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Open Source is 'Not Reliable or Dependable'
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri May 19, 2006 11:28 AM
from the beg-to-differ dept.
from the beg-to-differ dept.
Exter-C writes "News.com is reporting that Jonathan Murray, the vice president and chief technology officer of Microsoft Europe has made claims that 'some people want to use community-based software, and they get value out of sharing with other people in the community. Other people want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model.'"
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*boggle* (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*boggle* (Score:5, Funny)
We can rely that there will be security updates and we can depend upon them utterly.
So it's a reliable and dependable model.
Parent
Re:*boggle* (Score:3, Insightful)
More like "we can rely that there will eventually be security updates for most security holes and that we can usually depend upon them". It often takes Microsoft a ridiculous amount of time to fix flaws.
Re:*boggle* (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure that users of many non-free, proprietary software systems experience similar reliability. However, most of my friends an
Re:*boggle* (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the question you have to ask yourself, though... will your friends and relatives who don't use OSS and who have crashes & viruses actually do better with OSS and a fresh install of Linux? Or would their problems be fixed with a fresh install of Windows, a good firewall, and the abolition of Internet Explorer?
I think that if most Windows users just used to use Windows in a safe way (and read the fucking dialog boxes that came up instead of reflexively clicking "OK" to everything), a lot of the "unreliable" and "virus-laden" views of it would start to dissipate.
While I know that Linux and OSS can be very secure and stable, Windows can be also. If people put the time into Windows that Linux-users put into Linux/OSS (by way of customization, and finding apps and drivers), they'd have a much more reliable machine (than their current Windows install
Parent
Re:*boggle* (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:*boggle* (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does your browser have to be a closed-source product? Last time I checked, Firefox runs pretty nicely on Windows. If anything, open-source apps running on Windows can serve as a bridge to eventually running open-source apps on something other than Windows. If a file created under (for instance) OpenOffice on Windows opens without issue under OpenOffice on Linux, that's one less impediment to eventually switching away from Windows.
Parent
Re:*boggle* (Score:3, Informative)
Re:*boggle* (Score:3, Funny)
Re:*boggle* (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest unreliability with Windows is the reliance on users not doing stupid things in order to stay reliable.
That's a dumb thing to rely on. ASSUME the user is going to do unwise things, and design around that assumption.
Re:*boggle* (Score:3, Insightful)
They can always load any 'repair' CD and get a more or less fresh OS again.
However, there is no repair CD to retrieve 5 year of vacation pictures.
The problem with security is that the social engineering is by far the most effective threat and basically that means that whatever the system, hackers will always be able to do what the user can do with his computer.
The only system that is ultimatly safe for a non "computer
Re:*boggle* (Score:3, Insightful)
That would help. However, sooner or later they are going to open an attachment, or download something dumb off the web or via p2p. A good firewall (2 way) will help, and abolishing IE will he
Re:*boggle* (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, you've not had any problems with MS software. Now think that perhaps computers are used as more than as desktop machines. Now think that perhaps MS sucks at that.
While I know that Linux and OSS can be very secure
Re:*boggle* (Score:3, Informative)
"The biggest unreliability with Windows is the stupid things that users do."
Knowing how ignorant of computers the average user is, I would have believed you, but there are two reasons I don't. One is experience with Windows myself. No matter how well you secure it -- limited user privileges, behind a router, use ZA, Avast!, WinPatrol and PeerGuardian -- something will happen to it. And limited user privileges is not the answer to security problems anyway. There are too many programs that require admin ac
An anoying AC asks for references. (Score:4, Informative)
Well, the majority of M$ computers ARE infected. It does not take long and it requires no "stupid" action by the user. Indeed, no action is required other than plugging the thing in. Study after study has shown this, but here are two for you:
Things have gotten worse not better and the numbers match personal experience all of us have. I've seen people bringing broken computers into stores. I've seen broken computers in banks, you know, the ones so far gone nothing can be done. While a user can help the process by going to net nasty sites, it's still not the user's fault. Their computer should not fail them that way.
Parent
No Kidding (Score:4, Insightful)
UNIX machines, including 32 and 64 bit versions of Linux go down infrequently enough that I investigate personally when it happens. We've had two hardware-related cases of UNIX machines becoming unresponsive to telnet and ssh requests in the past 6 months or so.
Reliability. Hah. Like how Outlook likes to remind me 7 hours after a meeting that I'm 7 hours late for the meeting. It couldn't be bothered to let me know before the meeting, mind you. That would be too convenient.
