[oclug] How open nature of Linux can work against it.

[Rod Giffin]

Greg wrote:
> You are saying drug industry servers are wide-open to script-kiddies,
> because they never install "service packs".  SPs being impossible in
> principle to validate;  worse, M$ is admitting in EU courts that they
> cannot even document, much less validate, their systems.
>   
No, I'm not saying that at all, and I think you're reading too much in 
between the lines.   I'm saying that it's cheaper to do this with 
"industry standard software" being defined as software where everyone 
has the version and patches available simultaneously, so that the cost 
of validation is spread over the entire industry.  I'm not saying 
anything in particular about Microsoft.  They are not the only other 
software vendor in the world.

In Linux systems this is possible to achieve, but it is far more 
expensive, because of the number of distributions (among other things) 
dilutes the number of people paying for validation of a particular 
component.

This is not the only impediment to Linux adoption in the industry, it's 
just the most expensive one.

Rod.