A few Free Software "concerns"

On the last post, the final comment was from Jeremy Boyd and it questioned why Linux was good and it spread a bit of FUD around too.

the most of that open source software can be installed on a windowsmachine two. and while open source is good, i believe sometimes they gotoo far with allowing just anyone to add to the code, because then youget something like Open Office, where it is so bloated with un-neededcode, that the performance is shot. MSoffice on the other hand, nobloat, and not functions lost. Linux unless you get one of theself-setup distros, just blows to set up, becuase you have to read.Windows 95-2003 all you do is pop the cd in and walk away. while itstill takes a couple hours, it doesn't take a couple hours of reading.

Andhow do you figure that linux is secure? Just because there are few hackattempts on it. If it were the market leader, it would be hackedconstantly. And what is to say hidden deep inside that Open-SourcedDistrobution that you use, there isn't a trojan or something of thelike? You dont know there isn't, and because it is built in, nothingyou do can get it out

I agree that the performance of OpenOffice is garbage, but that's why we have other office suites available such as KOffice (sorry, only for KDE) and AbiWord. Both of those start in less than a few seconds. There is bloat in Microsoft Office too, especially in the case of the .doc and .ppt files. On average, OpenDocument Format (.odt) files are half the size of Word Document (.doc) files and are not tied to a single office suite because of their use of XML[1].

To address the concern about Linux being hard to install unless you have a "self-setup distro", it's hard to agree since I've installed Linux easily more than four times[2]. The reason you have to read during a Linux install is because you can actually choose the software packages you want installed. For example, you can choose to install Apache, MySQL and PHP when installing most Linux distros. Windows doesn't have this option and never will. I think it's a win when the user actually has to know a bit about their computer, especially if they're going to be using it on a daily basis, and it's a one-time install unlike with Windows where if you get a virus, you pretty much have to re-install because they're nearly impossible to remove.

Linux is secure because it has many many people using it and a lot of developers. If there is a bug, someone will find it, report it and it will be fixed very very quickly. The security of Linux isn't really an issue when you're forced to create a regular user account and you have to manually log in as root to make changes to the system. Windows differs because it will let you use the system without creating a second, lower-privileged account which is a horrible horrible mistake that leads to many problems such as Trojans, viruses, spyware, etc.

Becoming market leader would make Linux even more secure as more companies as more pressure would be applied to developers to keep their distros safe. This is already true at Novell where they've contributed to Linux by creating XGL. Don't forget that IBM, HP and Google use Linux. IBM even told their employees to switch to Firefox. If that's not an endorsement of free and open source software, I don't know what is.

Finally, and this is stupidly easy to rebut, a free or open source distro has its source code and file structure available for anyone to look at. And because it's free or open source, you could dig out the Trojan. As Eric S. Raymond once said, with enough eyes all bugs are shallow and this is why the free and open source software is good for everyone[3].

[1] I checked one of Boyd's blogs and apparently he's created Objective XMLand I have to wonder why he would rather use Microsoft Office whichstill uses the inferior .doc format over the OpenDocument XML format.

[2] My first distro was Slackware 10.1 and then my next was Arch. I've installed Arch three times, and Slackware three times, one of those being a 486 install.

[3] I've emailed back and forth with a few free/open source software developers and the response I've gotten was always helpful. I've emailed the developer(s) of apfloat, KLiveJournal and some FLTK-based file manager and it's always helped.

technorati tags:free, open source

Blogged with Flock

A few Free Software "concerns"

On the last post, the final comment was from Jeremy Boyd and it questioned why Linux was good and it spread a bit of FUD around too.

the most of that open source software can be installed on a windowsmachine two. and while open source is good, i believe sometimes they gotoo far with allowing just anyone to add to the code, because then youget something like Open Office, where it is so bloated with un-neededcode, that the performance is shot. MSoffice on the other hand, nobloat, and not functions lost. Linux unless you get one of theself-setup distros, just blows to set up, becuase you have to read.Windows 95-2003 all you do is pop the cd in and walk away. while itstill takes a couple hours, it doesn't take a couple hours of reading.

Andhow do you figure that linux is secure? Just because there are few hackattempts on it. If it were the market leader, it would be hackedconstantly. And what is to say hidden deep inside that Open-SourcedDistrobution that you use, there isn't a trojan or something of thelike? You dont know there isn't, and because it is built in, nothingyou do can get it out

I agree that the performance of OpenOffice is garbage, but that's why we have other office suites available such as KOffice (sorry, only for KDE) and AbiWord. Both of those start in less than a few seconds. There is bloat in Microsoft Office too, especially in the case of the .doc and .ppt files. On average, OpenDocument Format (.odt) files are half the size of Word Document (.doc) files and are not tied to a single office suite because of their use of XML[1].

