Screaming Penguin

Microsoft has released patches to several new "critical" buffer overflows in RAS (which is "native" in XP, 2000 and NT.) Also a new SQL server exploit and IIS exploit have been discoverd. For more details and patches check the linked news.com article. While all software does have problems (as noted by earlier Mutt post on Mozilla critical problem, bug, etc) it does seem to me to be a VALID distinction that Microsoft products have more than their share of critical problems. There is some credence to the statement that Microsoft products are used far more widely than other brand and types and therefore will have more problems discovered, but even when accounting for that (which is not not totally accurate, considering the widespread use of open source products such as Linux, Apache, Sendmail, BIND, etc) the disparity is still huge. Microsoft does seem to have some quality control issues. The company itself has even acknowldged this and stated that security and quality will become not sidelines but a main focus in the future. It does not appear that this has yet happened, but I think that it is important to be aware of the problem and to at least try to address it. Microsoft will only really care about addressing it when consumers demand better software. Which is at least in part WHY open source software was created.   Flaws keep bugging Microsoft : news.com