> Whether you like or hate MS, I firmly believe that they have helped get
> computers get where they are today.
I'd agree with you.
I just don't think that's something of which to be proud...
> Their OS was always advertised as
> being for the masses, and that means so dumbed down that even a monkey
> can use it.
But it never needed to be dumbed down.
PCs became popular because people wanted porn. Whichever way you dress it
up, we have our current ecosystem because people wanted easy access to
images of nakedness and fornication.
Now take a look through things like the binary Usenet groups - people will
*learn* to do things if it gets them what they want.
DOS and then Windows didn't become popular because they were a superior
solution to the problem set - they became popular because they were
initially cheap, and also trivial to copy. So they became a de facto
standard.
> I also believe that they are their own worst enemy, in the sense that as
> so many people use MS products, then the hackers are going to invest in
> finding hacks for MS, to make a fast profit and run.
>
> Hackers wont invest time and money in linux desktop OS's for two
> reasons, A) Amount of users they can target, and B) Money they could
> gain.
No, that's just MS propaganda.
Attacks against Linux are far fewer because very few users run their
day-to-day accounts with administrative permissions, and the text-file
config systems mean that changes to configurations are easily spotted. Add
into that that each app will typically have no access to another's setup,
and the amount of control you can achieve by taking any particular
application is necessarily reduced.
And that's before we go anywhere near the "many eyes" argument.
It's not long ago that Apache had >80% of the web server market (I don't
know the current figures, but GoDaddy's parking has made them somewhat
less relevant anyway). From the numeric argument, that would mean that
Apache got hit all the time, right? It didn't. IIS was the target of
choice.
> Im one of those who uses MS for work, and Linux for home.
As do I.
My Windows customers are all convinced that Windows is easy - and it is,
because I do all the hard work for them. And they pay me for that.
My Linux / Solaris customers also think that their choice of OS is easy.
And it is. And they pay me for new features to their systems, not for
repairs and rebuilds, which is the staple of my Windows work.
> Sod it, I need a coffee and a smoke, as Im getting outta my tree here.
> :-))
I've been known to have a rant whilst out of my tree - but it's a bit
early on a Sunday, even for me.
