[OT] sigh .. open source != perfectly safe ( was: Re: What's the problem of D...,D will be dead? )

[Jari-Matti Mäkelä]

Hasan Aljudy wrote:
> Jari-Matti Mäkelä wrote:
>> Unless you're a commercial compiler writer it should definitely be
>> better for you to use a GPL'ed compiler. Well, at least I don't like
>> potential hidden back door features of closed source compilers.
>>
> 
> Does any of the people who say such things do actually look at the
> entire source code of every single program before they use it?

Most probably not, otherwise there would not be things like
'app-get/aptitude/emerge moo' or OO.org easter eggs. :) Still I don't
believe that open source developers have very sinister thoughts. How
else can you explain the small number of linux/bsd worms and viruses?
Their market share on the server side is >25% (according to the
wikipedia page about linux), but even Amiga has more active viruses.

> 
> Even more funny, is when people say that you can modify linux kernel to
> suit your needs!! Yeah Right!! Who's gonna do that?

I agree. Not every person should be required to hack or recompile their
kernels. Now that open source is becoming more and more common there are
linux users that don't know anything about their computers (70y old
grannies). But there will be small shops that sell customized solutions
to schools, corporations and "rich" private persons. I guess bigger
corporations are able to do some patching themselves.

At least some Gentoo/Arch users want combined bleeding-edge
reiser4/xen/openmosix support on their kernels and are willing to
manually patch theirs.

-- 
Jari-Matti