The endless patch...
As I make a modest amount of money assisting people in the area to cope with the increasingly unstable nature of the currently popular PC operating system, I am prompted to think about the nature of propietry software and it's infulence on modern society.
The current operating systems were created in a cloak of secrecy, without any peer review. Using the monopoly position of the company that distributes it, they have inflicted an incredible hoax on the American (World?) populace.
This has been reinforced with the full might of the United States government through a fantastic interpretation of 19th century copyright laws. By the use of a unequalled FUD campaign (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), the general public has been convinced that they must pay the company that produces the most popular OS, or they will not succede in their lives.
In fact, the current standard operating system is nothing more than a variation on the first operating system, that is, UNIX. UNIX was originaly conceived by AT&T in the early 70's. During the late 70's, the advent of a failed terminal on a chip from an new company called Intel lead to the invention of a UNIX clone called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers). Because there was no popular standard for hardware, CP/M was distributed in source code.
When IBM was going to introduce a new Intel based computer named the PC (Personal Computer), IBM made contracts with Digital Research (Owners of CP/M) and Microsoft (Owners of NorthStar Basic) which led to the creation of PCDOS (MSDOS, CPM86). MSDOS was the winner based on a earlier delivery of the product, which led to the current domintation of the OS field by Microsoft. This is largely because the majority of the current hardware is based on the original IBM PC design.
In fact, there are ample alternatives to the Microsoft operating system and IBM PC based design, but, most merchants are more comfortable with simply paying for a licence and passing the additional cost on to the consumer. It is possible that given the current state of affairs that this is the best possible course for a comercial enterprise, but, perhaps, just, perhaps, it is not in the interest of the general public.
Other operating systems are available that run on the current IBM based system. Free BSD, Red Hat Linux, Suse Linux, and many others are available in an inexpensive distributions that include office applications are available.
The point of this paper, is that, proprietary systems such as the various Windows, and UNIX variants are tied to the vendor. That is, if there are problems with the operating system regarding security or functionality, you only have one source for corrections.
If, on the other hand, if the operating system is open source such as one of the Linux variants or one of the BSD variants, if a problem is detected by the general computing populace, anyone in the community can correct it, subject to peer review. So, you no longer have to rely on the vagrites of commercial motivation for software improvement, but now you can count on the self interest of the community at large. It is my belief that in the end the interests of the community at large are better served by open source software rather that the propietary interests of corporations.
This is very apparent in the attiude of the corporation when it comes to sercuity. The corporate stance is basically, “we will patch it when it is needed”. This leads to the absurd situation that we now experience where, even given “due diligence”, it is next to impossible for an administrator for more than one or two PC's to keep up with the entless stream of patches and updates.
The current stream of viri and worms would not be possible if the current operating systems were not of inherently defective design. The current malware/virus/worm infection level would be totally unacceptable in any other aspect of human endeavor.
This is why in my opinion, a totally propritary operating system is doomed to failure by the short sighted profit orientated objectives of it's creator.