Linux grabs its single biggest win

It's not usually some E-4 sitting at a terminal writing the software that runs sophisticated modern weapons systems.

Instead it is a civilian contractor who is writing the code and then selling the software along with the system to the US military, i.e. the software is being distributed for money.

If you suddenly see a new project getting contributions from some particular source, you may be able to correlate that with a project they're working on.

The kernel I'm working on now, non-Linux, can build in about 5 seconds--and this kernel works on a pretty large segment of hardware, too.

Bugs affecting Windows frequently exploit features which are deep and broad, have profound systemic effects, or are easily exploitable on large classes of systems. The Sapphire/Slammer worm comes to mind -- you wouldn't think that the Microsoft SQL Server would be a widely installed desktop component, but as the Desktop Engine, it was. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Slammer

Other factors affecting this:

With Linux, I have one-stop shopping for most of my security updates affecting virtually ALL software on my system. Updates are atomic, can generally be applied without rebooting, and (due to nearly two decades of process improvement and strong policy) nearly always work. There are differences even among distros -- I find Debian tends to have the most robust practices, so long as you stick with stable, RHEL is a lot more hit-or-miss. This is a direct consequence of Debian Policy. Read it and understand it.

Linux software components tend to do one thing and one thing well. Rather than ship kitchen-sink "Enterprise Solutions", most Linux software and subsystems focus on a single task, are principally controlled and configured via commandlines and textfiles (lending themselves to scripting, version control, and configuration management generally, hence, better and more consistent processes). Again, not uniformly true, with GNOME (not a server package) and Systemd being notable exceptions.

There's an unprecedented level of transparency. Even as a mostly shell-tools kind of sysadmin, I can directly monitor system state through shell tools, strace, and /proc. Even finding myself on Linux-like environments (e.g.: Mac OS X, Solaris) lacking all of these features, I feel their absence profoundly. There's little about a process or system I can't examine directly and/or log.

There's more out there. If you're not willing to be convinced, there's little I can say or show you that will change your mind. But you're more than free to do your own legwork.

First, a given Linux system can be virtually entirely divorced from userland. Android would be a great example: it runs the Linux kernel and a very, very small set of standard features, on top of which the Android infrastructure itself is place. Android by itself is nowhere near POSIX compliant, though it can be made so by adding additional software (e.g.: busybux, terminal app, etc.).

More generally, any given utility for a Linux system can generally be provided from multiple independent sources, from system libraries to common utilities (e.g.: numerous awk and vi implementations) to services (webservers, databases, etc.). Any one component can generally be replaced or even removed without impacting other components (barring tight dependencies).

It's possible to build very minimial, or very complete, Linux systems. Lightweight bootable images based on little more than a kernel, shell, and busybox. Heavy server or desktop systems with thousands of packages.

The kernel itself is highly modular, both in terms of features (networking, filesystems) and devices (disk, ports, network devices...). Unless specifically added in, graphics are not included in the kernel (obviating large classes of b ugs), and systems can be run without a GUI or even a directly attached terminal. This is a level of flexibility you simply do not have with a Windows box.

Permissions granularity in my experience is largely a bogeyman -- you don't need a highly complex system, you need one that works. The important things are appropriate and usable permissions within an understandable framework. Linux supports user/group/world read/write/execute permissions, SUID, SGID, and sticky bits. It also supports ACLs, though these are very rarely implemented -- they're a maintenance nightmare. If you'll stick to Debian, you'll fidn that permissions matter and are generally set to be both safe and sane by default.

If you've got something specific in mind, I or someone else might be able to address it.

As for Vista: Microsoft have played the "we've fixed the security problem" record so many times over the past 15-20 years that the grooves are worn smooth. While things may have improved, I still see a landscape littered with exploits and attacks, as well as a security infrastructure (virus, spam, network intrusion, and other scanners) I in large part don't have to worry about on Linux systems. Yes, there's vigilance required. But it's at a whole different level of intensity. While I don't work with Vista (and apparently few will), I don't see any fundamental changes which would be required to change the Linux vs. Microsoft security picture.

I think that's only the case to the extent the desktop world is tied to the insecure monoculture of the Windows world. You can't tell me there wouldn't be money to be made from being able to reliably infect Linux webservers, for example.

We have to function to have any hope of improving the situation. That does mean supporting at some level the thing we hope to fix.

Yes, you do. Thoreau certainly made the choice; but, then, he was a hated American.

But thinking less of Linux because the military picked it up and said "Hey this is an awesome tool!" seems wrongheaded and counter-productive to me.

The kind of server we're talking about is, by definition, on the Internet, accepting connections from arbitrary people. It's entirely possible for a connection or a family of connections to bring down the server software, which often provides a way to subvert the OS while the machine is in the unusual state of the userspace server software being down. This provides the avenue.

> if everyone was using it as a desktop OS, and was browsing, checking email, etc, there is more of a chance to attack it

I think this falls down, too: Linux has never been a single monoculture. Instead, there's been broad de fact standardization of some things but not others, making it more difficult to target malware to it, as malware is, very often, intimately dependent on not only specific software, but specific configurations of software and specific versions of software.

Also, Windows has never had a trusted source of software comparable to distro repositories. This is probably partially due to antitrust rulings, and the fact Windows caught on and had its first major flowering before Internet access was especially cheap or reliable (consolidating usage patterns around a non-Internet shrinkwrap software model). This means it's hard to get all the software you need from trusted sources unless you act like a distro maintainer and decide for yourself who in specific you trust. (You can do that in Linux, too, but you don't have to.)

Finally, Windows users complain about UAC. Linux users don't complain about sudo. Applications under Linux know they won't be run as root and behave accordingly.