>
> >The latest virus count from Norton includes 21,076 know viruses for the
> Given that UNX is much older than DOS/WIN, this is revealing. Why so many
> for DOS machines? I think in part the reason may be that hackers and geeks,
> in general, dislike MS, often intensely. They have no such feelings for
> Macs and certainly not for UNX. So they write viruses to attack DOS systems.
A large portion of the older UNIX machines were corporate owned, only
available to older, trusted persons for specific uses, making them less
available targets to get started on. Even in Universities, there is more
of a trust and goal thing.
In contrast, DOS/Windows platforms are consumer products, readily
available to younger teenagers with plenty of time on their hands, and
egos that, well, can be amazing. (but if they did not have those egos,
some of them would never bother learning the stuff... Yet others learn
it because they have almost no egos, and find it a good way of spending
time alone.)
Consumer PC's have been, till very recently, stand-alone devices,
with no inherent sense of community around them; whereas UNIX machines
tend to be networked as part of a larger community populated by people
ranging from the occasional ego-maniacal imitation sysadmin types who play
the role when ego-victory is likely, (and the real sysadmin is
unavailable...) to older fatherly figures who encourage growth and wise
usage. (I am indeed fortunate to have ignored the imitation sysadmin type
who told me I had no mind for computers! And fortunate to have run in to
two of the latter within the first three weeks of starting to learn
computers. Their kind encouragement helped make me who I am.)
A related reason is probably that the free software movement
encourages people to contribute to a larger community, rather than bash
what they can not produce meaningful works for.
All this encourages people to invest in the UNIX / Linux community,
gives them a growth path, and generally gives us the point of view that we
are part of a family; rather than ogres / victims / slaves ruled by
corporate robber-barons.
I would suspect age of first contact is the major factor, with
community second.
- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----------------------------
-------- MS asks "Where do you want to go?" -------
------- Linux asks "What do you want to do?" ------
-- It is doers, not goers, who built this world! --
--------- Member: http://www.svlug.org/ -----------
____________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The NEW Web Consultants Association FORUMS and CHAT:
Register Today at: http://just4u.com/forums/
Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants
Give the Gift of Life This Year...
Just4U Stop Smoking Support forum - helping smokers for
over three years-tell a friend: http://just4u.com/forums/
To get 500 Banner Ads for FREE
go to http://www.linkbuddies.com/start.go?id=111261
---------------------------------------------------------------------
