Martin Taylor, global general manager of platform strategy at Microsoft, talks to vnunet.com about how the company is handling the open source threat.
Interview: Martin Taylor, Microsoft’s Linux expert
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Eugenia Loli
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“Isn’t there a danger of having an enormous ever-growing monolith? Shouldn’t it be much more modular?
We look at it less [as] modularity, and more as role-based deployment. For instance, whenever you have a loosely coupled environment, end users have more cost trying to tighten that up, to run their solutions [and] operations, to manage that, to patch that, all those types of things.
You can take a loosely coupled environment and say: ‘We’re just going to deliver a set of bits that are modular by nature, then the end user or service provider or whatever can tie those things together as a solution’.
We say we can deliver a tightly coupled environment to market. We can support that better [and] people can build applications that can run faster.
[It’s] not so much that people just want a piece that’s modular, but more like: ‘What are you trying to do with the technology?’
What we found from the server side, especially in the enterprise, is that people want to dis-aggregate their workloads. So yes, we ship a multi-purpose operating system but we know they want to deploy maybe just a web server, or file server, or high performance cluster environment.
So one of our Longhorn design points is to allow role-based deployments. So you basically provision and deploy what you want without having the trade-off of manageability, security and the other concerns you have [with] a more loosely coupled modular environment.”
This guys is so clueless is not even funny. Either that, or he is just a plain liar.
So a throw-everything-but the kitchen sink and tied it all together in a way that all code changes affect and have repercussions on all your code is more maintainable than a modular design that allows you to patch and fix things as needed. Give me a break!
They are grasping at straws. And they may think that they only have to worry about Red Hat or Suse, but there is also Mandrake and possibly Xandros and Linspire in the desktop space. And in the server space, why in god’s name would you pay Red Hat for a web or file server, when you can set up Debian once and let it run for 4-5 years with only the ocassional apt-get update apt-get upgrade.
The installed base is wise now. Tons of people can easily configure Apache and Samba. If the thinks, his only competition is Red Hat or Suse, he is deluded. GNU/Linux will continue to get easier to deploy even in the solutions provided by non-commercial entitities.
Finally, it is a give-away that he doesn’t talk about the inherent cost of supporting a Windows network, where you have to worry constantly about the virus/worm of the day. Windows is on its way out in the enterprise. It’s going to take time, possibly another 10 years, but Windows will be a niche platform by then. On the home desktop front, things are much harder to predict. My bet is on small all-powerful devices that you can fit in your pocket and hook up to any available display and/or keyboard.
Could be the journalist what is think that mean the “Linux expert” term? and, why apply this term to Martin (Mr. Antilinux) Taylor?
That’s sound like a ofense to the *real* Linux experts.
Mr Taylor could be know about sales, marketing or M$ messages…but come on man, about Linux…I doubt that.
The other thing we’re finding is more and more people wanting to deploy a commercialised Linux version. They don’t want their own custom configured kernel [or] custom distribution. They want to pick up the phone [and say]: ‘Help me this is broken.’
The truth yet again. Read it, learn it, love it.
yes. we already know that and every enterprise distro is paid to support these kind of people. whats your point?
I think he makes a solid point when he says Red Hat and Novell are even more expensive compared to M$.
Honestly, what impresses me about linux from a server standpoint is not how much better it is than windows. What impresses me is that linux allows anyone to do the same things as windows server for free and on relatively cheap hardware.
A side by side comparison between say Slackware and Windows Server 2003 is no comparison at all. Most features in WS2k3 have wizards to easily set everything up. Slackware is mostly editing config files.
“The truth yet again. Read it, learn it, love it.”
You can’t be serious?! Do you think any company would invest money into a Linux distro, if it wasn’t saving the company money. These companies don’t need some Microsoft specialized study to find out how cost effective Linux is, they can do it for themselves. Thats why most server’s are using some form of Linux. New companies are built on it. If you were starting a new company, and you needed a cost effective software solution, you would use whatever OS was cheaper yet comparable, without prejudice!
Free the wool from your eyes Smartpatrol!
Taylor quote: “The other thing we’re finding is more and more people wanting to deploy a commercialized Linux version. They don’t want their own custom configured kernel or custom distribution. They want to pick up the phone and say: ‘Help me this is broken’. So that puts you into Red Hat/Novell-SuSE’s ballpark. Both those have pricing models for support and security patches more expensive than Windows Server. So in some cases you could say I am under-priced compared to the marketplace. That’s what we’re seeing.”
