[from ACM TechNews:
http://technews.acm.org/archives.cfm?fo=2011-03-mar/mar-09-2011.html ]
Open Source an Open Goal for Health Care IT--Research Finds Both Cost
and Security Benefits
University of Warwick (03/08/11) Peter Dunn
Researchers at the University of Warwick and University College London
(UCL) have found that open source software could be more secure than
more expensive alternatives. "If the code is in the public domain, and
the user and programmer community are engaged, then the buyer can
profit from more people inspecting and fixing the code leading to
higher quality source code and in turn software," says UCL's Carl
Reynolds. Warwick professor Jeremy Wyatt says that although open
source critics argue that public code makes it easier for criminals to
exploit vulnerabilities, "our work ... shows that the evidence does
not bear this out and in fact open source software (OSS) may be more
secure than other systems." Open source allows for the independent
analysis of a security system, which makes bug patching easier and
forces developers to spend more time and effort making the code
secure, Wyatt says. The researchers also disagree with the notion that
OSS is riskier due to liability issues.
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/open_source_an/Glen Newton
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