5 ms·

You said it best yourself: The operating system chosen to run a business was never a serious factor in terms of whether the company succeeded or failed. While

by dcow 3y ago

You said it best yourself: The operating system chosen to run a business was never a serious factor in terms of whether the company succeeded or failed. While I don’t think that statement is universally true because for certain products OS matters, but generally, why would anybody migrate away from windows just because of a security incident? Linux has had its fair share of RCEs and 0-day exploits. Are you saying Linux is intrinsically better?

horsewhales 3y ago
Yes. In every possible way, yes.
icandoit 3y ago
> Are you saying Linux is intrinsically better? Can we say that the market has spoken? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste... I look forward to the day that windows is mostly a UI over WSL and things like the regsitry become a distant memory.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > Can we say that the market has spoken? Microsoft aggressively abused its monopoly position in order to make sure that Linux would never win in the desktop market, and then inertia took over, so no we can't say that the market has said anything useful
- rakoo 3y ago
  The market is an illusion. Until recently I had no means to buy Linux, I was forced to buy Windows (and it is illegal here, but all you get for going to a trial is not even the price of a licence). Even today the options are very few. The idea of a market works if it costs ~0 to enter a market, consumers have an infinite access to knowledge and infinite time to make a decision BUT make it in 1s when at the store, and also enough money so as to not be a problem. Basically, consumers have all the power and vendors have none. Nothing is really a market, and operating systems definitely shows it.
  - achrono 3y ago
    >Until recently I had no means to buy Linux, I was forced to buy Windows Huh, why not?
    - rakoo 3y ago
      Because no computer was sold with Linux in it. There wasn't even an offer, let alone a market.
      - r053bud 3y ago
        You can just install it after the fact. Do you lack internet?
        rakoo 3y ago
        Are you serioulsy implying that everyone had hundreds of MB to spare, the knowledge, the material and the time to do it ? I'm talking about the beginning of the century when the only connection was through 56k. I'm talking about being an underage kid who discovers computing, through whatever exists in the store, and you think downloading an iso is straightforward ?
        PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        You said 'until recently' but you're describing a situation from the 90s.
        rakoo 3y ago
        It's still true today, machines with Linux can barely be found in stores. You can find them online but that's not always easier for people who are not knowledgeable
        PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        It's not true today at all lol. You talked about not having access to Linux and only having dial up speed - that's strictly a 90s problem. You don't see them in stores because there is not enough demand for them, and because stores are dying anyway. Very easy to find them online to buy.
nolist_policy 3y ago
The thing is: Windows and Office is insecure by default. Admins react by sprinkling anti-virus on top of it, but that doesn't help any. It still enables users to open random mail attachments in Office or similar. And Office doesn't have any sandboxing or other mitigation in place, again it's insecure by default. If you enable users to do stuff like this, you have noone to blame if you get owned. Are the usual Linux distro's better? Hell no! They have the same flawed security architecture as Windows, only without any motivated attackers (yet). But there are actually secure alternatives: QubesOS and ChromeOS. QubesOS is probably not that suitable to end-users, they can do too much wrong to twart it's security (using the "financial" qube to browse p0rn... etc.). ChromeOS is a reasonably secure OS: It's root filesystem is read-only with tamper-proof authentication, user's home directory is encrypted. Chrome runs with the usual privilege separation in multiple processes each in it's own tight sandbox. There is no way to autostart anything. Even in the nuclear case of a 0-day RCE + chained sandbox breakout + privilege escalation to root, the threat can not persist itself... you just reboot the device and are save again. And Google has lot's of experience in security, they one of the few who build their own browser, the most hostile environment. They are clearly thinking about security front and center and not as an afterthought (like Microsoft).
- iknowstuff 3y ago
  If those are your criteria, macOS is the better choice for businesses. Certainly not qubesos lol
crabbone 3y ago
I didn't argue for moving to Linux. My argument is that we need redundancy. If one system has a huge failure like this one -- we shouldn't find ourselves being hostages of this system. Similarly, I'm not against Microsoft products being used in hospitals. I'm for transparency of standards, rules used by hospitals to acquire and maintain software, public interfaces, reporting... If such rules are created and Microsoft is playing by the rules -- then I have no problem with it, but having Microsoft decide what the rules are is a disaster.

