Re: Open Source Oracle?

Nice thought Howard,

It would be very useful for security research as some parts of Oracle I am sure must be very similar or the same as now and certainly from the same source tree.

We would get the TNS protocol, the password algorithm, the C source of all of the built in SQL and PL/SQL functions, the C source of wrapping mechanism, a look at the SQL and PL/SQL VM's, compilers, and op codes, machine code ect.... Just think how many buffer overflows would be found in security alert #69 if we had access now to the source.

what about all the tuning guys who can finally see "exactly" how some features were implemented, extrapolating forwards to 8i, 9i and 10g would be easier.

A lot of the security features are proprietary and not published so i cannot see Oracle ever giving away the source even old source.

Now a licence free for any purpose version of 7 or 8 for Linux would be nice though.

kind regards

Pete

In article <414561a6$0$20578$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au>, Howard J. Rogers <hjr_at_dizwell.com> writes
>I wish Oracle Corp. would release obsolete versions (7 and 8.0, for example)
>as open source.
>
>Just because those versions don't have Java, XML and other whistles and
>bells, it doesn't mean they wouldn't make a fine replacement for the MySQL
>and Postgress stuff that usually gets included in all the normal Linux
>distributions these days.
>
>Fat chance, of course.
>
>Just wishing and idly dreaming...
>
>Regards
>HJR

-- 
Pete Finnigan
email:pete_at_petefinnigan.com
Web site: http://www.petefinnigan.com - Oracle security audit specialists
Book:Oracle security step-by-step Guide - see http://store.sans.org for details.