I wrote an article about that a few days ago on ITechTips. It’s highly unlikely that the EULA for Windows would leave MS vulnerable for the same type of gaffe and therefore you wouldn’t be able to sue them either. However, at a guess (not a lawyer!) I would suggest that a suite against Ubuntu would have more traction than a suite against Linus Torvalds. Linus looks after the kernel, not the OS.

In any case, everything has a EULA that indemnifies the vendor. A suit against MS, Apple, or Ubuntu would get thrown out.

Ok so we’re suing the box manufacturer - makes sense. Who are we suing in the Linux world? Would it be more correct to blame Ubuntu for the gaffe ,or does someone else write the installer program?

FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It’s the practice of (intentionally or not) spreading uncertainty and fear about something based on erroneous or non-existent facts.

Say you buy some cereal - let’s say you’re a Cheerios fan. You buy a box of cheerios,only to find out later that the box manufacturer mistakenly left some poison on the box. Now, the box isn’t technically part of the cereal - after all, you made the purchase to get the Cheerios. However, the box does come as part of the package, so even though it’s not technically the same, you’re still in trouble because that poison probably ran off into your Cheerios.
I hope that makes sense. But it might not.

FUD - is that f*cked up development? Never heard the term before.

This is FUD, pure and simple.

Your assessment of this being as security flaw in Linux needs another look, however.

An Ubuntu developer wrote some sloppy code and left the root password in the logs. That’s a third-party introduced security flaw and has nothing to do with the OS.

This ‘flaw’ is akin to me walking up to your desktop Windows computer, seeing your banking password scribbled on the desk and calling that an insecurity with Windows.

Clearly you don’t operate in the Linux world at all