RE: [MLUG] Study: Open source poses security risks (???)

["Spurling, Shannon" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I never defended them. I had experience with other systems, so I knew how bad their stuff sucked, all the way back to 1987 and DOS 2.11. I saw how good Dr. Dos was, and how Microsoft pulled every trick in the book to try and shut it down. And I saw how bad Windows 3.0 sucked compared to any thing else at the time, there was no comparison. Problem was that all the little utilities and graphical programs were being written for windows. 
I started on the Commodore VIC20, and 64. Then I got a Tandy 1000EX with DOS 2.11. then a 386SX with Dr DOS 5. And then an Amiga 600HD, an AMD 486-DX4100. 
I also steer clear of Intel garbage. They couldn't design a decent CPU if their lives depended on it. Their whole advantage is being first to market. The part that made me laugh the most was when they started to say that the memory segmentation issue was a feature, a result of their shortsightedness and creating the 8086 and 8088 off of the 8080 core in order to get it to market first. They said the segmentation was a means to protect memory. When I was learning 8086 assembler, I was floored by all the hoops you had to jump through to program one of these things to do moderately complex tasks. Just look at how easy it is for secondary chip makers like AMD and Cyrix to reverse engineer their stuff and make it work so much cleaner.
What does this tell me? It tells me that these companies, in the absence of competition sit back and put out crap. Microsoft would not improve any thing until DR. DOS came out. Intel didn't make as many improvements until they had to keep up with AMD and Cyrix, especially in price.
I think it should be noted that what these big companies are saying are anticompetitive and bad for their business, are typically better for the market and consumers in general. And what they promote as a free market is actually a market with controls that favor their company. I really don't want to hear one more comment from any Microsoft idiots about open source being communistic because their software model is fascism. :-)

Shannon Spurling
WAN Engineer -Specialist

MOREnet, Network Services, Core Network
3212 LeMone Industrial Blvd.
Columbia, MO 65201

Main:(573) 884-7200   Fax:(573)884-6673

EMAIL:PROTECTED
EMAIL:PROTECTED



-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Miller [mailto:EMAIL:PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 12:50 PM
To: EMAIL:PROTECTED
Subject: RE: [MLUG] Study: Open source poses security risks (???)


On Wed, 12 Jun 2002, Ross, Matt wrote:

> Anybody here not start out defending MS?
> That seems to be a common history for many linux users.


I'm sure I defended them years ago.  Most of us started out using
Windows/DOS, and most of us ended up liking computing, so we had to have
gotten something out of using Windows.  It's only later that you learn
what you could have had if MS hadn't been so dominant.

Mike

--
To unsubscribe, go to http://mlug.missouri.edu/members/edit.php

Archives are available at http://mlug.missouri.edu/list-archives/

--
To unsubscribe, go to http://mlug.missouri.edu/members/edit.php

Archives are available at http://mlug.missouri.edu/list-archives/