I just finished reading the latest Joe Wilcox masterpiece of clickbaiting entitled, "What's wrong with Leopard's spots?". After reading the article multiple times, I include here the sum total of his complaints about Leopard, despite the inflammatory article title :

"Leopard's firewall is more application-based than its predecessors, which has caused Skype and some other applications to malfunction. "

So, you now have more application-centric control over Leopard's firewall, and apparently that makes Skype break. Hmm. Application-centric firewall... who has an application-centric firewall? Let me think... hmm... oh... right! Everyone, unless you count firewall appliances or server-based firewalls. Wow, I can hear the Leopard death knells now.

Here lies the OS that had a more application-based firewall than its predecessors!

So let's see, Leopard tightened up it's firewall a bit, and some applications that traditionally have been firewall-unfriendly and seen as bad security citizens (Skype) broke. Cry me a freakin' river. It takes about 30 seconds to tweak the Leopard firewall to get Skype working again (from what I've read, I can't reproduce Joe's problem myself). So in Joe's statement that there's something wrong with Leopard's spots, he dumps a flaming truckload of heresay and rumor, including this:

"The complaints about Leopard are getting louder and the perception growing that the operating system still needs work"

this:

"User complaints will create some negative perceptions about Leopard"

and this:

"The complaints by users sound a lot like those made about Windows Vista"

... and includes only a single solitary piece of real meal in the article (Skype has trouble with Leopard's new firewall, allegedly, since Joe doesn't site a single source for any of his information or summation of opinions).

From all accounts of people whose opinion I regard as important, and whose experience I know to be unbiased, Leopard has come across as a fantastic upgrade to the already fantastic OS X, with most squeals of joy centered around Time Machine. A few upgrade hitches have occurred with people who didn't do a fresh install, but I'm one of those people who thinks that not doing a fresh install of a new OS is like not washing your hands after going to the bathroom. Sure, it's feasible but ... why?

My own personal install of Leopard seems to be having periodic trouble completing a shutdown on the 17" MBP. Annoying? Yes. Worthy of posting something inflammatory such as "wrong with Leopard's spots" ? Doubtful.

So, in looking at eWeek's Microsoft Watch's latest article, I leave you with this parting thought:

If it walks like a shill, acts like a shill, and smells like a shill....

tags: eweek  shill  wilcox  leopard  vista  security
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