Blame Microsoft for Viruses

I read with some concern that 78% of business users in a survey regard the sentance passed on Sven Jaschan as too lenient (Businesses 'let down' by virus writers ruling, 14th July 2005).

This misses the point entirely. The organisation that has let users down is not the German courts, it is Microsoft.

The inability of Microsoft to produce a secure product should be of vital concern to mission critical system users such as coastguards, hospitals and airlines (*) . Any repercussions should fall on Microsoft, but wisely it's licence agreement absolves it of any responsibility to even deliver a product that works at all, so we are lucky that Windows works as well as it does.

It is time to consider the move to open-source desktops. The underlying GNU/Linux operating system has proved itself more secure than Windows and the desktop environments offer as many features as users need. I use an open-source desktop and have done so for the last two years and I have no problems exchanging information with my colleagues using windows; my only regret has been not switching sooner.

* Indeed Microsoft believes this too because it's licence explicitly disallows the use of it's software for certain mission critical uses.