On 16 May 2017 at 11:57, Simon Geard <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, 2017-05-16 at 11:03 +0100, Richard Melville wrote: > > Have you missed the worldwide condemnation of Microsoft where Windows > > has allowed crackers to cripple systems, including our own NHS here > > in the UK? Admittedly, much of this has been possible because > > (unbelievably) Windows XP is still in constant use, however, any > > proprietary system controls the user, and not the other way around as > > it should be. > > I don't think blaming Microsoft for that is particularly fair. As I > understand it, they released patches for still-supported Windows > versions more than two months ago - and someone told me that as a > special case, they even released an XP patch this week, despite XP > being long out of support. >
Any XP support offered by Microsoft comes at a huge financial cost to an already financially over-stretched organisation. Vendor lock-in is the major problem. As we know, in the free and open source world any developer can be hired to do the job, usually at a huge cost-saving. > Personally I blame the NSA and friends, since this attack is built > on leaked exploits that they've been taking advantage of for years. But > no, protecting global IT infrastructure against crime and terrorism > clearly isn't a priority for the 'intelligence' services... :( > Maybe so, but the problem still returns to the use of proprietary software in the first place. > > Recently, I saw Windows XP on a consultants terminal at a local > > hospital. When I expressed my concern, and disbelief, he just threw > > up his hands in a helpless manner and said that that was what he was > > stuck with. Now we've seen the results of that folly. > > My understanding is that that has little to do with Windows, and more > to do with the nature of the healthcare IT industry - lots of small > companies that sell something useful, but go out of business quite > quickly due to an inability to make money out of it. As such, hospitals > are full of unsupported old software - often tied to specialised > hardware - that can't easily be made to work on a newer OS. > It certainly is a problem that has built up over many years, and, in the short term, there appears to be no easy answer. However, it cannot be denied that the use of proprietary software is the major issue. A colleague told me recently that his University had bought a proprietary database which, on installation, didn't function as expected. When the University pointed this out to the software company it was told that no other customer had that issue, and if changes were made it would cost a great deal more money. Again, vendor lock-in at work. Apparently, the University is no longer in the market for proprietary software. Only free and open source software can provide value. Having attended the Cabinet Office on a number of occasions I can say that even our Government is finally coming round to that realisation. Microsoft Office is now being systematically replaced with LibreOffice within Government. > If the same companies released software for Linux, they'd be in the > same position... a binary-only solution that only works with a specific > RedHat version dating to 2005 or so. > Clearly, that's a poor situation too, but if the source code is open at least there's a chance that patches can be created to bring it up to date, or even a new program written. The market (and software) needs to be open, not closed off in a proprietary manner, particularly where national infrastructure is concerned. Richard
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