[Fsf-friends] Continuation....of Basics......

[Sriharsha Vedurmudi]

Anurag wrote:

> Sriharsha Vedurmudi wrote:
>
>> 3. Will the developers with malicious intent not play around with 
>> free software and trick many unsuspecting people into loading the 
>> software (that has been maliciously modified by them), therby 
>> compromising heavily on the security of the companies confidential 
>> data. How is this countered?
>
>
>
> Agreed, you have the source code to modify it, and maybe add malicious 
> things... but who is going to use package distributed by you... i may 
> not trust you and insist on using the package distributed by its 
> original author... You can't remove name of its original author from 
> it...


You are a talented literate here my friend, But there are THOUSANDS 
(literally) who can trust a person who poses to be trust-worthy for 
sometime before he delivers the package, and hence can easily be cheated 
(atleast in India). Some of the greatest laws in India have cute loop 
holes, so how tough is it to forge software signatures (esp. if its only 
the ASCII text). Im not against anything per se.


>> PS: I never know till date the expansion of GNU (ya, I've been told 
>> its GNU Not Free, but what that first word GNU stands for is unknown. 
>> Is it proprietary? :-) )
>
>
>
> GNU = GNU's Not Unix... sometime visit  < www.gnu.org >

Sorry for typo, ya, its "GNU Not Unix"... but what does the first word 
"GNU" stands for in "GNU Not Unix" (obviously its not a recursion)? And 
yes, I've visited www.gnu.org scores of times, but couldnt locate it 
there too.....

-Harsha.