Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 8th Dec 2005 20:16 UTC
"Of all the myths that have grown up around open source software, perhaps the most pervasive is Eric Raymond's aphorism that 'Many eyes make bugs shallow', suggesting that if lots of people can view a program's source code, they will find and fix its errors more quickly than commercial products whose code is jealously guarded. The only problem with this is that it's not true - certainly not in one of the flagship projects of open source, OpenOffice."
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Security expert Gene Spafford has pointed it out that Open Source in itself doesn't really get you anything in terms of security. It does make it /possible/ for people to view the source code, but he notes that what matters is having people with the right technical skills and tools reviewing the source, rather than many eyes.
And it makes sense - if you have a million 10 year olds looking at your open source software, or a highly trained security professional reviewing closed source software, which do you think is more likely to be secure?
The other thing is that people have to be actually interested in a project to review it's source. With closed source software, you can pay someone with the right skills to do this (whether your business management actually stumps up with the cash is entirely another matter of course!!)