[cap-talk] Why aren't safer OS being used

[James A. Donald]

Bill Frantz wrote:
> When we discussed compatibility with potential KeyKOS users, one extreme
> mentioned was "Bug for bug compatibility". It that is what is required,
> then the current system is the only acceptable system, and has the lowest
> development costs to boot. IMHO, people who demand bug for bug
> compatibility and new features are living in a fantasy world where they
> don't have to do their homework and make choices.

Plash compatibility is "Works enough alike that things mostly work 
without porting, requiring only repackaging, porting is usually fairly 
trivial, and users seldom notice the difference."

Sometimes sharing features on existing code are written around what are 
basic security flaws in the existing system - such as the various 
multifile MS documents.  Plash massively breaks these.

The way multifile MS documents work changes in each release, because 
they always confuse users, and users always wind up on the help lines, 
thus each version of MS software is incompatible with all of the others, 
and the features are buggy in the sense that they never act as the users 
expect.  Thus breaking these features is no big deal.