It’s true that most consumers whether they are a business or home consumer would rather pay for software that offers a good maintenance support package. This is something both Novell and Red Hat offer at very competitive price plans to accommodate consumers needs. The difference here is that Linux users have the choice whether to pay for a distribution that includes a maintenance package or install the OS from the developer for free with out support. In either case the Linux user can choose to update to the latest distribution offered by the developer when available or do it themselves such as compiling their Kernel, updating Gnome or KDE with the help of Apt-Get or YaST, etc. Also, most consumers choosing Linux is because of their lost faith in Microsoft. Really who can afford to have their network or even home desktop routinely infected with viruses, hacked because of holes in the OS and integrated browser, infested with spyware and suffer data loss from system crashes (ie: Blue Screen Of Death)? Linux unlike Windows has proved to be more stable running networks 24/7 with out crashes, with out data fragmentation, with out spyware or even virus infection. If you have to pay an Administrator to always fix your corrupted OS or replace lost data as is the experience of many Windows users than it’s costing you more to use it. Do the math Mr. Taylor and you should find for yourself as any educated person would that M$ cost consumers plenty in more ways than just purchasing the OS. Why not just install a Linux distribution that doesn’t have the M$ “per CPU license charge” mentality and have peace of mind in knowing your system is secure and won’t let you down?
What I see after reading this article is that Microsoft has Mr. Taylor, trying to cover up for their actual fear of what developers such as Novell and Red Hat are offering consumers. Also that Linux developers as I mentioned are meeting the needs of consumers sooner than M$ expected. Doesn’t help that M$ can’t release a stable IE with out charging some customers for the patch or even their continued stalling on Longhorn till late 2006. Why doesn’t Mr. Taylor admit that M$ is unable to meet the consumers needs in a timely fashion with out charging excessive costs instead of feeding consumers fables? (In reference to Taylor quote:”We spend time trying to educate customers in the marketplace when we think we’ve got a pretty good story to tell.”).
Really who can afford to have their network or even home desktop routinely infected with viruses, hacked because of holes in the OS and integrated browser, infested with spyware and suffer data loss from system crashes (ie: Blue Screen Of Death)? Linux unlike Windows has proved to be more stable running networks 24/7 with out crashes, with out data fragmentation, with out spyware or even virus infection.
I’m just waiting to see how Linux will stand up once (or should I say if) the home user crowd starts using it en masse.
One of the problems that Microsoft runs into is when a security issue is found and they release a patch, a majority of home users don’t update. Alot of the big virus problems that happened recently would not have occured if people had updated their box with a patch that had been available for months. A lot of the Linux crowd acts like these same people will suddenly start updating their machines more often if they start running Linux.
Next. If the home users start using Linux on their home desktop it seems like the Linux crowd feels they will stop installing cool little applications like Comet Cursor, Bonzi Buddy, the weather app, etc. If enough people start using the platform the businesses will move over and start developing these same applications for Linux…spyware is not confined to Windows, it’s just a majority of the users that install this stuff (I mean knowingly install, not the stuff installed through ActiveX) will just as readily install it on Linux.
The same with viruses. Most Linux users say due to security a virus can’t do much damage on Linux if it’s executed. Usually these people are Admins whose only concerns are system files, which are protected if the user isn’t logged in as a root account. But a home user will be concerned in the $home directory, which can get fubard by a virus.
A majority of the time Linux advocates blame Microsoft for most of these problems instead of the user; but I’m sure if a lot of these problems creep up on Linux they’ll take a different stance.
The difference here is that Linux users have the choice whether to pay for a distribution that includes a maintenance package or install the OS from the developer for free with out support.
Who is talking about Linux Users? This is about business usage .
@FISH
The advantage often touted by Linux proponent’s ad-nauseam is that its free and you have the source code so you can bend it tweak it the way you want. Problem is companies don’t operate that way they want the package deal as Mr Taylor so acurately pointed out.
Oh really. What makes you such an expert on what companies want?
MS is on a PR push today, see Slashdot as well.
Again, it’s if Linux will replace Microsoft products, it’s when. 14 years ago, linux was a blip, now linux is a force. Let’s not concern ourselves with time because in the end we can all pull dates out of thin air. Micrsoft is betting that releasing x at y time will solve their problems – that is not the case, it merely delays the inevitable. If Bill Gates truly believed M$ could keep growing – he would stop selling his shares:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=MSFT
If I were a financial analyst I would be wondering why Billy G is selling his shares…. If I had x billion amount of shares and believed my company’s stock price could double in 3 years, I would _not_ be selling my shares. But hey give Bill G a break, he single handedly took away the monopoly from IBM and make desktop OSes affordable for the masses. It is probably hard to realize that his time in the sun(no pun intended) is slowly coming to an end.
but I do have some suggestions for M$ (please take with a grain of salt, some of these aren’t too well thought out so I can’t predict all the ramifications)
1. Release Office on *nux – Office is by far the most lucrative product. They could still hold a monopoly over office applications if they were to release on any unix platform. This may cause OS revenue to decline but will be better for them in the long run – as they can capitalize on the time to market.
2. Have a 20 year phase out plan for the current win32 OS (obviously do not publish this to their customers). Figure out if and how they could buy a company like Novell and RedHat and somehow “spin” people onto a “windows” version of linux. To be honest, if they did this I would buy it for my Mom and other no-so-savvy computer people. Again this would cannibalize their OS, but it would provide additional sources of revenue when their OS does start falling out of favor.
