subject:"Open

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 07:59:55PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.
 
 YES!This is the biggest of the three things I have against MS
 and one of the main reasons for using FreeBSD and other Open Source
 software as much as possible.
 
 I think we all forget about third case, open and closed source being first 
 two.
 
 The case when you PAY for the product, you are not allowed to copy it to 
 others but you do get a source.
 
 It was common years ago with software like unix. And still exist just it's 
 not common.

That's not really any different from closed source software in the end,
because there's no guarantee that the officially blessed binary wasn't
compiled from code modified to do things that the source provided to you
doesn't do.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Marvin Minsky: . . . anyone could learn Lisp in 1 day, except
that if they already knew Fortran, it would take 3 days.


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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 12:49:14AM +0100, Bruce Cran wrote:
 On Tue, 2 Jun 2009 17:59:51 +0200 (CEST)
 Wojciech Puchar woj...@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl wrote:
  
  I would add - with Open Source add it's far smaller (actually close
  to zero) probability that it doesn't do anything except it's supposed
  to do.
  
  I mean things like sending private data to someone else, scanning for 
  other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.
 
 Given enough incentive, it unfortunately seems even open source
 developers will resort to sneaky tactics:
 http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/mozilla-ponders-policy-change-after-firefox-extension-battle.ars

It's worth noting that this was discovered relatively quickly and became
public knowledge.  If it was closed source software, there's basically
just be complaints about incompatibility and speculation without hard
evidence.

Yes, such perfidy *can* occur even in open source software, but it's
easier to discover and, I believe, less likely to occur because of that
ease of discovery.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Malaclypse the Younger: 'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.


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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 08:49:50AM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 
 but it's at least much more difficult. And - my other rule fits very well 
 here. Avoid OVERCOMPLEX programs.

I tend to agree with this take on things, and I follow a similar
philosophy of software choice.

Slight tangent, and you may have mentioned it before: What window manager
do you use?


 
 Unfortunately there are no well done WWW browsers for unix in the world.
 links -g is an exceptions, but in the same time it's quite limited.
 But have best fonts :)

The links browser's interface is crap, as is that of every other text
console based browser I've ever encountered.  Moving around within a
page and selecting a link are two tasks for which text console based
browsers have not provided an even halfway decent interface.  It seems as
though Web browsers provide a rare case of an application type that is
specifically suited primarily for a mouse-driven interface.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Scott McNealy: Microsoft is now talking about the digital nervous
system.  I guess I would be nervous if my system was built on their
technology too.


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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-05 Thread Paul B. Mahol

On 6/5/09, Chad Perrin per...@apotheon.com wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 08:49:50AM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:

 but it's at least much more difficult. And - my other rule fits very well
 here. Avoid OVERCOMPLEX programs.

 I tend to agree with this take on things, and I follow a similar
 philosophy of software choice.

 Slight tangent, and you may have mentioned it before: What window manager
 do you use?



 Unfortunately there are no well done WWW browsers for unix in the world.
 links -g is an exceptions, but in the same time it's quite limited.
 But have best fonts :)

 The links browser's interface is crap, as is that of every other text
 console based browser I've ever encountered.  Moving around within a
 page and selecting a link are two tasks for which text console based
 browsers have not provided an even halfway decent interface.  It seems as
 though Web browsers provide a rare case of an application type that is
 specifically suited primarily for a mouse-driven interface.

I use mouse with elinks  vim in console without problems.

-- 
Paul
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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 08:32:38PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 
 Everyone can find them and fix, but at the same time everyone can find 
 them and use them.
 
 With closed source both are more difficult.

That's not strictly true.

In general, it's easier to discover vulnerabilities through reverse
engineering techniques, fuzzing, et cetera, than by sifting through
source code.  The exceptions are cases where someone made a *really*
bone-headed coding error.  As a result, except when a programmer who adds
code to the project is just completely incompetent (or has such an
incompetent moment -- we all make mistakes), and it somehow passes review
by other people on the development team (unlikely unless people aren't
reviewing each others' code), it really isn't any easier to discover
security vulnerabilities in open source software than in closed source
software.

The purely technical difference provided by open source software when it
comes to vulnerability discovery and patching is that, once a
vulnerability has been found, its origins in the source code can be
tracked down and patched by *anyone*.  In short, in technical terms, open
source software makes it easier to *fix* vulnerabilities because it opens
the pool of potential patch developers beyond the core team, but it
doesn't really make it any easier to *discover* vulnerabilities in the
general case.

Then, of course, there are the social effects -- which encourage people
who have a healthy interest in the software to contribute to its security
and stability through a number of related social mechanisms.  Overall,
it's a tremendous win for open source software development.

That doesn't mean that any given open source application will
necessarily, inherently be more secure than any given closed source
equivalent.  It does, however, mean that if you're a betting man, your
chances of winning a bet lie with the open source application, all else
being equal.


 
 In MICROS~1 land, you give yourself entirely into the hand of a
 corporation that is not interested in selling secure products,
 
 So this is not open/closed source problem, but micro-soft approach.
 They just don't care about security. As they don't care about performance 
 and about bugs. But that's just micro-soft.

Part of the problem of closed source software is that it provides a kind
of safe haven for such unscrupulous software developers and vendors,
where many such failings of secure development may go unnoticed due to
the inability to determine exactly what's going on under the hood once
you've noticed there's something wrong with the application.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Common Reformulation of Greenspun's Tenth Rule:  Any sufficiently
complicated non-Lisp program contains an ad hoc informally-specified
bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.


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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 06:50:39PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
 
 A counter-example is VMS. It is a commercial product, but highly
 reliable and secure.

It's also a much *simpler* piece of software than something like MS
Windows, which makes it much easier to secure.  That's just one more
thing Microsoft does wrong with software development, of course.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Dennis Miller: Bill Gates is a monocle and a Persian Cat away
from being the villain in a James Bond movie.


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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 04:06:18PM -0500, Gary Gatten wrote:
 
 Whatever happened to BeOS?

Be went out of business.  There have been a couple of clone projects to
spring up since then.  As mentioned, there's Haiku, the heir apparent to
BeOS at this point.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Paul Graham: SUVs are gross because they're the solution to a
gross problem. (How to make minivans look more masculine.)


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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 09:50:24PM +0100, Chris Rees wrote:
 2009/6/3 Roland Smith rsm...@xs4all.nl:
  On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 09:35:31PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
  On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 13:46:15 -0500, Gary Gatten ggat...@waddell.com 
  wrote:
   Isn't there an OpenVMS somewhere?
 
  There is an open source clone in the works: http://www.freevms.net/
  No idea of the state it is in.
 
  The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.
 
 I just LOVE the webpage. The kind of one I'd make in my spare time...

That's horrifying.  Remind me to never visit one of your Webpages.

Luckily, I can touch-type, because the temporary blindness induced by
that site when the bright yellow irradiated my retinas still hasn't
entirely faded.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Georg Hackl: American beer is the first successful attempt at
diluting water.


