak = professional troll (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Interesting)
As hardware gets cheaper and more powerful and becomes a commodity, Apple is likely to have an increasingly difficult time selling its own line of expensive machines. With the Mac OS now a layer on top of Unix, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple eventually gives up reserving its software for its own hardware and begins to sell Mac OS as a GUI and software bundle on top of Linux, essentially a commercial counterpart to Gnome or KDE.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is the same way. Apple sells products that people buy because they want to be "cool".
Now just because something is cool that does not mean it sucks. Both Harleys and Macs are great products that just also happen to be very fashionable.
AS long as apple can define "cool" it will do just fine, whether it's selling computers or earphones does not matter all that much.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Informative)
Rolls Royce still manages to sell cars.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple DOES have a hard time selling its machines. (Score:3, Insightful)
I own and admin a shitload of macs- ranging from a quadra 650 to G5s. The only macs I have that have BROKEN are one of the two G4s I admin, thirteen of the fifteen iMacs I admin, and BOTH of the G5s I admin (one blew a hard drive, the other the logic board and video card).
All my beige Macs are rock motherhumping solid. Never had a problem with any of them, ev
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, right. Just because you only buy low-end machines doesn't mean everyone do the same. Macs are pretty popular in the media industry and have a group of very loyal fans. Unless they are going down, I doubt Apple is going down either.
I don't see any reason for Mac OS to be a GUI on top of Linux either. First of all, it would be yet an other transition. Secondly, they wouldn't win anything at it. Linux kernel doesn't have all the stuff the Darwin kernel has. I think it's ridiculous that you are suggesting that they would switch a nice kernel that they have complete control over to a third party kernel they don't have control over which doesn't even have the same features.
Don't get me wrong. Linux is okay and I use it too, but the truth is that it's being hyped way to much. Linux is not superior in any way as some people (like you) seem to think. Soon these people will learn that there are alternatives to Linux also. It isn't just Windows or Linux.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:4, Informative)
I think they would be completely missing their target market if they did that. People who buy Macs are getting them because they "Just Work". One of the big reasons why they "Just Work" is because Apple has complete control over the hardware they're using, they can test the software on exactly what the end-user will be using it on and make sure it all works. Furthermore, they can test upgrades on hardware identical to what the end-users are using.
Whilest it's possible that they may eventually ditch BSD in favor of Linux if it looks like Linux will be beneficial for them, I doubt they will ever start shipping it as a stand-alone piece of software rather than a soft/hardware combo.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Quartz Extreme is an excellent example. By the time Jaguar was released most of the current Macs would support it out of the box, by 2003 all Macs sold supported QE. Since Apple was deciding to replace their long used Rage 128s with Radeon and GeForce GPUs they were able to add a very useful feature to the OS that all shipping systems would be able to utilize. Tiger is going to utilize the advanced shader programmability of newer Radeon and GeForce GPUs in two systems called CoreImage and CoreVideo. By the time Tiger ships most if not all Macs being sold will support these features out of the box, many systems sold right now can support these features.
Writing their OS for commodity PCs would pretty much remove that ability. When it wouldn't be guaranteed all of their customers would be able to see the new features it wouldn't be worth while to even add such features. It took Microsoft a long time to get USB and hot plugging working right in Windows. Since so few people had USB ports on their computers there was little impetus to fix USB functionality in the OS. Apple on the otherhand was replacing ADB on their systems with USB and their USB support was pretty exceptional. It's taken Microsoft a long time to get their WiFi support up to a moderately useful level because for long time no PCs were really shipping with WiFi capabilities. Apple however rolled out with extremely good WiFi support because their systems were shipping with WiFi capabilities built in.
When a single company builds the hardware their OS is going to run on they tend to have excellent support for their hardware. Linux from any particular distribution is very hit-or-miss with hardware from particular vendors. Even HP doesn't support every bit of hardware in their laptops that have Linux as an OS option. They only support what SuSE and Red Hat support. Apple supports every piece of hardware on any Mac capable of running the OS.
OSX for commodity PCs would not be the same OSX that runs on Macs. Without spending hundreds of millions of compatibility testing it would be exceedingly difficult for Apple to support the range of hardware that Microsoft does. As we've seen with Linux, hardware vendors do not want to write drivers for any OS but Windows and they're usually none too cooperative in releasing specs for their products.
