Canonical engineer Oliver Grawert called Linux Mint a "vulnerable system" because of Mint's security updates system.
Mint holds back certain updates, mainly for stability issues. (This is an opinion, and has not been stated by the Linux Mint team.)
While the statement made by Mr. Grawert is truthful, I believe it isn't quite as serious as some would believe.
Mint does offer the updates, they just don't automatically suggest installation. (Again, I believe for stability reasons.)
Not that security concerns should be in any way brushed off. Linux is not infallible. It's very solid, but no software made by imperfect beings is going to be flawless.
Mint's response to all of this has also made things in the Linux community more tense, mostly because their reasons for not adding the updates automatically have been as clear as mud.
Also their is a unnecessary rivalry between the Canonical/Ubuntu and Linux Mint communities.
” We explained why the Ubuntu update policy was not good enough for us and we consequently developed the update manager to solve that particular problem.
Firefox doesn't come to you later in Mint than it does in Ubuntu (it’s a level 2 update).
Yes, by default you get updates in Ubuntu for kernels and Xorg and not in Mint. Yes, there’s a very good reason for that.”
Why Mr. Lefebvre doesn't expand on his “very good reason” is uncertain.
Again, Mint does not stop users from installing the updates/upgrades.
