Wow Wow Wow.. This is the biggest slap.. aah .. Regards Ujwal nepbabu.cx wrote: > Hi all, > There seems to be a noise going down at the everestcensored blog. > I wanted to share what I wrote :) > > --------------- > > "What a load of crap!!..from a cheapo!! you want everything to be Open > Source and probably Free.. you FOSS maniac.. Softwares should never be > Open Source as it beats the purpose.. because they will never be > documented in a " > > This statement is coming from whom ? Bill Gates? > This kind of statement are everyday remarks I see on Slashdot, digg etc... > I find this to be a fallacy because it explicitly tries to compare FOSS > to proprietary software and prove (without references and historical > data) that proprietary is the way to go. But let me walk you through > some of the key points about foss software. :-) > > First of all, if a programmer doesn't want to look at the source code, > he/she ISN'T a programmer! Maybe they should altogether change their job > to maybe Chef or something. Rather than being a SOFTWARE DEVELOPER. > > In open source world, code itself speaks as a documentation. This is > Bazaar style of development. This is what makes FOSS Programmer better > than ANY propreitary programmer (this is a gross generalisation let me > remind you) > > "specialized manner and most of the people who customize don't follow > coding standards." > > Oh, you are now talking about coding standards ? haha.. Coding standards > should be OPEN and PUBLISHED. What coding standards are you talking > about? ISO? NIST? or that university level coding standards called > "XP/Incremental development" or is it "Unified process"? If a coding > standard is local to a company, you can't expect that same level of > standard amongst international open source developers. It'll by far be > more sophisticated and well developed in the case of Open source > software development. Beat me to it! > > "Firstly, it is not possible to understand design pattern and > architectural style from codes. Codes are implementation of Design. " > > YES, you can understand design patterns et. al from codes. That is what > REVERSE ENGINEERING is. Everyday, open source programmers have proven > this! Open source programmers DO NOT, yes! DO NOT have access to source > codes of proprietary systems (drivers, some binary blobs and > compatibility layers like nvidia's display driver), yet they do REVERSE > ENGINEERING solely based on blackbox, input-output bound executions > using OPEN SOURCE Tools and methodology. If you care to look at the > myriad of tools available to them, you'll know about it but no one can > come to you and stuff it in your brain for you. > [search terms, hexdump, pax, valgrind, strace, ptrace, gdb] > > "So when the Design Documents are not understood, its better to leave > the development to the big boys.." > > Who are the big boys ? The propreitary system developers ? hahah.. These > I find are baseless arguments based on a very small view of the open > source by someone [it seems] who is not even .01% sure what open > philosophy is. > > "Secondly, the only mechanism for hackers to uncover vulnerabilities is > to perform black box testing.. if they had the code, think what kind of > viruses they would be able to create?? There was a project some time > back to create " > > Getting access to source code DOES NOT CREATE VIRUS! > Getting access to source code instead provides more careful observations > by thousand and thousands of people who test that software. In effect, > that software becomes better in terms of stability. By the stupid > argument you've made, if you care to look at the algorithms available > for myriad of open source crypto, they are published and available to > study and use. Yet, only time shows how strong they have been. There > have been numerous bugs filed, patches released and the development just > goes towards greater heights with 1000 and 1000s of prying eyes and > eager programmers trying to break the system and then share the > results. Academics have long followed this way and it'll continue that > way even if closed source company disagree. That is how we do in > Gnu/Linux world. We get the source, compile it and make it to work for > ourselves. If we find some bug, we try to file a bug and if we can, > release a patch fix for everyone. > > "open source anti-virus program.. Some beta testers were able to create > test viruses which the anti-virus was never able to detect.. because > they knew the working of the AV.. think about it again!!!!" > > So, whats the point ? There are so many closed source antivirus > companies developing software exploits, does that make them criminal? > No! They are merely trying to foolproof their antivirus tools. If you > look over at clamav project, you'll see that volunteers send in sample > of a virus which upon recieving are carefully tested against the latest > virus database, they then merge it with the next release of virus db > which means beneficial for everyone. > > Crackers, no matter what will always exist. The whole argument of > avoiding cracker is impossible. In other words, software companies who > try to prevent crackers are trying to make it harder&longer for crackers > to crack it but this is something that depends on their strategy. That > has no effect on open source world. Internal workings of a system > should be published, that way, an normal users knows how it works. And > this is the purpose of USER MANUAL! > Foss softwares are not the total solution but it is real solution to > specific problems that exist today with proprietary softwares. > Hope you get that right before you post "Foss maniacs" the next time > without that touch of judgement and hey hope this also leads you to a > path of enlightenment. > > Lastly, if you want to know how it all works, I invite you to join > http://groups.google.com/group/foss-nepal > > > ---------------- > > > > Cheers.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ FOSS Nepal mailing list [email protected] http://groups.google.com/group/foss-nepal Community website: http://www.fossnepal.org/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
