It's not the site's opinion I'm concerned about Chris, it's the content of the article. Steve Jobs thought he was God and I think Bill Gates has the same mindset :/

Perhaps that's an unfortunate side effect of wielding proprietary control.

Uh, no.

It is the reason that they are able to take the risk to make capital.

---

It's not the site's opinion I'm concerned about Chris, it's the content of the article. Steve Jobs thought he was God and I think Bill Gates has the same mindset :/

Perhaps that's an unfortunate side effect of wielding proprietary control.

Uh, no.

It is the reason that they are able to take the risk to make capital.

Spoken like a true Kapitalist...

---

rOZZ
Music
Pictures

Perhaps that's an unfortunate side effect of wielding proprietary control.

Uh, no.

It is the reason that they are able to take the risk to make capital.

Not at all.

We have a patents system to protect innovation and invention. Part of that is that the innovation/invention must be openly publicized so that others can make use of the innovation/invention.

At least in the IT world, "Proprietary" is an excuse in secrecy and obfuscation and vandalism to enforce entrapment so as to be able to gouge excessive profit for minimally developed (shoddy) product. The rest becomes a game of Marketing...


Note how open cooperation is usually far more productive than competitive vandalism...

IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Perhaps that's an unfortunate side effect of wielding proprietary control.

Uh, no.

It is the reason that they are able to take the risk to make capital.

Not at all.

We have a patents system to protect innovation and invention. Part of that is that the innovation/invention must be openly publicized so that others can make use of the innovation/invention.

At least in the IT world, "Proprietary" is an excuse in secrecy and obfuscation and vandalism to enforce entrapment so as to be able to gouge excessive profit for minimally developed (shoddy) product. The rest becomes a game of Marketing...


Note how open cooperation is usually far more productive than competitive vandalism...

IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

Uh, no Martin. You are thinking far too small. Only someone with a God complex would even attempt to grow a company to that size. It takes a huge pile of self confidence and being cocksure you are right and everyone else is wrong to get there. If you don't have that, fear of failure creeps in and you stay a small fish in a big pond. See step 4. http://www.lksupport.com/images/PersonalSuccessPlan.pdf It isn't about the method, it is about the person.

Julie understood.

---

Well, for the 7th month in a row, Linux has seen another great drop in the desktop/laptop market, http://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0&qpct=6.

Down to 1.34% now from a dizzy high of 1.74% earlier last year and that high was mainly due to Google Chrome's effort for a few months until most people woke up and installed Windows on their mainly user unfriendly systems to get better productivity out of them.

It won't be long before it's just included in the "Other" section of this market at the rate that it's going, even that old piece of crap Windows Vista still holds a 2.44% usage rating and gee even old XP is still at almost 19%.

Cheers.

I'm sure they're irate about it.

I think you overestimate how many people are holding out.

XP hit the button for most people,

Ah, but it didn't initially. When XP was first released, it was very sluggish on the systems at the time. Games ran poorer under XP than Windows 98SE (I know I stayed with 98SE for that reason alone). You need a system twice as powerful just to get the same performance that you did under 98. People hated the interface (present company included).

The bottom line is that a percentage of people simply hate change and will make up any reason to hate newer versions. There were Windows 3.1x holdouts that refused to upgrade to 95/98 for the same reason. It isn't that nobody cares about these users. Its that short of paying them to upgrade nothing will convince some people to make the jump.

All they had to do was refuse to release drivers for older kit for the newest Windows version, to compel people to upgrade printers and scanners etc every time.

Microsoft isn't responsible for writing the drivers for any device other than their own hardware, so I'm not sure why you blame them specifically here. Every single device driver provided by Microsoft was written by the original company and given to Microsoft to distribute. "Not releasing drivers for older kit" was not a decision made by Microsoft.

That is why XP users are still at 19%, 1 in 5. MS couldn't give a shit, it's the corporate money they are after.

