Does Open Source Software Put Government Security at Risk?
The Obama Administration vows to cut costs in part by using open source software (Software whose source code is made available to the user), cloud computing, virtualization, Linux and other low cost technologies. But, does the use of open source software put the government, its records and our national security at risk? The argument goes like this: “If the government uses open source software, then the government is at risk because the security flaws are exposed publicly.” The argument continues with, “The use of proprietary software protects the government from security attacks because its code is hidden and not released to the public.” There is, however, a significant flaw in the argument against open source software’s use in government. The assumption is that by allowing everyone access to the source code, you also open yourself up to more security risk. This is not the case. Open source software guarantees that by exposing its code that any security flaws will be fixed long before
