this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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First one I agreed he bowed to pressure. 2nd one, not sure which one you mean. Every software has vulnerabilities yet to be discovered, researchers work hard to breakstuff. Windows had tons that researchers disclosed to them and they refused to fix, until researchers started issuing the vulners daily (and said they had 100s more they could release all year). Open Source means we can check and fix once discovered, good luck getting a for profit corporation to act. Re: the recent national defense issue with MS not disclosing vulnerabilities because they didtn want to kill their sales.
How many % of your operating system’s source code have you 1) read and 2) understood?
That's a strawman if I ever saw one
It’s not a strawman. You said “but I can read the source code!”. Do you? Because if you don’t, it doesn’t really matter, right?
Now you are changing words or read it too quick. I never said I. We as in anybody. Again another strawman second sentence. How do you think the researcher found the vulner for xz. He noticean tiny slow down and started scrutinizing code. Closed source is a false sense of security by obscurity. Open source means anyone can scrutinize the code.
Also we deal with enough proprietary software at work to get inside TSBs. Much of proprietary code also is built on open source pieces, so if your troll argument is opensource is bad, then proprietary is also bad on top of that.