Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Bells and Whistles
Author: Henri Asseily Posted: 5/15/2000; 9:38:01 AM Topic: Walking around amsterdam Msg #: 17311 (In response to 17296) Prev/Next: 17310 / 17312
In general, I have found that the recipe for disaster is the following:- Take an OS with server daemons (FTP, WWW, SMB, etc...) - Add an administrative layer that gives a nice GUI to simplify management of those daemons - Market the ease-of-use of that system.
What you'll end up having is people who, by virtue of knowing how to use the clear and simple GUI, think that: 1- It's a simple, tight and solid OS 2- They are in control of the whole OS, and thus feel secure
That's what screws it all up. Take a Linux distro, no XWindows, and it probably will be much more secure than one managed all through XWindows. The more layers you have to the underlying daemons, the more chances of a screwup, and the harder it is for you to understand the inner mechanics of the system. Of course Windows adds the fact that you just can't get to the daemon level, you can't see the ultimate source, and in many cases even the config files can't be analysed raw, they have to be modified through the GUI.
This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:55:12 PM.
© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.