“Being a Linux user gives you a different view on computing. In
fact, being anything else than Windows user is like having to watch
the majority of your neighborhood acting like simple, confused
peasants in times of knights, kings and church. People dazed and
confused by lack of knowledge, with kings they think they must die
for, with church they think is sent by God himself to lead them.
Hardly we can understand the people who lived at that time – being
free, open minded, it just doesn’t mix with a simple peasant who
can’t take his own freedom in fear of loosing his freedom, that
little piece of the real freedom, or even his soul if he doesn’t
play by priests rules. This people, at that time, just couldn’t get
more. If one offered them more than the simple things the king or
church offered them, he would be punished for his sacrilege.”
“I’m just looking at Back Orifice 2000. And I’m not surprised.
Although Microsoft wants to hide internals from outside developers,
there is not a single person outside who’s trying to get into it.
One fine and perfectly legal example is WINE – a free Windows
emulator. It is written from the scratch and resembles a MS Windows
emulator which still doesn’t run everything, but it work just fine
for many programs and some games. Or, people from ARDI, who
developed a quite nice Macintosh emulator named Executor, again
from the scratch.”
“Yes, it is possible to hike into code of any software. It takes
some time and lots of knowledge, but it is possible. You take one
routine, peek at it, see how it behaves depending of input, look at
the output, trace registers and walk around with debugger. It’s
just about know-how. So, let’s just accept that Cult of the Dead
Cow has something very bad to offer to everyone. Now, let’s think
about macro viruses.”
“Are we just peasants, tied up with King Bill who wants his part
of our goods, and driven in mental slavery with Microsoft Church
which says that anyone who doesn’t follow them is a sinner, a lost
soul destined to burn in hell of information infrastructure?”