To the casual observer, Microsoft seems to have changed its ways. According to The Economist, closer inspection shows that it has done so only superficially. Inside the software industry’s 800-pound gorilla, the heart of an incorrigible monopolist beats still.

This article covers a no-compromise approach to securing a home network intended to provide no services to the outside world while also tightening down internal services. The author deals with not only the old stand-bys such as securing inetd more thoroughly, but how to lock down services such as X.

Who pays the developers? The company they work for, right? But what about those developers who develop Open Source software after hours, on their own time and equipment? Who pays them? Many say no one does and no one should. After all, it's Free Software. You don't get paid for Free Software. Before we develop such a closed attitude, let's take a look at what one of the founders of the Free Software movement has to say.

"There are certain areas in which Linux and other Unix alternatives take a distant back seat to Windows and Mac OS. Most commentaries on Linux as a desktop os complain that Linux won't really be a factor on the desktop until it corrects. As someone who's been using Linux as my primary workstation OS since 1995, and its Looking Glass GUI, I don't just have one Linux desktop frustration; I have a list. At the top of that list is the ghastly manner in which Linux systems implement fonts."

"So, am I a lackey? No, but I am not a Microsoft-hater, either. You, the customer, have voted for Microsoft with your dollars, and in the process killed most of the competition. That bothers me sometimes. My goal isn't to be for or against any particular company. Instead, it's simply this: To be pro-consumer and pro-reader. Microsoft isn't my constituency. You are."

Mike Godwin, formerly staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, weighs in with his opinions on Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM).

"Anyway, I must point out that Linux can still do more sophisticated firewalling than any of the appliances such as the SOHOware and Linksys boxes. I still use the firewall capabilities of Linux for the servers that are connected directly to the Internet."

Linux is among the most stable OS ever made. Well I wonder, "How does it act under Windows?" Windows is crash-prone. What would the impression be if someone installs Linux for Windows, and it crashed? They, like many Win users, would blame the application, and not look into it enough to find that it was Window's fault.

"The X version of my notion of a grand package handler would include the things that would enable anyone who cared to do so to learn all about compiling while doing it. In addition to the wonderful things that CheckInstall does, it has caused me to think that my notion is entirely possible, most of it by bringing together things that already exist. I can't think of anything that would better promote Linux, and suck the wind out of that 'steep learning curve' nonsense."

"Here I am talking about an operating system back from the dead and what Linux can learn from it. The operating system is IBM's perennially crippled OS/2. It's back in the form of a very good system with a very bad name: eCommerceStation. I have a beta here, and it works very well."