MS products and MS users should be taxed...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| softwarejanitor Mar 03, 2010 5:56 PM EDT |
MS's products should have a 'sin tax' applied to them... and MS users should have to pay a 'stupidity tax' for using Windows (and especially IE, Outlook, etc) for accessing the Internet... Maybe that would encourage people to make smarter decisions on what products they use and they might not get pwn3d so readily... |
| flufferbeer Mar 03, 2010 6:37 PM EDT |
@softwarejanitor, Dunno about that. Seems to me that Micro$uck$ already has its desktop-users pretty much completely locked-into having to constantly buy new products and upgrades. Though maybe a tax specifically targeted against M$ server-products would better help here. So how about that? This later would, I think, reduce incentives to have to keep around all of M$'s questionable server products, such as its notorious IIS! 2c |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 03, 2010 6:59 PM EDT |
> MS's products should have a 'sin tax' applied to them... and MS users should have to pay a 'stupidity tax' for using Windows They already do. It's called the "purchase price" and "upgrade price". |
| Ridcully Mar 03, 2010 7:00 PM EDT |
I "mused " a bit over this one. Let's be sensible; no-one is going to tax Microsoft, let alone even think of it. Lobbyists and all of the vast majority, business and private, that are now experiencing good old vendor lock-in will see to that. The problem of Internet Health can be pointed immediately to the fact that over 90% of the malware is directed at infecting Windows computers. That in turn is because Windows is a "stand-alone" software package that is so full of security holes that it makes my grannie's flour sieve look like a brick wall. I understand there was malware available to infect Win7 before it even walked out the front door of Redmond. Redmond will not move on properly fixing Windows security until it is forced to do so. Why should it ? It is not receiving the blame for the malware infections that plague computer users who employ Microsoft software; in fact consumers make every imaginable excuse for their malware infections, other than the fact that Microsoft's faulty, 1980's software design lies at the heart of the present situation. The general (and often computer illiterate) Windows consumer is also frequently of the mistaken belief that the malware problems he or she is experiencing with their Windows system are common to all computer systems. In one general sense this is true, but not in the way the Windows consumer is experiencing it. In addition, for Redmond to fix this problem is not just a matter of patching, it would mean throwing the complete software package of Windows out, and redesigning the whole thing from the bottom up. Not gonna happen - well, at least not without enormous pressure to do so. Candidly, my best hope is that Redmond might, just might, decide to produce a Winlinux software package. I think you get the picture, it would be a Microsoft distro. Makes sense, but it would mean Microsoft having to "eat crow" over everything they have said and done to Linux, and on that alone, "Not gonna happen - at least not without enormous pressure to do so". So what sort of pressure would do it ? The steady rise of Linux is one thing, but as yet it isn't enough. Journalists in general, are also at fault; they need to be more truthful in their reports. Instead of saying "computers are infected", bring on the two words "Microsoft Windows" in the article. At the moment, they use the bland word "computers" which means everybody. Consumers need to understand that Microsoft's faulty and outdated software engineering and the Windows packages are the basic problem. It sounds awful, but the increasing malware levels just might help. If more and more Windows systems are infected, crippled and the expense rises, customer dissatisfaction increases. But it will need a huge malware infection that brings the Windows side of the internet virtually to a standstill before the blame is finally sheeted home to Microsoft and for the customers to at last realise that they are being sold an essentially defective product. The way things are going, I strongly suspect that "mass infection era" is not too far off. [Disclaimer: I am not, repeat not, a software programmer........] |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 03, 2010 7:03 PM EDT |
> Redmond might, just might, decide to produce a Winlinux software package. I think you get the picture, it would be a Microsoft distro. Nope, not going to happen. At least, not so long as ANY of the present Microsoft management remains in their jobs. And since the top Microsoft management also owns the lion's share of the voting stock, they're not going to be going anywhere else, or changing the "strategic direction" of the company. Ever. |
| gus3 Mar 03, 2010 7:54 PM EDT |
Regular sales tax on non-upgrade Windows versions. Stupidity tax on the upgrade versions. Because the purchasers should have learned their lesson. |
| jdixon Mar 03, 2010 11:12 PM EDT |
> It sounds awful, but the increasing malware levels just might help. Which appears to be happening. Five separate instances of viruses at my ~125 computer workplace just in the past two weeks, one of them my machine. All fully patched systems. All but one were using the company standard IE6 (also fully patched). One was using Firefox 3.0.18 (guess which one). All running McAfee with the latest dat files. No one clicked on anything, they just opened a web page and wham!. All were legitimate web sites, no questionable browsing involved. Well, sort of, dilbert.com might be considered questionable at some workplaces. All were fake antivirus/security programs, which claimed to find viruses on your machine and tried to take over your browser. Nasty, but fairly easy to remove if you know where to look. In two cases they added themselves as proxies on the loopback port, so IE was broken when they were removed. In one case the registry was edited to prevent the running of .exe's. Like I said, nasty, and getting worse. |
| r_a_trip Mar 04, 2010 4:33 AM EDT |
Candidly, my best hope is that Redmond might, just might, decide to produce a Winlinux software package. Steve Ballmer will chew off his own feet first. If MS ever decides to ditch NT, they will pull an Apple. Just "appropriate" BSD code and slap Win32 on top. Knowing MS M.O. it will be a security disaster in no time though. The problem with MS is their culture. Good enough at a price the market will accept is their religion. When it comes to security, good enough just doesn't cut it. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 04, 2010 10:18 AM EDT |
> If MS ever decides to ditch NT, they will pull an Apple. Just "appropriate" BSD code and slap Win32 on top. I worked with a guy in Tokyo who was convinced that that is exactly what MS had done with XP. I don't know exactly what his reasoning was, because he died of a heart attack soon thereafter, in Shinjuku, same part of town as the Microsoft corporate office building. > Knowing MS M.O. it will be a security disaster in no time though. Of course. All those deep kernel application hooks have to be there, in order for their software to run with any speed _at_all_. |
| tuxchick Mar 04, 2010 11:03 AM EDT |
I doubt that increasing levels of malware will do anything, except condition windows lusers to be even more accepting of it. It's been at torrential levels for years with little effect on user behavior. |
| azerthoth Mar 04, 2010 2:27 PM EDT |
In a world without walls or fences ... everyone gets to watch you shower. |
| gus3 Mar 04, 2010 6:01 PM EDT |
That's why I never shower. |
| Scott_Ruecker Mar 04, 2010 6:15 PM EDT |
Now I know what that smell is finally..thanks for nailing it down for me gus3..lol! |
| gus3 Mar 04, 2010 6:21 PM EDT |
Notice that I didn't say I never bathe... ;-) |
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