[cisco-voip] cisco licensing changes...

[Alan Buxey]

Hi,
> I'm not fully versed with open source and how it works, but is it possible that someone from the community can interject malicious code? I mean, I would gather that it wouldn't be in there long, but if it's like wikipedia, can't someone put in code that "phones home" and do some damage before someone retracts it?

no - too many eye are on the submission process.

the funny thing is, even though open source code is fully open
and readable, more people find nice bugs in the closed proporietary vendor
code. (sure, some projects have been whacked...but well managed ones
tend to not have had such issues)

there seems ot be some kind of funny knee-jerk reaction and mistrust
of OpenSource code...a LOT of Cisco (and Juniper etc) modern kit if
build with a large base of Open Source code running at the lower levels.

A company (be it small, medium or FTSE/NASDAQ 100 etc) would be foolish
to ignore Open Source or just discount it as worthless.

*IF* an OpenSource tool can do the job as well as some commercial vendors
product then why not? (*)

alan

* the answer is generally 'support'. If you've got the skill to deal with
it and understand why it goes wrong (**) in house then you are sorted

** plenty of expensive non Open Source software goes wrong too...and needs
local skills or a lot of time spent calling the TAC/vendor  ;-)