On Feb 11, 2005, at 4:12 PM, Lan Barnes wrote:
He's comparing apples to unicorns, and he cheats, too.
Yeah, but the fact that he has *some* good data should not be ignored.
What is the problem? Too much choice? Knowledgeable users know what to use. Ignorant users? Linux has far fewer of those. Too many services by default? All of the above and also, which boxes get hacked by default?
Huh? What relevance does that rant have to my comments?
He has data that shows there is a time lag between when a subpackage gets fixed and a distro rolls out a patch. It looks to be 30 days, on average. This matches my experience. Unless the fix is readily exploitable, the vendors take a while. What that tells me is that the distros do not have an automated system for testing the validity of their distros and cutting a patchset. They have to do it by hand. That needs to be improved.
Linux distros should lag behind subsystem patches by *hours*, not days. Even if Windows took 60 years, Linux should still take hours to put a patch in your hands if you want it. The goal of Linux not simply be "better than Windows"; it should be the best it can be.
This kind of knee jerk defense of things in Linux *which should be fixed* is why Linux advocates get portrayed as rabid geekoids with no ability to understand the larger picture.
If nothing else, it should give the Linux folks supreme pleasure to be able to use fabricated, FUD data and then beat the Windows guys over the head with it: "Gee you were right, we needed an automated way to roll out new fixes immediately. Now we've got one, so our average is 24 *hours*. What's yours? Oh, it's still weeks, what a shame."
-a
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