General IT ManagementDiscussion of challenges facing IT management including articles published throughout the Earthweb IT Management network at Datamation, eSecurityPlanet and CIO Update.
"Things were different ten years ago, when the community was a small group of hobbyists...Back then, the community was fragile," he writes. But now, FOSS thrives in data centers everywhere. However, "over the years, we've developed a culture of hate, where bashing Microsoft proves our membership in the club. We've come to count on this opposition as a central part of our identity." Give it a rest, Byfield writes: "If you value FOSS, there are the aspects you should be promoting -- not the taunts more suitable to a high school locker room."
I don't buy it. I really think there should be an awareness of just how badly Microsoft is picking people's pockets and restricting their freedoms. I'll take myself as an example here -- I used to be a die-hard Windows user ten years ago, and I wasn't even aware that there were alternatives. Then again, of course, Linux was nowhere close to ready for the desktop back then. But starting in late 2002, I learned some things about Windows XP that I had a real problem with -- namely the WGA. Not that I'm advocating software piracy, mind you, but when I read that some hardware upgrades would cause you to fail activation, I had a problem with that, since I've just about always had to upgrade hardware in order for Windows to run at an acceptable speed, and I just felt that that was complete nonsense, and so that's when I began to explore the world of Linux. Today, I'm a devoted Linux fan, running PCLinuxOS, and I don't intend to return to Windows -- EVER.
You have the freedom to keep yourself informed of products and services.
Microsoft has not taken away any of your freedoms.
You have the freedom not to buy or use Microsoft products. They are not picking your pocket.
You have the freedom not to purchase hardware that is on their qualified list of hardware.
You have the freedom to take your chances unqualified hardwar will work.
You have the freedom to license and attempt to use whatever software you think will work on the hardware you have.
Web sites have the freedom to make sure that the browser used is Internet Explorer 6 or 7. About half the high security sites I visit reject non-IE browsers as a security measure to protect their servers from hacked open source browsers.
I agree. There is a vast difference between the flooding the market and stifling choices. The options are there if you want to seek them out. I don't think the fact that most users don't bother to can be blamed on a company that's trying to turn a profit. How many companies do you know of who go out of their way to make you aware of their competition? It's capitalism.
It's a well known fact that without Microsoft, the world would still be programming everything in Assembly Language and struggling to create a useful BASIC interpreter. It's unfair to leave Microsoft alone in its efforts to educate, enlighten and further us. This not only drains essential resources away from creating future generations of software, it also has an adverse effect on management as they are no longer able to concentrate 110% on envisioning what the world needs next, but must also spread themselves too thinly juggling development, marketing, legal and competitive issues.
We've been quietly doing some research, and have begun putting together a strategy that will enable us all to whizz off into a real and proper future, unhindered by the Open Source nonsense which is proving to be a thorn in the side of human development itself.
So please ask yourself this question : "How prepared for the future, really, are you?"
Here are a few tips that we've put together based on our findings. They may not be a hundred percent for everybody, but please take the time to read on.
Tips for the future
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1) Take books away from children.
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If they learn too much, too young, they'll be too sharp to be satisfied with the computing landscape at a later age. If you can keep their IQ within the eighty-ninety range by the time they start work, their level of dissatsfaction will be reduced. They will also find clicking on things stretches their current level of ability.
2) Teach children not to share.
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This is a common way in which parents handicap their children. They'll grow up very naive and unprepared for what lies ahead. Show them how to get ahead at an early age. One such example might be hitting other kids with the playgroup toys whilst shouting loudly "they're mine".
3) Hinder the competition.
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Show them how to steal sandwiches from other lunchboxes and flush them down the toilet without being noticed. This will slow the development of the other children, which has obvious advantages in the short medium and long term.
Alternative strategy: Pay little Johnny a large amount of pocket money to do it for you so that you don't get caught.
4) Treat them to an evening at the Fairground.
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Typically this should begin by indulging on candy-floss as a sweetener. Next, initially pay for one go on the Merry-Go-Round. Each time they say they're bored, feeling sick or want to do something different shout at them and pay for another go. Explain later that there'll be no pocket money this year to make up for all of the goes they wanted on the ride.
Bonus: If they say they would like a go on the dodgems or big-wheel etc, explain that not only are these other rides dangerous, but will actually cost them their pocket money for five years instead of just the one, according to your research.
5) Throw the best birthday parties.
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Always invite every classmate/yearmate to their birthday party. Use the most addictive food groups available for the spread. Throughout the party, make an effort to speak to all of the children, asking them closed questions such as "My little Freddie's the best isn't he?", and make sure they all say "Freddie's the best" to at least one other child before they're invited to eat.
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We hope you've find this guide helpful. If you have any suggestions of your own, or would like to make a contribution, please do so. Perhaps we can collate them together.
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"You're Impotent. Our Poisson."
I understand the point of the article and agree that ranting and raving can actually turn off perspective open source adopters but I completely disagree that Microsoft should be ignored.
It's tempting to treat Microsoft like a bully, ignore them and they will go away, but the reality is that if someone doesn't stand up to them they will never stop.
