|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 17 2012 @ 04:52 PM EDT |
Thr typical EULA from any vendor states that the vendor does not claim the
software is fit for any purpose, but that it is very valuable and may not be
copied.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 17 2012 @ 05:07 PM EDT |
They indemnify themselves by assuring the customer that if the software fails
the customer may be able to recoup the cost of a blank disc.
Whereas, everyone knows that with FOSS, you have to buy your own disc.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: tknarr on Monday, September 17 2012 @ 05:10 PM EDT |
It does. I looked up the license agreement for Windows 7 Ultimate. Section 26
disclaims all liability for problems with the software, including negligence and
including when Microsoft knew of the problem. They also limit their liability,
if any, to the amount you paid for the software. Basically they aren't liable
and if they are liable all they have to do is refund your money. So how exactly
is this taking more responsibility than FOSS again? At least with FOSS if
there's a problem I can fix it if it's that critical, rather than being
left hanging until the vendor decides to issue a fix (assuming they ever do, or
that they consider the behavior a bug at all). [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 17 2012 @ 06:57 PM EDT |
Yes, when was the last time you heard Microsoft offer to cover losses due to a
MS software bug? I'm not aware of that EVER happening. About all they will offer
is to fix the bug - if you're lucky.
That said, the belief that MS code is much buggier than open source is
(allegedly) a thing of the past - largely arising from a 2004 survey comparing
bugs per kloc from the Linux kernel vs. the Windows "kernel". When the
same organisation (Coverity) did a new survey recently, the bug rates were quite
similar between Linux vs. Windows (0.62 bugs/kloc vs. 0.64 bugs/kloc).
That doesn't mean that the 2004 results were wrong, it means that MS actually
started paying attention to security in the interim, and appears to have
achieved some results.
By all means criticise Microsoft, they usually deserve it, but criticising them
on the basis of issues that no longer hold true will only weaken your arguments.
It's not as if they don't give us enough ammunition...[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 17 2012 @ 06:58 PM EDT |
Yes, when was the last time you heard Microsoft offer to cover losses due to a
MS software bug? I'm not aware of that EVER happening. About all they will offer
is to fix the bug - if you're lucky.
That said, the belief that MS code is much buggier than open source is
(allegedly) a thing of the past - largely arising from a 2004 survey comparing
bugs per kloc from the Linux kernel vs. the Windows "kernel". When the
same organisation (Coverity) did a new survey recently, the bug rates were quite
similar between Linux vs. Windows (0.62 bugs/kloc vs. 0.64 bugs/kloc).
That doesn't mean that the 2004 results were wrong, it means that MS actually
started paying attention to security in the interim, and appears to have
achieved some results.
By all means criticise Microsoft, they usually deserve it, but criticising them
on the basis of issues that no longer hold true will only weaken your arguments.
It's not as if they don't give us enough ammunition...
...Ronny[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 17 2012 @ 07:19 PM EDT |
Furthermore, an end customer (Kenya, in this case) can enter into a support
contract with a company that supplies FOSS software, and supports it, and that
contract can have a meaningful support agreement that included penalties. It is
generally impossible to do this with a big software vendor (Oracle, Microsoft,
etc.) and no third-party support can be meaningful because the third party does
not have access to the source.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 17 2012 @ 07:50 PM EDT |
Can we take that a new commitment?
If we all can get them to pay for past damages, they won't be
able to pay for FUD and acquire patents for years. Please, what
is the telephone number?
But an other point, it may be, for different non-fundamental
reasons, be complex for Kenya to do that switch successfully.
They can and probably should pay for support. But the amount
should be limited to make the transition a real success. I hope
the FOSS community will help by launching open source projects
that address the specific, mostly organisational problems for
such an organisation to make that kind of switch.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 18 2012 @ 07:30 AM EDT |
Does anyone know of an instance where Microsoft helped someone who was hacked?
Last time I checked Metasploit still had a large number of exploits listed. The
Anti-malware companies are still going strong listing thousands of attacks that
they will defend against.
My one and only time to try and get help from them was with a new machine
running NT. Dell said to call them and they said it was Dell's problem.
Luckily SuSE solved the troubles and has bee my desktop since.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
