Jim Allchin is group vice president of Microsoft’s Platforms Group and has overall responsibility for the Windows operating system. He talks about Longhorn, security, 64 bit, open source, and life at Microsoft. Read the interview.
Jim Allchin is group vice president of Microsoft’s Platforms Group and has overall responsibility for the Windows operating system. He talks about Longhorn, security, 64 bit, open source, and life at Microsoft. Read the interview.
I am sitting in work and reading that article, and I was starting to think that Microsoft was taking security problems seriously…..
until I tried to close the page…
my companies internal firewall threw up this message…
”
Access to this web page is restricted at this time.
Reason:
The Websense category “Spyware” is filtered.
———————————————————————- ———-
URL:
http://tbuy.internetfuel.com/cgi-bin/omnidirect.cgi?loc=166-95-1&fr…
“
I am using knoppix to browse that site. so i dont even have to worry about that.
Article mention that an update to Windows Media Player (WMP10) and Portable Media Devices are coming – WMP10 has already been released and Creative has already released a PMC device.
Also, what’s the story with ‘XP Reloaded’ or whatever the update to XP was supposed to be?
From the group vice president of Microsoft Corp.’s Platforms Group:
“I’m a geek just like you…I get very excited by demos I see coming out of our research group. I love cool hardware. Like I said, I’m fundamentally a geek.”
So if an interview with a Microsoft person is posted then its boring, not serious, and lacks security and everything else. But if an interview with some free software developer is posted then you act like its the second coming.
I really thought this was OSNews and not Slashdot.
There’s a difference between open source and free software Jaspero. Linux and most of it’s software is not free software.
There’s a difference between open source and free software
Here’s one definition of Free Software: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html
Linux is free software. Many of the tools that run on Linux are free software. All the GNU tools including GNOME and KDE are free software.
Yes, there is an idealogical difference between free and open source software. But asserting that most of Linux’ tools aren’t free software is certainly false.
Maybe read this?
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
Jim said “non-commercial software”, and that statement is deliberately misleading (I suspect). There are many commercial Free Software projects and Jimmy knows this.
And more FUD from the article: “whether the product you buy indemnified from patent-infringement lawsuits”. Better buy your SCO Linux license now, before M$ enforces its patents on the Linux developer community.
Anonymous: I know there’s an ideological difference between OSS and Free Software, but that was not my point at all. The self-proclaimed ‘geek’ probably even knows this difference.
Pokój.
“Next we worked on simplification, that is, once your IT department or small business has deployed the server, it simplifies other parts of your operations.”
What does this mean, Allchin the Magnificent?
If I deploy MS Win2k3 and it lets in the viruses, and I lose customers because other people gain their credit card numbers, then my business is indeed simplified – though not in a manner I would like.
“The MVPs […] give our customers invaluable support based on that expertise, and they give us honest feedback, which is also invaluable.”
One thing I like about medicine is that if you make a mistake and the patient dies, you are not prohibited by Intellectual Property laws from examining the patient’s body to confirm or deny one’s suspicions as to the reasons. Whether or not this constitutes “honest feedback” as defined by Allchin the Magnificent, I cannot tell. However, it happens to be the way the Free/Libre Open Source Software community operates.
“Think about it this way: Windows is a long-term vision whose milestones coincide with product releases. Before we ship Longhorn, we’re releasing a series of updates to Windows XP.”
Just a question – MS Windows started way, way back in the dim, dark ages of 1983 or so. Everything about MS Windows has shifted and changed, from being a graphical pretty-face on top of DOS, to being an Operating System in its own right, based heavily on IBM’s contributions to OS/2 and DEC’s contributions through Cutler and VMS.
On the way up, there have been some very, very drastic changes. And what is worse, there are even bigger changes planned.
Given that MS Windows’ source code is known to resemble a Crystal Palace clone built of wet spaghetti, and Microsoft seems to enjoy spaghetti-twisting, making it into an Olympic sport, how is this going to affect my enjoyment of the next SoBig thing? Am i still going to find a coupla crooners singing “ILOVEYOU” in the next email purportedly from Microsoft?
In other words, Allchin the Magnificent, you and His Billness the Man Himself and the (Em)Ballmer[/i] keep on telling me that Microsoft has increased its security. In any number of books on the Art of Writing Fiction, the authors will tell me “Show, Don’t Tell!!!” And the scientific tradition tells me the same thing, etc.
Are you going to step up to the plate and show as well as tell, or are you going to rely on my credulity again?
I often find myself wondering IF MS isn’t the worlds largest fan of Linux, free software, and open source.
