Bad Linux

[Alan Dayley]

Any detail in the WSJ article about the survey methods and what constitutes
a security hole?

Alan

At 03:50 PM 5/17/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>The problem with comparing linux to windows is that places too often compare
>windows itself with no apps on it to an entire distro where 98% of all the
>security holes get patched within minutes and the other 5 percent are games
>or something else that really doesn't matter all the much for a server and
>the are either not being supported or just tell people it will be fixed in
>the next version.  Meanwhile it shows up on the numbers as never being
>patched bringing the avarage of everything else down.
>    If you you compare windows against just a very stripped down version of
>linux so that you have equal functionality on both sides, I would bet the
>linux would come with  flying colors,  or compare a windows machine loaded
>with all the server software and other programs and all the bugs and
>security holes that machines has to an equivenent machine running linux and
>the security holes that goes with that machine.  I would bet that linux
>still comes out on top.
>
>It's really not fair when you have to factor in holes for multiple versions
>of software that can't even run at the same time (sendmail, postfix,
>wu-ftpd, proftpd... etc etc) that often come with a distro.
>Plus the fact that the often lump all security holes found in all distro in
>the "linux" catagory, often times counting the same security hole more than
>once.
>
>Brian Cluff

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