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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-05 Thread Wojciech Puchar


Slight tangent, and you may have mentioned it before: What window manager
do you use?


fvwm2, BUT not because i like it's tools and widgets, but because all of 
them can be easily turned off :)


My configuration strips everything possible including window titles and 
borders, window moving and resizing are done with mouse+keyboard 
combinations, menu shows on keypress and i use it's virtual desktop 
function to switch between 24 of them using ALT-F* and CTRL-F*. ALT-X 
start xterm full screen so xterm window looks like text console, with 
the exception that i can run X program directly.


I can post my config if you wish, it's 1700 bytes.


Unfortunately there are no well done WWW browsers for unix in the world.
links -g is an exceptions, but in the same time it's quite limited.
But have best fonts :)


The links browser's interface is crap, as is that of every other text


why?


console based browser I've ever encountered.  Moving around within a


moving works well.
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-05 Thread Wojciech Puchar



A counter-example is VMS. It is a commercial product, but highly
reliable and secure.


It's also a much *simpler* piece of software than something like MS
Windows, which makes it much easier to secure.


you meant more logical?

It's really hard to take care of software product that looks like random 
mess of different programs+patches without any higher idea - which 
micro-soft windows is.

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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-05 Thread Wojciech Puchar



The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.


I just LOVE the webpage. The kind of one I'd make in my spare time...


That's horrifying.  Remind me to never visit one of your Webpages.

Luckily, I can touch-type, because the temporary blindness induced by
that site when the bright yellow irradiated my retinas still hasn't
entirely faded.


so use text mode links/elinks :)
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-05 Thread Thomas Dickey

On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 11:46:21AM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
 The links browser's interface is crap, as is that of every other text
 console based browser I've ever encountered.  Moving around within a
 page and selecting a link are two tasks for which text console based
 browsers have not provided an even halfway decent interface.  It seems as
 though Web browsers provide a rare case of an application type that is
 specifically suited primarily for a mouse-driven interface.

lynx, (e)links(2) and w3m all support a mouse...

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-05 Thread Chris Rees

2009/6/5 Chad Perrin per...@apotheon.com:
 On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 09:50:24PM +0100, Chris Rees wrote:
 2009/6/3 Roland Smith rsm...@xs4all.nl:
  On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 09:35:31PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
  On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 13:46:15 -0500, Gary Gatten ggat...@waddell.com 
  wrote:
   Isn't there an OpenVMS somewhere?
 
  There is an open source clone in the works: http://www.freevms.net/
  No idea of the state it is in.
 
  The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.

 I just LOVE the webpage. The kind of one I'd make in my spare time...

 That's horrifying.  Remind me to never visit one of your Webpages.

 Luckily, I can touch-type, because the temporary blindness induced by
 that site when the bright yellow irradiated my retinas still hasn't
 entirely faded.


Hehe, mine is the opposite if you're interested;

http://www.bayofrum.net

Chris

-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in a mailing list?
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Re: Open_Source

On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 08:22:48PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 
 That's horrifying.  Remind me to never visit one of your Webpages.
 
 Luckily, I can touch-type, because the temporary blindness induced by
 that site when the bright yellow irradiated my retinas still hasn't
 entirely faded.
 
 so use text mode links/elinks :)

Maybe I will, if I ever visit that site again.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Richard Pattis: If you cannot grok the overall structure of a
program while taking a shower, e.g., with no external memory aids, you
are not ready to code it.


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Re: Open_Source

On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 09:17:17PM +0100, Chris Rees wrote:
 2009/6/5 Chad Perrin per...@apotheon.com:
 
  That's horrifying.  Remind me to never visit one of your Webpages.
 
  Luckily, I can touch-type, because the temporary blindness induced by
  that site when the bright yellow irradiated my retinas still hasn't
  entirely faded.
 
 Hehe, mine is the opposite if you're interested;
 
 http://www.bayofrum.net

Actually, that's much better -- though a lot of it seems broken.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Martin Luther: Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by
destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and
women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?


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Re: Open_Source

On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 08:20:24PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 Slight tangent, and you may have mentioned it before: What window manager
 do you use?
 
 fvwm2, BUT not because i like it's tools and widgets, but because all of 
 them can be easily turned off :)
 
 My configuration strips everything possible including window titles and 
 borders, window moving and resizing are done with mouse+keyboard 
 combinations, menu shows on keypress and i use it's virtual desktop 
 function to switch between 24 of them using ALT-F* and CTRL-F*. ALT-X 
 start xterm full screen so xterm window looks like text console, with 
 the exception that i can run X program directly.
 
 I can post my config if you wish, it's 1700 bytes.

No need.  It sounds like my setup is even more minimal, and I'm happy
with it.  I was just curious.


 
 Unfortunately there are no well done WWW browsers for unix in the world.
 links -g is an exceptions, but in the same time it's quite limited.
 But have best fonts :)
 
 The links browser's interface is crap, as is that of every other text
 
 why?

That was explained in the stuff you cut out.


 
 console based browser I've ever encountered.  Moving around within a
 
 moving works well.

It works in a slow, tedious fashion, without much fine-grained control.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Jon Postel, RFC 761: [B]e conservative in what you do, be liberal
in what you accept from others.


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Re: Open_Source

On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 02:33:28PM -0400, Thomas Dickey wrote:
 On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 11:46:21AM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
  The links browser's interface is crap, as is that of every other text
  console based browser I've ever encountered.  Moving around within a
  page and selecting a link are two tasks for which text console based
  browsers have not provided an even halfway decent interface.  It seems as
  though Web browsers provide a rare case of an application type that is
  specifically suited primarily for a mouse-driven interface.
 
 lynx, (e)links(2) and w3m all support a mouse...

. . . but not nearly as well as Firefox.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Scott McNealy: Microsoft is now talking about the digital nervous
system.  I guess I would be nervous if my system was built on their
technology too.


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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 12:36:14PM -0500, Kirk Strauser wrote:
 On Tuesday 02 June 2009 10:59:51 am Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 
  I would add - with Open Source add it's far smaller (actually close to
  zero) probability that it doesn't do anything except it's supposed to do.
 
  I mean things like sending private data to someone else, scanning for
  other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.
 
 I agree completely.  I'd never voluntarily trust my personal information to a 
 system that I (or other interested parties on my behalf) couldn't audit.

I agree as well:

Why encryption that doesn't trust the user isn't trustworthy
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=362

The article is particular to encryption, of course, but the same
priniciples are easily generalized to other software types.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Edward Murphy, Jr. (Murphy's Law): If there's more than one way
to do a job and one of those ways will end in disaster, then someone
will do it that way.


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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-04 Thread cpghost

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 04:06:18PM -0500, Gary Gatten wrote:
 Whatever happened to BeOS?

http://www.haiku-os.org/

-cpghost.

-- 
Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-04 Thread cpghost

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 10:13:43PM +0200, Roland Smith wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 09:35:31PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
  On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 13:46:15 -0500, Gary Gatten ggat...@waddell.com 
  wrote:
   Isn't there an OpenVMS somewhere? 
 
