I have never seen more excuses in my life. Linux is a convoluted mess that all starts with the Linux Kernel yet people try to make some illogical argument that the comparison is not accurate?
Please all the popular distributions include the earliest kernel (v2.6.x) thus include these vulnerabilities.

This ONE version of the Linux Kernel (v2.6.x) has more vulnerabilities than Windows XP which has been out for 7 years. That is very telling of the insecure state of Linux which is overly hyped as see more "secure".