[Info-vax] VMS83A_UPDATE V11

[JF Mezei]

Coming from a different angle.

Apple seems to have a lot of patches too. About one a week, the software
update informs if of new patches that are available.  Some don't require
a reboot, but many do. A lot of OS-X is in "frameworks". For instance,
an HTML rendering engine isn't in "Safari", it is in some framewrok whic
can be used by many applications. So if it is changed, they force a
reboot because they doN't know what applications may be using that
framework while it is being updated.

Where VMS has an advantage is the version numbers on files.
 You can deposit version ;2 of a shareable library and only have it take
effect on the next reboot. Apple doesn't allow that, you need to reboot
to make sure all is clean.

(and in fact, what Apple does is reboot in a minimal mode, during which
it does the instal of the software, replacing the files etc, and then
reboots in normal mode.)

For a fair comparison, one would need to count only the patches that
apply to subsystems which are part of the core VMS operating sysgtem
(and thus liable to get patches from Digital/Compaq/HP.)

Also, one needs to consider that some subsystems of VMS have been left
with gaping security holes for years without patches. (IMAP/XDM/POP for
instance).  On Apple/Linux/Windows, such would never be left without a
patch for more than a week or two. So patches issued by the others for
subsystms which VMS hasn't patched shouldn't be counted either.

One needs to compare oranges to oranges here.

Where Apple has an advantage over VMS is that there is a single software
updater, and it informs you of all available patches that you haven't
yet installed for all of the Apple provided software. For instance,
after I installed the server management tools on my workstation, the
workstation began to monitor for software updates for those applications.

So it is less work to figure out since the software updater does all the
searching of patches on your behalf.