3. Keep the win32 API but slowly start providing POSIX APIs. This would allow linux apps somewhat seamlessly over to the “windows” world.
4. Support Java … C# is better in many respects, but they are avoiding a HUGE chunk of the enterprise market if they don’t keep up with the Java stuff.
5. Innovate! Did you know that PowerPoint was a company that M$ bought in the 1980’s! This was a reasonably successful acquistion that became a lucrative part of the office suite. I have met some of the developers that work on this product and they are _amazing_ hands down. The template stuff that they have to handle is sublime. C++ at it’s best! They need to find another company like this and integrate it into their amazing Office suite so that they get even more people locked in.
6. sooner or later the OS will die, but everyone really really loves office, seriuosly I like word, i like excel, and i like the fact that you can cut and paste one from another etc etc. it’s pretty neat. However, if people start improving OpenOffice then you will slowly see poor 3rd world countries move towards it…. it just makes sense. they don’t have the $$$ to pay for M$ licenses.
Justin,
Re:”I’m just waiting to see how Linux will stand up once (or should I say if) the home user crowd starts using it en masse.”
True we are all waiting to see how well Linux developers will do with their desktop versions. Though if you’ve checked out products offered by companies such as Novell you would of noticed they already have been selling desktop versions of Linux. Thanks for being positive that Linux will do so well on the desktop against Windows slipping monopoly
Re:”One of the problems that Microsoft runs into is when a security issue is found and they release a patch, a majority of home users don’t update. One of the problems that Microsoft runs into is when a security issue is found and they release a patch, a majority of home users don’t update. Alot of the big virus problems that happened recently would not have occured if people had updated their box with a patch that had been available for months. A lot of the Linux crowd acts like these same people will suddenly start updating their machines more often if they start running Linux.”
Where are the factual figures to prove this point? After all as per M$ claims the majority of their customers run Windows XP which has a Windows Update feature set on by default. This was before SP2 was released.
As for Linux users distributions such as SuSE Linux come with an auto-update feature (ie: SuSE Watcher) allowing updates do be downloaded and installed in the background. The end user can if they so choose to schedule the updates or even do it manually. The difference here is that it’s not just scanning for updates for the OS but all installed applications. Oh and lets not forget there is no downtime considering distributions such as SuSE Linux can update and install multiple applications with out requiring a system reboot. This is not possible with current Windows versions.
Re:”Next. If the home users start using Linux on their home desktop it seems like the Linux crowd feels they will stop installing cool little applications like Comet Cursor, Bonzi Buddy, the weather app, etc. If enough people start using the platform the businesses will move over and start developing these same applications for Linux…spyware is not confined to Windows, it’s just a majority of the users that install this stuff (I mean knowingly install, not the stuff installed through ActiveX) will just as readily install it on Linux.”
I believe the little cool applications you’re speaking of are called widgets which in case you are not aware come already free with some distributions or can be downloaded for free such as Karamba. Though unlike the free applications available for Windows users that do similar tasks the Linux user has no fear of having pop-up ads or spyware infecting his/her system. As for spyware in general I think you’re a little confused as to why spyware does not affect Linux users as it does with Windows.
Re:”The same with viruses. Most Linux users say due to security a virus can’t do much damage on Linux if it’s executed. Usually these people are Admins whose only concerns are system files, which are protected if the user isn’t logged in as a root account. But a home user will be concerned in the $home directory, which can get fubard by a virus.”
Again you seem either a little confused or misinformed about Linux and it’s security features offered on several distributions. For one the the main issue with Windows is that the user by default is running as Administrator with full access to the system where as with Linux the user by default runs as a Limited User with limited system access. A virus basically cannot run basically with out the user allowing it to by giving the application root access. This doesn’t mean a network running Linux is invincible but that it is more secure by default installation than running Windows in the network. It’s also reason why many companies have opted to switch their servers from Windows to Linux. Though I always believe in being cautious so I do run ClamAV (free) with it’s auto-scan feature to make sure I don’t have to worry in the future. Since switching to Linux a year ago I have had zero viruses infect my network and zero downtime.
Re:”A majority of the time Linux advocates blame Microsoft for most of these problems instead of the user; but I’m sure if a lot of these problems creep up on Linux they’ll take a different stance.”
The difference again is that Linux developers are meeting consumers concerns now instead of next year. M$ has a long history of failing to provide peace of mind with consumers and this comment is coming from a previous M$ advocate.
We’ve got every Linux distro running; about 120 servers all with varying degrees of open source stacks on them.
Wow, that’s impressive. EVERY linux distro ?
“Then we bring consultants from the Linux open source space to help us build solutions. We’ve got every Linux distro running; about 120 servers all with varying degrees of open source stacks on them.”
You can’t blame him for not trying.
And if he ever will be a “Linux Expert” he could switch employer.
Would you care about what a motercycle company has to say about a large truck company? The whole thing is silly.
“I’m just waiting to see how Linux will stand up once (or should I say if) the home user crowd starts using it en masse. ”
About as well as Apache^ on the server end has.
