Microsoft Windows: A Lower Total Cost of 0wnership

bahamutirc writes "Dave Aitel of Immunity, Inc. has written an excellent report detailing the lower Total Cost of 0wnership Microsoft Windows has over Linux. Dave takes a unique approach in comparing the two operating systems, and the results are not surprising. The paper was submitted to Bugtraq today and is available in PDF and Open Office."

CERT says myDoom cost $40 billion

[Anonymous Coward]

factor this!

Re:Sick of lies about Ownership Costs

[daveaitel]

Dude, did you even read my paper? It's hardly MS propoganda. That's a zero on the front of 0wn. It's a play on words.

Re:0wned? Please...

[ron_ivi]

What makes you think all these guys installing software as root wouldn't mess with their policy files.

IMHO the problem isn't with SELinux vs traditional root stuff; it's that all the damn package managers require root to run.

I'd love to see a distro where all the non-core (anything beyond the kernel and /sbin?) packages installed under /usr/local/bin/ as some user other than the root user; instead of requiring root access just to install a web broser in the default location.

Do only Gen X'ers get satire anymore?

[tylersoze]

I'm beginning to think the only people that can write and get jokes like this are the stereotypical, jaded, cynical, Daily Show watching, The Onion reading, Simpsons quoting Gen X'ers like myself. And I base this conclusion on absolutely nothing. :)

I think we've raised satire into high art that only few can appreciate or even comprehend. From my point of view, I can't believe anyone that actually read the paper couldn't at least know it was intended to be joke even if they didn't actually understand it or why it was suppose to be funny.

I suppose it's like that with anything though. Like someone who is an art expert sees some piece of abstract piece as brilliant, but most people wouldn't even recognize or know it was even suppose to be art.

"Are you being sarcastic?"
"Dude, I don't even know anymore."

Not all jokes

[kasperd]

Sure the article is a joke, but actually there is some serious stuff in it as well. If you made it all the way to page 6 and read the section about ExecShield and PaX, you would notice, that this section is not a joke. It actually explains about some real security meassures that exists in Linux. Of course there are large parts of the article, where I'm not sure if it is a joke or just talking about some stuff I don't know about.

Re:Most Important

[archen]

Well my windows experience hasn't been that good. Just about every windows network I've seen has been slapped together backwards. Shit is totally installed wrong. And quite often people just barely got it working. As an aside I've also noticed that there are a lot of Windows programming shops that slap together some really crappy code with no error checking.

But of course Linux could just as easily be in the same position, but for some reason I have yet to see it. Maybe it's because I deal with smaller businesses that can't afford an uber admin, or may not no any better on who to hire?

I've had my share of problems on Linux as well, and at times they took WAY too long, but with that knowlege under my belt I was always able to easily fix similar problems much faster. The other problem with Linux is - which distro do you use. Half the time you chase down documentation that explains how distro X does it, but distro Y apperently does something different. With MS it always seems like a new mysterious - and sometimes totally random issue. Maybe I'm just unlucky, I donno =P