M$ has long had others lie on its behalf but no longer. When Kenya decided to prefer FLOSS, this was spoken:
““We agree with the open standards but not the free and open source software strategy,” said Paul Roy Owino, technology advisor, Microsoft East and Southern Africa.
“The Government stands to lose to hackers, freedom to third party modification coming with Free and Open Source Software it plans to adopt increases chances of Internet attacks,” he said “I do not think the Government has competent expertise to handle the challenges that comes with the free and Open Source Software,” he said.
Less accountability
Owino said through the Free and Open Source Software the Sate might find it hard to hold anyone accountable should its systems be hacked”
““Just like other players in the copyrighted software, we are accountable when our software is hacked, the case is different with the non-copyrighted software,” he said.”
via Standard Digital News : State warned on ditching copyrighted software.
Allow me to quote, M$’s EULA:
“LIMITED WARRANTY
A. LIMITED WARRANTY. If you follow the instructions and the software is properly licensed, the software will perform substantially as described in the Microsoft materials that you receive in or with the software.
B. TERM OF WARRANTY; WARRANTY RECIPIENT; LENGTH OF ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES.
The limited warranty covers the software for 90 days after acquired by the first user. If you receive supplements, updates, or replacement software during those 90 days, they will be covered for the remainder of the warranty or 30 days, whichever is longer. If you transfer the software, the remainder of the warranty will apply to the recipient.
To the extent permitted by law, any implied warranties, guarantees or conditions last only during the term of the limited warranty. Some states do not allow limitations on how long an implied warranty lasts, so these limitations may not apply to you. They also might not apply to you because some countries may not allow limitations on how long an implied warranty, guarantee or condition lasts.
C. EXCLUSIONS FROM WARRANTY. This warranty does not cover problems caused by your acts (or failures to act), the acts of others, or events beyond the reasonable control of the manufacturer or installer, or Microsoft.
D. REMEDY FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY. The manufacturer or installer will, at its election, either (i) repair or replace the software at no charge, or (ii) accept return of the product(s) for a refund of the amount paid, if any. The manufacturer or installer may also repair or replace supplements, updates and replacement software or provide a refund of the amount you paid for them, if any. contact the manufacturer or installer about its policy. These are your only remedies for breach of the limited warranty.”
Yeah, M$ lied twice:
- once about GNU/Linux not being copyrighted and
- again about responsibility. They take no responsibility for the $billions of damage their software causes each year except to refund the purchase price within 90 days leaving the user with no functional computer.
Yeah, M$ spreads FUD, all this stuff about modified code and hackers. What’s with that? I just read PCs are being shipped from the factory with malware installed in that other OS. M$ told us so. Nothing to fear from M$’s OS? Right!
17508
12808
206
3
2
23963 
11881 
11732 
4665 
4280 
1644 
198 
14 
2 
0 
0 
0 
Re: We agree with the open standards.. *cough* Eh?? M$ finally decides to follow ISO/IEC 26300:2006 after six years.
Re: Government stands to lose to hackers, freedom to third party modification coming with Free and Open Source Software it plans to adopt increases chances of Internet attacks *cough* – *cough*
One only has to run cursory search to see that’s a lie:
http://goo.gl/2a7Tt
http://goo.gl/iRNX8
http://goo.gl/4Eys5
Re: The State might find it hard to hold anyone accountable should its systems be hacked..
Accountable??… LOL…yes Robert has it right. if your server or computer is hacked, M$ is held harmless. Imagine that!!
I have seen more Windows machines owned then I care to talk about. To date, I have yet to see a Linux box become infected with malware.
With the all new METRO-FAIL coming out, class action lawsuits are a thing of the past. Seems M$ is doing more to protect itself, while screwing its users. Eh??
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/05/30/windows-8-eula-prohibits-class-action-lawsuits-against-microsoft/
I guess they mod’d the EULA due to these actions:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20029333-75.html
Here is a good read regarding M$ EULA and the GPL, which would you prefer?
http://asyd.net/docs/misc/comparing_the_gpl_to_eula.pdf
Back in 2005, M$ sued a student for selling software he purchased, which was against the EULA. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/11/ms_zamos_ebay/
Why do business with an entity that will sue its users? I sure don’t and I remind people all the time that they cannot sue M$ if Windows becomes malware infected and after they have lost beaucoup dollars.