by dcow 3y ago

horsewhales 3y ago

Yes. In every possible way, yes.

icandoit 3y ago

> Are you saying Linux is intrinsically better? Can we say that the market has spoken? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste... I look forward to the day that windows is mostly a UI over WSL and things like the regsitry become a distant memory.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> Can we say that the market has spoken? Microsoft aggressively abused its monopoly position in order to make sure that Linux would never win in the desktop market, and then inertia took over, so no we can't say that the market has said anything useful
rakoo 3y ago
The market is an illusion. Until recently I had no means to buy Linux, I was forced to buy Windows (and it is illegal here, but all you get for going to a trial is not even the price of a licence). Even today the options are very few. The idea of a market works if it costs ~0 to enter a market, consumers have an infinite access to knowledge and infinite time to make a decision BUT make it in 1s when at the store, and also enough money so as to not be a problem. Basically, consumers have all the power and vendors have none. Nothing is really a market, and operating systems definitely shows it.
- achrono 3y ago
  >Until recently I had no means to buy Linux, I was forced to buy Windows Huh, why not?
  - rakoo 3y ago
    Because no computer was sold with Linux in it. There wasn't even an offer, let alone a market.
    - r053bud 3y ago
      You can just install it after the fact. Do you lack internet?
      - rakoo 3y ago
        Are you serioulsy implying that everyone had hundreds of MB to spare, the knowledge, the material and the time to do it ? I'm talking about the beginning of the century when the only connection was through 56k. I'm talking about being an underage kid who discovers computing, through whatever exists in the store, and you think downloading an iso is straightforward ?
        PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        You said 'until recently' but you're describing a situation from the 90s.
        rakoo 3y ago
        It's still true today, machines with Linux can barely be found in stores. You can find them online but that's not always easier for people who are not knowledgeable
        PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        It's not true today at all lol. You talked about not having access to Linux and only having dial up speed - that's strictly a 90s problem. You don't see them in stores because there is not enough demand for them, and because stores are dying anyway. Very easy to find them online to buy.

nolist_policy 3y ago

The thing is: Windows and Office is insecure by default. Admins react by sprinkling anti-virus on top of it, but that doesn't help any. It still enables users to open random mail attachments in Office or similar. And Office doesn't have any sandboxing or other mitigation in place, again it's insecure by default. If you enable users to do stuff like this, you have noone to blame if you get owned. Are the usual Linux distro's better? Hell no! They have the same flawed security architecture as Windows, only without any motivated attackers (yet). But there are actually secure alternatives: QubesOS and ChromeOS. QubesOS is probably not that suitable to end-users, they can do too much wrong to twart it's security (using the "financial" qube to browse p0rn... etc.). ChromeOS is a reasonably secure OS: It's root filesystem is read-only with tamper-proof authentication, user's home directory is encrypted. Chrome runs with the usual privilege separation in multiple processes each in it's own tight sandbox. There is no way to autostart anything. Even in the nuclear case of a 0-day RCE + chained sandbox breakout + privilege escalation to root, the threat can not persist itself... you just reboot the device and are save again. And Google has lot's of experience in security, they one of the few who build their own browser, the most hostile environment. They are clearly thinking about security front and center and not as an afterthought (like Microsoft).

iknowstuff 3y ago
If those are your criteria, macOS is the better choice for businesses. Certainly not qubesos lol

crabbone 3y ago

I didn't argue for moving to Linux. My argument is that we need redundancy. If one system has a huge failure like this one -- we shouldn't find ourselves being hostages of this system. Similarly, I'm not against Microsoft products being used in hospitals. I'm for transparency of standards, rules used by hospitals to acquire and maintain software, public interfaces, reporting... If such rules are created and Microsoft is playing by the rules -- then I have no problem with it, but having Microsoft decide what the rules are is a disaster.