"There's no reason that your e-mail system should be able to corrupt your file system."


So says Jim Cannavino, the lead developer of IBM's touted but ultimately unsuccessful operating system, OS/2. "The architecture really doesn't lend itself to high-level security," Cannavino admitted in an interview with PCMag. "Basically, you've got smart guys plugging holes. Though they do a really good job of it, they can never tell when they're finished. If you restructured the architecture of the system and really put some boundaries up that were hard to get by, then there's no reason that your e-mail system should be able to corrupt your file system."

For those curious to know why there is so much animosity toward Microsoft out there, particularly among tech people and computer nerd types, this will give you an idea. The operating system developed by Cannavino, OS/2, was just one of several operating systems that arrived on the scene in the late eighties, early nineties, along with the first usable edition of Windows (3.1). NeXT, BeOS and, of course, GNU-Linux were three of the others. All these systems, with the exception of the early versions of GNU-Linux, were superior to what Microsoft had to offer. Yet which system became dominant? Well, we all know the answer to that question. Frustration over the fact that Microsoft won the OS war and became the dominant vendor of desktop operating systems in the nineties despite releasing what was probably the worst major OS of the period helped trigger anti-Microsoft sentiment.

Posted: Tue - October 18, 2005 at 08:28 AM          

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