
Ask HN: Will you ditch your Mac for a PC running Windows 10 because of WSL? - illo
Windows 10 Anniversary Edition is about to be released, sporting Windows Subsystem for Linux. Do you think Macs will lose their &quot;cool factor&quot; amongst  developers and engineers, leading in the long-term to lack of support from open-source projects?
======
nickpsecurity
Have you read anything else about Windows 10? Like the closed-source, pissing
off users intentionally (eg start menu), and all the built-in surveillance
features? It's actually making Mac OS the more sensible option these days.

~~~
erkose
I think you mean Linux. Apple is worse than Microsoft these days, but
Microsoft is catching up, especially with Windows 10.

~~~
nickpsecurity
No, I meant what I said. There's whole pages dedicated to all the issues Linux
has in terms of audio/video subsystems, app standardization, inconsistency of
UI's, users having to dig into command lines, and so on. Issues solved by
Microsoft and Mac OS X early on during basically first release with continualy
improvements instead of people ignoring it.

It's why many hackers and makers use Mac OS: extremely polished desktop +
power of UNIX/BSD underneath if they want it. And it's not Windows. :)

~~~
erkose
Except that you blather about about "closed-source" and "built-in surveillance
features" in your original comment which are as much a part of MacOS as they
are Windows. These are not Linux concerns because Linux is open source.

~~~
nickpsecurity
The question started with Mac OS X is best as status quo. Then asked about a
switch to Windows 10. So, my comparison was initially Win10 vs Mac points.

"These are not Linux concerns because Linux is open source."

A myth repeatedly debunked about Linux and OSS in general. It's the quality of
contributions and review that matter. Not whether source is widely available.
It's why so many FOSS software has horrible quality or security. Gotta judge
case by case basis.

~~~
erkose
Closed source is not more secure and of higher quality than open source.

~~~
nickpsecurity
My point is whether open or closed has nothing to do with security in
practice. What does it is (a) effort put in, (b) by who, and (c) how long.
There's also a tangent here where it's Cathedral model, which is like closed
one, vs the Bazaar model of groups contributing to stuff like typical FOSS. I
claim only Cathedral leads to strong security with open or closed mostly
irrelevant. Let's test it.

So far, the strongest security ever achieved was by small groups with closed
developmemt that were proprietary or later open-sourced (but not developee in
FOSS style). Compare assurance of VAX A1-class VMM to any open one, KeyKOS's
security + automatic availability vs any BSD or Linux, NonStop's availability
vs any OSS cluster scheme, AAMP7G vs any open-developed CPU, defect rate of
paid SSL to OpenSSL, djbdns (focused individual) or Secure64 (closed) vs BIND,
OpenVMS CVE's & reliability vs other OS's, Google's F0 RDBMS vs any non-
cathedral one, AllegroCache vs open ORM & RDBMS, Opa vs common Web stuff,
SPARK Ada vs C subsets/tooling, VLISP Scheme vs your favorite LISP, MULTOS
cards vs open smartcards, guarantees of Hamilton's 001 toolkit vs UML + C and
Java.

There's almost no comparison when you focus on security or quality oriented
projects. Open barely has anything in that area, Bazaar has nothing off top of
head, and Cathedral has all with highest assurance having more closed products
in past & _maybe_ present.

Field evidence shows clearly open model can't or hasn't gotten it done. It's
always Cathedral. From there, closed producers both invented high-security &
correctness plus demonstrated it more often in defense (eg Rockwell-Collins
AAMP7G), private high-security (eg Praxis Correct-by-Construction), private
high-safety (eg DO-178B stuff like Esterel SCADE), govt high-safety (eg NASA's
guidance/tooling), and academia (eg CheriBSD, Softbound+CETS, GenodeOS, or
NaCl). The best stuff with highest assurance or immunity to key issues stays
in those with OSS steadily producing nothing or staying close to it. OpenBSD
is a semi-exception as it's openly developed with Cathedral model but some
outside contributions in TCB. And recently Rust.

So you're wrong. Most trustworthy stuff is usually closed or has central,
controlled developmemt. Almost nothing FOSS. They usually fo have shitloads of
easily-avoided errors in theirs. Like they barely care. First step toward
improving that baseline is recognizing it exists instead of pretending OSS
model got anywhere by itself. Nope. Takes specialized talent, applying proven
principles, and _work_. Lots of it.

~~~
erkose
You seem to have lost focus. Let me remind you what issue I am commenting on
is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12148735](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12148735)

~~~
nickpsecurity
The original thread dismissed a switch to Windows from Mac on basis of serious
issues with Windows these days. Especially built-in surveillance and
intentionally pissing off own user-base. Linux was never considered because,
as of 2016, it's still a shitty desktop in all kinds of ways they just avoid
fixing or are unable to:

[http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.de...](http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html)

Whereas Mac and Windows 7 are both great desktops that constantly polished
stuff that users found to be a problem, steadily improved security, perform
well, and have power-user features. Nowhere near customization or security I
can _with much effort_ get out of a Linux box. Yet, Windows (esp Windows
Embedded) plus their admin tools show I wouldn't even need it if Linux had
similar advantages. So, Linux is crap far as UX is concerned and that's
_intentional_ by many of its supporters or developers where UX is intrinsic to
Mac and Windows platforms. Amiga, too, as MorphOS illustrates with way less
resources than Linux desktops are getting. BeOS derivatives to a degree as the
extremely-strapped Haiku is illustrating & its predecessor BeOS illustrated.

So, the baseline was Windows/Mac usability & ecosystem plus specific issues I
mentioned in security & corporate character for recent Windows. Your next
comment razor focused on open/closed source issue. My reply showed it didn't
matter much since QA process and qualified reviews are what really count.
Showed with evidence that OSS superiority for security was a myth since you
brought that up next. Far as my concern, the lack of integrity of Microsoft or
Apple means at least the TCB of system needs to be easy to inspect and
enhance. Much of Mac is closed but I thought Darwin core was open and it
supported many open-source, secure apps. Stronger position than Windows in
this aspect.

So, we have two, usable desktops with one being more open and UNIX-like than
the other. Makes little sense too switch away from the better one unless
serious changes happen at Microsoft, Apple, or both. Also, one can always
leverage secure virtualization or physical separation to get benefits of main
OS for untrusted stuff with trusted stuff on FOSS OS. _That_ one could be
Linux but quality of most sucks. So, it would have to be one of most stable &
reliable ones. I'd lean toward FreeBSD or OpenBSD with simplified, software
stack for that, though.

------
Kjeldahl
Ubuntu on Linux gives you a decent commandline, not a whole lot more. Still
some questions on upgrades etc ("apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" typically
fails badly). What about Linux software with GUIs, or ports of such? Homebrew
so far beats the stuff for Windows by a far margin. You get timely upgrades,
and it can be used to install, run and upgrade most of the ported Linux GUI
apps as well. Having said that, Ubuntu on Windows looks like a great start!
With some decent package management it could be very cool.

~~~
shanselman
You must be on an older build. I do update/upgrade every week. I've been
running TensorFlow on it, as well as some older C++ stuff. Some folks also
have X running although it's not supported. [https://www.slightfuture.com/how-
to/x-on-wsl](https://www.slightfuture.com/how-to/x-on-wsl)

