[Discuss] Why use Linux?

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of Micky Metts
> 
> I am speaking at the GLADcamp Drupal conference in Los Angeles next
> month and wish to have part of my talk cover the benefits of Linux. I

At a drupal conference, talking about linux, you're surely going to promote security.  All code in the world has bugs in it.  By being open source, apache/nginx/php/mysql/postgres and the linux kernel all receive a LOT of code review.  Bug fixes and patches are released promptly, for free to anybody, and you can follow various security mailing lists to be alerted to vulnerabilities as they're discovered.  By comparison, Apple and Microsoft and Oracle won't provide that level of information, even for paying customers.  As paying customers, you just have to wait for whatever they release to you, and blindly trust in their wisdom and benevolence.  ("Trust in the transparency and benevolence of Oracle, Apple, and Microsoft" is a slogan I don't foresee catching on anytime soon.)

With vulnerabilities in everything, you must acknowledge, that even with regular updates, you are in fact exposed and vulnerable.  This is where apparmor and selinux come in.  They have defined behaviors that they expect each application to behave under, and they prevent the application from behaving in abnormal ways - so even if apache or nginx *does* get compromised, very often the scope of damage is limited to that which you put into the control of apache/nginx.  Again, by default, these are included in major distributions of linux for free, and by comparison, if you want such coverage on windows, mac, solaris, there is either (a) no product offering, or (b) only commercial offerings.