[oclug] Re: LAMP vs MS Solutions for Small Business

[Fred Jensen]

On Feb 18, 2005, at 1:39 AM, A Blair wrote:

> Actually, it isn't.  Having had issues in the past, security is one of
> our bigger concerns.  Our prosepective programmer(s), who have been
> trained at Waterloo extensively in MS technologies point out that
> Apache has had a much worse security track record than IIS (eg
> http://weblogs.asp.net/michael_howard/archive/2004/10/15/242966.aspx )
> and that Linux in the LAMP setting also fares poorly vs Windows (eg
> they pointed out recent studies such as
> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/ 
> 2002182315_security17.html
>

Is this the same programmer who recommended Windows NT? A while ago,  
Rod Giffin pointed out:

> The Windows platform, and the technologies he's named are obsolete.
> Windows 2000 isn't sold anymore, and NT is archaic.  Both are very
> insecure.  They don't really build ASP applications any more, instead  
> they
> build .NET applications, and Active X is now called COM.  This leaves  
> me
> wondering if perhaps the credentials of the programmer need to be  
> examined
> somewhat.

Also, you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say.  
Comparing IIS to Apache means little without comparing the entire  
system, and simply counting the numbers without examining the severity  
and nature of each issue is misleading (which also applies to the PHP  
issues). We could probably trade links from now until summer and get  
nowhere, but try looking at  
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/22/linux_v_windows_security/