🚀 go-pugleaf

   > I don't understand: how is running PD software risky if the user has access
   > to files he is not supposed to show to anyone? Specifically, why is it more
   > risky than running Wordperfect etc.?

   Running any software is risky. However I feel that commerical
   software companies are less likely to produce code that has trojan
   horse code in it.  Also commercial software is normally obtained
   through a more secure method than PD software is.

Huh?  I don't see how you can get more secure than source code.  You
have every opportunity to check the code, in something that's
readable.  You compile it with your own compilers (which I hope you
trust).  

If you're talking about the pc world, where people grab binaries left
and right, well, I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw the
disk that they came on.  I rarely pulled down pd/shareware programs
that I didn't have the source to.  When I did, I always checked them
very carefully.  

   A shrink wrapped disk or a tape is less likely to have been
   tampered with than a copy of a PD program obtained from a bulletin
   board.  I doubt there is anything funny about the copy of TeX at U
   of Washington. A lot of people have gotten a copy from there and if
   there were problems with it, something would have been posted about
   it by now.

Please make the distinction between source offerings and binary
offerings.  In the Unix world, most packages are distributed as
source, and don't present much risk for hidden virii or trojan horses.

  david d 'zoo' zuhn |  
    cygnus support   |  "Man made it, man can fix it."
    zoo@cygnus.com   |  		-- anonymous biker in South Dakota