__/ [ Doug Mentohl ] on Thursday 14 December 2006 18:38 \__
> Q: "Was Red Hat approached by Microsoft for a similar deal? If you
> listen to Steve [Ballmer], Red Hat has said many times no. So were you
> approached?"
>
> A: "We put a very clear message in the market that we would never do
> it. Microsoft has tried to kill open source for many years, but can't
> do it. I mean, how do you kill a community?"
>
> "We don't say "open source needs patent protection". But it is here in
> case someone gets messy with the open-source community"
>
> Q: "The argument is ongoing about whether the Microsoft platform is
> more secure than Linux. Is it still a sensible debate?"
>
> A: "It's not. There were 18 security breaches in 2005 to Red Hat
> Enterprise Linux. Ninety percent were fixed within one hour. You will
> not see that at Microsoft."
Absolutely not. With Red Hat Linux, buffer overflaws are hard because of
dynamic linking/memory allocation (don't recall if they even recompile
things differently with some randomisation). Quick patches are a nice bonus
and they rarely, if ever, lead to things breaking as a side-effect.
Modularity eases testing of packages that are isolated and well
encapsulated.
On the opposite side you have Microsoft. Last night it issued a very
important security patch without even announcing it (hush-hush, it's bad
publicity). It was discovered months ago, IIRC, and affected all Windows XP
laptop with Wi-Fi (some desktops too). Wayyyyyy overdue. Irresponsible too.
When will the world learn to cope with 100 million Windows zombies? When
will Mac and Linux (and BSD and Solaris...) users cease to be victims of
SPAM, DDOS attacks, identity theft, data leaks (stored on servers that get
pwned, sometimes with credit card details)? We all share the burden not only
in terms of punishment, but also in terms of taxation. Security expenses
exceed $60 billion annually, IIRC. There has to be a batter way. People
should do work; not worry, not nervously patch, not wipe and reinstall, not
erase SPAM and lose friendships because of lost E-mail, not chase money that
was miraculously disappeared from the bank account...
> http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/software/stories/164663.html
--
~~ Kind greetings and happy holidays!
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Life is too short to proofread"
http://Schestowitz.com | Open Prospects ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Tasks: 136 total, 1 running, 133 sleeping, 0 stopped, 2 zombie
http://iuron.com - knowledge engine, not a search engine
|
|
