[Sussex] Some more thoughts on the Microsoft/Novel deal

[Steven Dobson]

Hi Desmond

On Sun, 2006-11-19 at 15:22 +0000, Desmond Armstrong wrote:
> Interesting to see the history.

I'm glad you're enjoying this.

> The point is that Bill Gates was an opportunist and was there at the 
> time with a crude system which was able to run on the very basic 
> machines available.

Agreed.

> He does deserve credit for helping the ball to roll.

I'm not sure credit is the word I'd use there, but what the heck.

> The problem is that as the cost of memory came down he did nothing to 
> improve the security of the system and, in consequence we all have to 
> suffer the consequences, many many spam.
> Sensibly, the crude O/S would have been replaced (long ago) by a much 
> better system in phase with the developing technology and then we would 
> not now be having all this spam.

I disagree here.  Better systems were available - think Unix, think
OS/2.

The masses don't want security.  XP-SP2 turned on a firewall by default.
How many just turned it straight off again?

> Unfortunately as all the providers are withdrawing support for 
> anti-virus and firewall in line with MS ceasing support the whole 
> problem is compounded. Just how many million Win98 machines will remain 
> on the internet? The spammers will now find it even easier to take them 
> over as bots.

If anti-virus & firewall providers are dropping support of Win98 then it
is because they are not seeing a return on investment.  You don't
shutdown a profitable line just because the product is no longer
available.  How long to Ford & Vaxhall produce spares for models that
you can no longer buy?

The last botted machine I saw was an XP laptop.  It had been botted
because the user had installed software from a site he should never have
visited in the first place.  Users are not prepared to take the actions
they need to take to secure their own systems.

> So, it is important that users are offered at minimal cost a friendly 
> Linux distro because until that happens spam will remain a constant 
> feature of our lives.

No, I disagree.  We need to change habits and that is much, much harder
than changing an OS.

Steve

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