[NTLUG:Discuss] Better than linux?

[Kendall Clark]

>>>>> "Kelly" == Kelly Scroggins <kelly at cliffhanger.com> writes:

    Kelly> Are the statements this guy makes about Linux vs. the
    Kelly> *BSD's true?  Are the BSD's more secure than Linux?  I've
    Kelly> always thought it was the opposite.

OpenBSD is basically more secure than *everything*. My guess would be
that Debian is as secure out-of-the-box as both NetBSD and FreeBSD.

Red Hat is sometimes sloppy about stuff; I've long thought they should
take a more strict approach with /etc/inetd.conf and /etc/hosts.allow
and hosts.denyout-of-the-box, but <shrug/>. I would also like to see
Red Hat, perhaps in their Japan office, start integrating crypto for
3rd party download, if that's legal.

Not only does the OpenBSD crew concentrate almost totally on security, 
but they develop and distribute from Canada, so they can do some very
aggressive and smart crypto integration as well.

But, and this is one reason why free software kicks ass, the kinds of
intense security auditing that OpenBSD has been doing in the past 24
months or so really benefits *everyone* in the free Unix world. After
all, when they find a buffer overflow in some program that everyone
uses, everyone can benefit from this discovery and its remedy.

The legend about OpenBSD is that it's never once appeared on a CERT or 
BugTraq warning. If that's still true, that's a testament to some
serious software engineering.

On a political note, I can't help but note that the leader of OpenBSD, 
Theo de Raadt, has what I consider to be very odd criticisms of the
GPL. He's almost as anti-FSF, anti-GPL, and anti-Linux as John Dyson
is, and, if you read Usenet, you know what that means.

<Kendall/>
--
Homer:	This place is depressing.

Grampa:	Hey!  I live here.

Homer:	Oh, well, I'm sure it's a blast	once you get used to it.

		-- Homer Simpson
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