mitchell’s blog: Monoculture and Flexibility

“Security issues are in the news recently with the Windows
Metafile vulnerability. The point of this post is not to
second-guess Microsoft’s handling of this vulnerability. For this
discussion I’m happy to assume that Microsoft is taking exactly the
correct actions on exactly the correct schedule. And beyond that,
security is much more of a process than a one-time result. It’s not
possible to be perfect. All of us, including Mozilla Firefox, must
deal with security issues. Instead, I want to note that this
vulnerability points out a key issue with the Internet that has
little to do with Microsoft’s handling of this–or any
other–specific vulnerability.

“The current monoculture of operating systems is
dangerous…”

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