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The Secrets Of Open Source Security |
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Source: Tech Republic - Posted by Eric Lubow
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Debates rage across the Internet about the comparative security of Microsoft Windows and Linux-based operating systems. Many people have vested and biased interests in their positions on the matter. Misconceptions born of incomplete knowledge and logical fallacies contribute to the confusion and the heat of the debate. Advertising campaigns attempt to cast their sponsors in the best possible light, and partisan studies use massaged statistical data to produce apparently authoritative and objective, but ultimately no less biased and suspicious, facts to bolster arguments. Part of the reason for seemingly endless debates without much certainty of conclusions in sight is that many of the attempts to assess security focuses on epiphenomena: they examine the surface features of security without getting into much depth in analysing the reasons for security characteristics.
Part of the reason for this is that, to major proprietary software vendors, the workings of open source development are mysterious and new. As a result, these corporate vendors of closed source software do not always grasp what is happening behind the scenes with regard to security in the open source world. Another part of the reason is that many of the people involved in the debates are end users with only superficial understandings of what contributes to software security. Even IT professionals often don't understand the effects of software architecture and development process on software security, because IT professionals' skills can exist anywhere in a wide range that often does not include any real understanding of open source development and software architecture, even when it does include a very in-depth understanding of network and system security configuration.
Read this full article at Tech Republic
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