 There is an open source clone in the works: http://www.freevms.net/
 No idea of the state it is in.
 
 The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.

Thank you! A wounderful hint.

BTW, since we're talking about vintage OSes: anyone knows of a
BS2000 clone, emulator, ...?

http://ts.fujitsu.com/products/bs2000/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BS2000

I'm especially interested in an emulation of the old terminal-based
BS2000 before they introduced POSIX compat in 1992 (i.e. BS2000 as
of between 1986 and 1992).

For other emulators of old hardware, we have the great collecton of
/usr/ports/emulators/simh plus images, but nothing BS2000-ish (yet).
Or do we?

TIA,
-cpghost.

-- 
Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-04 Thread Polytropon

On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 20:31:46 +0200, cpghost cpgh...@cordula.ws wrote:
 BTW, since we're talking about vintage OSes: anyone knows of a
 BS2000 clone, emulator, ...?
 
 http://ts.fujitsu.com/products/bs2000/index.html
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BS2000
 
 I'm especially interested in an emulation of the old terminal-based
 BS2000 before they introduced POSIX compat in 1992 (i.e. BS2000 as
 of between 1986 and 1992).
 
 For other emulators of old hardware, we have the great collecton of
 /usr/ports/emulators/simh plus images, but nothing BS2000-ish (yet).
 Or do we?

Maybe you're interested in hercules, which provides emulation
of IBM's mainframe architecture that was the parent (with
OS/360 and OS/390) of Siemens' original BS2000.

Vintage operating systems, let's see what I can remember...
SCP, DCP, MUTOS, SVP, VMX, PSU, WEGA, KAOS, OS/ES (once my
favourite)... I'm sure no one of you knows from mind what
I'm talking about. But don't mind, they don't exist anymore. :-)


-- 
Polytropon
From Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: [off-list] Re: Open_Source

2009-06-04 Thread Mel Flynn

On Wednesday 03 June 2009 19:26:00 Glen Barber wrote:
 Hi, Mel

 On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Mel Flynn

 mel.flynn+fbsd.questi...@mailing.thruhere.net wrote:
  On Tuesday 02 June 2009 17:12:28 madunix wrote:
  3- General experience with Open Source technology?
 
  Kinda getting fed up with the amount of trolling lately and loving Sieve.

 This thread had me worried at first that it would turn into another
 wildfire... I'm happy it has not yet.

Don't care about the tone. If people get angry on-topic, it's still relevant 
(like the hald frustration venting, Xorg 7+, etc). People should really learn 
to move off and semi-off broad-topic stuff to -chat or private discussions and 
it shouldn't need moderation, just maturity.
-- 
Mel
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Re: [off-list] Re: Open_Source

2009-06-04 Thread Mel Flynn

On Thursday 04 June 2009 22:05:55 Mel Flynn wrote:
 On Wednesday 03 June 2009 19:26:00 Glen Barber wrote:
  Hi, Mel
 
  On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Mel Flynn
 
  mel.flynn+fbsd.questi...@mailing.thruhere.net wrote:
   On Tuesday 02 June 2009 17:12:28 madunix wrote:
   3- General experience with Open Source technology?
  
   Kinda getting fed up with the amount of trolling lately and loving
   Sieve.
 
  This thread had me worried at first that it would turn into another
  wildfire... I'm happy it has not yet.

 Don't care about the tone. If people get angry on-topic, it's still
 relevant (like the hald frustration venting, Xorg 7+, etc). People should
 really learn to move off and semi-off broad-topic stuff to -chat or private
 discussions and it shouldn't need moderation, just maturity.

k, so reply-to-all is really reply to list. My apologies, should've stayed off 
list.
-- 
Mel
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Re: Open_Source



I mean things like sending private data to someone else, scanning for
other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.


Given enough incentive, it unfortunately seems even open source
developers will resort to sneaky tactics:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/mozilla-ponders-policy-change-after-firefox-extension-battle.ars


but it's at least much more difficult. And - my other rule fits very well 
here. Avoid OVERCOMPLEX programs.


Unfortunately there are no well done WWW browsers for unix in the world.
links -g is an exceptions, but in the same time it's quite limited.
But have best fonts :)
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Re: Open_Source



I want to know out of your experience people the following,
1- How open source served your businesses  requirements?

Better performance, stability  savings.


Only saving is a feature of Open Source software. Others are features of 
just particular programs you use!






2- What kind of application that running on Open Source?

I've seen many, mail servers, DNS servers, Cluster (HA), mysql,
apache, tomact, snort, nessus, long list, you want it you get it. Most
recent is a proxy server which is working great over FreeBSD and is
far far better than the any other $MS based server.


There are not only open source products and micro-soft in the world.
Of course i agree about performance of FreeBSD based setups.
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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 08:49:50AM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:

I mean things like sending private data to someone else, scanning for
other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.

Given enough incentive, it unfortunately seems even open source
developers will resort to sneaky tactics:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/mozilla-ponders-policy-change-after-firefox-extension-battle.ars

but it's at least much more difficult. And - my other rule fits very well
here. Avoid OVERCOMPLEX programs.

Unfortunately there are no well done WWW browsers for unix in the world.
links -g is an exceptions, but in the same time it's quite limited.
But have best fonts :)

You're right: browser code is overly complex, and a nightmare to audit
properly for security purposes.

That's why when working in a sensitive environment, I browse the web
primarily with elinks (with JavaScript disabled, of course), and
secondarily and only when absolutely necessary with the usual
firefox+noscript+abp... both browsers running in a virtual box (qemu,
virtualbox) dedicated to this purpose and this purpose only.

Of course, I'm taking more precautions, as running in a box may still
not be 100% secure, if someone creative enough found a way to break
out of the guest OS into the host OS; but everything else is just
irresponsible and way too risky, from a security point of view.

Surely, not everyone has the same security requirements, and YMMV. ;-)

-cpghost.

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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Paul B. Mahol

On 6/3/09, Wojciech Puchar woj...@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl wrote:
 Unfortunately there are no well done WWW browsers for unix in the world.
 links -g is an exceptions, but in the same time it's quite limited.
 But have best fonts :)

 You're right: browser code is overly complex, and a nightmare to audit
 properly for security purposes.

 links is not complex, and REALLY well done, unfortunately now nobody (or
 close to) works on it. If they would just implement CSS - it's enough!

elinks have simplistic CSS support.

 That's why when working in a sensitive environment, I browse the web
 primarily with elinks (with JavaScript disabled, of course), and

 right. but javascript in links is rather safe.

 Anyway - you may simply NOT LIKE someone else unknown programs to be run
 on your computer except when you want to.

 secondarily and only when absolutely necessary with the usual
 firefox+noscript+abp...  both browsers running in a virtual box (qemu,
 virtualbox) dedicated to this purpose and this purpose only.

 Exaggeration IMHO. just make sure your normal user has 700 permissions,
 create another and run browser from it.

