[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

Who do you mean by "they"? Microsoft and Apple? Where is your evidence for this statement? With Windows 7 I get regular security patches automatically downloaded. My experience is that Microsoft is extremely security aware, and do their utmost to quickly fix any security holes that are found. This is in their own commercial interest--they have to protect their reputation at all costs.

I don't think anyone is arguing that MS doesn't try to fix security holes -- just that their patches tend to happen on a slower schedule than when the people affected can join the patching process and supply a patch first.

Originally Posted by ShellShock

Again, do you have any evidence for this statement? Who are you quoting? My personal experience with Microsoft and Windows 7 is that I get a lot of security patches for things that I didn't even know were vulnerable, which seems to match what happens in the Linux world.

I don't see why you feel you have to bash Microsoft with a lot of unsubstantiated claims, in a thread about a Linux security flaw.

And because you get patches without knowing you needed them, that magically equates to an evaluation of how long MS was working on providing a patch vs linux distros???

By your own admission, you have no idea whether MS was timely or not. In fact, by nature you cannot know, it is a trade secret.
linux patches on the other hand, are all in the public eye (to those who care) and we can track their history and compare them to the in-the-public-eye reports of the problem they are fixing -- we know exactly how long it takes to fix the problem. And if someone needs it fixed and feels it is taking too long, they can write the fix themselves and be safe (and email the fix upstream for the glory).

Which is the only point Sregener was trying to make.