As such Apple would have to pick up the slack or hope they could get thousands of programmers to contribute homegrown drivers. In the first case they would have to spend lots of money to make sure a huge range of hardware worked properly and in the second they would have a slew of half-complete drivers shipping with the OS. Spending a lot of money supporting the menagerie of PC hardware would make selling OSX for PCs unprofitable in the extreme and shipping half-complete drivers and only offering partial functionality for people's hardware would kill their sales and make the whole enterprise unprofitable.
No one is going to switch to MacOS X-x86 if their hardware isn't likely to run properly. Developers aren't going to bother supporting an OS on another architecture that only a few people use, fewer of which even want to buy their products. You don't see many commercial Linux applications for Linux/PPC or Linux/MIPS. Microsoft killed their Windows NT ports because few third parties bothered porting their applications to non-x86 archtectures even though the OS environment was the same. Vis à vis don't hold your breath waiting for Apple to release OSX for PCs.
Bill knows he's lying, and heres why (Score:5, Interesting)
As I said in another post, I think he knows darn well Linux isn't going to be the only other arround. He's just trying to get everyone else to gang up against Linux. It is a brilliant strategic move on behalf of MS, and a classic divide and conquer strategy. He's trying to do the same thing between redhat and novell too.
I hate to say it (Score:4, Funny)
*BSD is Dying! (And will have died in 10 years)
Just had to get that out of the way.
Re:I hate to say it (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, Linux fills a niche that could otherwise have been filled almost as well by a free / open BSD. (I say "almost" because the license of BSD has lead to fragmentation that created an opening for Linux).
Is OS X really not worth mentioning (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh the cosmic justice... (Score:5, Funny)
No Mac OS? What will the Mac Business Unit Think? (Score:3, Insightful)
man, that's really f-ed up. Maybe the Windows Office team are getting jealous of how good the Mac version of Office is getting and are planning on burning the MacBU to the ground...
Re:No Mac OS? What will the Mac Business Unit Thin (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! It says Outlook not so good! Amazing!
OS X and FreeBSD (Score:4, Interesting)
Um...Mac OS X is only getting better and more switchers from Microsoft, and FreeBSD is still running a lot of servers around the world (and ones that don't go down).
I predict that in 10 years from now, Microsoft will be dead, linux and FreeBSD will feed off of each other making both extremely good choices (FreeBSD for server, linux for desktop). Then the competition will be between Mac OS X and linux for the desktop.
Re:OS X and FreeBSD (Score:3, Interesting)
In 2014, Linux will be the Unix of the 21st century. OpenVMS will run on every moderate sized box, and MS Windows 2012.L (linux version... AIX admins will get this one) will be an X client/server for remote control of all the other boxes.
-WS
Optimistic Gates? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Optimistic Gates? (Score:3, Insightful)
Evil intentions though he may have, Gates isn't an idiot. He may not like it, but he can see that SCO has made a complete cock-up of its anti-Linux scam.
...and (Score:3, Funny)
Nuclear Reactor Market?? (Score:3, Funny)
Who is the leader in the Nuclear Reactor Control market right now ? (I mean, what OS is running in nuclear reactors? I for one hope it's not Windows ME)
oh god ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:oh god ... (Score:4, Funny)
Now, please excuse me while I go cry a little...
Seems to be the american way (Score:3, Insightful)
prostoalex (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing I see is in the OsNews article where Bill Gates is quoted to say "fast forward 10 years, the two leading OS technologies will be Linux and Windows." But "leading" is very different from "only". Nowhere does it say all other OSs will disappear.
prostoalex, YOU must substantiate your statement NOW. Or are you spreading more anti-MS FUD??
Anti spyware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just Linux and Windows???? Not likely (Score:5, Interesting)
There will be a number of OSS which will be around. In addition, ALL of the closed source will be sold to others. OS's make their real money (except for MS's) after it is put into maintence mode. Good example was hp-3000. Lost money at the OS level until it was put into mainence mode. Then it made big bucks for HP. Likewise, vms makes a lot of money for HP.
Apple, by being based on OSS, may be spared that death, but hard to tell.
All most certainly all the the closed Unixs will be in maintence mode or dead. What ever aspects of them that were interesting will be done in Linux.
