On Thu, 2007-06-14 at 16:34 -0400, Kradorex Xeron wrote: [snip]
And reguarding Microsoft and their patching licences: Those patches may be their precious "legal property" but it's their hording of legal rights that's damaging hundreds of thousands of computers. Microsoft is currently abusing their market share standings and giving insufficient patch distribution, (i.e. offline distibution) Therefore Microsoft should be held accountable for every computer that becomes infected with worms due to insufficient patching. To me, it sounds like Microsoft wants the power, but doesn't want the responsibility that comes with the power of great market share. It is time Microsoft be forced to take that responsibility.
Regulation targeting software-vendors and service-providers has little effect as it is an attempt to disrupt the money-flow somewhere in the middle. It's usually more efficient to "attack" the source. I.e. authorities must hold computer users responsible and make them pay every penny (or millions;) it costs to investigate and clean up their mess. Mainstream OS'es as we know them would have been unsellable in today's market if users, ever since the internet was commercialised, had been held responsible. //per