On 9/6/2012 11:32 PM, Claudio Freire wrote:
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 11:59 PM, <brian@aljex.com> wrote:
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.
Thoroughly tested is merely a good thing, not certain safety. The only software that ever existed, or ever will exist, is known faulty. Anyone who tries to pretend that isn't a fact of life is either intentionally dishonest or unintentionally incompetent. As for init vs systemd, init is faulty too. The saving grace there is it's very small and simple and old as the hills, used and bugfixed for a long time with no new features added for a long time. All those things make it a safer bedrock. The fact that it actually does very little is also what makes it more useful and more flexible. By doing almost nothing itself, leaving that to the scripts, the scripts then can handle anything without having to know ahead of time what new ever changing needs will arise and provide some explicit facility for them. I actually wouldn't mind some progress and a more featured init, even though it must needs come with a decrease in stability. I mostly just mind the loss of functionality. That's a downgrade. If my car were to be traded for something that can go forward using only a teaspoon of water per month, and included a blessing from the pope guaranteeing no crashes or heaven for all occupants in the event of a crash, and could no longer go in reverse at all, that wouldn't exactly be a change I could tolerate. As much as I'd like that free forward travel, the pope blessing is utterly valueless to me, and I simply need to go in reverse sometimes. That car still has a use. It's worth making special forward-only roads and forward-only parking lots just to take advantage of the freedom from gasoline. But _I_ have to back out of my driveway and countless other parking spaces and occasionally get out of the way of an oncoming fire truck or such. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org