I simply cannot think of a more clear, distinct, and comprehensive indictment of Microsoft and its operating systems than the unrelenting torrent of patches that it issues to fix the defective products that its monopoly position in the marketplace has allowed it to foist upon the world.
Sure, the UNIX'es and Linux'es of the world have some problems, but really now, nothing like Windows.
And a patch, when issued, pretty much works as expected.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with almost all of what you're saying about Microsoft's poor track record. However, in the interest of fairness I'd like to add that I've had to back out of a fair number of patches to various Unices and Linux systems because the patch broke something else, usually in a fairly complex enterprise environment.
I think the reality is that patching comes in a poor second to engineering secure code in the first place, and that is an area in which virtually everyone in the industry desperately needs improvement.
m5x
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