News and views from a software developer's perspective
Thursday, February 06, 2003Is there a word for that place in an online article where you can scroll far enough to hide the annoying animated ad?
Why do companies put their DLLs in the Windows system directory?
What will happen when applications written to run on the .NET runtime are common? Will companies insist on putting their assemblies into the GAC? My guess is that they will, although I don't know why for sure.
But what about security. How secure is .NET?. More specifically, how secure are applications written to run on the .NET runtime? Certainly the "binaries" in .NET are easier to disassemble than native machine-code binaries. I'm not the expert here, but I assume that means they are much easier to infect. Assemblies installed in the GAC can only be tampered with by an administrator. Does this mean very many assemblies will be installed into the GAC?
I understand that there is code signing. But it seems to me that a virus writer, if he targets a particular application, could just copy the disassembled code from that application, and then create a replica that is unsigned.
Update: Microsoft says 'Open source threatens our business'
Almost every software company must come to grips with open source software.
Whatever happened to Watcom C++? Obviously, it couldn't compete against Microsoft Visual C++. Well, I found it. It's being made into an open source product, and it's being ported to Linux. It's nice when software turns open source instead of into abandonware.
I'm just looking at the Open Source Initiative approved licenses. I see an interesting comment that, while translations into other languages are available for some of the licenses, the English versions are the only ones that are legally binding. That has me thinking: assuming a common language is needed for worldwide legal contracts such as software licenses, will English become the de facto language for such contracts? Is a common language even necessary?