Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Is Open Source Code Secure?

The contention that open-source code programs are more reliable and secure will hold no water. Those who argue in favor of this assertion believe that an open-source code system is tested by a huge number of people on the code level who discover all possible errors. Yes, testing for errors on the code level concurrently with is easy and effective, but the results of such testing are far from ideal. Even after extensive testing by thousands of users, errors crop up in Linux. Moreover, judging from the army of users that tested the latest Windows versions, you would think that it would finally become the perfect operating system. We do know better than that, don't we? Testing is one thing, but running under real-life conditions is another, with unpredictable results popping up.


Linux support is rather expensive, so you might encounter problems obtaining timely updates. Moreover, administering Linux is more difficult than administering Windows. But why is Linux so difficult to master? The answer is simple: Performance and convenience are two incompatible things. Linux is a performance product, and Windows is a convenience product.


Security is often sacrificed for performance or convenience. For example, some programs may have options that make the administrator's work easier (e.g., the PHP interpreter may have the debug option enabled) but at the same time make it easier for hackers to break into the system. Nevertheless, Linux security is higher than that of Windows, and this has nothing to do with it being open source. Simply, many security-related aspects in Linux are implemented better than in Windows. For Example you can see the today's pathetic situation of a windows effected by viruses or malicious programs. Other examples includes the memory allocation of programs in Linux, like in normal circumstances a program cannot oversteps the bound of allocated memory whereas in Windows any program can use the any memory area resulting in the danger of faulty operations or system crash if the memory area of one program being over written by other.


So over all you can grade LINUX far much better for Quality and Development than windows and once you get into it ... you will never look back and if you are still in catch22 try to re-recognize your needs and then decide!!