Isn't it hard to get reliable support for open-source software?

Absolutely not! InfoWorld's 1997 "Best Product of the Year" roundup should have demolished this myth once and for all. Read the article to see their analysis, including this quote:

... readers who are using Linux in a business environment said they found the support they received to be far more impressive than what they were used to with commercial software.

Linux is not an exception. In fact, business users will generally find that mature open-source products are far more reliable to begin with, and that when support is needed it is dramatically cheaper and easier to get than from closed vendors.

Doesn't closed source help protect against crack attacks?

This is exactly backwards, as any cryptographer will tell you. Security through obscurity just does not work.

The reason it doesn't work is that security-breakers are a lot more motivated and persistent than good guys (who have lots of other things to worry about). The bad guys will find the holes whether source is open or closed (for a perfect recent example of this see The Tao of Windows Buffer Overflow).

Closed sources do three bad things. One: they create a false sense of security. Two: they mean that the good guys will not find holes and fix them. Three: they make it harder to distribute trustworthy fixes when a hole is revealed.

In fact, open-source operating systems and applications are generally much more security-safe than their closed-source counterparts. When the "Ping o' Death" exploit was revealed in 1997 (for example) Linux had fix patches within hours. Closed-source OSs didn't plug the hole for months.

Alan Cox has written an excellent article on The Risks of Closed Source Computing.

How is "open source" related to "free software"?

The Open Source Initiative is a marketing program for free software. It's a pitch for "free software" on solid pragmatic grounds rather than ideological tub-thumping. The winning substance has not changed, the losing attitude and symbolism have. See the discussion of marketing for hackers for more.

So that it is clear what kind of software we are talking about, we publish standards for open-source licenses. We have created a certification mark, "OSI Certified," to be applied only to software that is distributed under an open-source license that meets criteria set by the Open Source Initiative as representatives of the open software community. We intend this mark to become a widely recognized and valued symbol, clearly indicating that software does, in fact, have the properties that the community has associated with the descriptive term `open source'.

Open Source Software Can Help Your Business!

MySQL – A fast SQL database server.

Apache – A high performance Unix-based HTTP server.

Ethereal – A GUI network network protocol analyzer.

Ettercap – A multipurpose sniffer for switched LANs.

OpenOffice.org – An Open Source version of StarOffice.

AbiWord – light weight, stand alone word processor.

OpenSSH – FREE version of the SSH protocol suite.

Mozilla Suite – Web browser, mail client.

TightVNC – Remote Desktop

PuTTy – Telnet and SSH client.

PDFCreator – Generate PDF documents.

GIMP – photo editing/creating software

Audacity – Sound editing program which can record, playback, and mix sounds.

7-Zip – Program for creating or unpacking many archive formats.

NetTime – Simple time synchronization client.

WinPT – Collection of applications to assist you with digital encrytion.

FileZilla – Fast and reliable FTP client and server.

XChat – Multiplatform IRC client

2004-10-26T19:43:47