While BSD will almost certainly be around, I doubt that it will capture a big market. Nobody can really take the chance of MS swooping in and killing them.
But Linux and Windows will probably be the 2 gorrillas.
Re:Just Linux and Windows???? Not likely (Score:3, Insightful)
For me to buy this, I'm going to have to see some concrete examples. Got any links?
Seems like Solaris has made money for Sun without being in maintenance mode. Same for MS. Same for Red Hat, Wind River, QNX, Palm, IBM (who have made more money and lost more money on operating systems than just about anybody), etc...
I have nothing to back up my statements other than vague assertions but then you haven't presented anything
RTFA! (Score:5, Informative)
Too much control? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Too much control? (Score:5, Informative)
They do have it working. The really scary thing is that they actually explicitly PREVENT it from reporting to Windows the status of the AV software. If you try to change that, it pops up a window which says (something along the lines of) that "Norton AV is monitoring your system", and there's a check box which says "Report status to other systems (recommend that you DO NOT do this)".
Kind of shitty of them really. Especially as you have to go through hoops to get their LiveUpdate system to automatically download AV signature file updates - it's not enabled by default.
Lame lame lame lame lame.
Re:Too much control? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds bad to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
I submit that Microsoft will only judge as spyware products which either install themselves without explicit permission, or products which are not owned by companies who pay Microsoft.
I hate to be so cynical, but I've been burned by too many Microsoft "features" [in recent memory: IE upgrades only available to XP users, and a Windows ME setup CD refusing to install to a FAT16 partition formatted by its own boot disk] to believe much of what they say.
Just my $0.02 USD.
Finally, Microsoft is thinking clearly! (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think people need software to detect these malicious applications; when their home pages get set to http://www.pornomonkeysonmeth.com and their 3.2 Ghz processor is pegged at 100% trying to open up Notepad, I think they're already well aware that malcious applcations are present on their system.
CNET's News.com has an article that says Microsoft plans to offer its own anti-spyware software.
Microsoft has also gone public with their newest strategy: develop software that will prevent maltware from being installed in the first place, instead of merely detecting its presence. They have codenamed this software "Linux", and it will be offered free of charge to all existing customers.
Same old Bill Gates. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's some advice, Bill. It's easier to prevent the stuff from being installed then it is to clean up all the millions of variations that will be out there.
Not to mention this will be another DAILY download update along with:
#1. Security updates
#2. Anti-virus signatures
He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
The battle for desktop supremacy, however, is already won. I like the fact that I can run UNIX apps on my iBook, but I just built a tower for Windows. There's just too much breadth of software to shift away from the platform. MS has also come up with some good stuff recently (.NET, which in some cases is what Java should've been) that cement their hold.
Also, one would think UNIX refugees coming to Mac would boost the platform on the desktop. Not happening. I think people are finally settling on the fact that UNIX is a rock-solid server, but that doesn't necessarily make it a great desktop. Whether it's Windows or some other windowing system that wins the crown, I'm not sure, but classic UNIX is pretty much finished.
Re:He's right (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:He's right (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no 'won', there is only 'winning' (or if you really want, 'won for now'). Windows might be king forever, but it's not likely at all.
Hardware and OS's are going to continue to evolve and as time goes on, I think the specific OS you chose is going to become less and less important.
Also, one would think UNIX refugees coming to Mac would boost the platform on the desktop. Not happening. I think people are finally settling on the fact that U
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Association of Wolves, Foxes, and Stoats today announced that they would be launching a new initiative, providing security services for hen-houses and rabbit hutches nationwide.
"We're pleased to be able to expand our influence and provide this much needed security," said B. B. Wolf, the association's president-elect. "It's important to recognize that a crisis does exist, and who better to determine appropriate measures than us?"
In a separate interview, Mr. Wolf, accompanied by some of the association's external board members, forecast that given the popularity of coyotes in the western states, wolves, foxes, stoats, and coyotes would be the only mid-range predators in ten years. "Sure, you're gonna have your bears for the big stuff, and we might get some insignificant competition from barn cats and raccoons," said Wolf, "but I don't forsee any other real competition in the field other than the coyotes. And frankly... well, the coyotes show some innovation, but we really don't think they can compete on our playing field. Plus, they have fleas."
