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The issue isn't malware authors acquiring it the source, the issue is that other people would then build said source and run it (XP) or worse, build products on
by intern4tional 6y ago
The issue isn't malware authors acquiring it the source, the issue is that other people would then build said source and run it (XP) or worse, build products on it as XP was very stable. Those systems would then get infected and become botnets.
You don't see people flying in trijets anymore as they are dangerous, likewise you don't want to encourage or incentivize people to use or build products on an insecure OS.
Sympathy doesn't matter in the business world, costs do. No normal company is going to undertake a legal review of an unsupported product; it simply isn't worth it.
- a5withtrrs 6y agoI'd never heard of trijets being dangerous before and I can't find anything to support that claim. I thought the issue with them was the expenses around building and maintaining them.
- intern4tional 6y agoThis is off topic, but there is increased risk due to the failure of the central engine and the inability to jettison it in the event of a fire. Wikipedia notes it as a design issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trijet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trijet There are documented cases where failure of the central engine has caused a loss of the rear stabilizer. This can be resolved via additional engineering -> which increases cost of manufacturing and maintenance (which as you note was the main factor in why they went away).
- cycloptic 6y ago>The issue isn't malware authors acquiring it the source, the issue is that other people would then build said source and run it (XP) or worse, build products on it as XP was very stable. Those systems would then get infected and become botnets. I don't follow where you're going with this. Why would they build the source or build products on it if they were not interested in deploying security fixes? There is no other developer interest there and no company would ship a white-labeled "XP 2020 Edition" to developers if it was instantly vulnerable to malware. >Sympathy doesn't matter in the business world, costs do. No normal company is going to undertake a legal review of an unsupported product; it simply isn't worth it. Right, that's why I don't buy these lines about how they can't afford it. If it becomes a serious security issue that causes them problems then it is worth it.
- intern4tional 6y agoFrom reading your comment, you appear to think that I am assuming someone would ship XP to developers, that is not the case and I apologize if I wasn't clear. I am assuming someone would use XP in a product that would be shipped to consumers. Companies have and will ship products with outdated or unsupported OS if they think they can harden them acceptably. See all the networking devices that run some variant of the Linux 2.x kernel that still appear on the market today as an example. Embedded XP was also a thing and probably still is in many places.