Re: open source PostgreSQL not supportable? (Was: Challenging SQL Query Problem. Can you solve it?)

From: paul c <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac>
Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:21:56 GMT
Message-ID: <8H_vf.152211$2k.43539_at_pd7tw1no>


DA Morgan wrote:
> paul c wrote:
>

>> Buffer overlow exploits and so forth make me wonder if any legislator 
>> really knows what they're talking about

>
>
> Does't really matter does it. The law is the law and talking about such
> matters is just an attempt to change the subject. Truth is you can't
> buffer overflow your way past a well written audit trail no matter how
> much you might wish to do so.

Not interested in an argument but a couple of points if I may:

  1. Some people think it does matter what the pol's do but I'll grant there is always a tension between the public interest and the expert interest. Lots of failed societies have self-destructed clinging to their laws. The big accountancies helping to screw the little people for their own benefit is nothing new - here in Canada it was going on twenty years ago and I even worked for one of them! In the long run, one could say that *nothing* matters as our species will be gone eventually.
  2. Whatever a dbms product can make stick, sticks by the grace (or ignorance) of the OS (this is aside from the side-effects of the procedural code the dbms's are written in). The latter are known by the man in the street to be susceptible and fragile. There have been a few times when this wasn't quite so true, like when the interpreter for Basic was in ROM! (I gather that there were aspects of Basic or early economics of ROM's that ended this practice but I'd rather think it was a promising one that was stillborn.)

BTW, I shudder to think what life will be like if the opensource efforts eventually converge their behaviour with the current commercial ones. Comfortable for the status quo defenders I suppose.

p

- Received on Sun Jan 08 2006 - 03:21:56 CET

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