Re: Future of IT in Lebanon

josephmouhanna wrote:
Are you saying that if a program (forget about the nature of the program) does not change much in 10 years is better or more secure than a program where a lot of change occurred? 

Two points:

- if a program that starts secure does not change then chances are that it remains secure (everything else being the same)
- defects increase as new code changes increase (statistically).. there are good practices to reduce defects but nevertheless defects are a fact of life in a development cycle. I am sure you are familiar with the quality-time-cost triangle. If you cut one, you have to cut the other.

To flat out say that Linux progammers were made and the mold was broken, would fall into the realm of religion. 

Agreed, which idiot is saying this?

So, in a world, where designers, architects and programmers are actually smart people who know what they're doing, what's left is the factors I listed, essentially the state of the art of the hardware preventing the development of an impregnable OS that will still perform reasonably well. 

Sounds like finger pointing.. it's all the hardware fault. :-)

I disagree with your premise. The hardware can be a Turing Machine.. how you program it makes the difference between men and boys :-)

The vulnerability issue can be settled with a single test: the system is either secure, and in that case exploitation is not possible, or it's not,

There are degrees of security. The US government has a rating system. My problem with Windows is not just security, I manage my own security just fine. My problem with Windows is defects, annoyances and faulty design assumptions.

and in that case, even a single exploitation could be indicative of bigger things to come, if hackers had the time and inclination to go to town on the kernel or anything else around it. 

"Hackers" have discriminating tastes :-)

Linux security has been breached and Windows security has been breached, therefore there's no reason to believe that the problem can get worse on Linux, giving time and inclination. 

That's the problem with binary reductionism.

Inclination may also be lacking as it seems as if some folks out there are simply anti-Microsoft. Personally, I think that position is unfair and does not take into consideration the simple fact that Microsoft made the industry,

Yes, it does take a Microsoft culture to make one think so. The world could in fact have been a better place without Microsoft.

and without its business tactics (whether or not you agree with them), the industry, at a minimum, would be 5-10 years behind where it is today.

Or 5-10 years ahead. In the 1980's I used a publishing product on a unix box that let me:

- enter content without worrying about formatting. Formatting is ideally orthogonal to content and one should be able to change it at will.
- Edit/view the document in what was then called wysiwyg
- Edit/view the document in SGML
- Save the document in SGML or LaTeX

This product feed me completely from worrying about formatting. The documents created were what was then called camera-ready typeset.

I am still waiting for MS Word to catch up with this 80's product. Everytime I get exasperated with MS Office annoyances I ask God (metaphorically) why is she punishing me?

Another example, I used a spread*** software called Quatro which was leaps and bounds ahead of Excel. Excel was bundled in an office product. Quatro died, excel lived. I am still waiting for Excel to match Quatro offering.

Yet, you responded with server numbers. 

I responded with mixed numbers, Mozilla is a desktop app..

Is this related to Linux, or Open Source? 

Open source is the context here as I stated earlier.

Open Source exists on Windows as well, 

Exactly.

whether or not Microsoft or others participate. Either way, Mozilla is an application and *not* a kernel and the browser runs on both server and desktop. 

Linux kernel does not make the distinction between server and desktop.

Actually OS2, 17+ years ago. Hardware platforms premitting a reasonable server, but not mission critical suitable, did not arrive until about 1992-1993.

Linux and Windows run on the same hardware which neutralizes the hardware argument.

Actually, the Linux kernel is essentially a freely distributable version of Unix.

If this were true you would see Unix trademark holder suing everybody else :-) Linux started from a different source tree. Anyway, that's for lawyers to argue.

Unix predates Windows by at least a decade.

1970.. but it's a different source tree than Linux so the argument doesn't hold.

[..] Also, how are you coming up with your funding estimate? 

How about by-market capitalization?

Are you counting the funding that went into Unix over the past 30 years?

Why would I? Didn't MS learn from Unix too (hint Xenix). NT borrowed a lot of then current micro-kernel architecture developed for different *nix flavors.

how about the thousands of unpaid coders who contribute? 

Free time.. nobody paid them :-)

Do you think more man power went into Windows than Linux or the other way around?

More (unpaid) Labor goes into each version of Linux than (paid) Windows labor that's why it is a better product. :-)

The issue is far more complex than a guess can allow, and sorry, but an 

Educated guess is all I have :-)

educated guess cannot be made here without taking into consideration the evolution of the Intel platform, and to having started required to support a fully operational OS on a system with no hard disk and double floppies, and then future requirements to continue supporting somethign as weak as an 8-bit system. Design decisions are driven at times by the realities of the commercial market. Note that Linux was a server OS and it's only now (barely) making it to the desktop (but not for the mass market yet).

Actually all Linux users (who develop for it) use it as a workstation. Linux is slow in adoption among the non-techie masses not because it can also work as a server.

No, they do not have *individual* specs.

No company that values its reputation crates any product without a spec. A company that creates products without specs is a garage operation (not that there is anything necessarily wrong with garage operations). Also, having a spec and publishing a spec are different notions.

The spec is called the Hardware Design Guide version 20xx (where xx stands for the year). It is published by Microsoft and created by the hardware vendors who convene with Microsoft.

I am sure MS does but that does not preculde hardware makers from making hardware specs for products they create.

The spec is a collection of the sub-components that make up the motherboard and the possible internal and external buses. How to implement depends on the type of chipsets used, the South Bridge, the North Bridge, etc.

And to decide which component to mix with which component requires a spec (among other).

VIA has the specs, white papers, implementation notes, etc. on its web site: http://www.via.com.tw/en/resources/download-center/chipsets/

To an non-epert eye these 2-page thingys look like marketting flyers. They don't contain a single table. Look at Intel chip Spec's. They come in book form.

I'm sure someone in the Linux development community has figured out how to find the web site :-) 

They probably did and found them utterly useless. :-)

You don't have to be a monopoy to set a defacto standard. Example: Sun created Java and has yet to relinquish its grip (even though the semblance of a community is maintained as a fig leaf). 

Java is not yet a standard and won't be until Sun opens it up.

Microsoft started developing for the MAC fifteen years before the DoJ lawsuit. The reason is exactly what I stated: money. If you look at the publicly available information, you'll see that Microsoft was making a lot of money off MACs. People think that Microsoft is an evil empire driven by plotters and sub-plotters. Reality is far simpler than this.

I am not disputing that MS is making money off Mac. Nevertheless, had Steve Jobs and Bill Gates not kissed and made up and B.G. pumped an infusion of cash into Apple, where would the Mac be today?

BTW, Mac OS X runs on a *nix kernel :-)

A winning IT strategy is being presented to the Lebanese government. You'd hope they listen. I will write a report on the IT delegation's visit (they're here on the 9th). 

Looking forward to reading your report.

Seeing that the portion about Lebanon in this thread has ended.. I will stop contributing to this thread in public. We can carry forth in email.

Thanks for a vibrant discussion!

bassem
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