[Tfug] Debian struggling with security

[Ronald Sutherland]

Hmm... seems to me that with open source software the users are the 
debuggers. The clever users provide detailed bug reports that guide the 
moron programmers to the cause of the problem. In this way a user is 
paying for the code by educating the programmer. Once the programmer is 
sufficiently educated they may chose to make real monies by developing 
IP for mister Bill. Unfortunately for Bill the debuggers don't go with 
the programmer.


To sum this up, time and bug reports will fix these problems, but I do 
wonder if ubuntu has pulled many of the debuggers away form debian.


Matthew Eskes wrote:

> You know, to be honest I could have said that the security issues with 
> Linux and Debian were to be expected. When you think about it, Linux 
> (the Kernel, more or less) is really starting to become a big pile of 
> buggy code. Dont get me wrong, I like having all the functionality 
> that its now providing which really is better than that in the 2.4x 
> line, but I feel that they arent taking enough time in bugfixes and 
> they are starting to add new features way to fast without fixing any 
> bugs that they may have introduced with them ( The infamous w.x.y.z 
> subversioning they now have) and I think that its starting to affect 
> the overall quality of the kernel. For those reasons alone, I am 
> starting to think more seriously about switching over to either Free 
> or OpenBSD since they are known to audit their code to no end. I 
> realise that this will not fix all the bugs since there is not one 
> piece of bugfree software, but as I like to say, any small advantage I 
> can get I will take.
>
> Matt
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "t takahashi" <gambarimasu at gmail.com>
> To: "Tucson Free Unix Group" <tfug at tfug.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 5:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [Tfug] Debian struggling with security
>
>
> i was curious whether ubuntu was any different, so i searched for "debian
> vs. ubuntu".
>
> the first item was ian murdoch's blog, where he was critical of a de 
> facto
> fork.  i was flabbergasted.   the comments were overwhelmingly
> of the "debian is history" variety.  could that be just that it was
> before sarge's release, or is ubuntu taking over?  i was so
> surprised that i never did find out about whether ubuntu is
> more or less secure than debian :-).
>