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Date:      Mon, 18 May 1998 13:14:58 -0700 (PDT)
From:      David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com>
To:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: nfs exported FreeBSD cvs repository, mounted on client, update problems
Message-ID:  <199805182014.NAA00602@pau-amma.whistle.com>

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>Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 14:01:54 -0600
>From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>

>When correctness involves human behavior, you can't optimize for it, nor
>guarantee that it will always work.  In other words, trying to gain 100%
>computer correctness is a bad thing when 5% of the time the
>incorrectness is due to human error (and unavoidable given the current
>resources) then it makes no sense to try to optimize any more past that
>point.

It may well be that this will remain an issue about which reasonable
folks can agree to disagree, and I am willing to accept that.

I believe that, once again, "it depends".  In the case of human
behavior, I would be willing to accept that if the human behavior in
question is possible because of either root or physical access to the
machine, preventing fairly arbitrary "bad things" from happening is,
indeed, impossible.

However, if a non-root user with no physical access to the machine can
cause undefined behavior, that's a bit beyond the level that I am
willing to accept, and I will do what I can to help ensure that the
system either runs correctly or (as a desperation maneuver) fails as
gracefully as possible.

david
-- 
David Wolfskill		dhw@whistle.com	(650) 577-7158	pager: (650) 371-4621

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