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Q about Microsoft
- Thread starter asif786
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Timelessblur said:
I gotta think there is a least one PC biggot out there with enough chops to want to try and write a virus for Mac OS X just to prove all the Mac zealots wrong. Am I alone?
I believe, just like dejo, the small(large) numbers argument is bogus. Okay, marketshare does have some infuence on viruses/platforms statistics, but saying it's all down to that is like giving Microsoft a break that it doesn't deserve.
Look at Linux. Someone said there was some special rule not to f*** with Linux, but that sounds like crap. Virus makers have no moral sense to this regard. The fact is that there are only two viruses written for Linux EVER, and the bugs they exploited were quickly fixed. Linux is a secure OS, access rights are built into the system from top to bottom, from the beginning.
Same goes for Mac OS X. I am aware that it's likely that there will be a Mac OS X some time, but over all, its security features are similar to Linux. That's because of the fact that Linux and Mac OS X come from the same family of operating systems: UNIX.
Microsoft seems like they're retrofitting Windows with security, constantly patching holes that crop up from all over the place because it's become so large and unmanageble. That's where the problems come from. It's possible to write an operating system that's practically immune to any virus at all. A lot of modern operating systems come close to that ideal. Not Windows.
Stop using the numbers argument as an excuse for Microsoft's crappy quality.
Look at Linux. Someone said there was some special rule not to f*** with Linux, but that sounds like crap. Virus makers have no moral sense to this regard. The fact is that there are only two viruses written for Linux EVER, and the bugs they exploited were quickly fixed. Linux is a secure OS, access rights are built into the system from top to bottom, from the beginning.
Same goes for Mac OS X. I am aware that it's likely that there will be a Mac OS X some time, but over all, its security features are similar to Linux. That's because of the fact that Linux and Mac OS X come from the same family of operating systems: UNIX.
Microsoft seems like they're retrofitting Windows with security, constantly patching holes that crop up from all over the place because it's become so large and unmanageble. That's where the problems come from. It's possible to write an operating system that's practically immune to any virus at all. A lot of modern operating systems come close to that ideal. Not Windows.
Stop using the numbers argument as an excuse for Microsoft's crappy quality.
Well there is a number problem for microsoft. They can not start over from the beginnnig like apple did.
The linus rule is a valid one because you dont mess with it. A lot of the virus writers use linux as there main OS. You dont want to mess up you own OS. 2nd you mess with it there will be retaltion from a lot of people.
A small users base makes it easier to adapt and make changes. MS does not have that ablity to easily change due to the huge user base.
The linus rule is a valid one because you dont mess with it. A lot of the virus writers use linux as there main OS. You dont want to mess up you own OS. 2nd you mess with it there will be retaltion from a lot of people.
A small users base makes it easier to adapt and make changes. MS does not have that ablity to easily change due to the huge user base.
Timelessblur said:
I think you're wrong in crediting virus makers with a sense that they should not mess with anything, whether that's Linux or Windows.
I'm not so sure about virus makers using Linux as their main os. There are still plenty of things that can't be done on Linux, like gaming, office and virus writing.
Your final point is invalid too. They don't expect retaliation from anyone because they don't expect to get caught. Besides, if they're caught after writing a Windows virus, there will be consequences that are equally bad or worse than retaliation from the Linux crowd.
Timelessblur said:
They could if they really had the kahunas to do it. Just offer backwards compatibility is an emulation mode (a la OS 9 in OS X). But Microsoft is just not that courageous.
The problem I see with the argument that M$ virus problems are due to marketshare, is that most of the viruses out there attack a much smaller subset of Windows installs than the 90% of we generally envision. While certainly the viruses that make the news affect a large portion of Windows users, but they are a small percentage of the ~70,000 known Windows viruses.
Here are my thoughts on why M$ can't produce good products:
1) Poor management. Over the years I've seen plenty of articles discussing the fact that middle management don't get the crappy paradigms Bill and Steve try to feed us during the CES keynotes or whatever. The beginning year of .net was a prime example. Some of the technologies jettisoned from the initial Longhorn release also seem to suffer from this issue.
2) Over allocation of resources. Hmm, cooking a turkey takes 4 hours at 300F, it should only take 2 hours at 600F, right? At one point a number of years ago, I remember reading that M$ had 1000 people working on IE. The more people coding the more bugs will be introduced.
3) Inertia. If you agree with one of the articles at daringfireball.net, which I do, backward compatibility (i.e. parlaying past success into future success) is why Windows is dominant. If you know people in the IT business, odds are some of them still support DOS code for various businesses. M$ rarely gets to say, "ok this worked 10 years ago, but looking back, it was a crappy idea. Let's do it this way." M$ has no agility only perseverance.
4) Poor planning and revising. M$ completely missed the coming of the internet and multi-user environments, but because of (3) they basically had to tack on features to take advantage of emerging technology. Their planning on how these added features would affect the Windows environment was exceedingly poor. Also, from various articles I read years ago, their debugging strategy tended to be more about adding code to work around problems, rather than fixing the source issue. Thus, complexity and bloat grew very quickly.
5) When was their official paradigm shift from "More feature bloat" to "We are going to make security our main priority"? 2001? 2002? In any case, it was several years too late.
