[SWLUG] Re: Wow, seen this on Slashdot?

[peter]

Rhys Sage wrote:
<snip />

Sorry Rhys, the following (i.e. my bits, not yours) has a bit of curled 
lip feel to it.  If you are a genuine seeker after enlightenment, I 
apologize.  My excuse is that I'm tired and the kettle's broken.

>Linux, being free, has a problem in that malicious
>code could possibly be secreted within the structure
>of a distribution - code that might not be identified
>until it's initiated which could happen some years
>down the road. Linux also has a wide userbase of
>people with no money and loads of spare time. This is
>the same type of userbase that creates Windows viruses
>- and no link is implied here between Lunix users and
>virus writers.
>
>  
>
So is the suggestion that it's easier to identify malicious code in code 
we can't examine than it is to find it in code that is open for anyone 
to look at?  I think you've lost me there.

Or maybe you think that patches just get incorporated into the kernel 
without anyone taking a look at them first?

I think you should try to get a patch accepted and then write again.  Or 
you could just ask Alan Cox, of course.

>Mac O/S doesn't suffer as much from viruses because
>the kids who write viruses can't generally afford
>Macs. Mac tends to be seen as more secure because less
>people own them and thus less hackers have access to
>one to hack.
>  
>
Ah!  Security by capitalist economics.  Tell you what, let's make all 
computers so expensive that no-one can afford them and then, Ka-Pow, we 
have no viruses.  Easy!

Or maybe we should make people prove they're honest, upright citizens 
before they're allowed to use a PC.  Oh!  Sorry! I see that New Labour 
are about to do that in respect of anyone who they think might not 
entirely agree with them and their warmongering ways.  You're not 
writing on behalf of Charles Clark, are you?

>It would really only be fair of Microsoft in this
>instance to compare itself with Apple as really,
>Windows is a rip-off of the Mac OS. IIRC, I was using
>the Apple Mac 200 and 400 back in 1988 or 1989 and
>Windows 1 came out in about 1990.
>  
>
And the MacOS was a rip off of stuff done at Xerox Parc etc, etc.  As is 
KDE or GNOME for that matter.  Come on now, even Newton admitted to 
standing on the shoulders of giants, and he was no shrinking violet.  
Ask Leibniz.

Anyway, if the NT codebase (which is what's currently in use, I think) 
is a ripoff of anything, it's a rip off of VME, isn't it?

Hope this helps

Peter