No. XP Users are still at 19% because people are not buying new Windows desktops or laptops. Most users don't buy an Upgrade Windows license either. They get their Windows license from the purchase of new hardware. Most users are moving away from desktops and laptops and into mobile devices like tablets and phones, which is dominated by OS X and Android. That is why XP is still at 19%. It has nothing to do with tax write-offs or corporate money. Microsoft wouldn't be as successful in the corporate world if it weren't for the fact that most users use Windows at home, so they are familiar with it, thus corporations choose to buy Windows licenses because they do not have to train their users in how to use a computer.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/02/the-state-of-linux-gaming-in-the-steamos-era/

Looks like avoiding all the various distributions and going with a single, solid distro is going to help the gaming market.

The upside? Porting OpenGL based games is incredibly easy (so basically any game that works on the Mac should have no problem), and allegedly OpenGL performance is 4% faster on the same hardware running SteamOS over Windows.

The downside? 4% is usually within the margin of error for most benchmarks, and generally isn't enough to care about unless your OCD about every last drop of performance, perceivable or otherwise. Also, it appears OpenGL performance is still greatly behind DirectX which most games tend to target. There is no DirectX couterpart in Linux save for a few cleanroom reverse engineered implementations that lack 100% compatibility.


Funny enough, SteamOS was borne out of Steam's President's disdain for Windows 8's interface and Microsoft's bullishness about improving it for desktop users. Now with Windows 10 right around the corner having said changes in tow, I wonder if this SteamOS will still catch on to the mainstream or if it will remain just a 1337 H@x0r thing.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/02/the-state-of-linux-gaming-in-the-steamos-era/

Looks like avoiding all the various distributions and going with a single, solid distro is going to help the gaming market.

And in "going with a single..." therein lay the seeds of arbitrary monopoly and restrictions...

Rather than requiring/restricting to a brand name (or distro name), there merely needs to be minimum requirements for the interfaces.

Whatever happened to ideals of cross-platform compatibility and freedom that were the development buzz words of the 1970's and 1980's? Or does that not fit well with the business policy of proprietary entrapment and the selling off of user privacy as is widely seen today?...

The upside? Porting OpenGL based games is incredibly easy (so basically any game that works on the Mac should have no problem), and allegedly OpenGL performance is 4% faster on the same hardware running SteamOS over Windows.

The downside? 4% is usually within the margin of error for most benchmarks...

Funny enough, SteamOS was borne out of Steam's President's disdain for Windows 8's interface and Microsoft's bullishness...

And thus the business games continue.

I've just encountered some incredible Marketing whereby we are being charged thousands of pounds for the sake of 'buying into' a brand name merely because one bit of software we are to use only lists a certain vendor's names, all regardless of better alternatives readily available and more flexible/usable. We are actually buying into the past!

Such is the unreal world of Marketing...


Roll onwards ever faster for real world FLOSS and meritocracy rather than the vandalism of "lock-in".

IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Millions of eyeballs ..... yeah right .....
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/sabotage-encryption-software-get-caught/

A bad random number generator, for instance, would be easy to place in software without many individuals’ involvement, and if it were discovered, could be played off as a genuine coding error rather than a purposeful backdoor. As an example of this, the researchers point to an implementation of Debian SSL in 2006 in which two lines of code were commented out, removing a large source of the “entropy” needed to create sufficiently random numbers for the system’s encryption. The researchers acknowledge that crypto sabotage was almost certainly unintentional, the result of a programmer trying to avoid a warning message from a security tool. But the flaw nonetheless required the involvement of only one coder, went undiscovered for two years, and allowed a full break of Debian’s SSL encryption for anyone aware of the bug.

---

Millions of eyeballs ..... yeah right .....
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/sabotage-encryption-software-get-caught/

A bad random number generator, for instance, would be easy to place in software without many individuals’ involvement, and if it were discovered, could be played off as a genuine coding error rather than a purposeful backdoor. As an example of this, the researchers point to an implementation of Debian SSL in 2006 in which two lines of code were commented out, removing a large source of the “entropy” needed to create sufficiently random numbers for the system’s encryption. The researchers acknowledge that crypto sabotage was almost certainly unintentional, the result of a programmer trying to avoid a warning message from a security tool. But the flaw nonetheless required the involvement of only one coder, went undiscovered for two years, and allowed a full break of Debian’s SSL encryption for anyone aware of the bug.

