Re: You'll never guess what HP advertised

From: Karsten Nyblad (nospam_at_nospam.com)
Date: 05/13/04 

Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 06:27:01 +0200

"Main, Kerry" <kerry.main@hp.com> wrote in message
news:FD827B33AB0D9C4E92EACEEFEE2BA2FB3145A9@tayexc19.americas.cpqcorp.net...
>> True. But most bugs can be fixed without understanding more
>> than a few
>> hundred lines of code.

>Please, this is getting silly - you do not fix OS kernel, security,
>cluster and driver problems by only understanding a few hundred lines of
>code. Especially ones which deal with loading, cluster interaction, race
>problems caused by faster servers, intermittent crashes (hw?/os?/isv?
>software issues?) etc ...

OK, you get a longer answer. I would avoid using an unsupported operating
system when ever I can. Unfortunately there is always a risk ending up
running an important application on unsupported hardware and software.

Even if you buy operating systems large market share from big software
vendors, there is a chance that the operating system becomes EOLed some time
in the future. Just look at VMS. It was a very successful operating system
for many years. HP might stop supporting it some times in the future. Let
us assume that happens. There will be organizations that will want to use
VMS after HP has stopped support. What do you think these organization
would like if given these two options: 1) HP opens the sources of VMS and
makes it freely available. 2) HP shreds the sources of VMS.

You are right that many of the problems you list, are difficult to solve,
but do you really think, e.g., security problems are necessarily difficult
to solve once the problems have been disclosed? E.g., do you think you need
to understand an entire application to fix a buffer over round? In that
case I know one consultant I am never going to hire.

Try thinking about the bugs fixes you have made during your career. Do you
agree with me in that the main part of those have been fixed just a few
lines?

 Karsten Nyblad
ibpit1202 at sneakemail dot com

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Youll never guess what HP advertised
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  • RE: Youll never guess what HP advertised
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