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GNU Hurd 0.6 released

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Re: GNU Hurd 0.6 released

#71

Post by alextgordon »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #64
meddlepal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh the humanity that a company you willingly purchase a license from restricts you from doing whatever you want with it. Cry me a river.

You're perfectly correct, of course. You bought it, you deal with it. I just don't understand why developers, of all people, persist with systems like OSX and Windows.

Many people prefer Apple hardware, and OS X gives a better experience on Apple hardware than Linux. (Ubuntu doesn't even provide a correct keyboard layout for my keyboard!)

Re: GNU Hurd 0.6 released

#72

Post by xgbi »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #37
0x0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has required code signing for kernel drivers since Vista on x64. Also, OSX doesn't require the kexts to be signed by Apple themselves - the requirement is that the kext is signed by a certificate that is blessed by Apple's CA. There are plenty of third party kexts out there. Also, you can modify the bootloader's kernel parameters to disable kext signing and you will be back where you were on 10.9 security-wis…

Windows code signing is performed using a certificate available from the usual certificate authorities (Verisign, Thawte, etc, etc) that you pay to verify your identity and issue you a signing certificate. Apple is the only one that enables OSX signing and it's done in conjunction with your Apple ID that you pay Apple a yearly fee to enable developer abilities on.

Windows SSL cert costs 267$ a year: https://www.digicert.com/friends/sysdev/ (click start)

Apple certificate costs 99$. Indeed, you won't be able to sign anything else, but it is still more that 2 times cheaper.

Re: GNU Hurd 0.6 released

#74

Post by UweSchmidt »

azinman2 wrote: post #69
beefsack wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that this became a back and forth of people arguing which is worst just highlights the fact that this sort of low level infrastructure needs to be free and open.

Does it? But then who polices it? Id be curious to know of an instance where apple abuses their power and denied a competitor the ability to sign a binary. Personally I'd much rather have someone like apple be able to have some kind of audit where by malicious extensions can be revoked. There might be some super clever way that you could do this with the block chain or the like, but ultimately I don't know how this d…

"Id be curious to know of an instance where apple abuses their power and denied a competitor the ability to sign a binary."

This will happen the instant it becomes opportune, Apple being a business, having shareholders and all that. No precedent is needed (they surely have used their power to deny stuff that is not "malicious" in the App Store before).

Re: GNU Hurd 0.6 released

#75

Post by chriswarbo »

acomjean wrote: post #65

They don't make this easy: quote: Also note that you cannot run the Hurd "in isolation": you'll need to add further components such as the GNU Mach microkernel and the GNU C Library (glibc), to turn it into a runnable system. Of course making it easy is a ton of work. If they want to gain some traction maybe they should work on a version of the OS in Rust. That would be interesting. glibRust.

To be fair, Linux isn't "easy" without a bootloader and an init program to run. HURD is a little less "easy" since unlike Linux it's not a runnable kernel, it's a layer on top of the Mach (micro)kernel.

Of course, in practice it's a distro's job to make things easy. There's a version of Debian running HURD, but I don't know how up-to-date it is: https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/

Re: GNU Hurd 0.6 released

#76

Post by tedivm »

azinman2 wrote: post #69
beefsack wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that this became a back and forth of people arguing which is worst just highlights the fact that this sort of low level infrastructure needs to be free and open.

Does it? But then who polices it? Id be curious to know of an instance where apple abuses their power and denied a competitor the ability to sign a binary. Personally I'd much rather have someone like apple be able to have some kind of audit where by malicious extensions can be revoked. There might be some super clever way that you could do this with the block chain or the like, but ultimately I don't know how this d…

As it stands now most package managers already require signatures before installing applications. We already put trust in the people who maintain the repositories- and whose keys we've decided to use for verifying code. My issue isn't so much with who polices it, my concern is how easy can I override it.

I would have absolutely no problem with Ubuntu shipping with this exact same feature, assuming that I can also add in other sources of trust and self sign extensions I want to place in.

My point is that the problem isn't whether someone can make these decisions or not. It's good to have people make them, and that extra level of protection can mean a lot. None of that is a problem- the real issue is Apple attempting to enforce exclusive trust.

Re: GNU Hurd 0.6 released

#78

Post by ggchappell »

danellis wrote: post #61
ggchappell wrote: post #40

Do we need some new terminology? There does not seem to be a word for the kind of thing Hurd is. "Replacement for the Unix kernel" seems a bit wordy. It's a thing that does what ordinary folk expect a kernel to do. So technically, it's a kind of virtual kernel , I suppose, but that would be far too easy to misunderstand. On a completely different note, just what is it about some software projects that stretches them…

> So technically, it's a kind of virtual kernel Technically it's not any kind of kernel. Mach is the kernel, and Hurd is a collection of servers.

> Technically it's not any kind of kernel.

Well, I said it's a virtual kernel. That's virtual in the sense of "same interface, different implementation". A virtual X is not an X; it's just handled like an X. A virtual file is not a file. Virtual memory is not memory. Virtual reality is not reality. Etc.

Since it is not a kernel, but is supposed to replace one, virtual kernel would seem to be an accurate term. However, it's too easy to misunderstand, due largely to horribly incorrect usages like "virtual bank" and "virtual classroom" that have been floating around for a while. Alas!

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