New Study Says Open Source Less Secure

from the how-much-FUD-have-you-had-lately? dept

And the debate rages onward... I'm sure the folks over at Slashdot will have their own field day with this one, but I figured it was worth posting here as well. The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a "think tank", is coming out with a report saying that open source software is less secure than proprietary software. Of course, history seems to suggest otherwise, but why let things like actual facts get in your way. It's easy enough to see how you can make arguments either way. The open source crowd points out that more people look at and play with the code, and thus are more likely to quickly find (and plug) security holes. The proprietary supporters say that since hackers can't see the code, it's tougher for them to find the holes. Both points make sense initially. However, it's pretty clear that most hackers don't have much difficulty figuring out the holes in proprietary software, anyway. So, that argument pretty much goes away. How long until we find out how much money Microsoft donated to this think tank?