Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines) [LWN.net]

Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines)

Posted Jun 21, 2007 12:14 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines) by lysse
Parent article: Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines)

Quite so. A lot of work on HTML 4 was done by someone who goes only by a pseudonym. At that time he hadn't changed his name by deed poll to correspond with that pseudonym: should we trust HTML 4 less because of that? Should we have started to trust it more after he changed his name?

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Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines)

Posted Jun 21, 2007 17:37 UTC (Thu) by yootis (subscriber, #4762) [Link]

That's different. HTML is an open standard with many people looking it over. You don't execute it directly. But downloading a distribution which is precompiled binaries is essentially an act of trust.

Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines)

Posted Jun 29, 2007 9:26 UTC (Fri) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link]

Downloading and using *any* binary is an act of trust. And for that matter, do you think that if someone actually has bad intentions, he will tell you his actual name?

Or do you usually demand notarised copies of the passports of the people who develop your software so you can be sure that the genuine-sounding names they give you (like "Linus Torvalds") actually *are* their real names?