More woes for Microsoft.

On top of reports of a large increase in downloads for Opera and Firefox off the back of the German, French and Australian warnings about not using Internet Explorer (IE8 IS vulnerable, despite what MS say.) now there's this...

Which rather goes to prove what I think is one of MS's problems. There is far too much rubbish that gets brought in to new releases from old ones for the sake of compatibility. The thing with old code is the people who wrote it probably no longer work at MS so no longer maintain it. Someone new to it, scanning it for bugs will miss things! Open source kernel team members can change jobs and still maintain 'their' code. Also, there are many developers all looking at the whole kernel all the time not just one team working for a proprietary company.

BTW, I'd like to take the opportunity to say I don't post this stuff because I want MS to disappear. I do think YOU need to know what you're working with and what the alternatives are though.

I just posted a comment on Rory Cellan-Jones' blog article about the MOD using IE6. Look for my user id - linuxrich. It will be interesting to see if anyone can come up with a coherent counter to my argument.

Bill Gates has made enough money now anyway...

Indeed. I really hope we see a shift from the model of making money from software by licensing it and instead see businesses providing QUALITY paid-for support for open source software.

Oh, BTW. Here's a link to a document I did to hopefully help advise where HM Government has failed to do so, so far.

I think we are coming to the end of if the MS era. The Linux community keeps shooting itself in the foot. Google Chrome looks like everything Windows and Linux should have been. Most people don't want to do the work it takes to make Windows or Linux work. I agree, support is the key. I run Debian because that is what my son in law uses. He usually already knows how to fix the problems I have.

Debian rules! I use a derivative of it, because as you say, otherwise I might have hit the 'Linux shoots itself in the foot' issue of being a bit tricky to install and configure.

Ubuntu tries to fix that, but tends to add a little instability due to the insistence in using the latest in greatest apps. LTS versions probably not too bad.

I use Mepis. Pretty straight Debian Stable derived but with a LOT of polish added.