Volume of users doesn’t detract from a good design, and Linux has 30+ years of Unix experience to draw on even if it ~only~ has 10+ years of code. Try a current distribution (say, knoppix for free or one of the commercial user friendly versions) if you want to know yourself.
^. Note: Apache runs under just about every OS out there, including Windows.
If I were a financial analyst I would be wondering why Billy G is selling his shares…. If I had x billion amount of shares and believed my company’s stock price could double in 3 years, I would _not_ be selling my shares.
Bill Gates has been saying for decades he plans to donate nearly all off his wealth to charity before he dies. Since msot of his wealth is in stock, he needs to sell it to access it.
Release Office on *nux – Office is by far the most lucrative product. They could still hold a monopoly over office applications if they were to release on any unix platform. This may cause OS revenue to decline but will be better for them in the long run – as they can capitalize on the time to market.
So which Linux variant should they target ?
Have a 20 year phase out plan for the current win32 OS (obviously do not publish this to their customers). Figure out if and how they could buy a company like Novell and RedHat and somehow “spin” people onto a “windows” version of linux. To be honest, if they did this I would buy it for my Mom and other no-so-savvy computer people. Again this would cannibalize their OS, but it would provide additional sources of revenue when their OS does start falling out of favor.
For what purpose ? Linux (or unix, for that matter) offer no technical advatages to Windows. What would they gain by embarking on a decade long mission to replicate Windows-on-Linux ?
Keep the win32 API but slowly start providing POSIX APIs. This would allow linux apps somewhat seamlessly over to the “windows” world.
Again, to achieve what ? POSIX on its own is pretty useless.
Support Java … C# is better in many respects, but they are avoiding a HUGE chunk of the enterprise market if they don’t keep up with the Java stuff.
Sun have already told them what to do with Java.
Sooner or later the OS will die, […]
Why ?
Where are the factual figures to prove this point? After all as per M$ claims the majority of their customers run Windows XP which has a Windows Update feature set on by default. This was before SP2 was released.
Where do Microsoft claim this ? Because no-one else does (and it would be wrong).
XP (prior to SP2) does _not_ have Automatic Updates on by default.
A virus basically cannot run basically with out the user allowing it to by giving the application root access.
Untrue. A virus/worm/trojan can do just about everything it needs/wants to running under a regular user account.
You are a beacon of reason in a sea of insanity. There’s really no point in the trying to reason with these people though. It’s a lost cause. They’ve been indoctrinated.
“From an innovation perspective, a technology perspective, I’ve got everything I need today from a value platform.”
?
What is a ‘value platform’? Is that anything like an Operating System?
I second that.
“I believe the little cool applications you’re speaking of are called widgets which in case you are not aware come already free with some distributions or can be downloaded for free such as Karamba. Though unlike the free applications available for Windows users that do similar tasks the Linux user has no fear of having pop-up ads or spyware infecting his/her system.”
You have just stated that virus/spyware-free widgets _exist_. Where’s the proof that _all_ of them are “uninfected”? Believe me, the average user will download what’s new and cool, and not what’s 100% proven to be uninfected.
“[…]with Linux the user by default runs as a Limited User with limited system access. A virus basically cannot run basically with out the user allowing it to by giving the application root access. ”
If I download and run a virus-infected application, Linux does NOT prevent access to any file in my home directory. Like most users, my home directory contains the really valuable files, whereas the system directories contains copies from the installation CD and automatically generated config files. Seems to me like Linux security protects only the worthless stuff. (Things are different in a multi-user environment since the system files are much more valuable there).
Keep the win32 API but slowly start providing POSIX APIs. This would allow linux apps somewhat seamlessly over to the “windows” world.
Crack & Co will love you
Release Office on *nux – Office is by far the most lucrative product. They could still hold a monopoly over office applications if they were to release on any unix platform. This may cause OS revenue to decline but will be better for them in the long run – as they can capitalize on the time to market.
[quote]So which Linux variant should they target ?[/quote][/i]
The Linux variant isn’t relevant, that’s the beauty *nux*nix it’s distribution independent.The distribution maintainers only have to compile the binairy from source.Allthough the wildcard “*” at *nux
meant indefinitely more then one to choose randomly charracter whereas only one would have been ?unux.
Backups? so the sysyem is not secure? it is vulneracble, and needs backing up for WHEN it fail? Most windows users don;t make back-ups .. why would this be different if tehy move to the “safer, more secure” *nix?
Morin wasn;t saying windows is better, he (she?) was saying Linux is not better.
Users data is VITALLY interesting to ID-theives, SPAMmers, phishers etc.
