Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 02:59:50 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Tiny starter configuration for FreeBSD Message-ID: <005c01c161fb$295b0100$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <004c01c161f4$d22bb9c0$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Anthony >Atkielski > >Yes, although UNIX is such an insecure system by nature that this is >not saying >much. > According to the latest from it was either Gardner Group or IDC, Microsoft particularly IIS won that title recently. > >> At some point, Microsoft has to take some of the >> culpability for selling a holey OS to clueless masses. > >I disagree. The clueless will always be vulnerable--that's why they >are called >clueless. No, we went through that with Sendmail. For years, the Sendmail maintainers kept promiscious-relaying on in the default Sendmail, and every year the relay spam got worse and worse and worse. Many people (myself included) bitched and told them to get with the program and change the Sendmail default, but the answer was always "It's not our responsibility, it's the admin's responsibility" Finally, they changed it and ever since, as more and more systems upgrade, relay spam is getting less and less. Summary is that Microsoft knows they sold NT into the clueless market. They didn't take any precautions to lock down the features and just like giving a loaded gun to a child to play with, it blew up in everyone's face. They are culpable. If they were selling NT into a market that was expected to not be full of morons, I wouldn't say that. But even the Microsoft marketing for NT was how "easy it is to use" (translation, how it won't overload the feeble moron brain and make it explode) so they can't argue as a defence that they expected the admins to not be morons. When you as a manufacturer aim to sell into the greatest common demoninator market (ie: the Moron market) you have an additional responsibility not to give the fools tools that they can use to screw everyone with unless they spend some time getting un-moronified. > >OS/2 was built to look like MS-DOS, which doomed it, and that was a >major design >flaw. > Spoken like someone who never ran it. OS/2 1.X was built initially to look somewhat like DOS but by the time they got to 1.3 that idea had long, long gone to the chopping block. And by the time it went to 2.0 (during Win 3.1 days) it looked like Win95. Don't forget that OS/2 won Infoworld Product of the Year award in 1995. (quite a slam to Win95) OS/2 died for 3 major reasons: 1) It put in support for Windows 3.1 binaries (seamless Windows) At the time it seemed the thing to do, not only could you run your old binaries but Microsoft had spent a lot of time giving head to clueless media people to convince them that it was impossible to seamless Windows. When it came out and actually worked it was a severe PR blow to MS. But, ultimately doing this made people never upgrade to OS/2 native apps, which helped kill the OS/2 ISV's and companies figured "why bother developing an OS/2 version of my app when OS/2 runs the Windows one I already have" (this incientically is why I hate the Linuxulator in FreeBSD) 2) IBM couldn't market their way out of a paper bag. While MS was running around paying OEMS's to include Windows (an act the OEM's were to regret later when MS enclosed them in exclusive contracts that were only broken after the anti-trust trial) IBM was throwing all OEM requests for quantity OS/2 discounts into the round file. There were many other instances besides that too. 3) Source to OS/2 was never opened up. Thus when IBM announced End Of Life on OS/2, it killed all future interest because there was no way for someone else to pick up the pieces and continue development. Turst me - DOS lookalike had nothing whatsover to do with OS/2's demise. >> The "mainframes" that these developers were previously >> designing for had CPU's that were less powerful than >> a 14.4K modems and lacked features that are >> taken for granted on PC CPU's. > >The slower the processor, the better you have to be in order to write an >efficient operating system for it. > It's not the speed, it's the lack of hardware features. While efficient code vastly improves speed, what is even more important is use of all hardware resources. the 386's were much more advanced this way. > >Then why does UNIX perform so much better on a given hardware >configuration than >NT? This greatly depends on your definition of performance. >and less code is executed for tasks of similar net utility. > X Windows consumes a lot of code, expecially if your running both the X server and X client on the same box. > >Most people who have grown up with PCs have been brainwashed into >thinking that >perpetual upgrades and updates are normal and mandatory. But just >as you don't >buy a new washing machine every three months (I hope!), you don't >need to buy a >new PC or replace your OS or applications every few months, either. >If they do >what you want, no changes are required, ever. Until you get to Windows XP. Once you have XP loaded and are under the "Windows Product Activation" then if Microsoft stops activating your copy due to End of Life then the next new PC purchase you will be stuck buying new software. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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