Microsoft has no clue what reliablity means. Some marketroid in Microsoft shouldn't be shooting his mouth off about how reliable their software is, when he's obviously never used reliable software. I'd like to address the following personally to the pencil pusher Jonathan Murray: "Shut the fuck up and go back to trying to convince companies to drink your company's poison kool aid. I dream of the day when your products are so marginalized that I never have to use them ever again."
Parent
Automatize please (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice FUDdy title (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, sometimes Open Source does it right, someties people preffer other ways. If THERE ARE companies that sell CLOSED software and services and their services al GREAT, yes this is FUD, but this time it is the editors the ones that are throwing it.
BURN KARMA BUUUUURN!!
RTFT (Score:3, Informative)
More self-serving propaganda-- is this news?? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like asking Steve Ballmer to take estrogen.
There are inherent problems with closed source! (Score:4, Insightful)
1) collaborative third party development and evolution is impossible with closed source, except by a proprietary gatekeeper of some type
2) visible source is easier to fix than invisible source
3) it's impossible to judge application quality and security without seeing source; otherwise it's hearsay
4) open source survives the ills of its progenitors
5) it's still ok to charge for software, even open source, IMHO
6) trade secrets can be encumbered by closed source, and so can lots of copyrights and patents not owned or licensed by its developers
7) you don't learn by reading closed source code (an oxymoron), however, you can learn by reading open source code
8) closed source doesn't actually suck, but it can be used to hide, obfuscate, cajole, and frustrate both developers and users
OS/2 was a technical success and market failure, and took eons to get bug fixes finished. The same can be said for BeOs. Simply building a better mouse trap and thinking that people will flock to you is one of those sweet lies that duped engineers believe. It's simply not so.
And now Apple probably sucks because their microkernel and some of their codebase is now closed. For that, we'll all suffer.
Parent
Not dependable? (Score:5, Funny)
*shrug* (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:*shrug* (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, in firefox's case that would probably mean forking it since the development team has a chronic case of featuritis, but again, you can do that if it's important enough to you.
There are some definite advantages in terms of reliability and security to the free software model, but that doesn't mean all free software is going to be more reliable or more secure than all proprietary software - far from it. Free software, however, does allow users to become involved and part of the process, rather than condemning them to exist only as passive 'consumers.' And it does respond to their needs, rather than to the desires of the marketing department.
IE is much better coded than firefox - and firefox therefore crashes more often. Yet, despite that advantage, IE is much less *secure.* And that's what you get when marketing determines the program specifications...
Parent
SourceSafe vs CVS (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SourceSafe vs CVS (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:SourceSafe vs CVS (Score:5, Interesting)
First about "I tried to install CVS or subversion". So, which one was it?
Second, you seem to value speed on something you do once - installation and setup - over the steady-state use of the source control tool - keeping your data integrity intact.
For Subversion, the explorer client is TortoiseSVN.
I've used Source Safe, Clear Case, Starteam, CVS and Subversion, RCCS, and a few others I've forgotten. By far, Subversion has been the best. Starteam was close, but it required a Microsoft setup back when I used it.
I do not agree that Subversion is difficult to set up.
Parent
move along... (Score:3, Insightful)
Strange... (Score:4, Interesting)
NEWSFLASH! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... actually, he said "commercial", so perhaps he's suggesting Mac OSX:) Perhaps he can clarify if he's trolling for his own company's software or if he means all commercial software. In which case he's not a marketing troll, but an idiot using a blanket statement who clearly doesn't care about the issue as he should be aware that Microsoft has used Open Source components in it's own OS - (TCP/IP stack?) - whereas they could have used a "superior" commercial solution.
Trollgasm! (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
MicroJerk! (Score:4, Funny)
I think they are just badmouthing them because Open Source won't let Microsoft go all the way on the first date.
MS is the last place to hear such a thing from! (Score:3, Interesting)
Hearing this out of MS reminds me of the quote: "We're seeing crazy uptime numbers now, like three months, six months. I fully expect we'll see a year of uptime when Windows Server 2003 is finished," said Jeff Stucky*. So uptimes, for MS's latest and greatest, that are far short of what *nix administrators experience, are a demonstration of MS's commercial stability? Does the other side of the pond experience MS in a different way?