Which all points to how the "millions of eyeballs" will eyeball what is "interesting" and "sexy" rather than perhaps the more obscure or mundane... Hence the BIG wake-up over how a small group of unpaid volunteers were responsible for pretty much the security of the ENTIRE internet... There's now a few million dollars backing up quite a few eyeballs on that one now, all from voluntary funds from the big corporates that have been freeloading for years...

So FLOSS certainly ain't perfect but it certainly is a hell of a lot better than the ongoing expensive buggy proprietary cover-ups exploiting IT to the cost of all...

Who you gonna trust? Really?


IT is what we make it and what we allow it to be...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Who are you going to trust indeed .....

Is FLOSS more copyright protected than proprietary?
http://www.cio.com/article/2893738/open-source-development/how-2-legal-cases-may-decide-the-future-of-open-source-software.html

The problem came when Versata licensed its DCM software to financial services company Ameriprise, and subsequently sued Ameriprise for allowing a subcontractor to decompile Versata's software -- a move Versata contended was a breach of license.

Ameriprise then countersued. Because Versata's software included open source software licensed under the GPLv2 and was a derivative work, Ameriprise alleged, the whole of Versata's DCM product came under the GPLv2 license, and therefore Ameriprise or its subcontractor could decompile and modify the software at will.
...
Now here's how the open source software universe is starting to change. On discovering Versata's alleged licensing violation of its open source parser, XimpleWare started legal action of its own, suing Versata, Ameriprise and, crucially, other Versata customers for copyright and patent infringement.

Another one that anyone involved in open source software should be concerned about (and that means just about everyone) is the lawsuit between Oracle and Google over copyright protection for APIs.
...
a federal appeals court later overturned this, concluding that "the declaring code and the structure, sequence and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection."

"If APIs are protectable, then life is much more complicated and this adds complexities to the GPLv2," says Radcliffe. But he adds that even if Java APIs are protectable, simpler APIs may not be. It raises the possibility of the need for API licenses so users can use an API however they want.

Beginning to look like FLOSS is more restrictive and harder to navigate than the licensing of a song. Exactly the opposite of its promise.

---

Who are you going to trust indeed .....

Is FLOSS more copyright protected than proprietary?
http://www.cio.com/article/2893738/open-source-development/how-2-legal-cases-may-decide-the-future-of-open-source-software.html

The problem came when Versata licensed its DCM software to financial services company Ameriprise, and subsequently sued Ameriprise for allowing a subcontractor to decompile Versata's software -- a move Versata contended was a breach of license.

Ameriprise then countersued. Because Versata's software included open source software licensed under the GPLv2 and was a derivative work...

Now here's how the open source software universe is starting to change. On discovering Versata's alleged licensing violation of its open source parser, XimpleWare started legal action of its own, suing Versata, Ameriprise and, crucially, other Versata customers for copyright and patent infringement.

Another one that anyone involved in open source [and ANY] software should be concerned about (and that means just about everyone) is the lawsuit between Oracle and Google over copyright protection for APIs.
...
a federal appeals court later overturned this, concluding that "the declaring code and the structure, sequence and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection."

"If APIs are protectable, then life is much more complicated...[/b]

Beginning to look like FLOSS is more restrictive and harder to navigate than the licensing of a song. Exactly the opposite of its promise.

Your comment adds a strange slant to that...


How free (or what freedom) is freedom?... There have been many heated discussions about how in the GPL there is the requirement that all GPL protected software must remain with all freedom for evermore and also have the freedom from patents (or any other restrictions). All as compared to the BSD-style licenses whereby the software is free to all to be freely used and also to be freely entrapped by any other license a user might wish to impose, restrictive or free.

