Monoculture

[Paul A.S. Ward]

John S. Denker wrote:

> On 10/01/2003 11:22 AM, Don Davis wrote:
> >
> > there's another rationale my clients often give for
> > wanting a new security system, instead of the off-
> > the-shelf standbys:  IPSec, SSL, Kerberos, and the
> > XML security specs are seen as too heavyweight for
> > some applications.  the developer doesn't want to
> > shoehorn these systems' bulk and extra flexibility
> > into their applications, because most applications
> > don't need most of the flexibility offered by these
> > systems.
>
> Is that a rationale, or an irrationale?
>
> According to 'ps', an all-up ssh system is less
> than 3 megabytes (sshd, ssh-agent, and the ssh
> client).  At current memory prices, your clients
> would save less than $1.50 per system even if
> their custom software could reduce this "bulk"
> to zero.


Without commenting on the general merits or otherwise, $1.50 is a big 
deal if the
target product is some embedded device intended to sell for $10 to $20 
and/or if
the target product is part of a system in which millions of such devices 
are intended
to be used.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul A.S. Ward, Assistant Professor  Email: pasward at ccng.uwaterloo.ca
University of Waterloo                      pasward at computer.org
Department of Computer Engineering   Tel: +1 (519) 888-4567 ext.3127
Waterloo, Ontario                    Fax: +1 (519) 746-3077
Canada N2L 3G1                       URL: http://www.ccng.uwaterloo.ca/~pasward



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