He's not entirely wrong about that. The ptrace bug has robbed Linux of some of its technical innocence with respect to viruses. Because it has impressively demonstrated what system administrators have known for a long time: all software sucks - every piece of software is garbage. Linux too, fundamentally in its kernel. Usually this garbage manifests itself in areas that are less interesting for end users, usually only kernel programmers curse about it (I'm thinking of the IDE subsystem). Sometimes - as with the ptrace bug - it breaks through completely. Then it's up to the distributions to make upgrades as easy as possible for the user and to make kernel installations in particular very easy to manage - because the kernel is after all the heart of a Unix system, and if there are vulnerabilities there, all the periphery doesn't help anymore. By the way, this is a point where Debian has an Achilles heel: because kernel versions can be combined arbitrarily and the kernel itself, while managed with the distribution tools, is not necessarily fully integrated into upgrades, many Debian systems will certainly remain stuck on outdated kernel releases.
In any case, I'm curious what other collateral damage will emerge in this area and how this bug will have further effects.
At heise online news you can find the original article.