[Gllug] Thursday Grauniad

[John Hearns]

I was a bit unsure about having my regular comment on the Online
section of the Guardian this week.

Jack Schofield's column this week on the Microsoft OneCare service
(proposed subscription service for updates, security fixes, virus
scanning, making sure backups are done....) at first didn't trouble me.

But I did a double take on the point that:
"OneCare could also encourage users to stick with Microsoft's utilities.
What will happen, for example, when security holes are found in the
Firefox browser, AOL's instant messaging software, RealNetwork's media
player, and so on? I can't see OneCare rushing to the rescue."


Eh? Didn't I just get a Firefox update this morning on my Fedora box?
Don't Windows users get similar updates?
Actually - is there an automatic (stress that) tool for updates
to non MS software for Windows? (*)
Class - discuss.


Linux just isn't good software - we can now get regular updates and
security fixes every night, over the internet, from trusted sources,
thanks to the hard work put in by the people who have worked on RPM,
dpkg, yum....  Whether or not that is a commerical update service or
a free download.

(*) I hadn't thought about this.
Another advantage of free software - you are at liberty to add package
sources to your yum config, your apt sources list, whatever.


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