On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 11:59 PM,
So it's also an example of the protection of diversity. When the recent java exploit came out, it didn't affect me, I don't happen to use the very popular java. When the ssl attack came out a little earlier, that also didn't affect me because I don't happen to use ssl except in a few corner cases. These are industry standard things that everybody agrees are the state of the art and the only way to go, and so practically everyone uses them. And so when they have a problem it affects everyone, all at once.
Diversity is like any other form of backup, redundancy, distribution (vs centralization). It's overhead, which looks like inefficiency, but it's the only way to avoid periodically losing everything.
This is only relatively true (and I say relatively as in arguably) at large scales. In my home computer, or in my datacenter, I want thoroughly tested software, not software I *know* will be faulty and will force *me* to do the testing. It's a matter of roles. I'm a developer, but not always a developer. Sometimes I'm a user. If my datacenter breaks (any component of it), then I've got a problem. Even though some other company may take my business and the economy still spins, I lost my business. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org