"Open source code, much like its commercial counterpart, tends to contain one security exposure for every 1000 lines of code, according to a program launched by the Department of Homeland Security to review and tighten up open source code's security. Popular open source projects, such as Samba, the PHP, Perl, and Tcl dynamic languages used to bind together elements of Web sites, and Amanda, the popular open source backup and recovery software running on half a million servers, were all found to have dozens or hundreds of security exposures and quality defects. A total of 7826 open source project defects have been fixed through the Homeland Security review, or one every two hours since it was launched in 2006, according to David Maxwell, open source strategist for Coverity, maker of the source code checking system, the Prevent Software Quality System, that's being used in the review." Note: I just want to state for the record that the headline has not been written by me. I do like the total kicking-in-open-doors air surrounding it, though.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
And if it were a commercial product they would have been royally screwed. Ring up the company then pray that the actual problem is fixed rather than simply be told, "here is a work around, the problem won't be solved until months later (or the next release)".
You either have flexibility or perceived 'teh cheapness'. The fact is, if the DHS refuses to work with the community of security issues, how is it the problem of open source that they, the DHS, spent 1500 or so man hours on something that could have been avoided? why not setup security audit groups consisting of DHS IT personal and vendors to improve quality?
The whole point of open source is community; the fact that IT is a cost centre within a company, working together with other companies and organisations should not be an issue - you make no money from software, the fact that work with others on fixing common issues isn't going to lead to loss of competitiveness - so there are no excuses as to why it isn't possible.
To me it seems that businesses still live in an era where they're an island - where they can't seem to get their head around the idea of working with companies on common issues which all face, whilst at the same time still competing with each other in the product sphere.
Member since:
2005-07-06
What I find interesting is how this is labelled news when it is confirming what is common knowledge.
The issue isn't necessarily the number of bugs but the speed in which they are fixed, the speed in which the fixes are made available, and when there are security issues, the speed in which structural problems are addressed.
Anyone remember around 2 years ago KHTML went through a spate of security problems so over Christmas one year, one of the developers (on his holiday) did a complete code audit there were some development procedure changes etc. etc. lets remember, these weren't serious security issues, but the developers were proactive enough to bite it in the butt before it became worse. Here we are, 2 years later, with a very secure and stable KHTML/Webkit.
The problem is, however, is that many companies don't want to do the above; what is easier - fixing a problem correctly which might set them back several thousand, or simply continuing to patch which is cheaper (but later offset by a buggy, complex, ugly code based to maintain)? that is the issue at hand.