 Of course, I'm taking more precautions, as running in a box may still
 not be 100% secure, if someone creative enough found a way to break
 out of the guest OS into the host OS; but everything else is just

 Nobody would write specially prepared webpage exactly for You to break ;)

 It's a matter of protecting yourself from big brothers that watch
 others.
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Re: Open_Source


Unfortunately there are no well done WWW browsers for unix in the world.
links -g is an exceptions, but in the same time it's quite limited.
But have best fonts :)


You're right: browser code is overly complex, and a nightmare to audit
properly for security purposes.


links is not complex, and REALLY well done, unfortunately now nobody (or 
close to) works on it. If they would just implement CSS - it's enough!



That's why when working in a sensitive environment, I browse the web
primarily with elinks (with JavaScript disabled, of course), and


right. but javascript in links is rather safe.

Anyway - you may simply NOT LIKE someone else unknown programs to be run 
on your computer except when you want to.



secondarily and only when absolutely necessary with the usual
firefox+noscript+abp...  both browsers running in a virtual box (qemu,
virtualbox) dedicated to this purpose and this purpose only.


Exaggeration IMHO. just make sure your normal user has 700 permissions, 
create another and run browser from it.



Of course, I'm taking more precautions, as running in a box may still
not be 100% secure, if someone creative enough found a way to break
out of the guest OS into the host OS; but everything else is just


Nobody would write specially prepared webpage exactly for You to break ;)

It's a matter of protecting yourself from big brothers that watch 
others.

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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 11:24:02AM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
  secondarily and only when absolutely necessary with the usual
  firefox+noscript+abp...  both browsers running in a virtual box (qemu,
  virtualbox) dedicated to this purpose and this purpose only.
 
 Exaggeration IMHO. just make sure your normal user has 700 permissions, 
 create another and run browser from it.

What about permissions in X? Even if you started the browser as
another user, you'd still have to xhost + that user. And from
there, it's easy to hijack the X session (including keylogging etc.).

So you'll start another Xorg process as the other user, but are you
sure both processes are totally isolated and can't communicate via
unix-domain sockets etc? Checked all perms of all devices, all
FIFOs etc?

The point is: if you start *any* untrusted program on your host OS,
there's a remote possibility that you've overlooked something (your
example with 0700 permissions for home dirs is a good example,
but there's a lot more), and that the process starts seeing stuff
it isn't meant to see.

And even chroot(2) isn't perfect. Remember:

  http://unixwiz.net/techtips/chroot-practices.html
  http://wiki.netbsd.se/How_to_break_out_of_a_chroot_environment

That's just the tip of the iceberg. You never know what's still
lurking out there on the host OS, and when you need strong security, a
virtualized environment for untrusted processes as a minimum is a
*must-have*. And even then, that is risky, if the emulator or
paravirtualizer contains bugs and flaws.

You can get a little bit more confidence with virtualizers if
emulated CPU arch != host CPU arch (e.g. when emulating PPC, 68000
or even more exotic processors on x86), but that's dog slow for
modern day browsing even on fast machines. So it's not always
practical to do so (though when security is paramount, browsing
slowing may well be the price to pay). And obviously, the emulator
sill needs to resist especially crafted bytecode that may crash
it in a very specific way (read: an exploit of an emulator's bug)!

  Of course, I'm taking more precautions, as running in a box may still
  not be 100% secure, if someone creative enough found a way to break
  out of the guest OS into the host OS; but everything else is just
 
 Nobody would write specially prepared webpage exactly for You to break ;)

That's right, and that's why non-Windows users are less exposed to
the usual risks. But still, one has to be careful.

 It's a matter of protecting yourself from big brothers that watch 
 others.

Or from little brothers that explicitly target your infrastructure
(think: industrial espionage etc.). Those attackers are much more
worrying that your usual suspects, script kiddies et al., as contrary
to the broad attackes of the latter, the former usually have more
resources, including time, to conduct targeted penetration attempts
into your secure environment.

You see, security is more than just protecting the normal desktop
user from vanilla attacks. ;-)

-cpghost.

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Re: Open_Source


virtualbox) dedicated to this purpose and this purpose only.


Exaggeration IMHO. just make sure your normal user has 700 permissions,
create another and run browser from it.


What about permissions in X? Even if you started the browser as
another user, you'd still have to xhost + that user. And from


i just copy .Xauthority file.


there, it's easy to hijack the X session (including keylogging etc.).


You mean Xorg can easily be hijack'ed that way?


So you'll start another Xorg process as the other user, but are you


Nothing forbids you to start 2 X servers and do console switching.


That's just the tip of the iceberg. You never know what's still
lurking out there on the host OS, and when you need strong security, a
virtualized environment for untrusted processes as a minimum is a
*must-have*. And even then, that is risky, if the emulator or
paravirtualizer contains bugs and flaws.


Even more important is to not use standard methods, as potential attcker 
can only quess what you do.



modern day browsing even on fast machines. So it's not always
practical to do so (though when security is paramount, browsing
slowing may well be the price to pay).


Separate computer is 1000 times simpler solution to your needs.


That's right, and that's why non-Windows users are less exposed to
the usual risks. But still, one has to be careful.


agree.




It's a matter of protecting yourself from big brothers that watch
others.


Or from little brothers that explicitly target your infrastructure
(think: industrial espionage etc.). Those attackers are much more
worrying that your usual suspects, script kiddies et al., as contrary
to the broad attackes of the latter, the former usually have more
resources, including time, to conduct targeted penetration attempts
into your secure environment.


But they will not attack your company for sure.
There are MUCH simpler methods. Just pay few bucks to charwoman to look at 
papers glued to monitor with passwords on them ;), or maybe a minute more 
to look at different places.


Are you sure the employees in your company doesn't do that? :)
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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 01:15:32PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
  there, it's easy to hijack the X session (including keylogging etc.).
 
 You mean Xorg can easily be hijack'ed that way?

If you can connect to the X server, you can also attach any
kind of monitoring software to it. Think vncserver and the like...

  So you'll start another Xorg process as the other user, but are you
 
 Nothing forbids you to start 2 X servers and do console switching.

That's what I do, and it's easy enough.

  It's a matter of protecting yourself from big brothers that watch
  others.
 
  Or from little brothers that explicitly target your infrastructure
  (think: industrial espionage etc.). Those attackers are much more
  worrying that your usual suspects, script kiddies et al., as contrary
  to the broad attackes of the latter, the former usually have more
  resources, including time, to conduct targeted penetration attempts
  into your secure environment.
 
 But they will not attack your company for sure.

It always depends on the company...

 There are MUCH simpler methods. Just pay few bucks to charwoman to look at 
 papers glued to monitor with passwords on them ;), or maybe a minute more 
 to look at different places.

Oh yes indeed: THAT's always bee the more serious threat,
security-wise.

And don't forget about TEMPEST-like kinds of attack: you can't
imagine just how much information you give away on the electromagnetic
spectrum, even if you don't use WLANs... information that can be picked
up a few hundred meters away or even more outside of your security
perimeter and reconstructed.

