From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,12f4d07c572005e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,12f4d07c572005e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,12f4d07c572005e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,12f4d07c572005e3 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: ff6c8,12f4d07c572005e3 X-Google-Attributes: gidff6c8,public From: adaworks@netcom.com (AdaWorks) Subject: Re: Ada News Brief - 96-05-24.txt [1/1] Date: 1996/06/01 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 157870147 sender: adaworks@netcom10.netcom.com references: <4o56db$p66@ns1.sw-eng.falls-church.va.us> followup-to: comp.lang.ada,comp.sw.components,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.edu organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.sw.components,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.edu Date: 1996-06-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar (dewar@cs.nyu.edu) wrote: : Richard Riehle (rriehle@nunic.nu.edu) wrote: : > Java's democratic nature is a blessing for open exhange of ideas. It : > would not lend itself easily to the protection of ideas. When we want : > to minimize the risk of sacrificing our intellectual property through : > too easy public access, nothing does the job as well as Ada. : That's a very strange viewpoint. Of course we are not talking languages : here, as someone has pointed out, but rather typical environments. [snip, snip, snip ] : byte code interpretors, you can distribute JBC, and avoid distributing : the source. Perhaps my observation can be summed up in terms of the ease of reverse engineering. It seems to me easier to reverse engineer "bytecode" than pure executable code. Perhaps not. But this is criticism I have seem raised in the computing press, including Software Magazine. : THe discussion about free vs proprietary software is of course one that : continues, and is not strictly relevant to this discussion, but claiming : that Java is a blow in the direction of freedom is truly ironic! I am not complaining about free versus proprietary software. I applaud the availability of free software, especially products such as GNAT. However, I do have concerns for those commercial products in which there is a substantial investment and which need to be protected as licensed, rather than "free." The security associated with Java is a legitmate question. : All in all, the quote from Richard is quite bizarre. Even with a friendly : interpretation, I can't make any sense out of it at all. Robert, I appreciate your effort at a friendly interpretation. And that is not intended as sarcasm. : Ada is a completely : open language. It has an international standard and NO ONE can lay claim to : any intellectual property rights in Ada itself. You can of course write : proprietary programs in Ada, but that is true of any language. The issue is not the propietary nature of the language. It is, rather, the security of the final product deployed in that language. I am not alone in my suspicion that Java and its associated bytecode may be vulnerable to a variety of compromises. A software product, created in Ada, would probably be less at jeopardy after deployment. I am not denigrating the virtues of Java. It will have, already has, an important place in the development of open applications. I am suggesting that it is the very openess of those applications which may put them at greater risk. It would be a great comfort if I could be sure I was completely wrong about this. As to the openess of Ada. That is a different issue. The language source code is pretty consistently portable. The executables rarely are. The complexity of a deployed Ada program would present a formidable challenge to anyone who wanted to reverse-engineer it. What is a virtue for Ada, is not a virtue for Java. Richard Riehle -- richard@adaworks.com AdaWorks Software Engineering Suite 27 2555 Park Boulevard Palo Alto, CA 94306 (415) 328-1815 FAX 328-1112