[CS-FSLUG] The Moral Foundation of Free Software

[Chris Brault]

Now here is my biggest bone with M$ systems,
 
> On the other hand, I don't view this as a valid 
> point in favor of Aaron's
> suggested strategy of using old versions of
> Microsoft software.  Even
> if, as Aaron claims, it is possible to connect such
> systems to the
> internet in a secure manner (i.e. without making
> oneself vulnerable to
> well-known exploitable security bugs), the needed
> knowledge and skills
> for doing that are surely very specialized and much
> harder to find
> than what it takes to administrate a Free Software
> system (which has
> been installed from a reasonably user-fiendly
> distro) in an adequate
> manner.

As I mentioned in another e-mail, there are still
ignorant, plainly technophobic users out there. They
will attempt to answer their e-mail and ignorantly
open up attechments. 
The other class are techno-maniacs who spend their
work day on e-bay and IM chat. They visit warez sites
and kazaa and the like and the virus come a pourin' 
in. Either way, M$ announces vulnerabilities online.
Within 10 mins there are a dozen 12 year olds hacking
away at the vulnerability trying to be the first to
shut down the internet in thailand or china.
People are the problem, not the OS in this case. An
inheriently secure OS, like Linux, will prevent the
unsavvy or unintelligent users from "accidently"
destroying the system (In San Antonio, we found that 9
out of 10 times, it was human error bringing a virus
into the system. I should note that without virus's we
would have starved to death for lack of business, so I
probably should thank those 12 year olds in eastern
europe for their help.) 

Gabe


		
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