Talking about (justified?) paranoia: some 10 years ago, we had some
routing equipment in a server room that was NOT in the basement (i.e.
it had a window to the outside). Guess what? We had to put black
electrician's tape on the switches' LEDs, because it turned out that
those LEDs were blinking at the exact rate of the transmitted data,
bit-for-bit, and that anyone with a telescope and an optical sensor
could have picked that pattern up, and reconstructed the data stream.

Scary, uh?

 Are you sure the employees in your company doesn't do that? :)

I can't, but that's the job of our security dept. They're conducting
the background checks. If they still missed a human troyan, well,
that's life. ;-)

-cpghost.

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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Glen Barber

On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:33 AM, cpghost cpgh...@cordula.ws wrote:
 There are MUCH simpler methods. Just pay few bucks to charwoman to look at
 papers glued to monitor with passwords on them ;), or maybe a minute more
 to look at different places.

 Oh yes indeed: THAT's always bee the more serious threat,
 security-wise.


A colleague of mine is a Windows administrator for a local company.  I
didn't think people actually did this until he told me a little
prank he pulls on those who do:

When he finds a Post-It on their monitor with a password (or something
resembling a password), he will write a different word on the
Post-It and replace it with what was there (the real password) to
teach them a lesson...

 And don't forget about TEMPEST-like kinds of attack: you can't
 imagine just how much information you give away on the electromagnetic
 spectrum, even if you don't use WLANs... information that can be picked
 up a few hundred meters away or even more outside of your security
 perimeter and reconstructed.

 Talking about (justified?) paranoia: some 10 years ago, we had some
 routing equipment in a server room that was NOT in the basement (i.e.
 it had a window to the outside). Guess what? We had to put black
 electrician's tape on the switches' LEDs, because it turned out that
 those LEDs were blinking at the exact rate of the transmitted data,
 bit-for-bit, and that anyone with a telescope and an optical sensor
 could have picked that pattern up, and reconstructed the data stream.

 Scary, uh?

My colleagues never understood (nor do they to this day) my paranoia
regarding security and untrusted code.  I always point them in the
same direction:

http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html

-- 
Glen Barber
http://www.dev-urandom.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/glenjbarber
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Re: Open_Source


You mean Xorg can easily be hijack'ed that way?


If you can connect to the X server, you can also attach any
kind of monitoring software to it. Think vncserver and the like...


vncserver creater new X server. Can't monitor yours unless you have 
special module for X server installed and loaded (it is in ports)



Nothing forbids you to start 2 X servers and do console switching.


That's what I do, and it's easy enough.


and works.


papers glued to monitor with passwords on them ;), or maybe a minute more
to look at different places.


Oh yes indeed: THAT's always bee the more serious threat,
security-wise.


so it's the first thing you should care about.
Humans are ALWAYS weakest point of any security system.

How many employees of your company ACTUALLY understand what are passwords 
for.


Really? Yes, probably most of them don't, just know that it's something 
you have to type in ;)



And don't forget about TEMPEST-like kinds of attack: you can't
imagine just how much information you give away on the electromagnetic
spectrum, even if you don't use WLANs... information that can be picked


forget about it. it's too difficult compared to abuse of common human 
dumbness.


Kevin Mitnick book is really worth of reading. i read polish translation.

He NEVER cracked any system by using exploits. He just politely asked for 
a password.

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Re: Open_Source


Oh yes indeed: THAT's always bee the more serious threat,
security-wise.



A colleague of mine is a Windows administrator for a local company.  I
didn't think people actually did this until he told me a little


People do even more things. In my public internet access network i found 
that 90% of people actually don't understand what is password for.

They treat it as a form of torture from administrator ;)

Yes - 90%

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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 09:53:07AM -0400, Glen Barber wrote:
 My colleagues never understood (nor do they to this day) my paranoia
 regarding security and untrusted code.  I always point them in the
 same direction:
 
 http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html

YES! An absolute classic. We're using it to teach sysadmin trainees
about trust and security very early on in their careers. Always
an excellent reminder.

Another perfect example that open source alone can't guarantee
security: I remember a CPAN perl module that used to warn you
that you shouldn't blindly install software as root without
checking it first. It didn't do anything harmful (really just
a 'warn'), but potentially, it could have wreaked havoc... at
least until someone spotted and reported it. I don't recall
exactly what module it was or if it is still in CPAN now, but
that was also a good reminder to be careful and use common
sense.

 Glen Barber
 http://www.dev-urandom.com
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/glenjbarber

-cpghost.

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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 04:45:42PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
  You mean Xorg can easily be hijack'ed that way?
 
  If you can connect to the X server, you can also attach any
  kind of monitoring software to it. Think vncserver and the like...
 
 vncserver creater new X server. Can't monitor yours unless you have 
 special module for X server installed and loaded (it is in ports)

Okay, okay, how about this?

 * http://www.keyfrog.org/
 * http://www.randombit.net/code/logger.c
 * /usr/ports/security/xspy
 * /usr/ports/security/uberkey

Now back to work...

-cpghost

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Re: Open_Source


* http://www.randombit.net/code/logger.c

compiled this, did

./logger 0xed

where 0xed was my other xterm

then typed at least 10 lines at that xterm window

got:

-rw---  1 wojtek  wheel0  3 cze 18:23 logger-ed.log

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Re: Open_Source



Another perfect example that open source alone can't guarantee


open source - just by being opensource - can't guarantee anything more 
that availability of sources.


It's important to stay away of all that hype that opensource programs are 
just better.


Many are, many not.

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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Mel Flynn

On Tuesday 02 June 2009 17:12:28 madunix wrote:

 3- General experience with Open Source technology?

Kinda getting fed up with the amount of trolling lately and loving Sieve.
-- 
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Re: Open_Source


* /usr/ports/security/xspy


but this do. so 2 X servers are compulsory... thanks
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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 18:21:28 +0200 (CEST), Wojciech Puchar 
woj...@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl wrote:
 open source - just by being opensource - can't guarantee anything more 
 that availability of sources.
 
 It's important to stay away of all that hype that opensource programs are 
 just better.
 
 Many are, many not.

I'd like to add that IF security problems get discovered in OSS,
it's usually just a matter of few time that this problem gets
corrected. This is mostly because the public is able to look at
the source code, so many programmers with different approaches
and opinions can evaluate a certain security concept, and harden
it that way. There is no need even to rely on someone else to
fix it - you can fix it yourself.

In MICROS~1 land, you give yourself entirely into the hand of a
corporation that is not interested in selling secure products,
but ANY products, so you can't be sure that with the next release
you can buy, a known security problem has been corrected - and if
new problems are just delivered the same way.

A counter-example is VMS. It is a commercial product, but highly
reliable and secure.

(Allthough, the sayings about the human being the weakest point
in security considerations applies there, too.)


-- 
Polytropon
From Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Kirk Strauser

On Tuesday 02 June 2009 10:59:51 am Wojciech Puchar wrote:

 I would add - with Open Source add it's far smaller (actually close to
 zero) probability that it doesn't do anything except it's supposed to do.

