Why there is no antivirus for Linux

It's been all spyware, all the time here at Borepatch lately. This is all focused on Windows - so how come there's no spyware targeting Unix?

A Zen Unix koan:

There was a novice who learned much at the Master’s feet, but felt something to be missing. After meditating on his doubts for some time, he found the courage to approach Master Foo about his problem.

“Master Foo,” he asked “why do Unix users not employ antivirus programs? And defragmentors? And malware cleaners?”

Master Foo smiled, and said “When your house is well constructed, there is no need to add pillars to keep the roof in place.”

The novice replied “Would it not be better to use these things anyway, just to be certain?”

I won't spoil it by stealing the ending - RTWT. There's a reason that Eric Raymond has the reputation that he has. Make sure to read the Unix Koans while you're there. My favorite (obviously) is about the Black Hat h4X0R.

It's not that Unix is impervious, but architecture counts. A lot of what's happening is driven by market share, but it's quite hard to see how it could be remotely this much trouble if, say, Ubuntu Linux had 80% market share.

Of, and if you want to learn a lot about how computers developed. you could do a lot worse than to spend an hour (or twenty) on Raymond's site with the Jargon File. I used to have one of those paper editions, from (I think) 1991. (Actual Jargon file is here, but you should read the other link which is pretty interesting)