RE: Security and EOL issues

["Donald N Kenepp" <don () videon-central com>]

Hi Leif,

  I apologize if the car analogy and ensuing discussion was considered
drivel; however, several of us were trying to better explain our point to
each other.  Sometimes an analogy helps people understand.  For people who
already feel they understand, taking the time to read through an analogy and
the ensuing discussion could be a waste of time.  I apologize to all if
discussion should have moved off the list.

  Sincerely,
    Donald

-----Original Message-----
From: Leif Ericksen [mailto:leife () dls net] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 9:10 AM
To: don () videon-central com
Cc: 'Matthew Schiros'; 'Jeffrey F. Bloss'; security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Security and EOL issues

I have seen several posts comparing an OS against a Model T or classic
mustangs.  (I would love to have a '69 fastback in good condition)  But
you all forgot the Model A (my father has one and added seat belts)

What a car comparison as to do with a computer OS is not much IMHO.
Many classic car collectors do not want to alter their cars with all the
modern safety equipment because they are show cars and in adding what
did not exist destroys value of  said show car.  Enough about cars.

The Answer is simple...
Technology advances vendors want to keep up.  These advances require
change, sometimes the change requires a re-write of the OS.  IN some
cases it is to add another 10-50MB of useless GUI code, that requires
you have a larger hard disk in your system as well as more memory ob
board because the useless GUI has to me loaded and the rule is most
people do not write tight code these days, nor do they know how.  

Some revs will be missed...
Lets look at:
HP/UX (9.01, 9.04, 10.01, 11.i, ...)
SunOS ( Solaris 2.5)
Solaris (2.5.1, 2.6, 2.8, 2.10)
AIX (4.3.3, 5.1, 5.2)
VAX
PDP
etc.

Microsoft, early versions if its DOS not to be confused with the DOS
that ran on the BIG machines...  IS that still around? So WHO wants to
go back to windows 3.1? How about Windows 98? ME?  Let run those as a
normal OS and connect it to the Internet.
Commodore VIC 20, Commodore 64 How about the 128 or the Amiga lets get
one of those bad babies up and running and use it as our daily computer.
Lets get an Apple ][e going and run quake on that baby!   Or I know lets
get the original apple Macintosh up and running as a quake server!

If Os vendors were required to support every last version of the system
they made they would be out of business because the cost would be to
great, and nobody would want to purchase their systems,  Then as the Old
farts died off that grew up on the old systems (I included) there might
be nobody around that could use the old systems.  After all who knows
sys 32768, sys 64738, sys 3096  Who knows peek 128,33 poke 4456 and the
such...  Shoot it is been so long I even forgot how to use many of those
commands.

Bottom line is Hardware as well as SOFTWARE will be EOLed by the vendors
that is a given, so we will have to move on and get new hardware and new
software, much as trends with clothing change, HOWEVER, unlike clothing
I do not think the older version are going to come back and be in style
(If bell bottoms come back I do not want to see it, or have they and I
just ignored it?)  Using that, for those of us that run on a 1+ GHZ
machine with 512+meg of RAM and fire wire, and USB, and graphics
accelerators, not to mention a graphics card that 15+ meg of ram and its
own CPU, is going to start using a TRS-80 as their daily system. 


--
Leif Ericksen

Lots of comments dare I say drivel ;) comparing cars to an OS and such
deleted.  Sorry about the strong word I used...
On Tue, 2006-01-17 at 12:08 -0500, Donald N Kenepp wrote:
> Hi Matthew,
>
>   Let's extract some bait here.
>
> (Full original message from Matthew can be found below.)

-- 
Leif Ericksen <leife () dls net>



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