ILL Gates comes from a dynasty of businessmen and politicians. Over the years he was trying to commercialise software and nowadays he monopolises it. So what gives?

Commercial software companies liquify no assets into cash. They merely sell binaries (not even code) and offer little or no direct customer support. Accruing profits in such a matter is just lush, but is it acceptable at all? Is the final product doing what ‘it says on the tin’? Often it is not the case. Microsoft will soon sell a product to fix yet another broken product of theirs, which is absurd. Rather than offer refunds and benefits, which somehow compensate for a broken operating system, more money is extracted from the customer.

The above leads to serious questioning. Such marketing tactics do not appeal to anyone but the obedient Microsoft programmer whose understanding of hacking is flawed and often inexistent. That perhaps is why Windows fails to cope with that vital aspect which is security. That is why minor DDOS attacks pose a big threat to Windows servers, machines get hijacked and remote execution of code has become worryingly prevalent. Planting of programs and vandalism from afar is a face of evil that continues to take place. And yet, only few among us choose to blame the real culprit — Microsoft software.

PEN formats are based upon a standardised specifications, which ensure global collaboration among applications. Without common formats, hardware are software are simply unable to communicate, unless they come from the same vendor. Formats are also analogous to the notion of a language, or technically speaking, “protocols” and “standards”. They are often agreed upon by an ample panel, which involves industry experts and industry/academy leaders.

What happens, however, when a company goes astray and implements its own formats, which it is unwilling to disclose for competitive reasons? What happens when a format is extended without acceptance by others who already use and depend on it? When common language is violated, disaster is foreseen. An industrial majority (or a monopoly) can use miscommunication as a ‘tool’ which drives competitors away. The temptation to use that tool as a weapon is often there, yet the seminal formats must always be honoured. If not, conversion facilities must be made available, so that a non-lossy route can be followed to ‘sanitise’ the unknown data structures and appendages.

I have already complained about proprietary formats that lock one’s personal data. The context in this blog was Palm-powered devices, as well as software packages from Microsoft. It is a terrible scenario when one chooses an appliance or a software package over open formats and is thereafter obliged to use it perpetually. It is an utter lock-in, which has even reached the Web that is openness-motivated. Internet Explorer-only beame more commonplace, yet Firefox has shouted out for a change in recent years.

Let us illustrate the primary contention with the aid of yet another specific example. In question are the advantages of open fromat and exportable data, so let us consider address book (contacts) data on a variety of platforms. I currently hold my address books on Palm’s Address, KDE’s KMail, and Mozilla Thunderbird. Maybe I base my statements on the wrong factors, but experience shows that address confusion and poor organisation skills are prevalent among those that still rely on Microsoft to organise and manage their data. I used to be among those who delegate data organisation to applications (packages) rather than formats. As a consequence, I struggled to move between application, inter-operate or even decipher my own data in the absence of one particular commercial application. Sounds familiar?

In summary, as food for thoughts to ponder: maybe it’s the obscurity of moving data without adherence to standard formats. Maybe it is the lack of import/export utilities and maybe frequent hard-drive re-formatting due to virus attacks and the like. Either way, Linux and Mac users appear to have extensive data which is easily-locatable, inter-changeable, rocoverable and resilient. Openness entails true benefits, which are better understood in the long term.

ICROSOFT have announced officially their intent to enter the anti-virus market a couple of months ago. They now unveil a service called OneCare (homonym of “wanker”) Live, which is paid for annually. In simple words, the customer gets protection for the operating system’s own flaws and pays $50 per year for the service from no-one but the O/S vendor. As reported by CNN:

Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it plans to launch a new computer security service in June, marking the world’s biggest software maker’s entry into the fast-growing consumer anti-virus market.

Microsoft’s Windows OneCare Live, a subscription-based, self-updating service, will push the software giant into competition with consumer security providers Symantec Corp. and McAfee Inc.

The article neglects to mention the controversy that is associated with this anti-competitive strategy. Microsoft exploits a monoploy in the desktop market and gives itself motives to create flaws intentionally, then offer the cure for a high cost. I believe Symantec filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft over a month ago.

CCASIONALLY I get reminded why productivity and Windows remain an oxymoron. Take authoring in research, for example.

Colleague: juggling processes, restoring and minimising active windows, yet unable to cope with the complexity and clutter in the desktop

Over here: 8 virtual desktops

Colleague: needs to convert many images from encapsulated PostScript to PNG. Approach: start bloatware and wait for a little while; Load all images, assuming physical memory permits it; Wait for a long time for images to be rendered; Save images one by one and change file extension by hand.

Over here: a simple 3-line script does all of the above in just seconds. It uses ImageMagick.

Colleague: uses Wordpad for composition and paint.exe for simple graphics

Over here: a decent choice of professional tools

Colleague: figure placement handled by hand, hyphenation not possible. LaTeX is not reliable under Windows as it is not ‘native’

More issues: occasional viruses, FS maintenance, regular reboots (thus restoration of workspace is needed)

I estimate that we save several hours per day by opting for Linux. I am left baffled wondering: how can anyone who uses a computer for work possibly choose Windows? Has the world turned upside down?

I will soon be writing about the transition of a close friend to Linux. He recently discovered a world of power computing and left Windows on the curb. Linux stereotypes are often the main peril.

If you are switching from Windows to Linux, be warned. An independent, small-scale study concludes that migrating from Linux (back) to Windows is hard. As Windows lacks the power and user-friendliness that Linux offers, frustration should be anticipated.

A similar and older article uses sarcasm and outlines reasons not to use Linux. In practice, both articles which are cynical serve as primers to the advantages of using Linux.

If you choose to upgrade to Linux, be aware that rather than reading surveys, you can use a questionnaire-type utility to determine which Linux distribution suits you best.

Also see: 25 Reasons to Convert to Linux

Bill Gates arrested in his younger days (photo in public domain)

This one particular story comes from CNET and it speaks of a patent which has just been upheld. This patent has apparently suffered from some court battles and rejections in the past as it is very controversial. Judge for yourself:

[...]

The FAT file system, a common means of storing files, was originally developed for Windows but is also employed on removable flash memory cards used in digital cameras and other devices. Some Linux- and Unix-related products also use the system to exchange data with Windows.

[...]

To many this means that files will be ‘locked’ not only by proprietary formats, but also by the underlying filesystem. The filesystem in itself becomes proprietary and very restrictive. I wonder not only how this affects Linux, but merely any device that attempts to communicate with the closed-source ogre. The European Commision is less than pleased about aggressive attempts to lock out the competition.

The European Commission has threatened to fine Microsoft up to 2m euros (£1.36m; $2.4m) a day until it gives rivals more access to its systems.

Business as usual…

Slashdot has revealed to me this mild critique:

Four years ago, Bill Gates dispatched a companywide e-mail promising that security and privacy would be Microsoft’s top priorities. Gates urged that new design approaches must “dramatically reduce” the number of security-related issues as well as make fixes easier to administer. “Eventually,” he added, “our software should be so fundamentally secure that customers never even worry about it.”

The grim reality:

• WMF Exploits (2 new ones discovered yesterday)
• Windows Today Worse Than Windows in 2001
• Microsoft and Windows Zombies
• Yet Another Windows Patch
• Phishing Vulnerability
• 3 More Critical Flaws in Windows
• Internet Explorer Trojan