I think anyone reading this thread should see that I favour the GPL view in that the continued freedom itself should be protected even though some will argue that that is somehow restrictive in that then the abuse/exploitation of freedom is somehow restricted...


And then also, note how lawyers make money from making arguments.

If anything, your examples are a good example of how software patents are inherently a very bad idea and a potentially strangling unnecessary burden...

For an example for literature, software patents are like saying that only the original author of a style of play such as a "Greek Tragedy" is to ever to be allowed to write what can be recognized as a Greek Tragedy. That would then kill a very large part of media spanning right through to today and the future... And stifle our own very culture.

Is that what we call freedom?


IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

[url]http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/30/spam-blasting-malware-infects-thousands-of-linux-and-freebsd-servers/]

Dan Goodin @ ArsTechnica wrote:

Several thousand computers running the Linux and FreeBSD operating systems have been infected over the past seven months with sophisticated malware that surreptitiously makes them part of a renegade network blasting the Internet with spam, researchers said Wednesday. The malware likely infected many more machines during the five years it's known to have existed.

Most of the machines infected by the so-called Mumblehard malware are believed to run websites, according to the 23-page report issued by researchers from antivirus provider Eset. During the seven months they monitored one of its command and control channels, 8,867 unique IP addresses connected to it, with 3,000 of them joining in the past three weeks. The discovery is reminiscent of Windigo, a separate spam botnet made up of 10,000 Linux servers that Eset discovered 14 months ago.
The Mumblehard malware is the brainchild of experienced and highly skilled programmers. It includes a backdoor and a spam daemon, which is a behind-the-scenes process that sends large batches of junk mail. These two main components are a are written in Perl and they're obfuscated inside a custom "packer" that's written in assembly, an extremely low-level programming language that closely corresponds to the native machine code of the computer hardware it runs on. Some of the Perl script contains a separate executable with the same assembly-based packer that's arranged in the fashion of a Russian nesting doll. The result is a very stealthy infection that causes production servers to send spam and may serve other nefarious purposes.

Linux spam servers? Infected with malware that was eradicated long ago on ever platform except MS? Oh the horror! No worries though, it will be fixed quickly with all eyes on it, despite it slipping through for the past 5 years.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/30/spam-blasting-malware-infects-thousands-of-linux-and-freebsd-servers/

Dan Goodin @ ArsTechnica wrote:

Several thousand computers running the Linux and FreeBSD operating systems have been infected over the past seven months with sophisticated malware that surreptitiously makes them part of a renegade network blasting the Internet with spam...

Linux spam servers? Infected with malware that was eradicated long ago on ever platform except MS? Oh the horror! No worries though, it will be fixed quickly with all eyes on it, despite it slipping through for the past 5 years.

So...

To read further on that bit of small-fry:

... The researchers uncovered evidence that Mumblehard may have links to Yellsoft, a company that sells DirecMailer, which is Perl-based software for sending bulk e-mail. The block of IP addresses for both Yellsoft and some of the Mumblehard C&C servers share the same range. What's more, pirated copies of DirecMailer silently install the Mumblehard backdoor. The pirated copies are also obfuscated by the same packer used by Mumblehard's malicious components...

So, looks like a few got clobbered by installing a dubious copy of a commercial program. There's also the other usual exploits routes through unmaintained CMS websites. Also note that the underlying OS has little to do with the application itself directly having been exploited.


Sorry, but all very small stuff compared to the far far greater number of Linux systems running the internet.

Thanks for a very good post highlighting the small scale of FLOSS mal-exploitation.


Also note that FLOSS says nothing about whether it is used for good or evil. There can be good debate about that for how Google as ascended to such great power all by the power of FLOSS and (or subverted by) Marketing.


IT is what we make it,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

So...

To read further on that bit of small-fry:

... The researchers uncovered evidence that Mumblehard may have links to Yellsoft, a company that sells DirecMailer, which is Perl-based software for sending bulk e-mail. The block of IP addresses for both Yellsoft and some of the Mumblehard C&C servers share the same range. What's more, pirated copies of DirecMailer silently install the Mumblehard backdoor. The pirated copies are also obfuscated by the same packer used by Mumblehard's malicious components...

