Linux and Microsoft Windows; and computer viruses and karma

Viruses: Many people probably disbelieve my assertions that its virtually impossible to get viruses in Linux. The article 'Spyware/Viruses in Linux' by David Stone is worth reading.

"Creating a Linux virus is trivial but getting it out in the wild and infecting large amounts of systems is very difficult."
"Anti-virus software will never be needed in Linux..."

And to echo my more general feelings, that I have held for many years:

"The sooner Microsoft goes the route that IBM did the better for them, their stockholders, and everyone else. They need to find the niches they're best at, concentrate on those, learn to play well with others, and stop trying to compete against everyone else in the technology industry."

("zeebo on 05/11/2008 at this Digg article".)

If you read the book "Hard Drive", the story of Bill Gates and Microsoft, and follow the antics of the Monkey Man, you will not be holding your breath for this to happen though. Then again, perhaps its a case of 'one down, and only one to go". The problem even then is that institutions breed their own kind. How many more monkey men are there in there?

I remember that Gates was quoted as stating that 'open source' is 'anti-American'. I agree, you are correct Bill. and THAT is the trouble with America. The Great American dream involves freedom to succeed ... by "laissez-faire" capitalism? by trampling all over the rest of the world with your MacDonalds and your B2s and your Raptors? what exactly?

On a related note, I have always liked the way Oracle has viewed the software world, its place in it, and its take on such problems as Microsoft. (and that is not because I worked for them at one time.) For instance in the article "The State of Oracle Linux", Edward Screven, Oracle’s Chief Corporate Architect said:

“Microsoft and Microsoft Windows,” are the real enemy. “You know, we, as a company, we have a few large primary competitors. One of them is Microsoft. So Microsoft wants customers to deploy Windows as a vehicle for locking them into Microsoft’s monopoly. Linux is an important counterbalance to Microsoft’s strategy. We view Linux as a much better open choice for enterprise customers running x86 computers. So we really want Linux to succeed in that space. You know, of course we fight with Red Hat over customers, we fight with SuSE over customers. We’re competing with each other in this Linux space. But the real opposition here is Microsoft.”