osOpinion: Tech Solutions in Search of a Problem

“It’s an insurance company’s dream: Sell policies for something
so unlikely to occur that you’ll get to scoop up premiums and never
have to pay out. That’s pretty much what’s going on with companies
selling antivirus products for Linux. Since there are so few Linux
viruses in the wild, who knows if the products actually work?

“At best, the Linux antivirus hawkers are jumping the
gun–trying to capture a market that isn’t quite there yet. At
worst, they’re advancing a cynical ploy to separate Linux newbies
from their cash for something they couldn’t possibly need.

“Note that I’m not talking about antivirus products that run on
Linux to try to detect viruses in files stored on a Linux server.
For example, there are a number of companies that store important
data on Samba servers. Sometimes, one of their workers might just
have an infected file–and it’s a good thing indeed to be able to
catch that at the server if possible. No, I’m talking about the
products aimed at desktop Linux users and the advertising that
tries to convince them that their systems are targets for
viruses…”

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