The Macalope

If you’re dying to relive those heady days of August and September, David Burke has keyed a 4,000-word love letter to the whole business (antler tip to Mr. Gruber via email) that just might keep you going through the winter.

Yes, you read that number right.

Four.

Thousand.

November must be the slow season for lawyerin’ up in Canada.

The Macalope can’t say he read the whole post (c’mon, it’s 4,000 words!) – he’ll wait for the movie. He did skim enough to see a few appearances by Artie MacStrawman and some idle speculation about Apple’s possible manipulation of the situation. Also, he noted that Burke doesn’t have a problem with the term “Apple apologists” (perhaps he should read some of the Macalope’s work on stock option backdating) but you won’t find the terms “SecureWorks apologists” or “Ellchistas” or “Branch David Maynoridians” anywhere in the piece.

He should get some credit for his ultimate conclusion, however.

The end result is that the Apple apologists win this one by a very fair default in my opinion. As I have always said, if there is a possibility that it may not be true, and those who should know if it is true cannot back up their claims then there is no good reason to believe it is true. So at this point it is a done deal.

Burke goes off the ranch and shows once and for all that he’s not George Ou’s sock puppet. He may actually even go too far as there is no real reason to believe Maynor and Ellch’s claim is false, either, despite the dogged determination of some to prove at any cost that OS X is too as insecure as Windows, dammit! (Hey, if they can have straw men then so can we!)

It is, quite simply, a claim that has not been proved.

As for this whole affair being a “done deal”, the Macalope thinks he’s sadly mistaken on that point.