Hey everyone,
I'm a sysadmin who looks over a medium sized Windows-centric network (1200 machines), with a smattering of Unix, and BSD. The UNIX box is an HP9000 running HP/UX and the BSD box is a box I set up to as an incoming mail gateway/spam filter. I also am planning on using BSD at work to do a bit of traffic traffic shaping for segments of our network. I've played with Linux from time to time since 1996, but have never taken to it - I'll explain why later.
Upon coming to this site, the first thing I read was the thread "How to make your Windows machine more stable and secure". While the thread alone gives plenty of credence alone to the theory, my previous experience with the "Windows-Hating" Linux community has brought me to the same conclusion that another poster here, muzzy has pointed out - Linux advocates who like to advocate against Windows seem to have a significant lack of knowledge about the Windows platform.
You need go no further than the front page sections of your site to see the evidence of this. Let me detail each section of you front page for you...
"Why is it that Microsoft's products keep mushrooming in size with each new release always requiring significantly more disk space and more processing power than the last time? They might claim it's because of all the new features they add each time, but that's only half the story. The new features and the increased processing requirements are designed to fuel the process of perpetual upgrades...."
While that is a nice opinion you have there, I wouldn't say it reflects the current state of the industry. If Windows is bloated, them so is OSX, and so is every Linux/BSD distro that is running KDE/Gnome installed. It's very true that software sells hardware, but for 20 years *games* have been the driving force behind hardware sales. While it's true Microsoft would love everyone to upgrade to their latest and greatest, they have a decent record of support their products. Microsoft just recently ended support for Windows NT4 and 9x series - platforms that were approaching a decade old. For a x86 software product, this is a very long time to give support. I challenge you to find a company that has supported a piece of x86 software for as long as Microsoft has supported it's OSs.
"Did you realize 486's are still usable machines if you're running something other than Microsoft's latest software? For instance, Linux worked great on 486's back when they were the top of the line and amazingly enough it didn't stop working on them once the Pentiums came out. Yes, Linux has evolved since then to take advantage of more powerful computers, but the latest version of Linux will still work well on older equipment...Microsoft to ship bug ridden products because they can always charge for the upgrade after the bugs are fixed. Case in point, Windows 98 is essentially a bug fix for Windows 95, but those who paid for Windows 95 still have to pay for what should have worked right the first time they bought it. "
These quotes are a testament to how incredibly dated your material is. Let's move into the 21st century guys...and have fun trying to install the latest version of Linux on your 486.
"Caldera has an excellent description of how Microsoft uses vaporware to "curtail adoption of competitive products by deceiving end users" along with an unfortunate example of how Microsoft's blatant lies led to consumers foregoing the adoption of a superior, available product in anticipation of Microsoft's non-existent product (i.e., a DOS-less consumer Windows which still doesn't exist as of this writing [August, 2000],"
Ah yes! Caldera, who became SCO, and then promptly tried to destroy Linux. Very credible. By the way Microsoft did end up coming out with that DOS-less consumer os in 2001. It was/is called "Windows XP".
"Also contributing to Microsoft's goal of putting everybody on a perpetual upgrade cycle is the backward incompatibility in Microsoft's products. Once a small number of users adopt a new version of a Microsoft product all other users are pressured to upgrade lest they are unable to interact with files produced by the newer program. "
These issues were someone relevant seven years ago. Microsoft has made great improvements in forward compatibility between office versions since Office 97. Besides, you always had to option of saving as Rich Text.
"Microsoft's products are notorious for their security holes. Security holes in Internet Explorer and Windows NT have been widely publicized and are now accepted as a common occurrence when announced. The public has become largely desensitized to new security holes which is unfortunate because it means that a widespread attack on users' systems is not only possible but quite easy. If it's not such a big deal for you that security isn't a top priority for Microsoft because you don't keep sensitive information on your computer, think again"
Yes, and security vulnerabilities are not a common ocurrance in other products...right? Remember back in the good ole' days when a default Red hat install would get rooted in 10 minutes if left on the net unpatched. Oh, but that was the admin's fault right?
"if your computer is taken over it could easily be used for such devious tasks as trafficking child pornography, trafficking pirated software, or emailing death threats to the president. What's worse is that any such activity would point to your computer and you would have no way of proving that somebody else did it because Windows does not keep logs. "
I'm speechless. This is the biggest piece of FUD-laced shit on your site by far. Microsoft's marketing department would be proud of you for this one. If I rooted your Linux box, I guarantee I could make it so your system didn't keep logs. Of course, this piece is obviously referring to Win9x which had no security model whatsoever.
"With its .NET strategy, Microsoft is essentially attempting to transform itself from a consumer software company into a bank. They want to hold all of your personal information and charge you every time it is used (you will be charged indirectly through the merchant you purchase goods from in a way similar to how merchants must pay the credit card companies each time you make a credit card transaction)."
This is very old propaganda you have here, and it doesn't even using the proper terms. I think you meant "Passport" instead of .NET, and as we have seen Passport has pretty much fizzled out.
"It's disgusting how Microsoft portrays itself as the supreme innovator when just about all the technology that it has was copied off of others' previous work. Think about all the major innovations in CS technology and then count how many of them were developed by Microsoft. I count zero. This is because Microsoft admittedly does not enter a market until the potential amount of money to be made in it is fairly large."
I won't even address weather or not Microsoft innovates or not - but I will tell you that lack of innovation does not equate to poor quality, or lack of usefulness in a product. I must ask - what "innovations" have you seen from the Open Source community, and Why is entering profitable markets only a bad thing?
"Microsoft's products are generally not superior. As an example, Windows is more bloated, much less stable, less secure, much more expensive, and lacking much of the capabilities of Linux,"
Bloated - as compared to what?
Much less stable - Are we comparing Win9x again?
Less Secure - This was true a few years ago, but this is changing
Check out these links.
http://www.zone-h.org/en/statshttp://www.zone-h.org/en/winvslinux2I was actually mildly surprised at these stats. For years Windows NT/2000 have the been the primary victim of web defacements. I guess thats what happens when a platforms user base gets is significantly dumbed down.
More expensive - hey you got one thing right! Linux can be less expensive than Windows - for home use. In the Enterprise it's a different story.
My conclusion: Your Anti-Windows propaganda is extremely dated, and you really should make an effort to update it. It's fine that you like Open Source/Linux/Whatever, and it's fine that you don't like Microsoft (I wasn't too thrilled with them back in the days of Win9x) but advocation by half-truths and plain FUD is one of the reasons I've steered clear of the Linux community over the years. As I've noted above I am an avid user and supporter of the various BSDs. Besides BSD being technically superior (IMHO) to Linux (more stable, more secure, more robust TCP stack, longer upgrade cycles, less 'chaotic', better documentation), I also much prefer it's community to the Linux community. Rather than being obsessed with Licensing philosophies, and the destruction of
certain software companies, the BSD community's obsession is to build and use a robust, secure, and stable, UNIX operating system, and to put it into use.
