[OpenIndiana-discuss] Solaris 11 Express available

Emanuele Pucciarelli ep at acm.org
Wed Nov 17 12:56:42 UTC 2010


On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 09:27, Nikola M <minikola at gmail.com> wrote:

> Only way you can be sure is when you use OS that is Open Source.
> Everything closed makes very much reasonable to be paranoid.

This is not true. The paranoid have to agree with Ken Thompson:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html . If one claims to be
paranoid but doesn't go that far (the compiler, then the assemblers
and loaders, then the microcode…), then he/she is at risk of just
being misguided. :)

If you are not paranoid, at least DTrace and other observability tools
give you a few ways to be reassured about what your system does, or
the certainty that hiding a Ken Thompson-style trick would require a
whole lot of trojan horses. ;)

As an aside, I wouldn't bet my own business on Oracle's marketing
strategy now (neither would Oracle's marketing strategy ever try to
reach me), but I am very glad that Alan and other Oracle people hang
around Illumos and OI lists and offer help and advice. Thanks!

-- 
Emanuele



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