On Sun, 14 May 2006 10:41:58 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> http://www.roughlydrafted.com/Oct05.5Flaws.html
>
> Here is the gist:
>
> Flaw 1 - Windows' Interactive Services
>
> ,----[ Details ]
>| Like all Unix distributions, Mac OS X spawns background system
>| processes, called daemons, to handle various tasks.
> `----
Windows also has this feature. By default services are not interactive,
and cannot interact with the desktop. Optionally, you can allow them to,
but this is not the default. Further, this is *NOT* as common as the
article likes to make out. Also, Microsoft has discouraged this practice
for more than 10 years in it's documentation, providing several
alternatives.
The author makes it sound like there is no other choice but to have
interactive services, or that this is the default behavior.
> Flaw 2 - Windows' opaque and illogical file system presentation
The author is being disingenuous here. He makes a big deal about Windows
hiding various directories and files, but fails to mention that OSX does
the exact same thing with bundles. You have make a bunch of setting
changes to open them and view the contents. Forgetting also that various
settings get spread throughout the filesystem.
He also complains about the explorer namespace, but forgets to mention that
OSX also presents a logical namespace that is different from the filesystem
layout.
While it's true that Apple is less egregious in this respect, the same
arguments still hold.
> Flaw 3 - 'Least privilege' is impractical and broken
He has some valid points here, but is exagering a great deal. I can see
his point from an Apple user perspective, though.
> Flaw 4 - No signal of privilege escalation
This one is just hyperbole. Yeah, once you log in as an administrator, it
doesn't warn you when you do administrative things. He's comparing
different things here, though because he's comparing running as a normal
user to running as an admin. It's possible to run as root in OSX (and
Linux) and achieve the same thing.
What's really going on here is that he's trying to make his previous
argument into two arguments to pad his figures.
> Flaw 5 - Windows' expensive processes
And, this fails to point out that threads in Unix are expensive. The knife
cuts both ways.
How about a few flaws in OSX:
Mach based architecture is 20+% slower than modified microkernels or
monolithic kernesl.
Apple's attempt to "humanize" the unix architecutre requires duplication
and aliasing of legacy Unix structures, creating confusion and complexity
etc...
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