On Fri, May 13, 2005 at 10:18:49AM +0300, Ori Idan wrote:
> I think this is an academic debate if GNU/Linux is more secured or not.
>
> For the simple people, let us look at the facts:
>
> 1. When was the last time any of this list members has seen a virus in
> his GNU/Linux desktop? (I guess the answer is never)
>
> 2. When was the last time you had a spyware in your desktop? (again the
> answer is never)
>
> So the end result is: GNU/LINUX IS MORE SECURED.
No, the end result is that the members of this list are more
security-aware than the average. Much more so. I'd make a wild guess -
even if all of the members here used XP/MS Office regularly, they would
still have much much less virii/spywares than the average. OTOH, if 80%
of the world's computer users used Linux, you'd see more viruses and
spyware in Linux. Maybe not as much, maybe with less average damage, but
while I agree to your conclusion, I do not agree to the reasoning.
This reminds me of Paul Graham's articles, in which he claims that LISP
programmers are better. But why is it so (whether or not you agree to
the conclusion)? There are at least two opposite reasons: 1. Because
programmers that learned LISP become better 2. Because good programmers
prefer LISP when they come to know it.
Just to prove my point - everyone here will agree that putting a default
install of most major distros open in the net without some kind of
firewall or hardening will very quickly make it broken into (I know
about exceptions, no need to remind me). Why? Because linux is very
common as a server. So the crackers develop means to break linux
servers. If/When linux is very common on the desktop, you'll start
seeing the same there.
To get to even more philosophical ideas - I must say I do not accuse MS
for behaving the way it behaves. I accuse the users. Users want "Bread
and fun" ("LECHEM VESHA`ASHU`IM"). Users do not want freedom. They do
not want security. Nor power, nor robustness. They want a lot of
software, that doesn't require them to read anything or to think in
order to use it (note I did not use the shorter term "easy to use", I
know it won't pass some tests). So that's what MS sells to them. It's
not that I agree to all of MS's policies - but I think this is the root
cause.
--
Didi
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