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Why Windows users dont like opensource

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HibbeeBoy:

quote:Originally posted by Calum: hopelessly outnumbered:
re: users in the workplace should not have any control over the system:

while i actually agree, this is of course totally contrary to the ethic of the free software foundation. when stallman was working on ITS, he and his associates did not build in password authentication, so that whoever was on the computer was able to do with it whatever they wanted/needed to without asking an administrator. when "they" brought passwords into ITS, stallman cracked people's passwords, then sent them an email saying "i notice your password is xxxxx, why don't you just type <enter> for your password? it's much easier to type and is just as secure." of course his point was, security is false security, and user freedom is paramount. interestingly i also agree with him, albeit paradoxically.
--- End quote ---


Free software is one thing, access to confidential information and manipulation of data is something else entirely. So no I don't subscribe to user freedom on the system being paramount. Quite the reverse actually.
Free software I don't have a problem with but commercial grade ERP applications are not free. When you say free, do you mean the cost of acquisistion or free to use/modify/distribute as you like ?
Security on a network I believe to be anything but. Take a look round a typical office, it won't take you long to find a post-it pad with the user id and password written down, probably stuck to the monitor. It is necessary to restrict access to the system in someway, after all you don't want the cleaners (or they'r kids) bolloxing up the PC/System because the PC was turned on. I caught a cleaner's kid  sitting playing solitaire on a PC.

suselinux:
Industrial espianage (How do you spell that?)is an epidemic, especially but not specifically with Software companies, because code is so easy to move.  But espianage exists in any industry so even if the software your company uses is free the product your company makes probably isn't.

I think that an open network is fine, as long as it is only open to internal clients.  It isn't done to often, but I think that all big companies should have two networks one internal and one external and no client should be able run both at once.

I must admit that I am not employed in this genre of industry I am actually a Second generation Pattern Maker, no I don't cut out dresses and skirts, we make industrial tools for metal casting
plastic manufacturing and forming, and moulds.

So if I sound a little out of the loop sometimes
or unfamiliar with an "Office" environment, cut me a little slack I am here to learn.

ShawnD1:
about that password and ID thing on the post-it note, i totaly know what you mean, i've seen that many times before.

people don't just do that with computers, they do it even with their bank card pin numbers. i told a joke about the difference between men and women taking money out of the cash machine to a few friends at school (the one about how many more steps women take). 3 of the people then said "i actually do carry a piece of paper with my pin number on it"    :rolleyes:  

stupid people are like mentaly handicapped people, you sometimes have to restrict them in order to protect them.

[ May 14, 2003: Message edited by: ShawnD1 ]

flap:

quote:Originally posted by Calum: hopelessly outnumbered:
re: users in the workplace should not have any control over the system:

while i actually agree, this is of course totally contrary to the ethic of the free software foundation. when stallman was working on ITS, he and his associates did not build in password authentication, so that whoever was on the computer was able to do with it whatever they wanted/needed to without asking an administrator. when "they" brought passwords into ITS, stallman cracked people's passwords, then sent them an email saying "i notice your password is xxxxx, why don't you just type <enter> for your password? it's much easier to type and is just as secure." of course his point was, security is false security, and user freedom is paramount. interestingly i also agree with him, albeit paradoxically.
--- End quote ---


Not exactly. Stallman was objecting to file security as a means to keep functionally useful data secret, and stop it being shared amongst a community of technically competent people who trusted each other. You can't expect every workplace to be like the MIT AI lab, where everyone needs to use the available resources and you can trust everyone to use them properly.

Stallman has nothing against security in general; and certainly not against user privacy, or restricting access in an environment where it isn't helpful or even desired to give users unrestricted access to the system.

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