For more information on the National Association of Wolves, Foxes, and Stoats, please contact Jack Valenti, press secretary.
Note that Bill Gates got hit by an adaware... (Score:3, Interesting)
"This malware thing is so bad," he said in a speech at the Computer History Museum here. "Now that's the one that has us really needing to jump in."
It's also a problem that has affected Gates personally. He said his home PCs have had malware, although he has personally never been affected by a virus.
"I have had malware, (adware), that crap" on some home machines, he said.
--
Heh!
Sif (Score:3, Interesting)
MS doesnt need to make anti Adware products... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe somebody ought to introduce him to Mozilla. I can say for certain that 99.99% of all Ad and MalWare infections are because of IE and ActiveX. I've not seen a pop up of a piece of crap ware for more then a year now, ever since I started using Mozilla.
Microsoft doesn't need to make anti adware products. All they need to do is either replace IE or make IE as secure as Mozilla, then keep updating it and the problem will go away. An Adware program will only add to the bloat.
What an endorsement (Score:5, Insightful)
This should give pointy hair bosses pause in claiming that Linux is just too risky.
What a huge step to be so publicly recognized as the most prominent threat to MS for an OS that is not controlled by any one cooperation.
In the end it will be inevitable that an OS becomes a commodity. MS tries to fight hard against this by building up the OS to do everything short of singing and dancing for you but I don't think that will save them in the long run.
Re:What an endorsement (Score:3, Funny)
True. You have to install not just the OS, but MS Office to get clippy.
What a politicaaly contrived statement (Score:4, Insightful)
What a politically contrived statement. He can't say "only windows" (read monopoly), so their must be at least 1 other OS, and people would laugh if an open source operating system wasn't included.
Now all of a sudden he takes the wind out of the sails of the Linux zealots, and appears all controversial. Yep... in 10 years it there will be Windows and *nix, just like today.
My prediction... (Score:3, Interesting)
But on a more article-based note, as has already been said, it seems that the OS comment is a basic "*BSD is dying" troll.
What's left in 10 years (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's left in 10 years (Score:5, Informative)
Linux is, and has been ready for the desktop for at least 5 years or more. I've been using it full-time on my desktops and workstations here for at least 7 years.
Don't blame the kernel for the lack of userland applications. The peripherals, ports, and external devices are all supported (and in fact, more devices and peripherals are supported under the current 2.6.8.1 Linux kernel than on Windows and OSX combined).
Linux was never "meant" for the desktop. That is the job of distribution manufacturers and userland application authors. Talk to them. The rest of us "desktop Linux users" are waiting for them to catch up.
This isn't a race against Microsoft. Linux solves my needs, and gives me much more flexibility and power and choice than the alternative OS that might run on my hardware.
Incidentally, Windows and OSX don't support 90% of the hardware out there that Linux has happily been running on for several years to over a decade. See my previous post [slashdot.org] for a more-complete list.
FreeBSD (Score:5, Interesting)
Apart from the Dell machines I have reciently purchased for my company for a web developer who needed photoshop dreamweaver etc I'd not have a single windows pc in my office. With the speed in which Eric Laffoon is pushing along Quanta and having it built into base KDE I can see a time very soon when I will make Quanta my only development platform, intergration with CVS etc just makes it a great choice for PHP and web development.
For mail I use Evolution and simply love it. Forget about all the virus problems that Outlook has.
In fact the only thing I think windows has going for it is Photoshop. I've tried the gimp and sorry but it just isn't there yet for me, but in 10 years time I'm darn sure it will be!!!
Say good night Bill, you are history!!!
Gates on spyware (Score:5, Interesting)
in the article, Gates states "Operating systems like Linux (Red-Hat) require capable system administrators to maintain.. I want to do away with that"
Does that mean that Windows sysadmins are less capable or will be less capable in the future??
Doesn't that say alot for their fearless Leader??
Doesn't that say alot for his Great intelligence( or lack thereof).
You tell me what you derive from this statement, much less the article..???
Gk.
Message to SUN (Score:3, Interesting)
10 years forward Linux and Windows will be the only OSs left in the market.
>>
stirring the pot are we?
