On Tue, Oct 27, 2015 at 09:03:20PM -0400, Doug wrote: > What percentage of Debian users does anyone reading this believe to be able > to read the source code (if they even know where to look to find it) and then > to modify it to suit their needs? Surely Linux was a programmer's > wonderland when it came out in 1995, but it is now a system which even > grandmothers are using. I would not ever suggest that it become closed > source--as I suspect one or two distros may be on the way to--but it should > be realized > that its original wonderfulness is lost on the majority of modern-day users.
Well, you're right that someone's grand parents shouldn't have to read source code to use a desktop computer. But I wouldn't be expecting them to set up or recover a striped LVM device either, which is what this thread is about. David's point about the source code being the canonical home of what is going on is a good one. And for a forensic operation, which is not something performed by mere mortals, you want to be damned sure you know what is going on.