Security Group, Governments Name Top Windows, Linux Vulnerabilities, Oct 10, 2003

On the Unix and Linux side, the Institute named the Berkeley Internet Domain Name (BIND) software -- which is widely used on domain name servers to match URLs with IP addresses -- as the top problem software. Apache Web server (at number 3) and Sendmail (at number 6) are also on the Unix/Linux list, and have been exploited this year.

The chief information officers of some major U.S. companies say more businesses are choosing the Linux operating system as they face pressure to reduce costs.

Speaking on a panel at a venture capital conference here Wednesday, the CIO of clothing retailer Gap and a Bank of America technology executive said they are among the Linux converts.

Torvalds released version 2.6.0-test7 of the Linux kernel on Wednesday, saying he and 2.6 leader Andrew Morton now are directing programmers to focus on stability rather than cleaning up the code.

"I and Andrew are trying to calm down development, and I do not want to see patches that don't fix a real and clear bug," Torvalds said in a message. "In other words, this should calm things down so that by the end of October we can look at the state of 2.6.0 without having a lot of noise from 'not strictly necessary' stuff."

The operating system is still seen as a leading-edge technology for high-end database servers, commercial clusters, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and supply chain management, Jollans conceded. But he said some companies are beginning to use Linux "for real business applications, with Sage, PeopleSoft and now even JD Edwards porting to it, and SAP has been a long-time Linux supporter, with over 500 customers already".

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