I liken Microsoft with the American government, both value money over the welfare of their citizens/consumers. If they can't defeat opposition they use FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) to try and force people to comply. They fear people making informed decisions because they know that their interests are not the same as the people. So it takes those with courage to stand up and point out the problems that exist because if no one does, nothing will change.
I agree that we should all "grow up" and stop using silly name calling when it comes to promoting open source to others, but I feel strongly that there is a time and place for it. The bitterness that most of us feel towards Microsoft bonds us together, for better or worse. Those of us that are outraged by the absolute garbage that we see every day need an outlet. It is far better to express that in a forum with like minded people than to vent to someone who doesn't understand the issues. I find myself doing that with my wife and she is quite sick of it
I agree we talk about Microsoft too much. I think of Microsoft in terms of an aberration of the capitalist way of life, where accumulation of capital is the source of power. Other American (and foreign corporations following the American legal model) mega-corporations are not forgotten either. I see Microsoft and other patent trolls as legal companies disguised as software companies. I own stock in a number of free-software-supporting companies: IBM, Dell, Red Hat, HP, Sourceforge. I used to own Novell stock until the Novell-Microsoft agreement, then I dumped it. I believe the best way to support free software companies is from the inside, by being a shareholder. When a company of which I am a shareholder does something unethical, I certainly make myself heard. When Dell would not support Linux, the management heard my opinion loud and clear, without abiguity.
In our capitalist economic structure, success is measured in accumulated wealth and percentage of market. The consumer does not count and should not count unless they contribute to the "bottom line".
If you want to be a social advocate that is your right under the capitalist system, but it in no way affects the system in a material way.
IMO when I became financially independent, that was the only time I could react according to my "social conscience" and afford to ignore the consequences of giving up personal well being for social endeavors.
Fortunately I'm retired and can do as I please regarding both capitalism and social endeavors. Still, I'm a libertarian free market capitalist at heart.
I avoid open source software at all costs since it is easily hacked to perform other functions than it is marketed to do. Open source is an open invitation for malware innovation and security compromise. Just imagine a hacked open SSL routine that exposes your internet security. What a scary thought.
"I avoid open source software at all costs since it is easily hacked to perform other functions than it is marketed to do. Open source is an open invitation for malware innovation and security compromise. Just imagine a hacked open SSL routine that exposes your internet security. What a scary thought."
No you're buying into a non-argument I think. Distro's use checksums on the code. The argument you put forward applies to any type of software - if you want to throw unchecked software at your machine you *may* have problems.
I agree with the author, but for different reasons. As a developer, I think open source software is great and I use Linux every day in my job, but as a capitalist I would contend that profit potential drives innovation. I would also contend that having a development effort under one roof, which is rarely the case in the FOSS world, drives development speed, if not necessarily quality.
On the flip side, FOSS is great because it encourages users and developers to contribute to the product out of a sense of community, and I would guess that most contributors regard their favorite OSS project as a labor of love (you know, like something you would gladly do for FREE).
Having said all that, I doubt that FOSS will ever be able to get a product out to market as quickly as a profit-driven organization. At the same time, I believe it would be rare for a commercial enterprise to approach the quality of a mature OSS product (I'm talking projects like apache, the linux kernel, X11, firefox here, not not some single-contributor home-baked utility, many of which are really great and grow into mature efforts themselves, but many of which also remain immature due to lack of resources for testing, etc).
ua549, you seem surprisingly unaware of OSS's position in software security for a forum moderator; open source software is much more secure than commercial equivalents BECAUSE of its open source nature. You can never know for sure what kind of spyware lurks in the depths of a closed-source application, but you can be sure that it would not take long for some FOSS developer to blow the whistle on malicious code in an open source venture. You also appear to be under the impression that just anyone can add code to a source tree without accountability. This is far from the truth; most core FOSS development efforts are tightly controlled with change control procedures meeting or exceeding the best in commercial ventures. Even the small single-developer projects are normally distributed as source tarballs and generally encourage others to look at and improve their code base. How much more secure can you get than that?
It isn't security that drives web sites to tailor their apps to IE; it's the availability of tools and test resources; sadly, many companies decide it just doesn't pay to double the testing effort to capture an additional 5 or 10% of market share. BTW, Firefox is changing this rapidly as more and more users adopt it (for security reasons).
Last edited by happycampers; 11-19-2007 at 10:22 PM.
But interestingly, on secunia.com, there are more reported vulnerabilities for firefox than for IE. A substantial difference. I searched the site on 2 terms, internet explorer vulnerabilities, and firefox vulnerabilities. I think the totals were 102 and 142, respectively, but it was a while ago, so I might be off slightly
Uh... you are going by the number of advisories, which is pretty meaningless. If you scrolled down just a bit you would have found 1595 virus threats related to IE vs. 18 (yes, one-eight) for FF. Also, some of the advisories are listed as "multiple threats," so many threats could be wrapped into one advisory.
[Edit] Actually, I just looked again and many of the 1595 are bogus hits just based on an OR word match. Still, just quickly browsing through the first couple of pages turns up more viruses related to IE than all of the FF hits combined. Also, since IE is so tightly integrated into the OS, I would contend that the damage threat is higher. Risk analysis has to take into account both probability and severity.
Last edited by happycampers; 11-19-2007 at 10:24 PM.
It's time to help Microsoft
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