nweaver...
Ok, IIS5 versus apache 1.3.x....one is closed source, and a swiss cheese product, security wise. The other is stable, open source, and has very few critical security vunerabilities.
It's a straw-man argument, to be honest. Of course either model can produce a bad implementation. The question is whether access to source code makes it easier to find and exploit holes. I'd say it is obvious that it does.
easy. If they are using a distro that has support for 3d accel in the kernel/distributes binary blob drivers, then the little icon pops up in the system tray, you click update now, type in your password, and then away you go. Much easier, two clicks and a password. Oh, and it would have done that as soon as they driver was updated in the repositories, instead of crashing and having the user go look for a patch.
Again, you're cherry picking. If the user is running the right distro, and if they got it set up correctly to begin with, and if they know their admin password, and whatever other conditions apply, then it's easy to update the driver. The fact is that virtually everyone at this point knows how to go install a new driver for Windows. That's why it matters when something becomes a de facto consumer standard.
what are the benefits of keeping it proprietary? You still don't control it, because someone who doesn't update their kernel or modules still runs an older version.
Unavoidable anyway. The point is that there are no versions out there that you didn't write, and can't support.
That is how several do it now...no major us companies. The advantage is you know support linux, and can point all your support cases to the current maintainers, and the drivers are usually of very high quality (I don't think I have had an open source driver crash my box EVER)
It really doesn't matter. Companies buy into or sell out of technical "movements" all the time that don't end up going anywhere, and they have various reasons for doing so. Most of the examples you come up with are companies that have adopted a different model in order to distinguish themselves from Microsoft. I don't think any of us are in doubt as to why Oracle, IBM, Sun, HP, etc., support Open Source as vigorously as they do, are we? The number of technology coalitions that have come and gone as a response to a dominant competitor over the last twenty years is large. The only question that matter is whether it is a better model. If it is, then it will eventually take hold and win out over the alternatives. I wouldn't hold my breath on open source, myself, but maybe I'm wrong.
Windows hasn't really made it easier, just more common.
I would say Windows has made it both easier, and more common.
Nothinman...
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it? Security by obscurity has never worked well, would you trust an encryption algorithm that was never published?
There are some areas where security by obscurity works very well. In large swaths of banking, defense, utility management, etc., system source code is treated as a highly proprietary asset, for this and other reasons. Encryption algorithms aren't a very good example, imho, not least of all because they are small and very self-contained, and thus not as vulnerable to hidden complexity and forgotten corners of poorly engineered code.
But the point was that people do still have problems with binary drivers and when that happens you're at the mercy of the manufacturer with the only real option being to reinstall something and hope for the best. I haven't had an OSS driver kill my machine in a very long time, infact I can't remember the last machine-crashing level problem I had that I couldn't attribute to either nVidia or VMWare.
I haven't had a closed source driver kill my XP box in a very long time, so what's the point? Being at the mercy of the manufacturer hasn't caused me any problems, because my platform of choice is extremely popular and thus very well-supported. But we keep mixing things up here. If we're just talking about Linux on the desktop, then it's understandable why you guys would want drivers open sourced, since that is one way to at least get drivers.
Alright so they're not of equal difficulty, but you can't deny that making software closed source hasn't helped from a security perspective. Hell just look at the wifi firmware exploit that came out last year, you can't get much more removed from the system than the firmware of a device and people still found a way to exploit it.
I can't prove that negative any more than I can prove that even if I had left my front door open last night I would not have been robbed. But on the other hand I can render a judgement that leaving my door open is likely to increase the chance of being robbed. There have been cases where the accessibility of source code has led to people finding and exploiting holes. There was one recently where someone fairly well-known in FOSS circles complained about his open source forums being repeatedly hacked. In that particular case it's likely that having the source proprietary would have prevented the attacks, because they were simple mischief that someone would probably not have devoted a huge amount of time to.
You also have to deal with the bad press from people labeling you a non-community player and recommending your competitor's products since they do release their source code.
Hah, you mean that if a company doesn't rely on an open source model for its business it will be slammed by people who prefer an open source model, and so they should adopt an open source model to prevent that? What does "community minded" have to do with anything? The only community a business needs to care about from a commercial perspective is the community of its paying customers. If enough of them want open source then a smart business will provide them. By definition, open source will win if it makes sense, not because the FOSS protesters march in front of some vendor's parking lot .
The benefits of keeping the driver proprietary are questionable, as I said there's a lot of hardware companies that seem to get by just fine with OSS drivers.
"Get[ting] by just fine" is hardly a stirring description of the advantages. If the benefits of proprietary software are questionable, after forty years of evolution of the business model, should we just accept that the open source model is better, after ten years of little success?
I do get it and I know that Windows is "good enough" for lots of people, but that doesn't mean that Windows doesn't suck. Millions of people eat at McDonald's everyday, does that automatically mean that they produce quality hamburgers?
Yes, because there is no inherent standard of value. A thing is worth what the consumer thinks it is worth at the time of consumption. At the moment when someone wants a hot, fast, cheap meal McDonalds might very well make the best hamburger in the world.
Capitalistic trial and error? How can you call a monopoly dictating how things will be done for the past 15 years capitalistic trial and error? You honestly think people like having to install a dozen drivers from a dozen different websites after installing their OS? Wouldn't they rather the core kernel already had all of the drivers and they were all updated at the same time automatically?
Pretty lame argument on several levels. First, Microsoft hasn't dictated anything that really matters to ISVs. What they have done is produce a very popular operating platform, on which anyone can develop software with certain expectations as to the platform's capabilities, and have those expectations fulfilled at runtime. Secondly, all of the major innovators of the last twenty years, whether Lotus, or Quicken, or Adobe, or whomever, have taken advantage of Microsoft's success, not the other way around. Thirdly, nobody has to visit a dozen websites for drivers after installing XP. I have exactly three pieces of hardware that require drivers on this machine: the Audigy, the TV Wonder, and the 7600GT. Sound and Video work out of the box on XP. The TV Wonder works out of the box on Vista.