Double Standards: Open Source Hits An All Time Low

As I mentioned over on my Open Letter To Microsoft the other day, it seems that many of the "Open Source" people are just "anti-Microsoft" people. If there was any doubt before, just take a look at the Open Source community's reaction to news that Firefox has security flaws. This particular quote was my favorite:

Some ZDNet UK readers took issue with the experts, arguing that the flaw shouldn't be regarded as a security vulnerability, because a Firefox user would already have to have clicked on a phishing e-mail and been taken to a fake site to be at risk. "Where is the problem? I hardly think that a spoofed site would link you to a legit download area," commented Pete Molina, a PC and LAN administrator.

"As far as a 'security hole,' it should be more of a user vulnerability, as only a dumb person goes clicking links in e-mails from odd places," argued Killian, another reader. "Granted, it's nice to know, but come on. Most of these 'announcements' just give the phishermen a reason to try to exploit it."

Basically he's saying that anyone who uses Microsoft stuff is a moron, and anyone that downloads Firefox is definitely smart enough not to click on a phishing e-mail to spoof a URL.

My next favorite not only gets the "Conspiracy Theory" award, but also needs a beating from the Grammar Police:

"Firefox, without a doubt, is the best and most secure browser on the market today, and no matter what propaganda is spread throughout the Net regarding its security in a negative way, those who actually know will continue to use Firefox and wait until the patch is complete, not actually even thinking nor caring whether it is released or not while using it," wrote one Web developer.

Can someone get this guy a freakin period, please?!? Calling that a run-on on sentence is being too nice, I think. From now, on, I say that OS stands for Ostrich Source, because once you're brainwashed by the cult, you can just bury your head in the sand to any threats that are propagated by "the Man".

Forget open standards, these wackos apparently want double standards. What a bunch of elitist crap. "Our people are too smart to fall for that." Wow. Way to kill your credibility guys.

5 Comments

  • That constitutes the Open Source community? A web developer and some guy called Pete? Your leaps of association (and apparent ignorance of irony) are entertaining, but I'm sure you can do better.



    I agree that their arguments are also crap, though.



    Jim

  • I am a tree hugging hippy (and you're a selfish right wing nut job), but we can agree on open source . There's plenty of better arguments against open source and including political arguments just alienates potential allies. I wouldn't have thought politics enters into the minds of many people when deciding which OS or browser to use.

  • I sure have been seeing a lot of newbies and know-littles switch to FF in a mistaken belief that "IE is unsafe and FF is safe". If anything, many of the ones that have switched are less able to discern a phishing scam than those who (like me) are sticking with IE. Safe practices are by far more important than choice of browser, something overlooked by the proponents of FF.

  • I hate to play the role of the antagonist, but he has a [very poorly articulated] point.



    One can easily derive a basic profile of a person given their choice of tools, and this goes for any discipline, not just software. Quality developers will likely use the same tools, read the same books, know the same people, etc. What would you think of someone claiming years of experience with .NET and yet hadn't heard of NUnit or something? It would be very telling, and such ignorance would lead me to consider their experience apocryphal, at best. Granted, that's a rather superficial conclusion, but I think you get my meaning.



    So, that being said, I am much more likely to conclude that a FireFox user is more knowledgeable than your average IE user. Why? It's telling of their motivation to learn more about the tools they use, and independent of any OSS vs. MS argument it gives me *some* indication that they have sought understanding beyond that which comes installed on their box from Dell.



    The argument breaks down rather quickly of course, but his foundation wasn't entirely fallacious; rather, it was a basic idea that was embellished by their obvious affinity for anything non-MS.

  • I've decided to split the difference and hate all software equally. Open source? Commercial? IT'S ALL CRAP.

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