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Date:      Fri, 24 Jul 1998 10:10:26 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Brian Behlendorf <brian@hyperreal.org>, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: someone should be starting an archive of these...
Message-ID:  <19980724101026.K716@freebie.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <19980724003043.22764.qmail@hyperreal.org>; from Brian Behlendorf on Thu, Jul 23, 1998 at 05:04:14PM -0700
References:  <19980722212025.20301.qmail@hyperreal.org> <19980722212025.20301.qmail@hyperreal.org> <19980724093021.J716@freebie.lemis.com> <19980724003043.22764.qmail@hyperreal.org>

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On Thursday, 23 July 1998 at 17:04:14 -0700, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
> At 09:30 AM 7/24/98 +0930, Greg Lehey wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 22 July 1998 at 14:19:29 -0700, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
>>> http://www.gcn.com/gcn/1998/July13/cov2.htm
>>>
>>> What happens when you install an NT network on a navy ship.
>>
>> Well, the report was pretty weak.  As far as I can tell, the real
>> problem was bad programming (somebody divided by 0 and was surprised
>> at the result).  So was the reporter, who didn't understand the
>> problem (and made false claims that he could have checked up on).
>>
>> Not one against Microsoft this time.
>
> Of course it is.  As the article said, a $2.95 calculator does not become
> inoperable when you attempt to divide a number by zero 

Well, it causes an error condition (and not, as the reporter claimed,
a result of 0).

> - yet a whole ship was more or less incapacitated (it had to be
> *towed* to port!)

Claims were made to that effect.  I personally think that a problem of
that magnitude would have become known earlier.

> for days because of this.
>
> There shouldn't be *anything* that can be typed into the
> system that could have such an effect, intentional or not!

Sure, but is that an OS problem?  GIGO: write bad software for FreeBSD
and it'll run badly too.  

I think Microsoft's "operating systems" stink.  But we've got to
remember that applications aren't just operating systems, and this one
just doesn't look like an OS problem.

Greg
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