That said, there are plenty of 3rd party applications that run well and are commercial. It's just Windows itself that doesn't run well. Some development groups are more focused on quality than others on both sides of the fence. I run a large number of commercial applications on Windows that run very well. I couldn't ask for more reliability or dependability. I could of Windows and that is the point.
*http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/04/25/ballmer _ushers_in_windows/
What in the "commercial model" does this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Would have posted on this thread earlier (Score:3, Funny)
Thank god for reliable, dependable commercial software!
Where would you live? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to agree in general (Score:4, Informative)
I just loaded FC5 on a machine cleanly. I then had it do a yum update. Once completed, firefox was unable to start as a regular user. (Root could start it.) Turns out that somehow the ${HOME}/.mozilla directory was chown root.root for some reason. I changed it and all was well again.
So yeah, it's "imperfect."
But GOOD-FREAKING-GOD! This is Microsoft claiming this? As if they set the standard for reliability and dependability? All this while their EULA states that their software is not guaranteed to be suitable for any purpose at all. That just OOZES customer-service, reliability and dependability.
Ridiculous...
look at the adds in the linked article... (Score:3, Insightful)
need I say any more? ;)
Microsoft made unreliable systems once (Score:3, Funny)
You know why that was? That's right. It's because Windows was open source back then. It had to be. Because there's NO WAY it could be otherwise if they used a "commercial software model".
gcc (Score:3, Insightful)
unreliable? works as well (if not better) than many commercial compilers.
Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
When someone stops supporting an Open Source product, it's still available to be updated by the community. When Microsoft decides that it's time for you to buy the latest version of their OS, you have NO FUCKING CHOICE. That's not dependability.
Re:BULLSHIT (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, the real issue is whether or not the updates are the source of the exploits. If MS didn't reveal the flaws, maybe there wouldn't be so many exploits for the unpatched systems. You might have had an interesting post if you'd gone with this, instead of two long paragraphs of narcissistic swearing. Do you understand that, dickhead? I don't give one rat's ass how you use your computer, I'm using my vague knowledge of IT in general. Let me clue you in on something: YOU ARE NOT THE YARDSTICK BY WHICH THE REST OF THE WORLD IS TO BE MEASURED.
Parent
That's Funny (Score:3, Funny)
FUD from both sides (Score:3, Insightful)
The big difference between Open Source and proprietary software is accountability. If you have a problem, who do you turn to? A vendor who you paid a lot of money to for support, or a mailing list that may or may not get back to you? Most businesses won't accept that kind of uncertainty.
Now, this is not as important for a lot of small/home businesses without an IT department. But once you get into the "medium" size businesses, fuzzy support options are unacceptable, and your IT management has two choices: Hire a bunch of expert Linux gurus to set up a great FOSS environment, or hire a bunch of MCSE monkeys at half the cost and spend the rest on software and support.
You know the software company is gonna be there in 5 years, and have documented knowledge of your environment, where your IT guru sysadmins may have moved on to other jobs. The training is standardized, so you can expect anyone you hire with an MCSE to be moderately familiar with the environment. It's probably ultimately easier on IT management to go the proprietary software route, because if there is an emergency, there is always a company who can be held directly accountable.
There is no cut and dry rule for whether or not you should use Open Source. But if your IT operations are not part of your core business, it may ultimately be easier to just pay for support. The reliability of Open Source largely depends on the skill of your administrators, and good admins cost more money than MCSEs and can be hard to replace because sysadmin skillsets vary widely.
The headline is right (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, Microsoft software is that bad.
Re:Marketing tripe (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, you did not got FP.
I really hate the slashdotters that have this logic "ClosedSource -> Malware" or "ClosedSource->Bad", there are tons of applications that are closed source and DO NOT have any kind of crapware on them, a lot of them are even FREE.
Just because the author of a program do not want to give you his lunch for free does makes him baaaad, anti OpenSource or whatever, come on, get a grip!
Parent
Re:Marketing tripe (Score:3, Insightful)
We've seen Windows bundled with spyware, we've seen Windows phone home, we've seen rather suspicious loopholes (ok, let's be neutral here and say they don't have bad intentions but are just inapt).
Closed source is not necessarily bad. But this wasn't against closed source, this was directed at Microsof
Re:Marketing tripe (Score:3, Interesting)
You bring up a very interesting point I have come to realize lately. When fixing my brothers laptop (and by virtue of that act, my parents computers as well) an interesting situation came up. I'll try to keep this to the bare minimum so as not to stray to diatribe length.
Well of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent