RE: [Full-Disclosure] Anti-MS drivel

["James Patterson Wicks" <pwicks@oxygen.com>]

Kind of sad that you have to resort to insults, but I guess that's just
how some people are used to operating.

" Apple employs extremely talented people. Or do you think they just
grabbed 
Mach and FreeBSD and threw out an OS without testing and engineering?"

As far as Apple goes, I really must have hit on a nerve of OS X lovers
out there.  I guess they skimmed over the "The OS is more stable than
Microsoft" statement.  I did not question their commitment to the OS,
but their attitude toward their general public and the price of their
products.  Apple needs to replace their army of design engineers (not
software and hardware engineers) with MBA's.  Spend less time trying to
make their products prettier and concentrate on increasing market share.
When Steve Jobs was asked about the screwed up pricing on the new iPod
Mini, he said that they are marketed to "existing iPod owners so that
they can have one iPod for normal use and one for the gym . . ."   And
he said it with a straight face  Like I said, screwed up attitude.



"Last time I checked Java was not an operating system."

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jos

Here is the ZDNet article on the rover using Java:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5142220.html 

It's OK, I won't call you any names for not knowing.


"When a new worm comes out that infects your whole 
Windows network because some guy brought his laptop and bypassed your 
firewall, do you sue Microsoft?"  

"If someone brings in a laptop and infects your network, you cannot sure
Microsoft."

Poor security policy enforcement caused that problem.  Unless there is a
zero-day exploit that Microsoft knew about and failed to warn customers
about or failed to try to resolve, no court would find them guilty
(especially with Microsoft lawyers).  The IE exploit that has been
infecting home users for the past few months has not businesses as hard
because most large businesses spend then money on decent administrators
who enforce security policy, patch regularly and read lists like this to
protect their enterprise.




-----Original Message-----
From: full-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.com
[mailto:full-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.com] On Behalf Of Miguel
Mendez
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 9:59 AM
To: full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com
Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] Anti-MS drivel

James Patterson Wicks wrote:

> Microsoft has competition.  Apple, Sun, Red Hat . . .

It sure does, but not on the x86 desktop.

> Problem is Apple is full of idiots who feature style over substance.
> The system has to look better than it performs.  They want people to
pay
> a premium to make it seem that their products are for the elite only.
> The OS is more stable than Microsoft, but their elitist attitude will
> always keep them at 5% market share.

James, I don't know how old you are, or if you're just dim. Apple 
employs extremely talented people. Or do you think they just grabbed 
Mach and FreeBSD and threw out an OS without testing and engineering? 
They have people like Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith working hard on the 
BSD side of things. They have extremely good people working on the UI 
side of things. Add to that the NeXT heritage and what you get is the 
finest desktop OS ever made, combined with the robustnes typically found

in *ix systems. And cut the expensive hardware crap, that was true 10 
years ago, not now. You can get a very nice Mac for a decent price these

days. The fact is, OS X has had far less security problems than any 
desktop OS Microsoft has ever made.

> Sun's Java should be the market leader, but they don't have the cash
to
> take on the 800 pound gorilla that is Microsoft.  Java is on running
> Spirit, the rover that is on Mars right now.  Imagine if Spirit had a

Again, you don't know what you're talking about. Java has its place in 
the server, that's where it shines. Nobody uses java for desktop apps 
except when you want easy multi-platform support, and even then, there 
are other alternatives. Java is very strong in the middleware market, 
where it shows all its true potential.

> Sorry, but the guy from the Help Desk can't just stop by and reboot it
> this time.  Even NASA is not crazy enough to trust a billion dollar
> project to a Microsoft OS.

Last time I checked Java was not an operating system.

> Linux is just not ready for prime time.  By prime time I mean on the
> homes of the American public.  Regular home consumers don't want to
have
> to learn a new language to use e-mail or play games.  They want to be
> able to update a security hole without having to compile something.
> Linux needs an interface like OS X and a software library to back it
for
> "normal" people to be interested.  

Perhaps Microsoft's contracts with the major vendors also have something

to do with this. OTOH, I do think there are Joe ComputerUser-ready linux

distros. For people who use their computer to check e-mail, write some 
letters and browse the web, that is. I don't think a Mandrake or Knoppix

system is that hard to learn. I'll give you the games thing, though. 
It's a catch-22 situation. The Linux market is too small, so little 
games are available, but few gamers will switch too linux if no games 
are available.

> Business on the other hand is moving slowly to Linux.  Why slowly?
Who
> do you sue when your business is hacked by someone who planted a
> backdoor in the Linux kernel?  Won't happen you say?  Let's see,
almost
> happened once already . . . 

You are so wrong. Businesses tend to be very conservative. If it works, 
don't touch it. That's why there are still IBM mainframes, that's why 
there are thousands of COBOL apps still running. Get a support contract 
with RedHat or SuSe. When a new worm comes out that infects your whole 
Windows network because some guy brought his laptop and bypassed your 
firewall, do you sue Microsoft?

> Linux kernel suffers Trojan horse hack -
> http://www.silicon.com/software/os/0,39024651,39116796,00.htm

Guess what, no operating system is perfectly bugfree.

Cheers,
-- 
        Miguel Mendez <flynn@energyhq.es.eu.org>
        http://www.energyhq.es.eu.org
        PGP Key: 0xDC8514F1

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