I have been saying this in many forums…….but here i go again
1.linux variants- For everybodys info reading the forum
there is something know as autopackage(0.6 last time i checked still under developement) which will
allow a package to be installed on any distribution provided
the required “functionality” is there .Unlike existing
package managers ie .rpm and .deb which queries a databases
to check whether a dependency is present or not autopackage
scans through ur harddisk(yes,it will be slow but does that matter if it takes care of dependency hell)and finds the libraries on the fly .Readmore at http://autopackage.org
So i believe in just more than 1 year most third party packages will be using this format provided SuSE/Redhat et al push it(there is no disadvantage it can coexist along with the rpm format)
2.Monopoly-I use linux ,I sincerely wouldnt want any desktop os/kernel(including linux variants) taking more than 40% of the total desktop market share.Well they can beinteroperable using Open standards not necassarily OSS
“This guys is so clueless is not even funny. Either that, or he is just a plain liar.
So a throw-everything-but the kitchen sink and tied it all together in a way that all code changes affect and have repercussions on all your code is more maintainable than a modular design that allows you to patch and fix things as needed. Give me a break!”
sorry, but no, the linux kernel is less modular than the nt kernel. And your example doesn’t make sense, how is patching your source tree with newer code and having to recompile the whole thing from scratch again an example of modularity??
lol
huh!!! AFAIK karamba is Something which gives added functionality to the desktop like a calendar embedded in ur back ground or OS X like dock etc.One thing is i understand is that u havent used linux in detail …how ?? because ur unaware of the kde scheme
of naming things like kstones kpaint konqueror etc…
karamba and most other eye candy(for kde…i use gnome;-)) are downloadable from kde website so i dont think there is any chance of spyware
Secondly Spyware developers will have to compete with
OSS eyecandy/calendar/weather/Bonzibuddy which wont have spware(mostly…I cant assure u thiS u see)
so chance of spyware is less in OSS ..
well nt kernel WAS modular then MS decided to not make the most technically advanced os but a faster one (microkernel are slow )…
I may be wrong But rebooting the pc after the installation
of a driver is not a good example of modularity u see
“Backups? so the sysyem is not secure? it is vulneracble, and needs backing up for WHEN it fail?”
No system is totally secure. And even if this utopian system existed you can always have hardware failure. And then if you have no backup of your hysterically important data you are screwed no matter what.
“Most windows users don;t make back-ups .. why would this be different if tehy move to the “safer, more secure” *nix?”
Most windows users tend to do a lot of crying when they lose data too.
“Morin wasn;t saying windows is better, he (she?) was saying Linux is not better.”
No, he/she was implying that linux was useless because it didn’t stop the user from erasing his/her own data.. which would be the end of the world if anything happended to. The point is, if said data is so important you should do backups. That way, if anything untowards should happen, put in you backup cd and copy the damned stuff back.
“Users data is VITALLY interesting to ID-theives, SPAMmers, phishers etc.”
True enough, I didn’t consider that. OTOH I’d never keep anything that important on a computer connected to the net. I still fail to see how <insert favorite alternative operating system> would be more vulnerable than other oses. Rather the opposite, since usually the source is available and a lot of people handle it, like package maintainers for various distributions. I’d say that increases the chances of malware beeing detected compared to a *.exe file that you’d have to debug to find out what it does..
Finally, let me quote Mark Twain: “You can make something foolprof, but you can’t make it damn foolprof”. I.e if people insists on getting themselves hurt, you can’t stop them, not without removing all flexibility and freedom. The only thing that helps is knowledge. If you don’t want knowledge (“I’m not interested in computers – it should just work”) you are setting yourself up to get hurt. You don’t get to drive a car with no knowledge about it, do you?
@anonymous: In what way do backups prevent the kind of attack I describe? How can backups stop people from reading my files that way? How do backups show me that I’ve been attacked? How can I see whether a file was modified during an attack (admidst all my own changes) and I have to revert to the backup? How many users DO back up?
Secondly, please show me where I ever said another OS is invulnerable against that kind of attack. Please show me where I said that Linux was useless.
Thirdly, stop your childish behaviour. Calling me an ignorant troll for my statement does nothing but show your own ridicule.
@anatoxin: Yes, I can install Karamba and other goodies from the KDE website. But why not install that flashy whatever from another website? It looks better and my computer is fast enough for it. This is how a normal user thinks, and it will lead him/her to installing spyware. The KDE team can’t always keep up with the competition – sooner or later a “foreign” little app will become popular and might be infected. When that happens, the system should be ready for attacks.
What colour is that on the OpenSource Terrorist Alert chart?
“In what way do backups prevent the kind of attack I describe? How can backups stop people from reading my files that way? How do backups show me that I’ve been attacked?”
This is not the point(s) you originally made. Your original point was that the system didn’t protect your valuable files. Guess what? It’s because the system can’t protect you from yourself. The OS can’t protect you from social engineering, it’s not it’s job. You have to do that yourself – using your brains and frequent backups – I have yet to see any <insert favorite alternative os> advocate claim their os to be immune against this. These steps obviously don’t solve the things you bring up now, but they assist in fixing the situation. This is in no way different from any other OS, and you fail to suggest any solution yourself. In other words, you are just trying to be inflammatory.
“How can I see whether a file was modified during an attack (admidst all my own changes) and I have to revert to the backup?”
