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What is "Commodity Software"? (Part of the title in the article at http://valgrind.org/docs/newsome2005.pdf)
(I'm not an english speaker, and the direct translation of "commodity" to my language does not make much sense to me in a software-context.)
An example would be appreciated!
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Non-commodity software includes custom-built applications and substantially reconfigured commercial software.
What are Commodities? Commodities are raw materials used to create the products consumers buy, from food to furniture to gasoline or petrol. Commodities include agricultural products such as wheat and cattle, energy products such as oil and natural gas, and metals such as gold, silver and aluminum.
Commodity hardware is usually low-end, broadly compatible and can function on a plug-and-play basis with other commodity hardware products. A commodity computer, for example, is a standard-issue PC that has no outstanding features and is easily available for purchase.
Commodity hardware, in an IT context, is a device or device component that is relatively inexpensive, widely available and more or less interchangeable with other hardware of its type.
A commodity is an item that only distinguishes itself from competitors by price. There are usually lots of suppliers of the item available, and none has a feature besides price that's different from others.
So commodity software would be widely available from many suppliers, and you wouldn't care which one you used; only price will make your choice.
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They appear to mean software that's available in a store, such as Windows, Photoshop, etc. The primary point seems to be analyzing some arbitrary piece of software without knowing anything about its internal structure, and without access to any source code.
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In general I would agree with duffymo's answer. But the way the author of the paper you cited uses the term the definition may mean "any software for which the source code is not readily available". In other words, the exploit detection techniques he outlines can be used on any compiled executable.
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