Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!iuvax!uceng!minerva!dmocsny From: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Multi-tasking, and immunology (was Macintosh OS) Message-ID: <5194@uceng.UC.EDU> Date: 18 Jun 90 00:03:27 GMT References: <8767@odin.corp.sgi.com> <369@three.MV.COM> <682@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> <62367@sgi.sgi.com> Sender: news@uceng.UC.EDU Organization: University of Cincinnati, Cin'ti., OH Lines: 31 In article <62367@sgi.sgi.com> karsh@trifolium.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) writes: >In article <682@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> ian@sibyl.OZ (Ian Dall) writes: >>PC's and mac's [...] have no immune system. >...there are so few Unix systems that it's not worth peoples time to >bother writing them. This is still in keeping with a biological analogy. Since pathogens generally target some specific population of host animals, the larger the population of any single host species, the faster the pathogens can mutate, grow, and propagate. In a natural ecosystem, with thousands of plant and animal species competing for space and food, the relatively small population of any single species helps keep bacterial and viral plagues in check. But when one species of animal (e.g., Man) wipes out most of the other animals and populates huge communities, the name of the microbial game becomes, "Infect Man." So while fragmentation in the UNIX market destroys much value by reducing software availability and complicating life for the users, it does present a significant barrier to the spread of infectious programs, just as a differentiated ecosystem is less subject to devastating plagues. However, I think that is a silly way to justify failing to standardize UNIX. We would be better off incarcerating people who write computer viruses. -- Dan Mocsny Snail: Internet: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu Dept. of Chemical Engng. M.L. 171 dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu University of Cincinnati 513/751-6824 (home) 513/556-2007 (lab) Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0171