Comments on: The open-source bailout

Bailing out open-source software companies to the tune of $2 billion is a really bad idea. Attempting to fix something that isn't broken is worrisome.

[xgenx]

Good to see someone using reason. The bailout is the monkey's paw of the economy. Most people will just snatch it up and make a wish without considering the end result. "Free" money from the government? What could go wrong?

[dmm]

It doesn't seem right for the gov't to fund open-source, since open-source projects compete directly with private businesses, or else are used as a source of revenue by some private businesses but not others (e.g., Debian vs. RedHat vs. Microsoft vs. Apple vs. Google vs. ??).

Gov't is only supposed to directly support societal infrastructure, i.e., stuff that everyone wants and uses and benefits from, but no one wants to (or even, should not be allowed to) pay for themselves, such as roads, bridges, internet backbone, basic research, defense, law enforcement, law-making, etc.

Having said all that, I wouldn't object to the gov't funding a project to replace C with a fundamentally secure language. But I'm speaking in ignorance; perhaps there are unavoidable reasons for all of C's security flaws.

[deepwave]

No offence, a program is only as secure as its source code is. You can write unsecure code in any language under the sun. You can also write secure code in any language too. Security is a state of mind. And states of mind should NOT be mandated by governments.

[MSSlayer]

C and C++ are the cause of the majority of the security flaws in the past.

They are dangerous languages because they don't even try to force the programmer to write more securely.

Try writing a Java or Ruby program that you can exploit a stack or heap overflow with. When those languages do suffer from them, it is the JVM or interpreter that has the flaw. Guess what language that is written in? It has 1 letter and starts with C.

You are completely wrong in asserting that languages don't factor into security. Yes, no matter what language you use the programmer has to understand security(most so called professional programmers do not understand it at any legitimate level), but what language you choose makes a huge difference.

[deepwave]

Thank you for being one of few sane people resisting the urge to bailout everything that moves.