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RE: [FreeDNS] Don't like Windows!!!!

I think you're wrong that most servers run Linux or Unix. I think most corporates run Windows on their servers, although it is true that many of these have at least one or two Linux servers running as web and other Internet servers - but this is changing since IIS is slowly catching up.

The biggest reason why I don't like Linux is the same reason why I don't program in any implementation of C. No interface, language, or environment should ever be case sensitive! (Except where passwords are concerned, but that's a given) Another reason is less specific to Linux - I don't like open source. It is damn near impossible for me to conceive that a developer could make any real money developing on a Linux platform. The money only comes in support, which kind of implies that you need to deliberately write crap software that's full of bugs so that people will pay you to support it. I think that the concept that "nobody owns information" is very Marxist and, as we've discovered, it's a very nice ideal, but nobody has been able to make it work in the real world. Further, I think that the fact that Linux is free is actually hurting its viability in the real world. It may be sad, but the fact still remains that the majority of people (Especially those with money) still draw a parallel between price and quality. If I market an application to the corporate IT industry for, say, R2 000 a pop, I will lose if a competitor markets a similar product (Which to all intents and purposes provides exactly the same functionality) for R80 000 a pop.

I do agree that the cost of Microsoft software (And pretty much all commercial software) is prohibitive, and this is very sad. I think that its got a lot to do with the exchange rate in SA, but piracy also plays a huge part (If you sell less, you have to charge more), and also the whole "price = quality" concept I mentioned.

As far as security goes, I've heard the arguments, but nobody's proved it to me. I've been securing NT servers and domains for the past 5 years, and on many occasions I have given people the IP address of my home telnet server and asked them to delete a certain file off the disk, change a specific user's password, etc, but nobody has yet been able to log in. At the end of the day, though, everything's hackable - it's just a case of when. The only fool-proof firewall is a pair of side-cutters. You just have to do it properly. Don't use 9x - it's not secure, it was never intended to be secure, and it never will be. But a properly configured NT box is better than a haphazardly configured Linux box. ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: freedns-bounces@xxxxxx [mailto:freedns-bounces@xxxxxx]On Behalf Of Johan Steenkamp
Sent: Wednesday, 28 August 2002 19:43
To: freedns@xxxxxx
Subject: [FreeDNS] Don't like Windows!!!!

I DO NOT LIKE WINDOWS, in fact I’d go as far to say that that Microsoft Windows suck.

Do not ask me what this has to do with DNS or domain names.

And why someone would want to become a Microsoft developer I don’t know either.

On the other hand I like Linux, any flavour, I LIKE LINUX. There I said it.

The bad thing is that Microsoft is all over the market. Esp. home PC’s. But from what

I heard most servers run Linux or some other form of UNIX.

And the best thing is that Linux is almost FREE. And probably one of the most secure OS around!

Maybe some of you Microsoft developers can tell me why Windows has error messages

that, for all practical reasons, say NOTHING. All you can tell from them is that there is SOME sort

of error. What that error is nobody knows, I don’t think even old Bill himself knows. And I don’t even

want to know how they do debugging with error messages like that.

Another annoying thing about Windows is that with every new version or release you need a bigger,

better and faster PC. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but when compared to Mandrake Linux for instance,

guess what? Windows SUCKS! I have seen a 486 with 32MB RAM running Mandrake 8.2 from a 2GIG hard Drive.

And I’ve read about a dual 1,7 GHz Athlon (or some other) 1GHZ RAM running the same Mandrake release. WOW?!

Now obviously the 486 won’t be able to run big databases ect. But hey it’s still pretty impressive.

Leon