Linux, Open Source have 'more security problems than Windows'

The Register, NewsForge ^ | 11.15.2002 | Robin Miller

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This has all been in fun for me anyway. Truth be known, your linuxdesktop.com source is pretty much wrong anyway. I have two high powered clients in Hong Kong, one in
Japan and several in the UK. None of them use linux desktops and none of the government agencies in any of those countries that I have dealt with on import export agreements and other regulations for our software use linux either. We trade MS office documents. We are also installed in 23 of the top 100 accounting firms in the U.S. None of them use linux desktops either. So guess what...for now...neither am I. We are, however buying a linux based security appliance in the next couple of weeks. I have also looked at some IBM blade servers running Linux....very impressive.

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Technically, the UK, Germany and Spain are first-world countries. Please make a note of it.

Technically, none of them hold a candle to our American innovation and creativity. They also preach to us as if we are a third world country when it comes to global security. So screw 'em.

[chilepepper]

...we trade Office documents

Only if you upgrade operating systems in sync. Try reading Office XP documents under Office 2000....

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Only if you upgrade operating systems in sync. Try reading Office XP documents under Office 2000....

97, 2000 and XP documents are all interoperable. I have had some large Excel 97 spreadsheets take a few extra seconds to open or save in Excel XP, but that is the worst of it for me. Office 95 requires a converter. If you install all the converters, you can read Word Perfect, Word Pro, 1-2-3 and most anything else with MS Office XP.

[chilepepper]

We've been having some problems with crashes in trying to interchange excel files between the two... the net seems to indicate there may be some subtle macro incompatabilities -- any service packs that take care of these?

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I have 150 users here at my location using all three (97, 2000 and XP) and have had no complaints. I have a client down the street that has 35 users and uses all three. That is the location that has experienced slow saving and opening while converting between 97 and XP while opening and saving documents. No crashes though. This client does, however, have mostly brand new hardware throughout with the oldest PC's being Dell Dimension PIII 500's. Office XP is at service pack 2 and office 2000 is at service pack 3.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/downloads/default.asp

It is always a good idea to be current on those as well as the latest Windows Updates. Linux users should go to http://www.linuxupdates.com and make sure they are current as well.