Well, as a short follow-up on my rant before, I decided to start poking around. Right here I found a link to the Microsoft Annual Shareholder's Meeting, and what Mr. Gates had to say about security.

"A final area for us, and one that I'd say is our top priority, is taking our software and making sure that the security, the privacy, the ease of installation, the lack of running into error messages, that the basic plumbing capabilities are dramatically improved. We feel even the capabilities that people have today they don't fully utilize, because those infrastructure issues are not fully taken care of. And although this has been an area that we've done a lot, there is dramatically more that we can do. It includes things like the Windows Update capability that's built into Windows XP where you get continuous improvements. But, making initiatives like that available to the entire user base, and making sure that these complexities, including the key areas of security and privacy don't hold things back are extremely important to us."
- Bill Gates
Microsoft Corporation 2001 Annual Shareholder Meeting

OK, so let's look at that, shall we?

I would agree that there are fewer and fewer "error messages" seen today on MS OS's. I may still bitch about BSOD (oh, yeah, not under XP, right?) but life is much better since Win1.0 ... I mean, you can actually use the latest stuff. There has been a significant improvement over time in errors, both the phenomenon and the handling of same.

I'll even give them points on ease of installation, although my feelin is that this is a toss-up.

I will not let slide remarks about security or privacy, though. The former is certainly unproven, and the latter is nothing short of ludicrous.

The number one thing I hear people gripe about XP for is the gosh-darn hardware registration. I disliked it when former OS installs enumerated my system, I really get ticked that they are now going to tell me how often and how much I can tinker with my system. Privacy? Yeah, right. Like Bill Clinton is next in line for Pope.

Security will tell in the next 6 months. I am not thrilled at the thought of a 25 MB service pack a week after launch. I am less thrilled at security holes that no-one knows about yet in this "new" system. It's an old song on this board, but stick with Linux for serverware, and play with XP until SP4, which is usually when most of the later OS's have gotten to a state I would call release-able.

Then again, I'm just blowing air in an empty room.

So, I am now a /.er. Or is that a /.ian? /.ist? Whatever. I get a headache thinking about it. Whatever the hell it is, I'm one.

Leming, Ho!
Well, at least I can be part of a group of individuals. How shall I introduce my fetid brain to the masses?

Well, first, I really dislike Microsoft, as a company, as a culture, and their products generally suck, too. I might sound just like a basher, but it goes deeper than that. Right to the bone, in fact.

I have, in the last 20+ years, seen a lot of things come and go. The first computer I used was a PDP-7 with teletype terminals, cards, and papertape. The first "PC" I used regularly was an Apple, with Visicalc and that wonderful time-wasting game(you are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike). My first DOS PC was a Tandy (forgive me). Back in 1990, I ran a network on my desk, with a Netware server, four Intel/DOS/Windows 3.1 boxes, a Mac Quadra 950, and two SparqStation 10's. Oh, yeah, and six Cubix boxes, little storage-less 286's handling dedicated modem lines. The Quadra also used appletalk to communicate with a RIP, a Fiery, connected to a Canon CLC-500.

I watched the evolution of each of those systems over the last decade. What have I learned? That "best" does not mean anything vis-a-vis survival or dominance. Great concepts get crushed, technical superiority doesn't sell boxes, and entertainment still drives innovation.

I tried OS/2, back in the day, and even helped run an OS/2 User Group. (I lived in Las Vegas, so I was one of the "Salmon Ninja" that ran around with backpack CD drives, installing OS/2 at Comdex... Lord, what a time that was!)
I eventually gave up on OS/2 after IBM seemed to pitch in the towel, not being able to decide if they wanted to be a household brand or stay in the corporate IT farms. That, and no native software (except a truely terrible port of CorelDraw and either Wordperfect or Ami/Pro) for my industry at the time. I used to say that I didn't abandon OS/2 so much as it did my profiled group. I know that developers went through hell during that period, as well.

We used to gripe about security then. We still do. Some of the team members have changed, there have been a few defections to one camp or another, but the fact remains that Microsoft was never any good at security, and they don't look to be changing that now. And you have to wonder why.

Is it that Redmond simply doesn't have any decent security feature programmers? Is it that there isn't a security software firm with stock hanging out so MS can assimilate it? Or is it that security is not in their best interest?

That is an intriguing thought. Why would good, even great, security not be something they want in their OS's? What could the motivation be?

Is it to sell add-on products? I can't rationalize that. I don't know that many people running MS security software. And I have a hard time visualizing secret financial corridors between MS and the people that do write and sell security software.

Is it to propigate updates? Could be. What good does that do? On one hand, it may mask the need to patch other parts of an OS, that would be worse for them to own up to. But what is worse than a "net-enabled" OS with securty holes? I don't think this is the answer, either.

To be honest, I have a hard time understanding the whole phenomenon. I'm not slow, at least I don't think I am. But what possible gain is there in have flaws in a security system? This is the tilled, fertile ground that can raise a bumper crop of speculation and conspiracy theory. But once you get into that never-never land, you can't trust your own observations, because you might be part of it, too.

So, I deal with it. The same as countless others do. I could bypass it by running a different OS, but at the client side I need the software that works on Windows. IBM tried that in OS/2, to amazingly mediocre results. I know about Wine, and before that Wabi, and before that... well, none of them really put up with it well.

In the long run, there will be a Win2003, a Win2005, and a Win3032, for all we know. It doesn't mean I'll enjoy paying for things I suspect could be much better, or that I'll trust the reasons given for any particular problem. In fact, I think I'll play Fox Mulder (I stopped watching years ago... Did he ever get to boink Scully?) and know that the truth is out there.