Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Fri Dec 13 22:43:13 CST 2013
Hi Peter: That seems to be a good explanation. Aside: With folks like the NSA and it dozens of other look-alikes spawning from ever corner of the globe, security is so important. According to one fellow who has worked at Microsoft for five years; he said that coding there is like nothing you will ever see anywhere else. He suggested that if someone put a back door in that spaghetti code, the whole thing would collapse. He is now a Linux developer and says OS coding is very different...if you scramble and post your code, within an hour, you are getting flamed from every direction. He said it was like being fat and out-of-shape on a nudist beach...everyone can see and in the IT world no one holds back. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Brawley" <peter.brawley at earthlink.net> To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com> Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 8:09:35 PM Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Open source is safer, and Linux is more secure than any other OS? On 2013-12-13 7:49 PM, Jim Lawrence wrote: > Hi All: > > According to the Linux Foundation executive director: > > http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/26/linux-chief-open-source-is-safer-and-linux-is-more-secure-than-any-other-os-exclusive/ > > Is this assumption right or wrong? "The whole world can see every line of code in Linux. This is one of the reasons Linux is more secure than other operating systems and why open-source software overall is a safer than closed software. The transparency of the code ensures it's secure." "It's very difficult to insert something into the kernel that would violate privacy and freedom without thousands of developers noticing. The nature of Linux is that it's self-policing." It's not a deductive truth, but it's a plausible empirical claim that fits what we see year after year. Seems to me with respect to Windows there's a mirror image claim. Not only does M$oft have just one building full of debuggers, as opposed to OSS software having a worldful; Windows software is designed such that everything can connect intimately to everything else---if you can get past M$oft eyes, you may be home-free to do widespread mischief. PB > > Jim > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com