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About this quote

What does it mean?
Wall notes that if Perl becomes popular on Windows, developers might fear a double‑agent within ActiveState.
In plain terms
He worries about insider threats if Perl spreads on Windows.
What can you take from it?
Be cautious about trust and security when expanding platforms.

Where it applies

  • enterprise deployment
  • open‑source contributions

Putting it to work

  • audit code contributions
  • establish clear governance

Questions to consider

  • How can communities maintain integrity during growth?
  • What safeguards are needed for platform expansion?

Another view

The comment is humorous and not a concrete security warning.

More from Larry Wall

  1. Maybe we should take a clue from FTP and put in an option like 'print hash marks on every 1024 iterations'. :-)

    Permalink to quote #201
  2. The court finds everyone to be in contempt (including himself :-), and orders everyone sentenced to five years hard labor. (Working on Perl, of course.)

    Permalink to quote #203
  3. : Why Bible quotes exclusively? What happened to the Eastern religions?<BR> I'm still working on the Unicode mods.

    Permalink to quote #200

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