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Is Open Source Security a Myth?

By Guido Schryen
Communications of the ACM, May 2011, Vol. 54 No. 5, Pages 130-140
10.1145/1941487.1941516
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opened and unopened locks — Photograph by Byron Mayne McClain, Illustration by Carmine Luino

We became accustomed to acquiring software by procuring licenses for a proprietary, immaterial object. However, in recent years, this habit has begun to be accompanied by a model characterized by software that comes with a compilable source code. This is "open source software."

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Anonymous

April 28, 2011 08:24

Why not studying also the time needed to patch a vulnerability (if eventually got patched) under the two developing models?

The shorter the time between disclosure and patch and the smaller the probability that the bug might be maliciously exploited...

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