So, looks like a few got clobbered by installing a dubious copy of a commercial program. There's also the other usual exploits routes through unmaintained CMS websites. Also note that the underlying OS has little to do with the application itself directly having been exploited.


Sorry, but all very small stuff compared to the far far greater number of Linux systems running the internet.

Thanks for a very good post highlighting the small scale of FLOSS mal-exploitation.

It is ironic watching you provide the same explanations for malware exploits on Linux machines as also works for Windows machines. Most Windows malware is installed unknowingly through poorly maintained websites or with other software packages downloaded from questionable sites. Then to top it off you mention that it is but a small-scale issue, while blowing certain Windows vulnerabilities way out of proportion.

... Linux spam servers? Infected with malware that was eradicated long ago on ever platform except MS?...

Glass houses and throwing stones and all that...


Just take a look at this onging reminder and the overhead for the inevitable shutdowns and disruption needed for the Microsoft updates... (Guess no real problem for home users other than for when they confusingly get hit...)


US-CERT: Top 30 Targeted High Risk Vulnerabilities

Systems running unpatched software from Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle, or OpenSSL

The greater bulk of those listed there that are current/ongoing/exploited are Microsoft, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Internet Explorer, Adobe software, a smaller number from Oracle, and the one and only for SSL from the FLOSS world that the commercial world has for too long freeloaded on...

The wake-up call to check and develop the SSL code has since gained a few million dollars in sponsorship to better reflect the previous freeloading.


Such is the world of FLOSS compared to the Marketing steered proprietary world.

IT is what we make it for ourselves...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

... It is ironic watching you provide the same explanations for malware exploits on Linux machines as also works for Windows machines. Most Windows malware is installed unknowingly through poorly maintained websites or with other software packages downloaded from questionable sites. Then to top it off you mention that it is but a small-scale issue, while blowing certain Windows vulnerabilities way out of proportion.

All OSes are vulnerable to the users installing malware and running it, as you yourself are desperate to explain.

A big difference that I've seen comparing the Microsoft world as compared to other OSes is that the way that the Microsoft systems are designed and operate leave open far greater scope for users to get nobbled by malware. Why else is there such a vast after-sales/3rd-party industry for Windows anti-virus and other 'protection' products?!


The various antivirus vendors are desperate to try to blacken the names of other OSes. So far, they have seen minimal new market uptake because there simply isn't the problem that we continue to see for Windows systems. Still, after all these years!

As the Windows patch-Tuesdays continue, you would expect the number of vulnerabilities needing to be fixed to diminish. Yet instead, the ever continuing deluge of multimegabyte updates continues unabated... Always a little way behind the next round of exploits on the extravagance of the Windows surface of attack.

Just for one example of what I see as an incredible recent Microsoft system howler:

It's 2015 and a RICH TEXT FILE or a HTTP request can own your Windows machine

... Redmond's latest Patch Tuesday payload includes 11 bulletins, four of which are rated critical as they allow attackers to execute malicious code on victims' computers from across the internet...



There just has to be a better way!


IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Torvalds has long been known for the creative insults, threats of violence, and curse words he hurls at developers who give him what he deems to be bad code. Sharp recently called him out, saying, "Keep it professional on the mailing lists."
Torvalds replied that he is "not interested" in acting professional and attributed his frequent cursing to his Finnish culture. "I simply don't believe in being polite or politically correct," he wrote.

HeHeHe I love Finns. My GF is a Finn with Sami blood born in Russia.
Huvää Soumi:) And their Sisu tells it all...
The meaning "politically correct" is not on their Dictionary.
Saatana Perkele. (swearword sort of)
And their only psycologist had to move Sweden to get some work.
Voine Voine
Yes Linus hits the World.
Watch out for knifes however.
Älä leikkaa, vain naarmu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaWLi_VQDQ4