It instantly gets them off the hook from litigation involving monopolistic practices, no competition to be found, and whatever else comes next.
By my way of thinking the entire community is being “owned”, without a shot being fired. My of you are playing straight into their hands, all the while believing you are doing the “right thing”. Some should spend some additional time researching the tactics involved.(your not helping matters)
Osnews comment section sinks further and further into a cesspool. We are currently at Slashdot levels, headed for f****company.com level rapidly.
If just we keep building the next lower-cost tool, we’re going to go nowhere. If instead we build great experiences that people want but can’t get any other way, then our industry has an incredibly bright future.
Okay well.. somehow I get a feeling that this means “We don’t really care about making cheaper software, instead we want to patent something so fundemental that will illegalise all our competitors software, so people will be forced to buy ours..”
Okay well.. somehow I get a feeling that this means “We don’t really care about making cheaper software, instead we want to patent something so fundemental that will illegalise all our competitors software, so people will be forced to buy ours..”
Amen brother. I read that the same way.
Even Jim himeself elludes to this when he says :
(whether the product you buy indemnified from patent-infringement lawsuits).
Yes its all spelled out pretty clearly right there what the plan for MS’s longterm windows success is going to be.
“Clouds took one step toward this by using transactions and creative algorithms for machine synchronization and resilience”
I must be living on a different planet.
Same old song and dance. “Windows is achieving new heights”, “workspace critical deployment of security is being reviewed”, “our integrated new constricted zones will improve mission critical scalibility” and other blather is being repeated every time some one interviews a MS employee (I think the MS employees are being sent to the interviewers by Redmon imho). Despite the same old message its not hiding the fact, the fact that Windows is becoming an ever more failing Operating System. Furthermore Microsoft itself is showing weakness in this new 24/7, Open Source, multi-platform, VoIP, database obsessed, standards compliant world. Time will be the ultiment judge of Microsoft and their products.
Rarely do you see anything resembling cognitive discourse in the OSNews comments boards anymore.
Breathe, count to ten, and really make a go of having a calm rational discussion about the subject matter as opposed to sinking into a blathering mess about how bad Microsoft sucks and how great everything else is, or vice-versa.
I’d like to paraphrase every debate I’ve seen here where either MS or Linux comes into question.
Microsoft sucks, bugs, worms, spyware, raaaaaahhhh!!!!
No! Linux sucks! Microsoft is great, you stinking pinko commie hoser!
Yeah? Bill Gates is a prick!
Oh yeah!? Douchebag.
There…I just saved at least a four-dozen people a lot of their precious time, not including all the people who decide to wade through the crap and not submit a comment.
“Do more than fix the code – don’t let the hackers get into the system in the first place.”
Wow, they finally found out how to do it. Read it again: “don’t let the hackers get into the system in the first place.” It took years before they found out 🙂
Maybe this is *very* old news, but for those who don’t know, there’s an online book written by Kraig Brockschmidt entitled “Mystic Microsoft”. Brockschmidt is the author of Inside OLE.
http://www.anandasangha.net/mysticmicrosoft/
me a zealot ? nah
anyway.. I stand by what I said. Microsoft do NOT take security seriously. The spyware was detected by Websense… a 3rd party firewall !!!
read the post.
Microsoft should indemify Linux. A version of Linux that is incorporated into the Windows product line.
I think that this Allchin is correct in most of this thinking, however there is no political strategy, he is just a techie.
Yeah, I’m giving them this one for free.
…but he is totally correct in his vision to make closer connections between computers and people. That is a superior vision, just that theres a huge war to fight on the way to it.
Please guys, stop this non-sense zealotry. Its turning off people and pushing them away from OSS. OSS is becoming like a religion and you know how many problems are caused by religion in this world. It blinds your vision. If you are an intelligent and honest person, you should consider MS as a fair competitor and show respect instead of coming out and posting junk with titles like “hahaha”. This is purely cheap and frankly, day by day, this attitude of OSS zealots is pushing me away from OSS.
Shame on this zealots. Damn them.
Sorry i misinterpreted your comments.
I pitty OSNews.com for all the intolerance present today in the world regarding operating systems.
If we all were more tolerant of each other and respect that in a free society you have a choice, and the choice itself is an empowerment. A free society doesn’t mean there will always be a 100% fair one, though. Try to look at the positives please. We have MS, Linux and many flavors of Unix and that’s a really good thing. Each OS has it’s strenths and weaknesses. Me personally, I like them all for their strengths.
