HP to Follow Dell into Open Source? & Ubuntu Home Server

HP it seems is responding to Dell's initiative to sell Ubuntu on their computers. With the Ubuntu Dells reportedly selling very well and Dell rolling out the program worldwide, this hasn't escaped the notice of the world's number one computer manufacturer - HP. This is speculation from blogs that has been going on for months since Dell started to offer Ubuntu. The Direct to Dell Blog states:

This recent post from Tom Dryer caught my eye a couple of days ago, and thought I'd comment on it here. If the rumors about HP offering Ubuntu are true, we're glad to see other vendors join us in support of Ubuntu and open source. We welcome HP and other system vendors that want to join in this initiative.

This is very good news indeed and I am glad Dell is being very receptive to the idea, they even made this humorous video about their new foray into Open Source:



Ubuntu Home Server is a newly announced project by Ubuntu community members to compete with Windows Home Server. Personally I think Microsoft is barking up the wrong tree with this, I don't think many home users will bother with this type of product, maybe it will take off in a couple of years, but most people are not tech-savvy, and even if they are, chances are there already doing this with Linux, Xbox360 or a PS3. Many people can't tell me even what a server is, never mind what it can do. Also it won't make sense because people expect to have everything on their pc ready to go, and to not have to purchase another one to throw in a storage closet. Nevertheless to paraphrase Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at D5 Conference: We Built things we wanted to have. So in that tone and considering the Home server product is just modified Windows (it would not cost as much as say a whole new project like Zune or Xbox 360), I can see where Microsoft is betting that this is one of many avenues in the future. Personally I think it will be specialised hardware devices that will win this space, like Intel VIIV, Apple TV or one of the many consoles I mentioned.

Windows Vista Security: Better than Linux?

After reading a nice article written by Jeff Jones, a security researcher for Microsoft. He says he isn't biased, saying he worked over 75% of his career outside Microsoft, using Slackware Linux, Unix, HP Unix etc. He claims Windows Vista has less security holes than popular versions of Linux, such as Ubuntu (he also compares Red Hat, Novell, Mac OS X). First let me say why his facts are distorted, and why he knows his facts are distorted. His facts do raise an issue of slow patching of vulnerabilities across the software Industry, but Linux performs the best consistently because anyone can audit the code. Here's why his comparisons are uneven:

• Linux is open source, so various tools can be used to find vulnerabilities. We don't have this luxury with Windows, any holes found are needles in a haystack, but the target of the Windows monopoly allows greater incentive to find these needles
• Linux has used SUDO and ROOT users properly since its inception (Think of Administrator in Windows). Anyone who is not a root user on Linux cannot install programs, make system wide changes, and you can even stop them from using USB keys, CD Drives etc if you are paranoid. Now this has received much attention, Vista has retroactively inserted this kind of security, but by my experience, it is very obtrusive, and can be switched off. Root in Linux is alot harder to stop, and theres no graphical way to do it, so the average user won't.
• A link to my second point above, Programs in Linux can only access what they need to, the home folder of the user that is running it and very little else. I don't know what the case is in Vista, but in Windows XP, almost any program could destroy your system, by picking at the much famed registry.

He provides pretty graphs, let me provide my own:

(click on Graphs to Enlarge)
As you can see, Ubuntu Linux 7.04 (released April) compares comparatively better to Vista, available since January. The Graphs are provided by Secunia, an independent security research firm. Microsoft often downplays vulnerabilities other companies like Secunia find, which is also a factor that Jeff Jones did not mention (maybe he forgot?). I forget where this famous quote comes from but I have paraphrased: "You cannot depend on a man understanding a problem if his salary depends on him not understanding it", which I think affects Mr. Jeff Jones.