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posted by martyb on Friday June 30 2017, @10:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the thank-you-captain-obvious dept.

Bryan Lunduke at Network World calls out what other mainstream media have been too timid, or bought out, to call out. He starts by pointing out that choosing Microsoft Windows for your organization should get you fired and that if you haven't already replaced Windows, across the board, you absolutely stink at your job.

There. Finally the topic is broached in mainstream media and a proper discussion can now start among decision makers who can arrange complete migrations to GNU/Linux, Chrome/Linux, one of the BSDs, or a combination of them.

As Microsoft security problems continue to escalate since even the pre-networked, MS-DOS days, managers and front-line grunts will find themselves increasingly culpable for selecting unviable software, such as Microsoft Windows. If they wish to pay big bucks for maintenance, there are plenty of companies around to participate in the money. Canonical, Red Hat, M:Tier are just a sampling.

[Ed. Note: I debated whether or not to run this story — in some respects it's just the Windows vs *nix argument all over again. Also, there are proprietary programs which are critical for certain industries which currently only run on Windows. On the other hand, gaining a mention like this in the more mainstream media, does that mean we are approaching an inflection point? Witness the increased displeasure with Windows 10's telemetry and the difficulty in completely blocking it. What programs do you use that are only available on Windows? What keeps you from moving to another OS? --martyb]


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  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday June 30 2017, @09:37PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Friday June 30 2017, @09:37PM (#533713)

    Nobody gets fired for buying Microsoft because everybody buys Microsoft. Everybody buys Microsoft because everybody buys Microsoft. Everybody knows Microsoft is uniquely unsafe but everybody buys Microsoft because everyone else has it, critical ISVs only release on it, etc. It's f*cking circular and somebody needs to break it.

    The first step is one large entity that has to care about security needs to lay down the law, no new Windows installs, no Windows 10 under any circumstance since it meets the dictionary definition of malware out of the box. Somebody like the United States Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security. Both are big enough that by themselves they could break the circle of dependency. Every contractor doing business with them would instantly port their products since the revenue from an agency wide deployment at either one justifies the developer time. Everybody would quickly get together and standardize file exchange formats that aren't just "whatever the current Office does". You can't do a rip and replace, work needs to go on, but you can say "NO MORE" and stop digging the hole and lay out a five year plan to migrate as the hardware replacement cycle churns. Which would no longer have to worry about Linux compatibility since every bit of hardware would instantly have a "Works with Linux" logo and a little penguin on the box. Dell would be happy to sell any product they make preloaded.

    The big question then would be what to do when Microsoft ported Office and Exchange to try to keep half the monopoly. It is almost as dangerous as Windows, allow or forbid?

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