[plug] interesting vulnerabilities comment

[Leon Brooks]

Excellent letter from this week's LWN's back page
(http://lwn.net/2000/0803/backpage.php3):

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Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 17:02:49 -0400
From: "George B. Moody" <george at mit.edu>
To: letters at lwn.net
Subject: Fred Moody's story, "Linux Sux Redux"

The story indicates that the numbers of vulnerabilities reported on
BugTraq for "Red Hat and the other Linuxes" were 122 in 1999 and 47 so
far this year, and notes that Windows NT's counts of 99 and 37 are
significantly lower.  The error is that the numbers for Linux *include*
those for Red Hat, so that adding the Red Hat numbers to those for Linux
results in counting the Red Hat vulnerabilities twice.  In fact, the
correct numbers for all versions of Linux put together are 84 for 1999
and 30 for 2000, and for Red Hat they are 38 for 1999 and 17 for 2000. 
In round numbers, the numbers of vulnerabilities in Windows NT are about
three times as high as those for Red Hat.

Fred says, "If you look this list over, and measure each system's number
of vulnerabilities against the number of its customers, Linux is
arguably the worst operating-system product in history, and Microsoft's
the best."  A more bizarre way to assess quality would be hard to
imagine.  If I understand him correctly, Fred is suggesting that quality
is proportional to market share, and that having more customers in some
way can overcome having more bugs.  This is no more true of software
than it is of food. The greasy spoon in the mall may attract more
visitors despite high prices and poor sanitation, but those who are
lucky enough to enjoy a friend's home cooking are not only getting a
free lunch but a better one, and they get to inspect the ingredients if
they care to do so.  Those who are so thoroughly in the grip of the
belief that what costs more must be better, and that anything free is
therefore worthless, might spend their money on a nice bunch of flowers
for the cook; or they can throw a brick through their friend's window
and go eat the best mystery meat in town at the greasy spoon with Fred.

"As Linux zealots are beginning to find out, it's a lot easier to
masquerade as a better product than it is to go out and be one."  Earth
to Fred: Get a clue!  We Linux zealots(TM) know that marketing can make
people believe that expensive and shoddy products are better than
superior free alternatives, and guess what?  Anyone who has ever paid
too much for something just because it comes in a shiny box knows it,
too.

-- George Moody (no relation to Fred, as far as I know)

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-- 
Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?