To address the concern about Linux being hard to install unless you have a "self-setup distro", it's hard to agree since I've installed Linux easily more than four times[2]. The reason you have to read during a Linux install is because you can actually choose the software packages you want installed. For example, you can choose to install Apache, MySQL and PHP when installing most Linux distros. Windows doesn't have this option and never will. I think it's a win when the user actually has to know a bit about their computer, especially if they're going to be using it on a daily basis, and it's a one-time install unlike with Windows where if you get a virus, you pretty much have to re-install because they're nearly impossible to remove.

Linux is secure because it has many many people using it and a lot of developers. If there is a bug, someone will find it, report it and it will be fixed very very quickly. The security of Linux isn't really an issue when you're forced to create a regular user account and you have to manually log in as root to make changes to the system. Windows differs because it will let you use the system without creating a second, lower-privileged account which is a horrible horrible mistake that leads to many problems such as Trojans, viruses, spyware, etc.

Becoming market leader would make Linux even more secure as more companies as more pressure would be applied to developers to keep their distros safe. This is already true at Novell where they've contributed to Linux by creating XGL. Don't forget that IBM, HP and Google use Linux. IBM even told their employees to switch to Firefox. If that's not an endorsement of free and open source software, I don't know what is.

Finally, and this is stupidly easy to rebut, a free or open source distro has its source code and file structure available for anyone to look at. And because it's free or open source, you could dig out the Trojan. As Eric S. Raymond once said, with enough eyes all bugs are shallow and this is why the free and open source software is good for everyone[3].

[1] I checked one of Boyd's blogs and apparently he's created Objective XMLand I have to wonder why he would rather use Microsoft Office whichstill uses the inferior .doc format over the OpenDocument XML format.

[2] My first distro was Slackware 10.1 and then my next was Arch. I've installed Arch three times, and Slackware three times, one of those being a 486 install.

[3] I've emailed back and forth with a few free/open source software developers and the response I've gotten was always helpful. I've emailed the developer(s) of apfloat, KLiveJournal and some FLTK-based file manager and it's always helped.

technorati tags:free, open source

Blogged with Flock

WIndows and then XGL!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Anti-piracy tool confuses users

What's happening there is that people who have used Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage are getting screwed over and being told that their copy is pirated. I don't use Windows XP and this remind me why...

According to the article,

The tool was downloaded as part of a wave of security updates Microsoft offered to users. It it is not installed Windows XP will periodically remind people to download and run the program.

Nagging users isn't a good idea. They'll just click the window away into oblivion and never update. That's what I do all the time with Mcafee Virus Scan whenever I have the misfortune of booting into Windows 2000. My cousin does the same thing with Norton Antivirus. Which is another great reason to stop using Windows...All the cash and time you spend on spyware/viruses can be saved if you try a Linux distro like Ubuntu or Knoppix.

Oh! I booted the Kororaa Xgl Live CD and it's fantastic! I love how you can have a screensaver running right over your desktop. Having the Matrix "code" scrolling down while you're working on something is pretty sweet. And the window transparency is amazing. I think this kicks the crap out of Windows XP and whenever Windows Vista comes out, it'll kick the crap out of that too. Can Mac OS X do the transparent window thing? Apparently it can do the rotating cube thing, but that's only for "Fast User Switching" which sounds a bit stupid to me because how often do people switch users on a computer? Logging in as root hardly calls for a fast user switch and a rotate of ye olde 3d cube.

So the standings in the OS Wars are: Linux 3 - Mac 1 - Windows 0. And now to fix my resume and check out the Flock Browser Beta.

technorati tags:windows, mac, linux

Blogged with Flock

WIndows and then XGL!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Anti-piracy tool confuses users

What's happening there is that people who have used Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage are getting screwed over and being told that their copy is pirated. I don't use Windows XP and this remind me why...

According to the article,

The tool was downloaded as part of a wave of security updates Microsoft offered to users. It it is not installed Windows XP will periodically remind people to download and run the program.

Nagging users isn't a good idea. They'll just click the window away into oblivion and never update. That's what I do all the time with Mcafee Virus Scan whenever I have the misfortune of booting into Windows 2000. My cousin does the same thing with Norton Antivirus. Which is another great reason to stop using Windows...All the cash and time you spend on spyware/viruses can be saved if you try a Linux distro like Ubuntu or Knoppix.

Oh! I booted the Kororaa Xgl Live CD and it's fantastic! I love how you can have a screensaver running right over your desktop. Having the Matrix "code" scrolling down while you're working on something is pretty sweet. And the window transparency is amazing. I think this kicks the crap out of Windows XP and whenever Windows Vista comes out, it'll kick the crap out of that too. Can Mac OS X do the transparent window thing? Apparently it can do the rotating cube thing, but that's only for "Fast User Switching" which sounds a bit stupid to me because how often do people switch users on a computer? Logging in as root hardly calls for a fast user switch and a rotate of ye olde 3d cube.

So the standings in the OS Wars are: Linux 3 - Mac 1 - Windows 0. And now to fix my resume and check out the Flock Browser Beta.

technorati tags:windows, mac, linux

Blogged with Flock