Re: Does service lookup by name work on Windows now?

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

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The only problem with continuing to support any OS which is no longer
maintained is that, in many cases, we are implicitly supporting users on
platforms with significant and well known exploits. This is especially true
with Windows XP, which has numerous, well documented and easy to exploit
vulnerabilities.

While I would agree that the decision to use a vulnerable OS is up to the
individual user, in practice, many users don't understand the risks and
consequences. To make it worse, exploited systems can also be a threat (or
inconvenience) to other users (for example, by being the source of botnets
or DDoS attacks).

There is an argument that it would be more responsible to not support any
OS once it is no longer maintained and receiving patches for security
vulnerabilities to discourage continued use of vulnerable systems and
encourage users to update to a current and more secure OS (which of course
could be GNU Linux!).  This may also make maintenance of Emacs easier as it
would reduce the need for exceptions and work arounds for older systems
which don';t support more modern OS practices.

Tim

On Sun, 27 Jan 2019 at 09:48, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> Each version of Windows was more repressive than the previous one.
> If we are going to support Windows at all, we may as well support
> the old versions that are still widely used.
>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
>
>
>
>

-- 
regards,

Tim

--
Tim Cross

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