Jeff posts quarterly statistics on his blog that show how many vulnerabilities have been patched for various operating systems.  The LXer.com post takes one of his reports and uses it to demonstrate that Linux is more secure than Windows because Linux vendors fix more security vulnerabilities.

A Microsoft vulnerability report suggests that Microsoft wasn’t able to fix more Windows flaws than the number of open software flaws fixed by the major open source companies . Red Hat, having forty times less employees than Microsoft, did the best job, by fixing and closing the most security bugs, also closing even minor bugs – where Microsoft didn’t even fix one minor bug in the same period. Even Apple did a better job than Microsoft by fixing lots of flaws in Mac OS X.

Jeff found this to be a little amusing.

Seriously, I loved this post, it made me laugh out loud!  Fixing more security vulnerabilities is apparently a good thing in the world of Red Hat Truth.

Well, for those who actively support that theory, I have some fantastic news for them!  According to my calculations, in July 2007, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 team fixed their 1000th unique security vulnerability.  Now, 164 of these were Low severity and 479 were Medium severity, but still, that is a ton of work accomplished by that team, especially given that the product only shipped in February of 2005.

To put that in context, (again by my calculations) Microsoft has fixed only 649 security vulnerabilities for all supported products across the company since the year 2000.

I’m not sure what to think.  Jeff is quite clear on how his reports are generated.  Linux supporters used to tell me that fewer vulnerabilities meant a product was more secure.  Now Linux supporters want to say that more vulnerabilities means the product is more secure, or as one comment on LXer.com puts it:

You spin the data by saying “we fixed the most bugs, leaving the fewest bugs in the new code, therefore we are the best.”

Round and round we go.

Related posts:

• How to Configure a Relay Connector for Exchange Server 2010
• Causes of MapiExceptionNotAuthorized Error Sending to Public Folders
• GFI LANGuard Tutorial
• Bruce Schneier on Certificate Authorities
• Well-designed security systems fail gracefully, SonicWALL does not

This article Security Spin Cycles is © 2007 ExchangeServerPro.com

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com

As a user of free software such as Linux and BSD on my servers,  I’m a little disappointed to see this website.  I’m even more disappointed to see them encouraging what is effectively online graffiti.

This sort of action does more harm than good to the image of free software advocacy.  I’m all for promoting the free, open-source software I use, and will do so here on the site as appropriate.  But undertaking a negative campaign (some of it based on misinformation) and encouraging ridiculous stunts like Amazon tagging just makes the free software community look like a bunch of mouth foaming zealots.

Stick to the positives, compete on features, usability, and support.  Thats how to win users over.

Related posts:

• Security Spin Cycles

This article Free Software Advocates Resorting To Graffiti is © 2007 ExchangeServerPro.com

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com