 I mean things like sending private data to someone else, scanning for
 other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.

I agree completely.  I'd never voluntarily trust my personal information to a 
system that I (or other interested parties on my behalf) couldn't audit.
-- 
Kirk Strauser
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Re: Open_Source



I'd like to add that IF security problems get discovered in OSS,
it's usually just a matter of few time that this problem gets
corrected. This is mostly because the public is able to look at


that's true - i pointed it out at the beginning.
It can be found easily that someone adds backdoor intentionally.
But unintentional security holes are different thing.

Everyone can find them and fix, but at the same time everyone can find 
them and use them.


With closed source both are more difficult.


In MICROS~1 land, you give yourself entirely into the hand of a
corporation that is not interested in selling secure products,


So this is not open/closed source problem, but micro-soft approach.
They just don't care about security. As they don't care about performance 
and about bugs. But that's just micro-soft.



A counter-example is VMS. It is a commercial product, but highly
reliable and secure.


At least is said too, i never used or even seen VMS.
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RE: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Gary Gatten

Isn't there an OpenVMS somewhere?  Is it true OSS?

Also, how many people actually review source code AND have the skills to
find security related issues?  Seems mostly black hats would be
interested in this as they have ulterior motives whereas typical users
just want to use the software for what it was intended for.

I like Open for all the reasons most people do, but not convinced
having access to source to review for security holes is a major
feature.  I like source to fix things and add features /
functionality!  Not that I can do it, but I can pay someone to WAY
faster than getting M$ or others fix anything!

-Original Message-
From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org
[mailto:owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Wojciech
Puchar
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 1:33 PM
To: Polytropon
Cc: cpghost; Glen Barber; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Open_Source


 I'd like to add that IF security problems get discovered in OSS,
 it's usually just a matter of few time that this problem gets
 corrected. This is mostly because the public is able to look at

that's true - i pointed it out at the beginning.
It can be found easily that someone adds backdoor intentionally.
But unintentional security holes are different thing.

Everyone can find them and fix, but at the same time everyone can find 
them and use them.

With closed source both are more difficult.

 In MICROS~1 land, you give yourself entirely into the hand of a
 corporation that is not interested in selling secure products,

So this is not open/closed source problem, but micro-soft approach.
They just don't care about security. As they don't care about
performance 
and about bugs. But that's just micro-soft.

 A counter-example is VMS. It is a commercial product, but highly
 reliable and secure.

At least is said too, i never used or even seen VMS.
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread David Kelly

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 08:32:38PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 
 A counter-example is VMS. It is a commercial product, but highly
 reliable and secure.
 
 At least is said too, i never used or even seen VMS.

When Digital Equipment Corporation collapsed, the architect(s) of VMS
went to Microsoft and were given NT to mold in their own likeness. This
is where rings of security levels originated in modern Windows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler

NT 3.5 and possibly 4.0 supported VMS-like versioned files as part of
the filesystem.

-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, dke...@hiwaay.net

Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
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RE: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Gary Gatten

Yes, and that old urban legend, that Windows NT is better than VMS, so
the initials are one higher in each position - at least in my alphabet:

VMS
WNT

Lots of interesting little things between VMS and WNT.

G

PS: Sorry again for top posting - I'll try harder!  Is this appropriate
topic for this list? ;-)




-Original Message-
From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org
[mailto:owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of David Kelly
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 1:49 PM
To: Wojciech Puchar
Cc: cpghost; Polytropon; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Glen Barber
Subject: Re: Open_Source

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 08:32:38PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 
 A counter-example is VMS. It is a commercial product, but highly
 reliable and secure.
 
 At least is said too, i never used or even seen VMS.

When Digital Equipment Corporation collapsed, the architect(s) of VMS
went to Microsoft and were given NT to mold in their own likeness. This
is where rings of security levels originated in modern Windows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler

NT 3.5 and possibly 4.0 supported VMS-like versioned files as part of
the filesystem.

-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, dke...@hiwaay.net

Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
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RE: Open_Source


Isn't there an OpenVMS somewhere?  Is it true OSS?


No. it's just product name, and is closed source.

They changed the name when IMHO it started to provide some api 
that allow porting apps from other systems (like unix) easier.



Also, how many people actually review source code AND have the skills to
find security related issues?


very few. and even less actually do this.

some do it to actually make use of security holes, not fix it.

Even more probable, they use it for some time, and then tell when they'll 
find another ;)



I like Open for all the reasons most people do, but not convinced
having access to source to review for security holes is a major
feature.  I like source to fix things and add features /


The only feature of open source is ... open source and no paying for 
program.


Everything else - depends of actual software :)
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RE: Open_Source


Yes, and that old urban legend, that Windows NT is better than VMS, so
the initials are one higher in each position - at least in my alphabet:


Actually - this man and few others from Digital made good job on kernel 
programming. Micro-soft f..ed everything else up.

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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 13:46:15 -0500, Gary Gatten ggat...@waddell.com wrote:
 Isn't there an OpenVMS somewhere? 

VMS is called OpenVMS today, and owned by HP, if I remember
correctly - I didn't check, sorry.ö



 Is it true OSS?

No. I mentioned VMS as an example that even closed source
can be of high quality (as an exception to MICROS~1 stuff).



 Also, how many people actually review source code AND have the skills to
 find security related issues? 

Obviously enough of them - OpenSSH is an example.





-- 
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From Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 21:08:50 +0200 (CEST), Wojciech Puchar 
woj...@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl wrote:
  Isn't there an OpenVMS somewhere?  Is it true OSS?
 
 No. it's just product name, and is closed source.

Yes.



 They changed the name when IMHO it started to provide some api 
 that allow porting apps from other systems (like unix) easier.

The Open indicates that it is conform to certain standards,
like it's open for interoperability in terms of certain
interfaces.



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From Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Roland Smith

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 09:35:31PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
 On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 13:46:15 -0500, Gary Gatten ggat...@waddell.com wrote:
  Isn't there an OpenVMS somewhere? 

There is an open source clone in the works: http://www.freevms.net/
No idea of the state it is in.

The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.

Roland
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Re: Open_Source



There is an open source clone in the works: http://www.freevms.net/
No idea of the state it is in.


basically doesn't work.


The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.

downloading
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Chris Rees

2009/6/3 Roland Smith rsm...@xs4all.nl:
 On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 09:35:31PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
 On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 13:46:15 -0500, Gary Gatten ggat...@waddell.com wrote:
  Isn't there an OpenVMS somewhere?

 There is an open source clone in the works: http://www.freevms.net/
 No idea of the state it is in.

 The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.


I just LOVE the webpage. The kind of one I'd make in my spare time...

Chris



-- 
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A: Top-posting.
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Re: Open_Source



The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.



I just LOVE the webpage. The kind of one I'd make in my spare time...

i have no VMS knowledge so for now i just booted it on qemu and on 
computer directly.


loads quickly, i logged in and for now don't know any more ;)
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Re: Open_Source

On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 21:50:24 +0100, Chris Rees utis...@googlemail.com wrote:
  The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.
 
