OS trivia

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

On Saturday 17 June 2006 12:13, Elaine de Saxe <coolowl at hotkey.net.au> wrote:
> > "The thing he [Bill Gates] realised about the windows was this:
> > because they
> > had been converted into openable windows after they had first been
> > designed
> > to be impregnable, they were, in fact, much less secure than if
> > they had been
> > designed as openable windows in the first place." - Douglas Adams
>
> Mmm, interesting sig quote! Wish I understood what DA meant. Weird
> thing is, DA is supposed to be one of the first Macintosh users in
> the UK.

Windows was designed for a single desktop with only limited networking 
capability (and definitely no TCP/IP). This meant that network and user 
security was not a consideration at all. With Windows 98 (or Windows 95 with 
the Plus pack), they bolted on a TCP/IP stack and a Web browser and called 
it 'Internet ready'. Because it wasn't designed for secure network 
communication in the first place, it has remained insecure to this day (yes, 
even the NT series).

TCP/IP, the main communication protocols for the Internet, were built on UNIX. 
UNIX has been designed around network communications, and hence was built 
securely from the outset. GNU/Linux, being a UNIX clone, has been designed 
with the same principles in mind.

So by "openable windows", Douglas Adams means "open to communication with 
other machines/devices". Windows was not initially designed for this, and 
this capability was only added as an afterthought.

> PS: reading all the posts on OS-free laptops - if the buyer is
> prepared to take on a used one (and this applies to desktops as well)
> there are several dealers who supply without any software at all.
> Frequently without even any installed OS.

Perhaps we should listing these dealers as well? I'm sure that a lot of people 
(including myself) would be interested in purchasing an older laptop that 
does not come with an OS.

On the other hand, once the OS has been 'used' I don't think it is worth 
anything. It probably costs nothing for the dealer to sell the laptop with 
the OS licence it came with.

-- 
Sridhar Dhanapalan  [Yama | http://www.pclinuxonline.com/]
  {GnuPG/OpenPGP: http://dhanapalan.webhop.net/yama.asc
   0x049D38B4 : A7A9 8A02 78CB AB1B FCE4 EEC6 2DD9 249B 049D 38B4}

"I'm a huge believer in proven concepts. If I have a hero, it would have to be 
Sir Isaac Newton, partly because he's unquestionably one of the most 
influential scientists who ever lived, but perhaps more importantly because 
of a quote he is famous for: 'If I have been able to see farther, it was only 
because I stood on the shoulders of giants'." - Linus Torvalds, 2004-12-21
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