Re: should debian comment about the recent 'ransomware' malware.
Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> If these systems were running Debian, big organisations like the British
> government could hire people to provide security support for their
> users, even for versions which we no longer support. When the obsolete
> operating system is Windows, they can only hire Microsoft, who can set
> the price at whatever they think the market will bear.
> As it happens this particular vulnerability was indeed fixed by
> Microsoft, and that the UK NHS suffered so much is because of government
> and management failures[1]. But in general, users who for any reason
> are stuck on very old systems are in a much better position if those
> systems are free software.
That's a very good point that I neglected. Thank you for adding that!
> Also, Debian's engineering approaches mean it's easier to support
> obsolete environments, eg via chroots and/or mixed systems and/or
> selective backporting.
Also a good point.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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