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the Linux process for generating many rare flawsthe Linux process for generating many rare flawsPosted Jul 20, 2008 18:08 UTC (Sun) by zooko (subscriber, #2589)In reply to: the Linux process for generating many rare flaws by nix Parent article: Quotes of the week
(About whether the Linux kernel development process is more likely to introduce security holes than alternative development processes.) "It isn't, of course." What -- where do you get your confidence? I think that it is plausible that the Linux kernel development process produces more bugs and security holes than alternative processes, such as for example the way that OpenBSD or Solaris are developed. (I also think that the Linux development process produces new features and improvements faster than the OpenBSD process does.) I'm not entirely confident of this -- I could be wrong. But how did you become so confident of the opposite hypothesis?
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the Linux process for generating many rare flaws Posted Jul 20, 2008 18:56 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] The question was whether the problem was *unique* to Linux's development process. Of course it isn't. Proprietary systems have security holes too. You don't need 'confidence' to know that.
the Linux process for generating many rare flaws Posted Jul 20, 2008 22:01 UTC (Sun) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] I read "it isn't, of course" as responding to my question about how black-hat scrutiny was something unique to Linux's development process. These threads get a little spread out... I would still be curious to hear your response to my original post, because a priori I don't see why any one of Linux/Solaris/OpenBSD's models should be better. (Actually, I don't have a lot of confidence in OpenBSD myself, because I've gotten the impression that in general it's buggier -- probably just due to lack of manpower, and prioritizing security features proportionately higher than non-security testing and bugfixes. And I don't like non-security bugs much better than security bugs.)
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