Re: Professionalism

[Joe Smith <shadowm4n () yahoo com>]

I appreciate many of the comments I've received on
this issue, I thought I'd respond to this one, and
then I'll let the issue rest.

Ralf brings up some good points in the three posts I
read from him.  

> Astoundingly, most unprofessional code performs
> better than so called
> professional code.

I thoroughly agree.

> What does it mean then? That the corporate world is
> made up of
> brand-trusting idiots?

Sadly, this has been the case in numerous instances. 
Just because a product/program is functionally
superior doesn't mean it will be better accepted. 
This is precisely how Microsoft slaughtered Apple back
in the 1980's.  A fun movie to watch on this, "Pirates
of Silicon Valley", albeit overdramatized, had a good
exchange between Steve Jobs and Bill at the end of the
movie.  Steve said something like, "Our's is better." 
Bill replies "It doesn't matter."  I'm sure there are
plenty of other good examples of inferior standards
beating out the superior competition (VHS vs. Betamax
also comes to mind).  There is a herd mentality to
corporate America (I won't speak for other countries,
I harbor the hope that they have more sense than we
do, heck, we're not even on the damn metric system yet
*sigh*) that has resulted in decisions that had more
to do with "Is it what everyone else is doing?" versus
"Is this the right decision?".

> This is absurd. With open source he CAN look into it
> and say he doesn't like
> the "lubrication reference", but with closed source,
> he can't -- does that
> mean the "lubrication reference" isn't there? No.

You'll get no argument from me that this attitude is
absurd.  I agree %100.  But I've felt the results of
indiscriminate stupidity on the part of upper
management, and I assure you, this attitude is there.

> With so called professional products, you have to  
> believe
> the documentation. Since you will not be integrated
> into the development
> process (even as a watcher or commentator), you    
> cannot know HOW exactly a
> certain functionality is implemented.

This is precisely why I feel all current commercial
IDS's are not up to the task.  So many vendors were
against the idea of even telling the customer
precisely how their signatures were set up, claiming
this information was proprietary.  Its for this reason
I want open source to succeed.

I appreciate your consideration and patience.  


--- Ralf Hildebrandt <Ralf.Hildebrandt () charite de>
wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 13, 2001 at 02:39:00PM -0800, Joe Smith
> wrote:
>
> > monarch, Mr. Bill Gates.  Many in the corporate
> world
> > have a very negative opinion of open source
> precisely
> > because of what I stated earlier regarding the
> > unprofessional nature of open source.  
>
> Astoundingly, most unprofessional code performs
> better than so called
> professional code.
>
> > They will claim
> > that the code is "untrustworthy".  This doesn't
> mean
> > it doesn't work (or can be configured to work). 
> It
> > doesn't mean that the programmers are
> untrustworthy. 
>
> What does it mean then? That the corporate world is
> made up of
> brand-trusting idiots?
>
> > to disqualify a product only because of
> lubrication
> > references, but it does happen and it makes my job
> (ya
> > know, intrusion detection and all that fun stuff)
> that
> > much more difficult.
>
> This is absurd. With open source he CAN look into it
> and say he doesn't like
> the "lubrication reference", but with closed source,
> he can't -- does that
> mean the "lubrication reference" isn't there? No.
>
> > Yes, its free.  Yes, the classification.config
> file
> > can be sed/grepped to do exactly what you want. 
> And
> > yes, its the best thing out there (its superior to
> > every IDS I've tested, commercial or non).  All
> I'm
> > asking is for snort to make an effort to present a
> > more professional appearance so that corporate
> > acceptance is the default, not the exception.
>
> OTOH a simple: "this might be porn" or "pr0n" would
> suffice...
>
> -- 
> Ralf Hildebrandt                            Tel. 
> +49 (0)30-450 570-155
>                                             Fax. 
> +49 (0)30-450 570-916
ThisemailhasbeenbroughttoyoubyJOLTCola,favoredbyssysadmins,netadminsand
> programmerseverywhere.
> JOLTCola--forallthesugarandtwicethecaffine(R). 
>
>
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