Re: Why distrust M$, but trust Sun?

[anon]

In comp.os.linux.advocacy plenty560@yahoo.com says:

>It has been my observation that most of the Linux users
>that I have encountered tend to use OpenOffice, which is
>a Sun Microsystems product. It's a decent product, too.
>It works well and probably better than KOffice. But
>it occurred to me recently, what is to keep Sun from
>putting spyware in OpenOffice, for instance on behalf
>of the NSA? Are they an especially ethical company?
>(Is any?) Astute observers of corporate America have
>seen in recent times a series of tech companies that proved
>willing to assist with current administration's agenda
>or the RIAA/MPAA agenda. And what better way to
>infiltrate an otherwise hard to enter area such as
>Linux users' personal PCs than to sneak some code
>into an OpenOffice binary? Even if users encrypt their
>drives, the baddies would still get access. And, as everyone
>knows, the more bloated the software, the less likely
>people are to download the sources and compile it for
>themselves. (Not all distros come with OO.)

This is appalling paranoia.  Even if you don't have the source for
openoffice.org, the linux os is so transparent that if any "spying"
is going on in a major app, somebody would soon see it.

It's easy to see everything that goes in and out of a unix/linux
computer.

cordially, as always,

rm