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Microsoft's Software is Malware

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Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#71

Post by dogma1138 »

exo762 wrote: post #3

Informing NSA about bugs before fixing them is grand. This alone qualifies MS software as malware.

MSFT notifies every large costumer of security issues sometimes months in advance, the NSA don't get an exploit just a notification that a security issue has been detected, some mitigating actions they can take, sometimes an IDS/IPS signature from MSFT partners and an expected date for the fix.

Smaller business costumers (pretty much any one with a TAM) will get notification before patches are released and in some cases will get the updates prior to the normal release window on "Patch Tuesday".

Microsoft isn't the only company that does that, you can't expect businesses with 1000's of machines to be able to roll out patches on a moments notice so they share information before it becomes a Zero-Day issue for their clients.

Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#72

Post by throwaway2048 »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #24
outside1234 wrote: post #11

All of this is true, but where is the equivalent attack on Google, whose software is essentially entirely designed to spy on you. Isn't that also Malware? Or is this sort of malware ok because it runs the Linux kernel? I really want to support GNU and FSF but they seem to be constantly fighting some 20 year stale war against a company that is in many ways way more open than Google, Facebook, and Apple.

Why don't you point out the spy software on the Android Open Source Project?

how about you point out the phone that runs AOSP without driver blobs/google services blobs.

Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#73

Post by bad_user »

laumars wrote: post #9

> "Microsoft cut off security fixes for Windows XP, except to some big users that pay exorbitantly." XP has had longer support than any Linux distro out there (aside the rolling release ones, but that's a little different). I know this submission is intended to be biased, and I do honestly favour Linux over Windows anyway. But surely FUD like the above is so painfully transparent that it only undermines the credibili…

Lets not forget that Windows XP is a commercial product, for which people paid money and that was the only reasonable choice for about 8 years, the gap between the release of XP and that of Windows 7 (Vista was a flop due to poor drivers).

In these 8 years a lot of companies and individuals bought computers and then stayed on XP because (1) Windows upgrades cost money, (2) compatibility issues and (3) fear of upgrades (Microsoft never educated its users to upgrade, quite the contrary, they've made Windows users fear upgrades because of their fuck-ups with Windows ME or Vista).

Windows XP reached end of life on April 8, 2014, with people being stuck on it without a migration path. Nowadays 5 year old desktops and laptops are often good enough and don't need to be replaced. If you had a company with dozens or hundreds of computers, what would you do? Would you pay $120 before taxes for the Home edition or $199 before taxes for Pro, per computer? Would you try to negotiate better terms maybe? Or would you stay on XP because it works? The offer for a 1-year free upgrade for Windows 10 is not valid for XP and Vista.

And yes, Microsoft supported XP for 12 years. That's 4 years after those 8 years in which XP was the only choice. That's hardly an accomplishment.

They still have users on XP. For those users they have an ethical responsibility to provide security fixes, or a cheap migration path (why is the upgrade to Windows 10 not valid for XP?), or the source code such that they can fix problems by themselves.

Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#74

Post by johncolanduoni »

My biggest problem with the FSF's point of view is that they see these kind of eventualities as inevitable for all non-free software.

I would claim that there is not only room for non-free open source software sans abuse, but even closed source software. When it comes to something you want to use as a core foundation on which to build (whether you are building software, general business, academic work etc.) I completely understand how this is very likely to lead to you being exploited. This applies for example to an operating system, or a programming platform (JVM, .NET, etc.). But there are plenty of places where you can use closed source software that don't put you in such a disadvantageous position.

One example is non-required tooling like an IDE. If Jetbrains goes Dr. Evil on everyone tomorrow (though I guess some would argue their recent pricing model changes have done that), there is still Eclipse and plenty of room for someone else to break into that space. Changing IDEs isn't nothing, but it's not like I'd have to rewrite my code.

Another is various general XaaS offerings. If Heroku (or more likely Salesforce) goes off the deep end tomorrow, worst case is that I have to administer some servers myself. Again, I don't lose anything that I would have had before anyway.

The current trend is already building everything on top of open source infrastructure. Even the JVM and .NET are open source now, as are most other pieces of the development puzzle (Databases, libraries of all shapes and sizes, etc.). In fact, I don't think even a big player like Microsoft would have much luck trying to get people to invest in another closed source platform. So if we walk this line between open and closed software, what do we lose by using some replaceable closed source tools or services? That is one question I think the FSF doesn't have a good answer for.

Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#75

Post by rando289 »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #17

I'm not a fan of pretty much anything on this list, but I do think the thing about phasing out Windows XP does stand apart. I don't know exactly how long you should expect an OS to be supported, but I feel like 12 years falls somewhere on the right side of that line. They add the following disclaimer about that: > A person or company has the right to cease to work on a particular program; the wrong here is Microsoft…

Nice pacemaker you have there, unfortunately, we've ceased supporting the software, and you are too old for a new one to be implanted, so it might break or get hacked and you'll die. How long would you expect us to support it?! And obviously we can't give away our intellectual property!

https://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2010/jul/21/software-de...

Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#76

Post by callinyouin »

wang_li wrote: post #67
rms_returns wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally think that if the users are too dumb and lazy to upgrade themselves to better alternatives (either Windows 8/10 or Linux distros), then you can't blame Microsoft for billing on their slumber. In fairness, even Red Hat might be doing the same thing to their RHEL clients who are "locked" into it and can't move on to Ubuntu or something.

To get access to patches from Red Hat you have to purchase an annual service agreement, for a two socket box it's around $300. If you bought a copy of Windows XP at release it likely cost you around that much and patches and fixes were available to you for fourteen years at no further cost. The equivalent from Red Hat would have run $4200.

While this is true, you're comparing a desktop OS to an enterprise OS. You're mostly paying for support from Red Hat for that $4200 price tag, something you definitely don't get with a retail copy of XP.

Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#77

Post by eka808 »

And after reading that, let's take a deep breath and think about Android.

From my personal opinion, it's not better than and maybe worse : - Obligation of having a G+ account. Disable it is NOT straighforward at all and it will try to recreate himself often. - Personal content publicly uploaded/displayed in G+ account I had the bad surprise, and few friends also to see that the photos taken with my android phone were automatically published on my G+ account !

When you notify what it's visible, you are are afraid about what is not visible...

Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#78

Post by mordocai »

wang_li wrote: post #67
rms_returns wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally think that if the users are too dumb and lazy to upgrade themselves to better alternatives (either Windows 8/10 or Linux distros), then you can't blame Microsoft for billing on their slumber. In fairness, even Red Hat might be doing the same thing to their RHEL clients who are "locked" into it and can't move on to Ubuntu or something.

To get access to patches from Red Hat you have to purchase an annual service agreement, for a two socket box it's around $300. If you bought a copy of Windows XP at release it likely cost you around that much and patches and fixes were available to you for fourteen years at no further cost. The equivalent from Red Hat would have run $4200.

Redhat is also only intended for enterprise use (unlike windows XP). You should be comparing redhat to windows server if you want a valid comparison.

In addition, with redhat you get excellent support included (that's what you are really paying for). No such luck with microsoft, you just get crappy bottom tier tech support.

Finally, if you don't like paying redhat switch to centos. Free and no support.

Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#79

Post by johncolanduoni »

rando289 wrote: post #61
dsr_ wrote: post #46

I like the FSF. I like the fact that RMS exists. I love open source software, and I even like the GPL a fair amount. Do I think this goes too far? Absolutely. The Free Software position is that the benefits of Free (libre) software outweigh all of the disadvantages, so anyone who chooses proprietary software has already made a big mistake. Given that the mistake has been made, there's no particular advantage in casti…

You like the FSF? Point #1 fsf makes is that proprietary = wrong/bad/malware, period. Malware is mostly just a synonym. So if point #1 is too far, you really don't get it.

You can appreciate the FSF and Stallman without agreeing with everything they say. I think they did a lot to put open source on the map, and make us aware of the dangers with closed source software in certain areas, even if I think that their stance is overzealous.

Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware

#80

Post by rando289 »

eka808 wrote: post #77

And after reading that, let's take a deep breath and think about Android. From my personal opinion, it's not better than and maybe worse : - Obligation of having a G+ account. Disable it is NOT straighforward at all and it will try to recreate himself often. - Personal content publicly uploaded/displayed in G+ account I had the bad surprise, and few friends also to see that the photos taken with my android phone were…

Instead just /thinking/, try reading the rest of the gnu site, including the article on android: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html. Or you could buy a book which has most of the articles and had a new updated release a few months ago: http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society-3-pap...
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