Same answer as above. You could use tripwire or some such, however, if you change a lot of files frequently that might be hard to keep track of.
“How many users DO back up?”
Far fewer than should, but I fail to see the connection to the OS in that regard.. the connection is rather to sloppy users who probably would bring havoc to themselves no matter what system they’d use. Your data is *not* secure *anywhere*, no matter what OS you use, thats why backup solutions exists to all platforms… So the point you are trying to make regarding linux is what?
“Secondly, please show me where I ever said another OS is invulnerable against that kind of attack.”
You didn’t, but OTHO you argue like this had anything at all to do with linux, which isn’t true.
“Please show me where I said that Linux was useless.”
does
“Seems to me like Linux security protects only the worthless stuff.” ring a bell?
I don’t know about you, but in my mind, security that only protects useless stuff is itself pretty useless. If you were to be satisfied here effectively linux should in some mysterious way stop yourself (since eventual malware would run with your privilegies) from accessing/altering and/or erasing you own files==valuable stuff. Now how would you work with such a system?
Besides, that “useless stuff” is what spares you a lot of headaches.
My annual support subscription with RH is $50.00
Just looked at MS page, support is $99.00 for email support per incident or $245.00 for phone support
Those of you who disparage Linux for not being ready for abuse by Joe User, watch the Internet.
These issues (spam, viruses, worms, trojans,) are now starting to be handled at the “wide pipe” end of the Internet, where they should have been handled in the first place. Remember, the people who engage in this behavior are criminals. If you live in a city, you may be seen as stupid (or as putting yourself at risk) if you don’t lock your doors and windows at night—maybe even bar them. However, managing crime doesn’t end at the bars on your door—it has to be a community effort.
No matter what platform became common when the Internet became ubiquitous, the issue of misbehavior would have had to be handled anyway. Standing around bickering about who has better locks, or what will happen if somebody buys a new kind of house, does absolutely nothing to address the underlying problem, which is that the community isn’t dealing with crime properly.
I like Linux for some reasons, and I like Windows for other reasons. What does any of that have to do with people who belong in jail for crime?
“My annual support subscription with RH is $50.00
Just looked at MS page, support is $99.00 for email support per incident or $245.00 for phone support.”
Which is why I constantly wonder why Gates & Company constantly make me regret boostering Windows at my job in the early 1990’s.
Just consider it lucky that they haven’t (yet) made multi-core processors a premium license target.
As for Mr. Taylor:
Marketer:
Someone who wasn’t disciplined enough as a child for lying.
well nt kernel WAS modular then MS decided to not make the most technically advanced os but a faster one (microkernel are slow )…
I may be wrong But rebooting the pc after the installation
of a driver is not a good example of modularity u see
It loads things like the gdi into kernel space but that’s not the same as it being part of the kernel itself.
The reboot is required for the win32 subsytem (user mode) not for the drivers to start running.
Re:”XP (prior to SP2) does _not_ have Automatic Updates on by default.”
I can’t be the only one that was slightly confused with M$ claiming that automatic update for Windows XP was going to be set automatically to “on” when consumers installed SP2. After all for the simple fact that I still have close contacts that run Windows XP Professional along with Linux in the network and that they as well as I noticed that the auto-update was set to “on” prior to installing SP2. Maybe M$ meant that this was for Windows XP Home instead of generalizing for both distributions. The other thing we noticed is that M$ claim about making Windows XP more secure by having the user run as Limited User instead of having everyone run as Administrator accounts really didn’t apply after the SP2 update. If they truly want to help secure the desktop then after Windows XP users installed the SP2 update all account users would all be running as Limited Users and anything requiring Administrator access would be like Linux distributions that require the Administrator to log in with their alphanumeric password. Instead one can assume that the majority of Windows XP users not that knowledgable on security are still running as Administrators 24/7 while they surf the net, do online banking, etc. Of course now just as before Windows users are just making it easy for their system to be hacked all because M$ continues to simplify the OS instead of truly making it secure.
Re:”Untrue. A virus/worm/trojan can do just about everything it needs/wants to running under a regular user account.”
This was in reference to my comment about Linux security and the misconception another poster had about viruses infecting Linux systems. I could if I had the time to debate the differences between M$ idea of OS security and that of the Linux community, Unix and Apple with their OSX. Instead I’ll post a few links to make those more aware of why former Windows users such as myself got fed up with M$ FUD, lack of security, lack of peace of mind and made the switch over time to Linux or OSX. http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/188 http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/Linux.vs.Windows.html http://elibrary.fultus.com/technical/index.jsp http://www.openantivirus.org/ http://www.clamav.net/
“If I download and run a virus-infected application, Linux does NOT prevent access to any file in my home directory. Like most users, my home directory contains the really valuable files, whereas the system directories contains copies from the installation CD and automatically generated config files. Seems to me like Linux security protects only the worthless stuff. (Things are different in a multi-user environment since the system files are much more valuable there).”
