I sincerely doubt Microsoft has any intent or wish to branch off to do Linux/UNIX development.
As far as security goes: in my eyes if it's something an admin could not have prevented then it's a true exploit. If you're stupid enough to expose your SQL server to the whole of the internet by not using a firewall for instance then the first one to be blamed is the admin.
Red Hat issued 15 security patches in the past 3 months of which some look rather critical to me.
Microsoft issued a total of 8 security patches (ranging from low to critical) for Windows 2003 server and 10 for Windows 2000 Server in the past 3 months.
Both OS' have plenty of security holes in them. The difference is that Microsoft is under extreme scrutiny while Linux patches are issued without much general publicity.
As far as desktop security goes it's a battle they can't win because people will always complain. I can't count the number of people that have complained to me personally about the fact that Outlook Express 6 by default won't allow you to open "unsafe" attachment.
I foresee an equal amount of discontent after the release of Windows XP service pack 2 where Microsoft will enable the builtin firewall by default, even if it's explictly turned off right now.
If they enable automatic updates by default then they get accused of spying on consumers computers because they could install whatever they please when the last few months have clearly proven that it is something that's needed because you can't trust regular people to keep their software up to date as far as patches are concerned.
Anyway, this is very offtopic from the original post. If Red Hat needs to make the choice between either facing bankrupcy in the near/far future or increasing its revenue by raising prices and discontinuing support for free software then the latter is the only real choice they can make.
if you look around microscrew has alot of programs that, if you read carefully... are trying to end open source....
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