Should Microsoft learn from Linux ??

[Reaper28]

Microsoft Windows 'in danger of collapsing', analysts say

Discussing around this article about windows and how big its gotten from previous versions.

Within the bowels of my mind, i've been debating to my self and afew chat buddies and some RL friends that Microsoft should be working on bringing the Linux community into the development of their Windows Products, causing the software giant to more support Open Source.

Vista was 50 million lines of code, with OSes getting bigger and more viruses being made (read an article saying Viruses hit 1 million this year alone) i think it would be beatifically right to get help from the Linux community to make a Secure windows OS.

Anti virus software could be phased outta existance within 5yrs with the devlopment of a Opensource backed Windows OS.

I don't know if this makes any sense to everyone but i'd like to see a more lighter, more secure Windows OS something thats Open source

(nothing to do with Mac)

 

[[JSH]John]

If Windows was to go open source, they wouldn't make the money they're making now.

I don't think they should go open source. Although there are a lot of viruses for Windows, there are also a lot of viruses for Linux and other operating systems. I haven't been infected with a virus for a long time and I'm a Windows Vista user. I guess I am very careful and also use hardware/software firewalls but so do a lot of people.

 

[fnixws]

I dont think theres any chance of Windows going open source.

I dont see the huge issue with viruses, i havnt been infected in years.

I dont see how antivirus software could be phazed out. Making somthing open source does not make it secure, infact it makes it alot less secure.
Anyone with some programing knowlege can now look at the source code and see exactly how everything works. Your providing the hackers a blueprint to your security system.

The reson Linux has less viruses, is simply because its less popular. Nothing to do with it being more secure at all. Same with Mac OS. However there are new viruses for both every day, and the more popular they become as a primary choice for people OS, the more viruses will appear.
The linux community could not help secure windows...

Id definetly like to see a more light weight Windows however.
I dont see anything special about Vista at all, yet is hogs my resources like a gold digging ----- with her hands on my credit card...

 

[Canuckkev]

I dont see how antivirus software could be phazed out. Making somthing open source does not make it secure, infact it makes it alot less secure.
Anyone with some programing knowlege can now look at the source code and see exactly how everything works. Your providing the hackers a blueprint to your security system.

You are also providing talented developers the opportunity to look through the source code and identify potential exploits. And because it is open source, these developers can create their own fixes and share them with the community. This is an important tenet of open source development. Many would argue that open source software is in fact more secure for this reason.

The reson Linux has less viruses, is simply because its less popular. Nothing to do with it being more secure at all.

While popularity is likely one reason, it isn't the whole story. Desktop Linux environments are run as an unprivileged user. If a virus were to infect the user, it may destroy their environment but due to the user permission restrictions it could not cause havoc on the whole system. The reason some Windows viruses have had such large impacts is many users run as an Administrator user. When a virus infects such a system, the code has unrestricted access to the whole system. Running Windows as Administrator has often been necessary/convenient because Windows has only recently offered the ability to change "administrator" settings without logging out. I believe Vista has made more of an effort to run user environments as unprivileged users, so potential viruses will have less of an impact.

 

[Dynash]

They should leave the OS to the creators who are being payed for it.
i really cannot see Microsoft going OpenSource, they are too money hungry. granted they don't need it, but they are feeling threatend. take a look at the Yahoo bid.

personaly, it would be good if they did do something opensource wise for an Windows OS, but then again that's asking for miracles.