Respect religious diversity, beit your OS Religion or actual religion. Try to not impose your religion on other people, as a form of respect, and you’ll get respect in return. Remember that much suffering in the world happens on account of intolerance.
I like OS News, but I am not happy with all the intolerance I see here.
since when is microsoft a competitor for OSS? the only competition i can think of whould be gnome, kde, and samba. other then that, most of the oss community doesnt really care what microsoft is doing as long as it doesnt impact them.
just as a general comment, i remember reading an interview with some microserf awhile back, who said that linux caught the microsoft marketing machine with their pants down. x86 is really a crappy cpu, what it has going for it is that it is dirt cheap. microsoft has been playing off that for years, and attacking competition from the bottom up as the low cost solution. anyone who has actually worked (im guessing about 10% of osnews by the comments) can tell you that the bottom line is all that corporations care about. if it works and its cheap, then they go for it. this is how microsoft reached the heights it has today.
suddenly, linux shows up, the free solution. now thats a price microsoft cant match, and they were scrambling for a long time. you can see the phases of fud that came out of ms, some worked, some didnt. (currently we are at “free software isnt free” which, imho, is one of their more imbecilic arguements, but hey, they are talking to middle management here). now microsoft is actually having to justify the cost of windows, for the first time. they arnt the economy solution anymore.
Oh do dry up. We’re talking about a company who has hacked, slashed, burned, and salted the fields of its competitors to get where it is today.
They’re convicted anti-trust monopolists with a long history of taking the low road at every opportunity. Say what you want about the software, but don’t even begin to preach tolerance for the company.
When you hear the self righteous rants of the intolerant people who are among us, remember to your self what they represent:
http://directory.informiti.com/Society/History/ByTopic/SocialHistor…
I’m talking about the intolerant people on both sides of these arguments. They incite riots against the free actions of others. Fear intolerant people, for they bring oppression an death. Recognize what intolerance reprents before it’s too late.
If we all had high tolerance, than we could drink beer for eternity, but the intolerant people known as the small bladders, pissed this up. Now instead of needing high tollerance, we need all kinds of other things like physiological, safety, social, esteem and self actualization needs. Life used to be so much simpler :+)
c’mon guys. tolerence towards a corporation? a legal entity with the mandate to increase the wealth of its share holders by any means nessicary, yet totally lacking any sense of morality or compassion. im extremely intolerant of corporations in general, and microsoft is only better then others in the fact that it doesnt rape the earth or give me cancer. but hey, lets be tolerant of everyone, no matter what they do to us. jump down the throat of people bashing those nice klansman, or those sweet black panthers. and we must protect those al-quaida guys, i mean they are just trying to make a point…
microsoft is a montstrous institution like many others in the world, and not desirving of tolerance, respect, or compassion. and dont think i just think that about microsoft, ibm leased and serviced the computers used by the nazis to keep track of how they were slaughtering the jews for christs sake.
Anonymous normally I’d see some humor in what you say but I’ve seen this intolerance only grow in the past 20 years and I’m very, very tired of it. It’s so freaking old it’s absurd. When someone goes on an intolerant rant against any OS I pretty much think they have a serious mental problem and are almost certainly a sucker for some other self rightous, intolerant sucker who convinced them to be likewise. I consider OS hatred to be a kind of mental virus, curable only by a huge dose of tranquilizers or death.
Matt what you need is to burn them all at the stake. Why don’t you start a revolution, the first thing you need to do is destroy anyone who makes anything that you don’t “approve” of.
Tolerance doesn’t mean getting away with breaking the law. It means ‘Rule of Law’ which is very different.
You freely admit MS is a legal entity yet put them in the same category as rapists. You apparently do think they are the like. Don’t buy their product and they don’t rape you, it’s that simple. You have a choice, value that choice. Remember that if you get an opportunity to force your opinion on others, others may get that opportunity to force their ways on you. Toleration is the middle ground.
Realize the world isn’t orderly, it often seems chaotic. Embrace a certain amount of chaos and you’ll see that the world can and will continue very well without your iron hand. Freedom of speach, the Internet – these are rather chaotic things. They are also wonderful things. They can also be precieved as evil, or very bad and disorderly. I think it is wise to respect these freedoms.
Free software is a product of freedom, not the iron hand. So is commercial software a product of freedom. They both have their place and who are you or anyone else to decide for someone else what many billions of people need or want.