He can't say "10 years forward Windows will be the only OSs left in the market." now can he?? (remember the european court has a ruling coming soon). He could say "10 years forward Macintosh and Windows will be the only OSs left in the market." but that would send too many to the mac sales rep. Whatever he puts in the "[any-os] and Windows will be the only OSs.." the "Linux" choice is the smartest, it will push (further) Schwartz and McNealy to launch their attack on RedHat . My guess is that he had those brainwashed to belive that LINUX is the threat to them, and if they would get back to former greatness, they could still get the high-end server market - "and between us [he put his arms around them, tilts his head and smiles], we don't plan to pursue the server market, we belive the desktop is our thing, you know, china and the expanding market" As they embraced the idea, he padded them on their backs and forwarded a bunch of cash as a part of a "bigger deal" and laught to himself.
Windows?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
the future is uncertain... Thank goodness (Score:4, Interesting)
10 years ago, we were all cursing Windows 3.1, because it was so unstable. Very few of us even heard of Linux. No one, at that time, thought it would be as critical to our lives as it is today.
I predict that in 10 years, "personal computers" won't be the center of our computing universe, like they are today. We'll all have moved on to something completely different. WHo knows what that will be?
Nobody today can possibly guess what our future computers will be like. But I sure hope whatever they are, they don't ALL come from the tiny little imagination of money grubbing jerks like Bill Gates. And if it does, God help the rest of us.
--
Patrick Wolfe
"Stress is when you wake up screaming, and you realize you haven't fallen asleep yet"
Windows kills jobs now? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article (emphasis mine):
Wasn't it supposed to be Linux that kills jobs [slashdot.org]?
Spyware (Score:3, Funny)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Wind
Crap (Score:5, Funny)
In other words... (Score:5, Funny)
Did everyone miss the critical point? (Score:5, Informative)
From the OSNews article:
This is a real issue. Red Hat and the Linux companies have little incentive to make products which require less support, because this could cut into their support contracts.Microsoft then can show a lower TCO by putting lots of resources into making management easier and do-able by lower level cheaper employees.
They could win (at least temporarily) with this strategy if we aren't careful (and don't get administration on Linux to be as easy and automated as possible).
My OS predictions (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, they are having problems writing Windows for AMD64. While open source OSs chug along. Will linx run on mainframes? It already does. Will windows run on mainframes? It probably will never make it. As long as there is a spectrum of hardware Windows with its sloppy architecture, coding and design will be locked into to the low end of the market. billg is out of touch, or just plain doing market speak (same thing really).
Re:Bill Is ALWAYS Right (Score:3, Funny)
I think that is quite a safe assumption. Not too many PCs ship with 32kb of RAM these days. Heck many pocket calculators probably have >64k RAM.
Get your facts correct (Score:3, Informative)
Re:640K is enough.... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm too tired to find the links right now, but a minute or 5 of google should clear it up for ya.
Re:640K is enough.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Excellent. (Score:3, Funny)
Mac-Tel?-Apple Dreams and x86 Nightmares. (Score:5, Insightful)
This sems to be a common wet dream amoungst x86 PC users (you never hear Apple users lusting after a x86 machine). I recommend you buy an Apple and just get it over with. You'll be happier. Apple will be happier. The only ones who wouldn't be happy is those with a heavy investment in all things x86.
Re:It's worth RTFA, folks (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux and other free software does not depend on the destruction of Windows to survive. It is not driven by a profit motive and cannot be attacked on that front. Windows' market share is irrelevant. On an economic basis, free software is unkillable.
The only real threat is legislation and/or patents. Keep that under control, and free software will prosper.
So mamy people get into this 'Linux versus Windows' thing, and get emotionally invested in it... but really, it doesn't matter. What free software is doing is changing the nature of the game, so that Windows has to play on free software's turf, rather than the other way around.
Microsoft is a smart company. They have more money than God. Windows isn't going to go away EVER, at least not in our lifetimes. But, aside from legislation, there's nothing they could really do anymore to lock out free software; the hue and cry if they tried would be vast. People just aren't going to buy DRM-enabled hardware unless they control the keys. If they'd done this kind of thing five years ago, it might have worked, but at this point Linux et al are too entrenched, and cannot be killed at a system or hardware level.... any attempt to do so would be a commercial failure.
Microsoft has to adapt to a world with a lot of great free software, not the other way around.