On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:29:16 -0800, Stewart Stremler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > begin quoting Gregory K. Ruiz-Ade as of Sat, Mar 12, 2005 at 07:35:27PM > -0800: > > On Mar 11, 2005, at 5:09 PM, Stewart Stremler wrote: > > > > >It's the competence and attitude that I don't trust. > > > > there is a point, however, at which you must decide to trust the > > supplier. > > To a certain extent. Trust is not a binary value. It's not "no trust" > or "complete trust". > > The operating system is supposed to *shield* me from the need to > completely trust a supplier. If I have to jump through hoops or take > extreme measures to achieve a comfortable level of trust, the operating > system, package system, and software are failing me. > > OS X had a real advantage in the "open this archive and drag the folder > to where you want it". I see that advantage rapidly evaporating. And > it makes me sad. I had hoped this sensible approach might take root and > the meme might infect general OSS development. Alas. > > > I suppose it's easier to make that decision when there's an > > actual vendor behind it to take responsibility, but everybody's > > distributing or selling software with licenses that explicitly absolves > > them of responsibility should anything go wrong. > > Licenses absolving them of responsibility don't necessarily mean anything. > Especially in California, where it's not possible to sign away all of > your rights. > > > So, I suppose, nobody's to be trusted. So maybe we shouldn't install > > anything. :) > > That's the general idea. If a vendor demands that you give _them_ full > and unrestricted access to *your* machine, you should tell them to take > a long walk off a short dock.
Agreed. Literally, and in spirit. As a side note, I once knew a guy who took a long walk off a short pier. Actually the pier wasn't that short. He just wasn't paying attention. > The only reason this sort of arrogant "your machine is my machine so > suck it up" attitude works is that the users cave in and go along. > "There is no alternative," they mutter, and "those software people > wouldn't ask me to do something that wasn't NECESSARY." There are those of us who like working with machinery. But there are lots more in this world who don't. I don't think that it is, nor *should* it be, the average user's responsibility to worry about trust. First and foremost, the operating environment should be such that a malicious intruder doesn't get far, and is easily taken care of. Secondly to that, it should be taken as the responsibility of software people to produce software that does what it's supposed to, with as few negative side effects as possible. So, to the extent that you're blaming end users for this, I have to disagree. But I think that I agree with you, Stewart, more than I disagree. My two points above only underline what you're saying. That many software developers don't adhere to basic good sense in their craft is definitely something bad. > The very attitudes that caused many of us seek out _alternative_ systems, > from applications like OpenOffice and operating systems like Linux, has > come to roost in the open-source community. Once again we see that the > new boss is the same as the old boss... No! There is nothing inevitable about the similarity of bosses. Open source is not going the way you want it to go. What are you going to do about it, Stewart "Always Has An Opinion" Stremler? I'm serious. I'd like to know, now, not just your suggestions on how software should be written, but how to make it happen that it gets written like that? -- Todd "give me something better" Walton -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
