[plug] Is Red hat truly flawed?

[Leon Brooks]

Bret Busby wrote:
> I have just found the folowing news item, at
> http://www.australianit.com.au/common/storyPage/0,3811,633573%255E442,00.html

> Does anyone know whther this is genuine, or, just a hoax?

No idea. OTOH, RedHat does have more security hits against it than any
other distro. Friend security expert could be trading on this to crack
his boxes.

> I understood that a single version of each release of the Linux kernel,
> existed, and that it had to be approved by Linus Torvalds, before it
> could be officially released. Am I wrong in my understanding?

I can almost guarantee that. (-:

Linux has to nod before a bunch of pre-prelease patches on the previous
version of the kernel can be called the next version. At this instant,
we have the odd situation of Alan Cox having said (about a month ago)
that 2.2.15 was essentially ready and would probably be released the
next day, and subsequently releasing more pre-15 patches, and also some
pre-16 patches even before there is an official 2.2.15 to base them on.
I guess Linux is particularly busy with the 2.3.* tree in the run-up to
2.4.

Of course, anyone, even you, is at liberty to grab any copy of the
kernel sources, and do whatever they please with them - they just aren't
"official" Linux. For example, this Mandrake install is running a 2.2.14
kernel with some security patches (no stack trampolines, that kind of
thing) added by Mandrake, and a ReiserFS patch added by me.

Indeed, I remember reading somewhere somewhen about somebody keeping
Linux 1.* alive somewhere, adding security patches and stuff to keep it
useable.

-- 
Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.