If I were to claim that I know what is best for everyone, then I’d only be admitting my ignorance. That’s what I see you and the other intolerants as saying, that you know what’s best for everyone and you are ready to kill those who appose you, given a revolution of the government, or not.
first off, let me say i appreciate the intelligent response.
i agree with you when it comes to things like moral or religious relativity. this kind of thing is a matter of opinion. but i think we can all agree on basic levels of humanity and respect. corporations are one of the pillars of western society, and are by definition as inhuman and psychopathic as those other monstrous instituations that i mentioned.
corporations are a part of life in the world now, it will take more then boycoting, or even fines for illegal business, to bring them back into the realm of sanity. when they were origionally conceived, they had a very narrow legal mandate. now they are the legal equivilent to people.
all i am saying is that being tolarant of microsoft is laughable. when has microsoft been tolerant of anyone? tolerance doesnt even come into the equation, all that matters is the bottom line. microsoft is a criminal that never goes to jail, because it does its job and helps the american economy.
as for killing, i think you misunderstood me. i am a north american who isnt consumed by apathy on matters such as politics and law. i believe our system is very broken, but the removal of the system is far from the ideal solution either. if someone else got worked up over the lack of tolerance for, say nazis, i would respond in exactly the same incredulous manner. tolerence for an intolerant institution means one of three things; either you are ignorant, more then a little dumb, or someone who just doesnt care.
if i boycott the rapists, sure, i may send a message. but im still kinda screwed when, say the ecosystem gets so fscked that there is no clean air anymore. or the cancer epidemic, which most studies agree comes from pollutants. then of course, theres that nasty problem of needing water to survive too. how about the fact that fish are no so full of murcury that they are poisous if eaten regularily? thank god im in canada, and am safe from the bovine growth hormone that has been proven to give cancer that is used by our friends south of the border. hmmm, acid rain wont effect me either, because hey, i boycotted!
I stand by what I said. Microsoft do NOT take security seriously. The spyware was detected by Websense… a 3rd party firewall!!!
That’s exactly my point: an alleged spyware did not even touch your computer, yet you find it to be a reason to blame Microsoft for not taking security seriously!
What if Websense made a mistake, for example? Like McAfee antivirus, which managed to wipe out harmless popular ISP connection manager programme by mistakenly assuming it is a trojan?
What if it was really spyware but Microsoft fixed holes spyware used to install without your concent? That would be taking security seriously- if bugs are fixed.
You would not blame Linux, for example, for luck of security just because rootkits exist for it, and worms penetrating unpatched Linux systems exist too?
Finally, may be you are right and this spyware would install on your Windows computer automatically if not firewall protecting you. May be- but you do not know for sure.
Which brings back my point: blaming Microsoft for not taking security seriously based on firewall not allowing spyware on your computer is only possible out of zealotry.
…either that, or he just found it funny and ironic
If you are an intelligent and honest person, you should consider MS as a fair competitor and show respect instead of coming out and posting junk with titles like “hahaha”.
Ok! I consider myself relatively intelligent and quite honest.
Perhaps you should evaluate this: http://usvms.gpo.gov/ms-findings2.html
before you use the description of Microsoft as “fair competitor”.
matt was correct… I did find it funny.
I do blame Microsoft, my company paid for, and runs the websense firewall. If Windows security was tough, there would be no need for 3rd party security tools.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand that Microsoft cannot be seen to include firewalls, antivirus, ad-removal software in its systems, or it would be back in court with more anti-competative writs.
But if the underlying security model for the system was a bit more tighter, there would not be these problems.
And, Yes, I would blame a Linux distributer for not having updates available for rootkits on known exploits. Exploits are quickly found and patched, and any distro supplyer not taking this seriously does not deserve to be in business.
Also, show me a Linux worm.. They do NOT exist. I seen a post here the other week that had a link to an alledged Linux worm, however, when you read the site, the worm was a theoretical experiment and did not work without help from the root user himself.
This raises an interesting point.
If I was to download some software, log in as root and install the software, (and the worm it contained), my machine could be pretty much borked… But would the worm spread to everyone in my email address book ? No. Not possible.
Would it spread to everyone who downloaded the software from the same source ? hmmm maybe.. if the creator made a point of saying that it had to be installed as root, and everyone installed it as so, without checking first.
But would it go into the wild, spreading all over the place the way Windows worms do ? No. Also not possible. This would require the worm to open a port, and search for other Linux machines with an open port. If it finds one, it can copy across… but it will sit there dead, not able to run, as it will have no privilages on the other machine.
In fact if Linux’s underlying security model was not as strong as it is, what is to stop someone like, Norton say, creating a devastating virus that will destroy linux machines ?
If they could do that then there would be less Linux users and a potential of increased customers when all these ex-linux users migrate back to window.
Think about it.