I dare not repeat some of the responses I have heard.
“Here is a good read regarding M$ EULA and the GPL, which would you prefer?”
Not that same thing dude. The EULA is for “end users” the GPL is for developers.
“I have seen more Windows machines owned then I care to talk about. To date, I have yet to see a Linux box become infected with malware.”
That’s a great anecdote, but I can say the same thing about Windows and OSX machines. I have never seen a single infected Windows machine having owned several and teaching at a school in labs full of Windows machines. This is the thing about anecdotal evidence, it isn’t based on any facts! By my anecdotal evidence, Windows and OSX are perfectly secure, but they’re not. To think that Linux somehow magically is impregnable would be foolish.
“if your server or computer is hacked, M$ is held harmless. Imagine that!!”
“Blameless”, not harmless. Do you and oiaohm go to the same English class? Who is held to blame when a Linux server gets hacked? Oh, you mean Linux is blameless (harmless?)
“Why do business with an entity that will sue its users?”
Because he’s selling educational licenses for the price of full ones. That’s fraud, goofball! Read your own links.
“With the all new METRO-FAIL coming out”
Yeah, when Microsoft does something new it’s “destined to fail” (I recall Windows 95 being the nail in the coffin according to the FOSS faithful back in 1994) yet when Ubuntu releases Unity it’s the best thing ever. Compiz, the best thing ever. Wayland, oh man, the best. thing. ever!
But by all means, keep up the wishful thinking. Microsoft is by no means Ned Flanders, but they’re no worse than any other business. Hell, they haven’t sold punch cards to the Nazis yet like FOSS darling IBM did back in World War 2. So rather than focusing all your attention on Microsoft, why not be a watchdog for ALL big corporations out there?
TM wrote, “the GPL is for developers.”
No, it’s not. GPL is what the developers use to deliver to users the right to run, examine, modify and redistribute the code modified or not. Users need the GPL to do any of those things. That’s required by law of copyright.
TM Repository to be correct GPL is for end users and developers.
Developers also have to play to the rules of EULA with Microsoft software on how they can exploit it.
TM Repository you really don’t know me. If you did you know that I talked against doing Compiz and unity due to doing lots of non common sense things.
Wayland has technical merit to it. Reduces memory overhead and improves security and reference is bench marking quite well compared to other options like KDE and Windows.
There is a classic one recently over at Phoronix,
NVIDIA Performance: Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu Linux 12.10. Thing was they did unity and KDE. KDE on graphical performance mostly matched or beat Windows 7 only lost in 2 cases and that was card dependant. Unity was cleanly beaten by both only won on one card out of all the tests. So if you want the highest opengl performance choose Linux and KDE right. This is wrongish. KDE still provides overhead due to compositor.
So I fully agree Unity is more look than substance at this stage same is true for compiz. The testing proves this.
The reality you can present benchmarks to prove the Unity and Compiz people don’t know what they are talking about. This is why TM Repository is so useless. They have not put the effort into having the proper facts at there finger tips.
TM Repository
–To think that Linux somehow magically is impregnable would be foolish.–
If it was impregnable we would not be needing Wayland or upgrading gstreamer to sandbox every codec individually for each media file being played.
Yes the sand-boxing of every codec is to prevent security breaches from watching videos or playing music as simply.
Linux is still finding areas of its OS without enough security around it. Each Distribution upgrade of Linux brings something new in security.
There is a old saying in security.
Two people are being sees a bear one stops and makes sure his shoes are on right the other asks why. Answers so I can run fast. The other says but humans cannot out run bear. Answers I don’t need to out run bear I just need to be able to out run you.
Linux is not blameless when it gets hacked. After every hack we see changes to security in Linux. Its a progressive process of hardening.
The Linux world is trying to beat the bears to finding the weakness.