 I just LOVE the webpage. The kind of one I'd make in my spare time...

Why? Because it's so L33T? :-)



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From Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
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RE: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Gary Gatten

-Original Message-
From: Polytropon [mailto:free...@edvax.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 3:56 PM
To: utis...@gmail.com
Cc: Chris Rees; Roland Smith; Gary Gatten; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Open_Source

On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 21:50:24 +0100, Chris Rees utis...@googlemail.com
wrote:
  The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.

 I just LOVE the webpage. The kind of one I'd make in my spare time...

Why? Because it's so L33T? :-)

LMAO!  Browsed the page a little and the OS sounds interesting though.
Whatever happened to BeOS?

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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-03 Thread Chris Rees

2009/6/3 Polytropon free...@edvax.de:
 On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 21:50:24 +0100, Chris Rees utis...@googlemail.com wrote:
  The OZONE OS [http://www.o3one.org/] uses a lot of VMS concepts.

 I just LOVE the webpage. The kind of one I'd make in my spare time...

 Why? Because it's so L33T? :-)



Yeah, and the apologies for inclusion of COMMENTS /* gasp */



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Open_Source

2009-06-02 Thread madunix

Dear Experts,

I want to know out of your experience people the following,
1- How open source served your businesses  requirements?
2- What kind of application that running on Open Source?
3- General experience with Open Source technology?

Your input would be really appreciated.

Thanks
madunix
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-02 Thread Glen Barber

Hi,

On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 11:12 AM, madunix madu...@gmail.com wrote:
 Dear Experts,

 I want to know out of your experience people the following,
 1- How open source served your businesses  requirements?

Allowing extensibility.  Generally, if something needs to be changed,
it _can_ be changed, and usually with minimal overhead.

 2- What kind of application that running on Open Source?

This is a very vague question.  Do you mean desktop or server
applications?  (I use FreeBSD for both purposes... Hopefully that
answers your question. :) )

 3- General experience with Open Source technology?


I believe people can get more experience in general with open source
technologies than they can with closed source.  The reason is simple:
I can look at the code.  I can study it.  I can see what
${APPLICATION} is doing, and how the developer designed it.  This, in
itself, makes me better at what I do, and better at troubleshooting my
own code.

On the same note, free software enables me to get experience with more
applications without burning through my wallet. :)

 Your input would be really appreciated.

 Thanks
 madunix



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Re: Open_Source



I want to know out of your experience people the following,
1- How open source served your businesses  requirements?


excellent.



2- What kind of application that running on Open Source?


All i needed - do you want a list ?


3- General experience with Open Source technology?


what exactly you want to know?



Your input would be really appreciated.

Thanks
madunix
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Re: Open_Source


I believe people can get more experience in general with open source
technologies than they can with closed source.  The reason is simple:
I can look at the code.  I can study it.  I can see what
${APPLICATION} is doing, and how the developer designed it.  This, in
itself, makes me better at what I do, and better at troubleshooting my
own code.


I would add - with Open Source add it's far smaller (actually close to 
zero) probability that it doesn't do anything except it's supposed to do.


I mean things like sending private data to someone else, scanning for 
other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.


If anyone would do this, soon someone else would see it because source 
code is available for everybody.


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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-02 Thread Steve Bertrand

madunix wrote:
 Dear Experts,
 
 I want to know out of your experience people the following,

 1- How open source served your businesses  requirements?

Our business would likely not exist if it weren't for Open Source
(and/or free) software. Other than our Windows workstations, a few
Windows servers, Cisco IOS and a few other specifics here-and-there, we
are all open source.

Everything is FreeBSD.

 2- What kind of application that running on Open Source?

Pretty much everything:

- routers (Quagga BGP, OSPF etc)
- RADIUS
- web servers
- email servers
- database servers
- backup (AMANDA)
- infrastructure config management (RANCID)
- performance graphing (MRTG)
- performance testing (iperf etc)
- troubleshooting (tcpdump, wireshark etc)
- traffic engineering (ipfw etc)
- communications (firefox, thunderbird)
- and hundreds more

 3- General experience with Open Source technology?

Very, very good. I find though that the more you give, the more you get out.

In our environment, things are very dynamic, and very custom. We can
change software live-time to make it do what we need it to do. Being
able to look into the source code makes it very easy to write custom
applications that 'hook in' to existing ones.

Steve


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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-02 Thread Jerry McAllister

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 05:59:51PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:

 I believe people can get more experience in general with open source
 technologies than they can with closed source.  The reason is simple:
 I can look at the code.  I can study it.  I can see what
 ${APPLICATION} is doing, and how the developer designed it.  This, in
 itself, makes me better at what I do, and better at troubleshooting my
 own code.
 
 I would add - with Open Source add it's far smaller (actually close to 
 zero) probability that it doesn't do anything except it's supposed to do.
 
 I mean things like sending private data to someone else, scanning for 
 other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.

YES!This is the biggest of the three things I have against MS
and one of the main reasons for using FreeBSD and other Open Source
software as much as possible.

jerry

(ps. The other two are the quality of MS systems and MS business practices)

 
 If anyone would do this, soon someone else would see it because source 
 code is available for everybody.
 
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-02 Thread Gary Kline

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 12:18:09PM -0400, Steve Bertrand wrote:
 madunix wrote:
  Dear Experts,
  
  I want to know out of your experience people the following,
 
  1- How open source served your businesses  requirements?
 
 Our business would likely not exist if it weren't for Open Source
 (and/or free) software. Other than our Windows workstations, a few
 Windows servers, Cisco IOS and a few other specifics here-and-there, we
 are all open source.
 
 Everything is FreeBSD.
 
  2- What kind of application that running on Open Source?
 
 Pretty much everything:
 
 - routers (Quagga BGP, OSPF etc)
 - RADIUS
 - web servers
 - email servers
 - database servers
 - backup (AMANDA)
 - infrastructure config management (RANCID)
 - performance graphing (MRTG)
 - performance testing (iperf etc)
 - troubleshooting (tcpdump, wireshark etc)
 - traffic engineering (ipfw etc)
 - communications (firefox, thunderbird)
 - and hundreds more
 
  3- General experience with Open Source technology?
 
 Very, very good. I find though that the more you give, the more you get out.
 
 In our environment, things are very dynamic, and very custom. We can
 change software live-time to make it do what we need it to do. Being
 able to look into the source code makes it very easy to write custom
 applications that 'hook in' to existing ones.
 
 Steve


Yes!  Like Glen (prev post), I occassionally look at the src to see
how something was coded; this gave my own coding abilities a boost
and didn't hurt the original code a whit.   Interesting how muvh we can
learn from one another, isn't it?

The only rationale I've heard for closed source is that somebody could
steal the idea.  Or get a jump on creating a clone.  My experience has
been that EVERY bit of commercial code could be open; people would 
still 
want/need/demand/pay-for *support*.

gary





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Re: Open_Source


I mean things like sending private data to someone else, scanning for
other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.