6) I remember my mother, who used to work in HR for a large multinational company, talking about in the late 90's how, despite M$'s reputation for treating their employees very well, were having trouble attracting talent due them being the "evil empire". Though, I'm sure some of that changed after the .com implosion.
crackpip
Here are my thoughts on why M$ can't produce good products:
1) Poor management. Over the years I've seen plenty of articles discussing the fact that middle management don't get the crappy paradigms Bill and Steve try to feed us during the CES keynotes or whatever. The beginning year of .net was a prime example. Some of the technologies jettisoned from the initial Longhorn release also seem to suffer from this issue.
2) Over allocation of resources. Hmm, cooking a turkey takes 4 hours at 300F, it should only take 2 hours at 600F, right? At one point a number of years ago, I remember reading that M$ had 1000 people working on IE. The more people coding the more bugs will be introduced.
3) Inertia. If you agree with one of the articles at daringfireball.net, which I do, backward compatibility (i.e. parlaying past success into future success) is why Windows is dominant. If you know people in the IT business, odds are some of them still support DOS code for various businesses. M$ rarely gets to say, "ok this worked 10 years ago, but looking back, it was a crappy idea. Let's do it this way." M$ has no agility only perseverance.
4) Poor planning and revising. M$ completely missed the coming of the internet and multi-user environments, but because of (3) they basically had to tack on features to take advantage of emerging technology. Their planning on how these added features would affect the Windows environment was exceedingly poor. Also, from various articles I read years ago, their debugging strategy tended to be more about adding code to work around problems, rather than fixing the source issue. Thus, complexity and bloat grew very quickly.
5) When was their official paradigm shift from "More feature bloat" to "We are going to make security our main priority"? 2001? 2002? In any case, it was several years too late.
6) I remember my mother, who used to work in HR for a large multinational company, talking about in the late 90's how, despite M$'s reputation for treating their employees very well, were having trouble attracting talent due them being the "evil empire". Though, I'm sure some of that changed after the .com implosion.
crackpip
CorvusCamenarum said:
I don't think the majority of M$ users actually choose to purchase it. They make the decision to buy a pc, and in most cases, Windoze comes installed as the OS. And with the OS, comes the browser, mail program, etc-complete with flaws and insecurities. Most folks don't know there are alternatives other than buying a (more expensive) Mac. It wasn't until I learned a bit about computers that I began to find out about Linux and open source stuff as alternatives to M$. Because of this lack of knowledge on most people's part, Microsoft doesn't feel the need to produce a decent product. They count on most people just accepting and trying to work with the software they have, thinking any problems they have are their fault ("I don't know about computers") instead of blaming the software. That's one reason I find the Mac mini so neat. For pc users who already have the peripherals, getting just the "box", introduces them to not only quality hardware, but the Apple OS for a not-so-intimidating cost.
Apple never threw out backward compatibility!
Classic is brilliant, I have some old games from way back when I was using Sytem 6.08, and a few of them will still run on my iBook.
So if Microsoft were willing to be smart and creative, then I'm sure they could make a new OS and keep backward compatibility. They just can't be bothered to put in the energy, and to be honest, if I was making $$$ hand-over-fist for some product, I probably wouldn't bother improving the product unless I had a really compelling reason either.
What they need is a swift kick in the rear, which I envision is coming soon from Apple, as they are bound to gain market share with the Mac-mini.
Also, if they ever actually made a new OS, and it was stable and secure, the only "compatibility" they would absolutely need to have would be Office, and I'm pretty sure that people would be willing upgrade the rest of their software for the sake of stability and security.
Classic is brilliant, I have some old games from way back when I was using Sytem 6.08, and a few of them will still run on my iBook.
So if Microsoft were willing to be smart and creative, then I'm sure they could make a new OS and keep backward compatibility. They just can't be bothered to put in the energy, and to be honest, if I was making $$$ hand-over-fist for some product, I probably wouldn't bother improving the product unless I had a really compelling reason either.
What they need is a swift kick in the rear, which I envision is coming soon from Apple, as they are bound to gain market share with the Mac-mini.
Also, if they ever actually made a new OS, and it was stable and secure, the only "compatibility" they would absolutely need to have would be Office, and I'm pretty sure that people would be willing upgrade the rest of their software for the sake of stability and security.
one of the longest standing problems with Windows and Office (the pc version) have been the cooks & broth ones. the windows development team is a group of over 500 developers, in Redmond alone. around the world there are nearer to 2,000, a good percentage of them will never meet each other either.
look at MacOS X.... development team far smaller, all based in Cupertino, amount of cooks = broth ratio about correct....
look at MacOS X.... development team far smaller, all based in Cupertino, amount of cooks = broth ratio about correct....
Apple did not keep backwards capitiblely. Classic is run in emulation mode and it is much slower then it would be if it was a native OS. Emulating something makes it much slower. Plus all software can not be made OSX and Classic capitble unless they basicly put 2 diffenve verson on the the same CD.;Cybernanga said:
(Off topic)
Just because it's a word you know, doesn't mean it's used in the same context.
You aren't understanding the fundamental difference between Classic, and I dunno, SNES9x. Classic is called emulation, but in reality it doesn't have to emulate anything hardware wise (Boot ROM, perhaps?). There are no CPU cycles used in emulating a CPU core.Timelessblur said:
Just because it's a word you know, doesn't mean it's used in the same context.
CarbonLib.
Timelessblur said:
Not quite. Carbon applications can, in general, run on OS9 and OSX. Carbon is essentially a cut down version of the OS9 APIs for compatibility.
