Tim:
Which versions of Windows have you discovered have that backwards?
ToddAndMargo:
All of them. The problem is the user only see the words "public" and "private". They do not read the description of either as they do not understand such "geek" speak. M$ does adequately describe what each is, but if your do not read the description ...
And is this consistent in describing when you share a resource, and how networking is described?
I haven't touched Windows for eons, likewise played with Samba. When I last used Samba, I still had a Windows 98SE PC.
Looking at my old smb.conf file, I have a shared to everyone folder resource that's sensibly described as being public. I don't recall Win98SE having any such privacy/public options (windows non-security edition).
I had Vista on a laptop. I recall there being the concept of public versus private networks, and that being what I'd expect of trusting that network's connection to anything else, or not, as a whole (in essence, the firewall mode that was applied when using *that* network). But that's the network connection. I don't clearly recall how it described the individual resources that you shared, but in the back of my mind there was some public share (to everyone) kind of thing, which I think was whether a password or logon was required for it.
I have a Mac here, and I've never managed to do well with sharing directories between it and my Linux machines. At times I can get the Mac to access a NFS share on Linux, and that's about it. Not the other way around. And got nowhere trying SMB.
The Mac was reasonably successful at making use of a NAS drive, which I recall I'd configured to use NFS only.
M$ would remove this misunderstanding if they changed the description to "untrusted" and "trusted"
Certainly would be sensible. Therefore it won't happen.