YES!This is the biggest of the three things I have against MS
and one of the main reasons for using FreeBSD and other Open Source
software as much as possible.


But i'm not agains micro-soft. If someone want to pay and be
controlled - his problem.

Today micro-soft doesn't even hide with this!! So it's clear - you pay big 
brother and he does well the job he's paid for!



(ps. The other two are the quality of MS systems and MS business practices)


I didn't mean microsoft but any commercial software.

Actually i just switched from opera to firefox for similar reasons.

I DO NOT say that opera doing such things, but i'm not sure it does not.

Every minute or so when i use opera is starts lots of disk I/O and slows 
down. It do so no matter if i'm loading some pages or do just nothing.


It wasn't happening with older versions, but with that
opera-9.64.20090302

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Re: Open_Source


The only rationale I've heard for closed source is that somebody could
steal the idea.


There will always be both of them. And that's OK as long as you can 
choose.

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Re: Open_Source


other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.


YES!This is the biggest of the three things I have against MS
and one of the main reasons for using FreeBSD and other Open Source
software as much as possible.


I think we all forget about third case, open and closed source being first 
two.


The case when you PAY for the product, you are not allowed to copy it to 
others but you do get a source.


It was common years ago with software like unix. And still exist just it's 
not common.



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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-02 Thread Jerry McAllister

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 07:44:46PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:

 I mean things like sending private data to someone else, scanning for
 other programs i have on disk, my addressbook etc.
 
 YES!This is the biggest of the three things I have against MS
 and one of the main reasons for using FreeBSD and other Open Source
 software as much as possible.
 
 But i'm not agains micro-soft. If someone want to pay and be
 controlled - his problem.
 
 Today micro-soft doesn't even hide with this!! So it's clear - you pay big 
 brother and he does well the job he's paid for!

I am, -- on my machines.
What someone else does is there problem unless it spreads to
my stuff.

 (ps. The other two are the quality of MS systems and MS business practices)
 
 I didn't mean microsoft but any commercial software.

I know, but I picked that as my example.

jerry

 
 Actually i just switched from opera to firefox for similar reasons.
 
 I DO NOT say that opera doing such things, but i'm not sure it does not.
 
 Every minute or so when i use opera is starts lots of disk I/O and slows 
 down. It do so no matter if i'm loading some pages or do just nothing.
 
 It wasn't happening with older versions, but with that
 opera-9.64.20090302
 
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-02 Thread Steve Bertrand

Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 The only rationale I've heard for closed source is that somebody
 could
 steal the idea.
 
 There will always be both of them. And that's OK as long as you can choose.

Yes, I agree.

I use Windows as my workstation, because there are some specific
applications that require Windows to run. The rest of the applications
on my workstation are open source win32 apps.

Visio is the main one. I've been told that there are alternatives to
Visio that will run on *nix. However, the alternatives either:

- take more time (time * salary) to get configured than the cost of the
software
- take more time (time * salary) to familiarize myself with the
alternative than the cost of the software
- don't provide certain functionality that I need

ISPs are very dynamic in nature. From my experience in both the
enterprise and ISP environments, enterprise need to stay focused on
stability, whereas the ISP needs to be more adaptive to new technologies.

In the enterprise, I've found that it is by far more cost effective to
run almost exclusively on commercial software. The number of IT staff is
kept to a minimum, and let's face it, it's easier/cheaper to find an
employee with a Windows background than it is someone who has extensive
real-world open source operations experience.

Being able to modify software to fit our ever changing environment is
key, and so is knowing that (for the most part), the ability is there to
communicate directly with the developers.

Another side-effect of using open source software is that over time, you
learn how things *really* work. For instance, if you have garnered up
experience running an MTA on FreeBSD (and understand the logs etc), you
will undoubtedly be able to fudge your way through troubleshooting an
Exchange server, it will just take a bit of time to know where to click.
The reverse is not really true (from my experience).

Speaking of logging, open source applications do log...properly.

Steve


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Re: Open_Source



But i'm not agains micro-soft. If someone want to pay and be
controlled - his problem.

Today micro-soft doesn't even hide with this!! So it's clear - you pay big
brother and he does well the job he's paid for!


I am, -- on my machines.


but you want to be the owner of your computer. But most people - as they 
acts show - prefer to be owned. And micro-soft (and others) just give what 
they want.


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Re: Open_Source


There will always be both of them. And that's OK as long as you can choose.


Yes, I agree.

I use Windows as my workstation, because there are some specific
applications that require Windows to run.


You don't have to explain - you use because you want to :) that's all.


Being able to modify software to fit our ever changing environment is
key, and so is knowing that (for the most part), the ability is there to
communicate directly with the developers.

Another side-effect of using open source software is that over time, you
learn how things *really* work. For instance, if you have garnered up


But this is not because of open source. Some closed source too - allows 
you or even motivates to understand things. And some open source apps - 
try to prevent you from understanding anything.


It's depend of certain product, NOT only the fact of source availability.


Speaking of logging, open source applications do log...properly.


Depends of program. There are as much open source crap as closed source.
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Re: Open_Source

2009-06-02 Thread madunix

in my case i have the following:

Multiple linux/bsd distributions: (RHEL, SuSE, FreeBSD + commercial
UNIX as AIX)
Monitoring Application:(Cacti, Nagios, MRTG)
Backup utility:(rsync, tar, mondo)
Content Management system:(Jommla, Durpal)
Virtualization:(Wine)
Web Server:(Apache)
Web filtering:(Squid, dansgaurdian + blacklist)
Mail System:(Qmail, Postfix, sendmail)
DB:(MySQL)
Scripting:(Shell/bash,Perl,PHP)
Servers: IBM SystemX and SystemP, DELL
SAN storage: EMC, IBM DS8000

madunix

On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Steve Bertrand st...@ibctech.ca wrote:
 madunix wrote:
 Dear Experts,

 I want to know out of your experience people the following,

 1- How open source served your businesses  requirements?

 Our business would likely not exist if it weren't for Open Source
 (and/or free) software. Other than our Windows workstations, a few
 Windows servers, Cisco IOS and a few other specifics here-and-there, we
 are all open source.

 Everything is FreeBSD.

 2- What kind of application that running on Open Source?

 Pretty much everything:

 - routers (Quagga BGP, OSPF etc)
 - RADIUS
 - web servers
 - email servers
 - database servers
 - backup (AMANDA)
 - infrastructure config management (RANCID)
 - performance graphing (MRTG)
 - performance testing (iperf etc)
 - troubleshooting (tcpdump, wireshark etc)
 - traffic engineering (ipfw etc)
 - communications (firefox, thunderbird)
 - and hundreds more

 3- General experience with Open Source technology?

 Very, very good. I find though that the more you give, the more you get out.

 In our environment, things are very dynamic, and very custom. We can
 change software live-time to make it do what we need it to do. Being
 able to look into the source code makes it very easy to write custom
 applications that 'hook in' to existing ones.

 Steve

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Re: Open_Source