Slashdot Asks: Will You Need the Windows XP Black Market? 245
NicknamesAreStupid (1040118) writes "As Whoever57 pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP — the 'haves'. However, most will be the 'have nots.' Anytime you have such market imbalance, there is opportunity. Since Microsoft clearly intends to create a disparity, there will certainly be those who defy it. What will Microsoft do to prevent bootleg patches of XP from being sold to the unwashed masses? How will they stop China from supporting 100 million bootleg XP users? And how easily will it be to crack Microsoft's controls? How big will the Windows XP patch market be?"
There are a lot of businesses still on Windows XP; if you work for one of them, will the official end of life spur actually cause you to upgrade? (And if so, to what?)
Already gone to Linux Mint Cinnamon... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:second editor fail in less than 24 hours (Score:4, Insightful)
what on earth does that sentence mean?
What do you mean what on earth does that sentence mean what on earth does that sentence mean - the haves?
Pointed out (Score:0, Insightful)
As Whoever57 pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP ...
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XP users don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody in their right mind is going to resort to the black market for XP support for a business -- it'd be like *inviting* the crackers into your network.
Home users either won't know how or won't care to bother. Most people I know who are still running XP have been virus-infected for months or even years. As long as it lets them play YouTubes, check their gMail, and surf Crackbook they just flat out don't *care* that the machine is infected.
Hell, most of them don't even realize the adware popups they keep seeing are due to an *infection*, not "bad behaviour" on the part of the aforementioned websites. One fellow I knew used to complain about the "popups from YouTube" all the time, 'cause all he ever did was YouTube and Crackbook. As far as he was concerned, it was YouTube that was putting up all the porn ads.
Re:Editing? Anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously? Nobody even bothered to read the first sentence of the submission?
Apparently lots of people did and are also griping about it. Are Slashdot "editors" capable of feeling embarassment?
Back to the discussion...
Since Microsoft clearly intends to create a disparity, there will certainly be those who defy it. What will Microsoft do to prevent bootleg patches of XP from being sold to the unwashed masses? How will they stop China from supporting 100 million bootleg XP users? And how easily will it be to crack Microsoft's controls? How big will the Windows XP patch market be?
Unless these third-party patch vendors are claiming to be Microsoft then they're not in any way "bootleg". If Microsoft no longer wants to do this but someone else does, what's the problem? How would this be different from (i.e. less legitimate than) publishing a device driver, AV suite, or other system-level software?
Do the submitter and "editor" not understand what the word "bootleg" means, or is there a real problem here I'm just not seeing?
Re:second editor fail in less than 24 hours (Score:5, Insightful)
"As Whoever57 pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP — the 'haves'
what on earth does that sentence mean? this is even worse than Timothy's earlier oversight of re-running the same article less than a week after its first run. we know slashdot doesn't pay editors to edit, but could they at least show enough pride in their job to read what they post?
This kind of poor quality work is what long ago dissuaded me from ever paying for a Slashdot subscription. I block ads, too, since before my karma level gave me the option of having Slashdot do it for me. That was all before Malda sold out to Dice Holdings. It's not improved since.
Re:Classic Open Source Arguments (Score:1, Insightful)
I think it speaks more to the quality of opensource that the masses would rather run a 12 year old OS.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Application and driver compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you actually have experience or are you just making things up? Are are you willing to both write a driver and port the software for me that controls a chemistry instrument that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, uses some proprietary PCI card (or worse yet, ISA)? The instrument runs absolutely fine now, and will for years (I managed one instrument controlled by a Mac from the mid 80s), but would either cost a lot to upgrade to Windows 7, or require a new instrument. Instrumentation companies are like this. They do operate stupidly, are stuck in the 80s, and I'd love to smack them, but like it or not, in vertical industries, the choices are few and far between, and *very* expensive.
So what do you do? The hard part is some of these instruments generate a lot of data and require access to network servers. Dedicated, firewalled LANs will suffice here. Windows XP is going to be running for another ten years or more.
The whole problem revolves around the fact that in many industries computers are treated as "hardware" not "software." I mean you only replace a pump's pressure switch when it fails. We in the computer industry have been successful in pushing our technology into all kinds of places where it's invisible and just seen as a "controller" or a "switch" and treated as such. And it's not entirely the fault of the users of these devices either. The thought of securing and updating the firmware on these devices has really only been something anyone worried about recently. When was the last time you did a firmware update to your lawn sprinkler controller? Add internet capabilities to it, and suddenly it's a security hole requiring weekly software updates. How does this relate to XP? Well for a lot of people and industries, their instruments and devices are in their mind much like the sprinkler controller in your garage. They are just tools and they don't think about the software security, updates, EOL, etc. They've never had to before. It's a brave new world we've started, and this Windows XP EOL issue is just the beginning of our problems with this new "internet of things" idea. Which is brilliant, but fraught with all kinds of danger.
Re:Editing? Anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Never mind the issue of companies using illegally obtained patches they haven't paid a support agreement for (except for perhaps China who don't give a shit), there's also the security issue of obtaining patches from someone other than direct from the vendor. Such a great opportunity to slip in your own code to do interesting things along with the actual patches.