[Info-vax] Variable declarations, was: Re: improving EDT

[Scott Dorsey]

=?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>On 11/29/2016 11:32 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> He means an OS designed for the widest possible number of applications for
>> the widest possible number of users.
>>
>> The consequence of that design is that it becomes impossible to actually
>> fix design bugs but only issue patches to deal with specific consequences
>> of them.  The end result of this is a constant flow of patches and an
>> unstable platform.
>
>I don't see general purpose platforms like Unix, VMS, Linux, Windows etc.
>as being unstable.

Have you ever run any of them?  Windows is the worst, but many of the Linux
distributions are just as bad.  Every week the OS is slightly different.
You can't count on the base platform remaining the same.

>> If a system is designed for a specific application, building actual security
>> into it becomes much easier.
>
>True.
>
>But didn't such dedicated OS's become obsolete many decades ago?

No, what happened was people decided security and stability weren't worth the
cost at that point.  Commodity systems are just so incredibly cheap, it is
very seductive.
--scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."