The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Here comes the monoculture

to bite us in the ass. Heads up.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5095935.html

Mike
Friday, October 24, 2003

...and if it was 1980, you'd be complaining about how you can't transfer data from your DEC Rainbow to whatever your client was running that day.

Remember how Microsoft got started? How do you create software for dozens of different platform, each with a relatively small userbase?

If it bugs you so much, buy a Mac.

AJS
Friday, October 24, 2003

"...could spell trouble for companies that haven't quickly patched their system..."

Does this imply there is a patch already installed on my computer since I have auto-update turned on?

Software has bugs. This is shocking.

m
Friday, October 24, 2003

Fortunately it's only the messenger service, and spammers were nice enough to start using it to send pop up spam a while ago.

I say fortunately, because that prompted us to turn the thing off.

Steve Barbour
Friday, October 24, 2003

Why, I say, WHY? did those knuckle heads turn on "Messenger Service" by default?

Oh yeah, let's enable an open spam port just for fun. And not insure that its immune from buffer overruns??

Good job people.

The severity of the security hole matters. Defaced web pages - that's bad. DoS attack vulnerability - bad too. But providing a root kit hole. #$%^*@%%

nat ersoz
Friday, October 24, 2003

As to why the "Messenger Service" was on by default, I think this was probably a decision taken around 1991 in LAN environments, when network administrators were regularly blasting out messages saying "print server blah blah will be down for the next 15 minutes" or "please clean off your files off the file server." I doubt if anyone revisited that decision for 10 years and meanwhile the Internet thing happened.

Anyway, any reasonable firewall or port filter would block this, so the real problem is not the fact that this service is running, but the fact that for years Internet and DSL providers did not feel like they had any obligation to firewall their customers.

Joel Spolsky
Friday, October 24, 2003

God I hope ISPs don't start firewalling me now. I think they would do more harm than good to those of us that know how to manage our own firewalls.

So the internet thing happened in, hmm, about 1995, and until Windows 2003 server the OS shipped with about every port open..? And they have how many managers that didn't reconsider the decision? I think the real reason they ship with all those ports open is so people will USE and depend on those ports and windows will get better lock in.

Hard to defend Microsoft on this one I think.

C++ <fan>
Friday, October 24, 2003

I don't even think most people were aware of Messneger until spammers started using it.

I actually must thank the spammers because for my present problem it's a great feature.

Stephen Jones
Friday, October 24, 2003

Until Windows Server 2003, the ruling concern for the people doing the setups was "good out-of-box experience."

Stuff was turned on by default because there were some people using these services, and they'd bitch and moan if they weren't turned on. And until the (relatively) recent security flaps, it didn't look like the extra services hurt anything.

You can fault them for catching on far too slowly to the fact that the internet is a very hostile place, but it wasn't just stupidity to have all these servers turned on.

Chris Tavares
Friday, October 24, 2003

And it's hitting MS in the pocketbook...

http://news.com.com/2100-7355-5096001.html?tag=nl

Jim Rankin
Friday, October 24, 2003

"I doubt if anyone revisited that decision for 10 years and meanwhile the Internet thing happened.

Anyway, any reasonable firewall or port filter would block this, so the real problem is not the fact that this service is running, but the fact that for years Internet and DSL providers did not feel like they had any obligation to firewall their customers."

So Microsoft fails to fix a fundamental flaw in their software for over 10 YEARS, but it's the fault of ISPs for not protecting people from the consequences of this flaw?

You, um, didn't use to work for Microsoft or anything, did you?

Jim Rankin
Friday, October 24, 2003

"If it bugs you so much, buy a Mac."

Lots of ads for the Mac today on JOS.

And again, I did, thanks.

Jim Rankin
Friday, October 24, 2003

"Stuff was turned on by default because there were some people using these services, and they'd bitch and moan if they weren't turned on"

Because they were too f'ing ignorant to know what it was, what it did or if they needed it.

Typcial windows user
Friday, October 24, 2003

Here comes .... JoS forum as Slashdot. Can we vote each other's posts up and down too?

www.MarkTAW.com
Saturday, October 25, 2003

If Apple had 95% of the market, then I'd be sitting here with my hockey-puck mouse programming RealBasic.

There are 2 ways to make money, either aim for a small chunk of a large market, or a large chunk of small market.

While the may chunks end up being the same size, the larger market is more attractive.

Anyway, you're looking at the wrong market. If you want to upseat MS, don't attack Windows. Attack Word & Excel. Most users don't care if they're running DOS 4, Win3.11, Redhat 6.2, or Mac OS8.

Give them WordStar 2000 and they'll be very upset. (I've a boxed copy of that somewhere...)

AJS
Saturday, October 25, 2003

"There are 2 ways to make money, either aim for a small chunk of a large market, or a large chunk of small market.

While the may chunks end up being the same size, the larger market is more attractive."

It may be easier to leverage a large chunk of a small market into a large chunk of a large market, than by just attacking the large market from scratch.

An example of this is Bungie, who dominated the Mac games market before going on to become a major developer on the XBox (and part of Microsoft).

Jim Rankin
Monday, October 27, 2003

"Here comes .... JoS forum as Slashdot. Can we vote each other's posts up and down too?"

-1 Troll

:)

Jim Rankin
Monday, October 27, 2003