Security issues for open source softwares

In one of the discussion board of this week, we discuss about the open source from the end user perspective.

The open source software I have used before is:

• Mozilla Firefox
• OpenOffice
• Apache Tomcat (for displaying the webpage written by Java Servlet and the JavaServer Pages (JSP) code)

Programs that I have heard but never tried:
Moodle, Linux, Notepad++

Software I have never heard:
Ubuntu, Edubuntu, Redhat, SuSE, PDF Creator, ClamWin, VLC Media Player, Audacity, Stellarium, GIMP, 7-Zip, subversion (code repository), bugzilla (bug reporting database system), SAKAI (a collaboration and courseware management platform), Gimp (great photoshop clone), Filezilla…etc.

Gina and Kent discussed about the security issue of open source. Maybe because I do not use a lot of open source software and rarely use them, I have no idea how critical and serious it is for the security of open source. However, I think this security issue impacts both open source and Closed source software. I don’t know much about the cryptography skill, and I don’t know how that influences the spread and use of open source. But I don’t think closed source software is 100% safe either. Microsoft Windows is a prevailing platform, and it is a huge target of virus attacks. In contrast, we rarely heard about a virus attack to Linux system. I do not mean to emphasize that open source is better than closed source. Actually, I rely heavily on MS Office Suite. But because of the competition from open source, that makes the closed source / “mainstream” software improved the products. Hence, I have more positive attitude to open source. Similar to Harold Stephenson‘s point of view, the open source makes the “mainstream“ software (e.g., MS Office, IE) better.