According to a recent report by Google’s Project Zero, Linux developers demonstrate a remarkable speed in fixing bugs compared to their counterparts. Project Zero, a team within Google focused on uncovering zero-day vulnerabilities in open-source projects, revealed some interesting findings.
Linux Developers are Swift in Bug Fixes
The data covers the period from January 2019 to December 2021. Linux developers managed to resolve 24 bugs within 25 days, beating Apple’s pace by 66%. Notably, the speed at which Linux developers address issues has significantly improved, with the average time decreasing from 32 days in 2019 to the current turnaround time.
It’s worth mentioning that Apple had a higher number of bugs to address. However, their average fix time lagged behind at 69 days. Google successfully fixed 53 out of 56 bugs with an average fix time of 44 days. Mozilla trailed with 46 bugs addressed, while Microsoft took the longest at 83 days to resolve issues.
Interestingly, Microsoft fixed 15 bugs (19%) within the grace period, while Apple and Google fixed 7 (8%) and 2 (4%) respectively.
Regarding the average fix time mentioned in the report, it highlights a consistent reduction in the overall fix time, particularly between 2019 and 2020. Notably, Microsoft, Apple, and Linux have all managed to decrease their fix times during this period. Google exhibited an acceleration in 2020 but slightly slowed down in 2021. Additionally, companies not represented in the chart collectively reduced their fix time by more than half. This improvement may reflect a shift in research priorities rather than changes in specific vendor practices.
The “Others” category mentioned in the study includes companies like Facebook, Git, Canonical, Intel, Kubernetes, Node.js, Qualcomm, RedHat, and Zoom.
Mobile Browsers Comparison
The report also shed light on the differences in bug-fixing speeds between iOS and Android platforms. Interestingly, despite a higher number of bugs on iOS (72) compared to Android (10), iOS issues were resolved more swiftly.
Furthermore, Chrome developers managed to address 40 issues in under 30 days, outpacing Firefox where 8 problems took an average of 37.8 days to fix.
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