There are all kinds of tools that can be, and have been, put into service to deal with user-level security issues.
If somebody comes to my house and finds the door locked, they can grab a convenient brick and break a window. Then I have to put on an alarm and/or bars. Then the criminal will go get a hacksaw and/or acid and/or a little toy to fool the alarm.
Listen to yourself. What’s the issue here?
Think about this, too: Up until Windows XP, home users didn’t even *have* any security.
“Bill Gates has been saying for decades he plans to donate nearly all off his wealth to charity before he dies. Since msot of his wealth is in stock, he needs to sell it to access it. ”
I think there must be many Free (as in freedom / liberal) Software charities, and linux charities that he could give to. Free software charities can help those in poorer countries that can’t afford the to pay for the excessive profits on Microdoft code, and he could also give the economy a boost by supporting competitive software and OS innovation!
People would really love that and his name would certainly go down in history as being such a good guy.
I hope that the “Open Source experts” that he hired are more competent than the “Linux consultants” who worked for Veritest.
maintainers only have to compile the binairy from source.Allthough the wildcard “*” at *nux
meant indefinitely more then one to choose randomly charracter whereas only one would have been ?unux.[/i]
(Will you *please* stop inserting random carriage returns into your posts, it makes them difficult to read).
The variant *is* important, because it affects most aspects of the application. Which system libraries can be guaranteed to be present ? Which versions of same ? Which X11 toolkit should it use ? Which packaging system should it support ? Which GUI ?
Office isn’t some sourceforge hobby project, it’s a professional application. It needs to fit seamlessly with the environment it’s running under and interact with it properly. People who buy it will ring up when they have problems.
You can’t just wave your hands and make all the differences between the different distributions (and even the internal differences depending on installation choices – eg: KDE or GNOME) just by waving your hands around. It’s a serious issue.
Though unlike the free applications available for Windows users that do similar tasks the Linux user has no fear of having pop-up ads or spyware infecting his/her system.
Well, certainly not at the moment because there’s no such malicious software out there, but give it time.
There’s certainly no _inherent_ reason why anyone should feel safer under Linux.
As for spyware in general I think you’re a little confused as to why spyware does not affect Linux users as it does with Windows.
Nope, he’s pretty much bang on. The main reason Linux is largely unaffected by spyware and similar is because no-one’s writing spyware for Linux. No-one’s writing spyware for Linux because the userbase that spyware targets is practically non-existant on the Linux platform.
I can’t be the only one that was slightly confused with M$ claiming that automatic update for Windows XP was going to be set automatically to “on” when consumers installed SP2. After all for the simple fact that I still have close contacts that run Windows XP Professional along with Linux in the network and that they as well as I noticed that the auto-update was set to “on” prior to installing SP2.
The it was done by them (or someone else in their organisations).
By default, Windows XP <SP2 does _not_ enable Automatic Updates by default. It does prompt the user to enable them, but does not do it without their action.
The other thing we noticed is that M$ claim about making Windows XP more secure by having the user run as Limited User instead of having everyone run as Administrator accounts really didn’t apply after the SP2 update.
I don’t recall reading anything about this. Where did you see or hear it ?
If they truly want to help secure the desktop then after Windows XP users installed the SP2 update all account users would all be running as Limited Users and anything requiring Administrator access would be like Linux distributions that require the Administrator to log in with their alphanumeric password.
Which would have broken *lots* of applications, resulting in even more negative reports from the ignorant press and fewer people installing it.
When dealing with people who don’t understand the method behind the madness, you have to move in baby steps or they get scared.
Of course now just as before Windows users are just making it easy for their system to be hacked all because M$ continues to simplify the OS instead of truly making it secure.
They’ve made the OS secure (well, as secure as its contempories). You’re talking about convincing the users to use it securely – a much more difficult process.
This was in reference to my comment about Linux security and the misconception another poster had about viruses infecting Linux systems.
No, it was about your statement:
“A virus basically cannot run basically with out the user allowing it to by giving the application root access.”
Which is not only completely wrong, but shows a deep misunderstanding of that which you claim to be knowledgable in.
I could if I had the time to debate the differences between M$ idea of OS security and that of the Linux community, Unix and Apple with their OSX. Instead I’ll post a few links to make those more aware of why former Windows users such as myself got fed up with M$ FUD, lack of security, lack of peace of mind and made the switch over time to Linux or OSX.
If you run a Windows system as you would a Linux or OS X system – limited user accounts, not executing unknown files, patching the system, etc – it’s just as secure. I’ve been doing it since 1996 and I haven’t had a single virus, piece of spyware or any other malicious code appear on any of my Windows systems in that 8 years.
A virus basically cannot run basically with out the user allowing it to by giving the application root access.
Untrue. A virus/worm/trojan can do just about everything it needs/wants to running under a regular user account.
So what’s then the point of having acl’s? Could the virus/worm/trojan add user accounts with the credentials
of the regular user?Wouldn’t it be necesary to elevate
privilege first by overflowing an vulnerable service?
