[SWLUG] Re: Wow, seen this on Slashdot?

[Adam Rykala]

Rhys Sage wrote:
>It seems to me that Microsoft does not compare like
>with like.
>
>  
We agree!
>Linux, being free, has a problem in that malicious
>code could possibly be secreted within the structure
>of a distribution - code that might not be identified
>until it's initiated which could happen some years
>down the road. Linux also has a wide userbase of
>people with no money and loads of spare time. This is
>the same type of userbase that creates Windows viruses
>- and no link is implied here between Lunix users and
>virus writers.
>
>Mac O/S doesn't suffer as much from viruses because
>the kids who write viruses can't generally afford
>Macs. Mac tends to be seen as more secure because less
>people own them and thus less hackers have access to
>one to hack.
>
>  
We disagree - the whole idea of "many eyes making bugs shallow" is that 
peer review is much more likely with open source. The sheer large volume 
of people eyeballing code means that paragraph "a" is very unlikely - 
for example, the kernel is strictly eyeballed and examined for every 
line of code that makes it in....

And Mac OSX's security is more related to its BSD roots then anything.

The whole idea of Linux's security being through obscurity, in that it's 
less prevalent, is a fallacy - for example, Apache is a large component 
of the web servers out there - ditto with Unix mail servers. They are 
open source.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
	/Adam Rykala/
/adam at rykala.demon.co.uk/ 	
	/"You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it
doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on."
-- Hepler, Systems Design 182
/

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