From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Steve Simon Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Mime-Version: 1.0 (1.0) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2018 20:18:14 +0100 Message-Id: References: In-Reply-To: To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Subject: Re: [9fans] Is Plan 9 C "Less Dangerous?" Topicbox-Message-UUID: e0863798-ead9-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 the most significant change that plan9=E2=80=99s c made (that i can think of= ) is compile time type checking between modules /files. this helps but is not a huge improvement to safety. the main reasons plan9=E2=80=99s kernel is fairly safe is its clean and simp= le design, which makes problems less likely. nothing cleverer than that (imho). Sorry, no magic. -Steve > On 2 Sep 2018, at 19:16, Lucio De Re wrote: >=20 >> On 9/2/18, Chris McGee wrote: >> I'm reading this article about how they are going through the giant heapi= ng >> pile of Linux kernel code and trying to come up with safer practices to >> avoid the "dangers" of C. The prevailing wisdom appears to be that things= >> should eventually be rewritten in Rust some day. >>=20 > Like hell they will! By the time they have even a minute portion of > Linux running under a different language, the language-du-jour will > have moved on. It's a monolith, it cannot be translated, unless it is > mechanically. And we know how brilliant that is likely to be. >=20 >> How does everyone feel about the Plan 9/9front kernel? Have they gone >> through hardening/testing exercises over the years? I'm curious what tool= s >> are available to help discover bugs. >>=20 > Simplicity is Plan 9's most relevant trait here, but that's where you > draw the line. If anyone feels like finding possible security holes in > the Plan 9 or the 9front kernels, they have to have very strong > motivation to do it. In general that motivation is spelled M-O-N-E-Y > and no one is likely to find the 9 flavours worthy of a big lump of > that resource. >=20 > My opinions, of course. >=20 > Lucio.