I could go on debating this with you for pages but I don’t see the need as I’ve already provided enough links to at least try and educate Windows users to the advantages of using Linux.
The comments regarding the features of SP2 to actually provide security were based on news reports of what M$ stated was to be expected after their user base installed SP2. Using the excuse that if M$ were to actually secure Windows like Linux such as to restrict write access would cause applications to break is ridiculous. Reason I say that is because if it works on Linux systems then why can’t M$ find a way to do it with Windows. After all security and peace of mind is what consumers want with their OS, not just ease of use.
Anyway, to finish up in regards to viruses on Linux as I’ve already commented before I’m not saying Linux systems are invincible and as such reason why I’ve taken steps to have ClamAV running on my network. It seems we do agree that if M$ would change their OS security policy to force users to use Limited Account and restrict what a Limited Account user can do then their would be less chance of a system wide infection or DOS attacks. I could go on further but I just don’t have the time. See below a quote from Novell’s SuSE Help Center documentation in regards to viruses taken from section 18.5 Security & Confidentiality.
“18.5.2.6. Viruses:
Contrary to what some people say, there are viruses that run on Linux. However, the viruses that are known were released by their authors as a proof of concept to prove that the technique works as intended. None of these viruses have been spotted in the wild so far.
Viruses cannot survive and spread without a host on which to live. In our case, the host would be a program or an important storage area of the system, such as the master boot record, which needs to be writable for the program code of the virus. Owing to its multiuser capability, Linux can restrict write access to certain files, especially important with system files. Therefore, if you did your normal work with root permissions, you would increase the chance of the system being infected by a virus. In contrast, if you follow the principle of using the lowest possible privileges as mentioned above, chances of getting a virus are slim.
Apart from that, you should never rush into executing a program from some Internet site that you do not really know. SUSE’s RPM packages carry a cryptographic signature as a digital label that the necessary care was taken to build them. Viruses are a typical sign that the administrator or the user lacks the required security awareness, putting at risk even a system that should be highly secure by its very design.
Viruses should not be confused with worms, which belong to the world of networks entirely. Worms do not need a host to spread.”
“Worms do not need a host to spread.”
Oh. We’re all safe then as long as we can keep the worm spreading computer fairies at bay. And then all we need to do is stop the rootkit fairies. And the fairies that tie innocent users up to stop them from updating their systems.
If only SP2 had responded to the fairy problem we’d all be safe.
So what’s then the point of having acl’s? Could the virus/worm/trojan add user accounts with the credentials of the regular user?
Only if the regular user had permissions to do so (so no, not by default).
Wouldn’t it be necesary to elevate privilege first by overflowing an vulnerable service?
Yes, but why do you think a virus/worm/triojan needs to do that ?
I could go on debating this with you for pages but I don’t see the need as I’ve already provided enough links to at least try and educate Windows users to the advantages of using Linux.
As noted, if you run a Windows machine like you do a Linux machine, “switching” isn’t necessary.
I’m an extremely educated user and the only advantage I can see to running Linux is making myself a smaller target by moving to a smaller chunk of the market. Since that advantage doesn’t even come close to outweighing the disadvantages of doing so, it’s not a very convincing argument.
Using the excuse that if M$ were to actually secure Windows like Linux such as to restrict write access would cause applications to break is ridiculous. Reason I say that is because if it works on Linux systems then why can’t M$ find a way to do it with Windows. After all security and peace of mind is what consumers want with their OS, not just ease of use.
Because the problem doesn’t lie with Microsoft, it lies with stupid/incompetent/lazy software developers whose programs won’t run by default under restricted user accounts – there’s nothing Microsoft can do about that.
It seems we do agree that if M$ would change their OS security policy to force users to use Limited Account and restrict what a Limited Account user can do then their would be less chance of a system wide infection or DOS attacks.
The things a “Limited Account” user can do are _already_ limited – that’s why it’s called a”Limited User”.
In our case, the host would be a program or an important storage area of the system, such as the master boot record, which needs to be writable for the program code of the virus.
All a virus needs to do is infect a program. It doesn’t need to be the MBR, it doesn’t need to be in the “system area”.
Owing to its multiuser capability, Linux can restrict write access to certain files, especially important with system files. Therefore, if you did your normal work with root permissions, you would increase the chance of the system being infected by a virus. In contrast, if you follow the principle of using the lowest possible privileges as mentioned above, chances of getting a virus are slim.
Exactly the same applies to Windows.
Using restricted accounts is a way to avoid security leaks. But it is very inconvenient, and because of that few users will follow the principle. Restricted accounts are only a temporary solution, not a final one. Linux’s security is some kind of solution, but only a temporary one. Windows’s security, as I know it, is not even a solution.
For example, let’s say I find a nice text editor on the net. I want to download it and edit my files with it, also those with important data. I’d classify security as sufficient for the end user when the text editor cannot leak or destroy the data even if it’s a trojan. This kind of security is simply impossible with any of today’s OSes. But that’s what the end user needs.