[ Thanks to Doug
Bostrom for this link. ]
“Commentator Fred Moody’s column on the Linux OS got an
unusual amount of feedback. … Here is a sample of the views
presented.”
“Fred Moody doesn’t seem to grasp the concept that Redhat Linux
or any other Linux distribution is comprised of the Linux Kernel
and an abundance of third party software. In the comparison I’m
sure no bug reports for third party software for Windows NT were
included. As well various server software such as Apache and
Sendmail are usually bundled with the Linux Kernel, Windows NT does
not include IIS by default. I feel the Fred Moody has missed the
proverbial boat with his comparison.”
“The more subtle problem [with Fred Moody’s column] is that MS
supplies an OS, whereas Linux vendors generally supply OS, office
apps, network tools, compilers, games, and a heap of other stuff. A
fair comparison would be MS vulnberabilities against that subset of
RedHat vulnerabilities concerning the core OS componenets.
Alternatively all windows application vulnerabilities could be
summed with the Microsoft OS total.”
“You attempt to play down the number of vulnerabilities in
Windows by claiming that they mostly come from IE. You also claim
that since Windows is used more, that their numbers must be
inflated because the vulerabilities would be easier to find in
Windows. You fail to mention however, that since Linux is open
source, malicious hackers can easily read the source code to look
for bugs, whereas with windows you must be proficient at reading
binary code. Thus, the number of people capable of searching for
bugs in Windows is greatly reduced. You also fail to mention the
fact that when a bug is discovered in Linux, anyone with
programming experience can fix it, meaning that when a bug is
found, you don’t have to wait for Microsoft to release it’s next
service pack, which can take months. Meanwhile, you are left open
to the vulnerability for months. Also, Linux is very component
driven. This means that you can choose to exclude any parts of the
operating system that you don’t use, therefore reducing
vulnerabilities due to components you don’t even use.”