On Sun, May 08, 2005 at 04:20:22PM +0300, Josh Zlatin-Amishav wrote: > On Sun, 8 May 2005, Dan Kaspi wrote:
> > When listing the main advantages of Linux , the most important one > >I had thought of was security ; when you access the internet from a Linux > >machine, chances that you get a virus or spyware or someone will intrude > >your machine are smaller ; He answered that , when thinking in the long > >term (2-3 years) , as more people will use linux as a desktop, > >this can be easiy changed; moreover, he claimed that since Linux is an > >open source, > >maybe it is even easier to develop viruses/spyware to it. In this point > >I did not know what to answer him. I am not a > >security expert; it could be that he is right in this point. > > Hi Dan, > Your friend is correct, it may be in fact easier to develop malware for > OSS. Yet the same problem (access to the source code) makes it harder to > hide "bad" code. But also gives incentives to vendors to fix problems and not hide them. So far this has worked very well. (Naturally, being free software is not a magic bullet or anything) > You are also not dependant on one source to provide fixes > to the problematic code. Actually: I get all of my software from Debian. I get all of my fixes from Debian. On windows I see people with software from multiple vendors. Even free software on windows isn't usially custumized by a ditributor like in Linux. I can easily update all of my software with the latest security updates. Can you say the same about any non-free installation? -- Tzafrir Cohen | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | VIM is http://tzafrir.org.il | | a Mutt's [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | best ICQ# 16849755 | | friend ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
