| >Another litmus test I often amused by is how when where is a report of a bazillion of Windows infections (especially those when a user should explicitly run the payload, not just a drive-by) then it's Windows problem, but when there is a report of bazillion of infected Android phones and tablets then of course it's not Linux and therefore it shouldn't be chalked up in any "Amount of infected computers per OS" graphs, lol. Normally, when it comes to CVEs you tend to see it targeted to the affected piece. E.g.: CVE-2022-38533 affecting GNU binutils and CVE-2023-25139 affecting sprintf() in glibc. Those two things are core parts of most Linux distributions, yet they are still their own distinct thing. The fact that many times the accused piece of software is Android (like in CVE-2022-20472 or CVE-2023-21079) is just a testament of how big of a monolithic most of the Android userspace is, without ceasing to be a Linux disribution. >But that doesn't make "an operating system distribution based on Linux kernel with system instrumentation and userspace common to other popular operating systems based on Linux kernel" equal to "Linux distribution" or "Linux". Well, that's precisely one of the arguments[0] used in favor of naming some Linux distributions as GNU/Linux: >Since a long name such as GNU/X11/Apache/Linux/TeX/Perl/Python/FreeCiv becomes absurd, at some point you will have to set a threshold and omit the names of the many other secondary contributions. There is no one obvious right place to set the threshold, so wherever you set it, we won't argue against it. [0] https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#many |
Counter question, is firmware on some cheap-ass $10 router is a Linux distribution? Is this cheap-ass $10 router IS Linux?
> Those two things are core parts of most Linux distributions, yet they are still their own distinct thing
Well, Explorer is the core part of the most of Windows SKUs, yet when the Explorer is at fault - it's Windows fault and goes in the stats, while millions of infected Android phones suddenly doesn't because it's not Linux, it's Android (emphasis mine). Kindergarten level of logic, yet used by grown-ass men.