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Originally published at Internet.comThis article is a followup to an article entitled The Myth of Open Source Security Revisited. The original article tackled the common misconception amongst users of Open Source Software(OSS) that OSS is a panacea when it comes to creating secure software. The article presented anecdotal evidence taken from an article written by John Viega, the original author of GNU Mailman, to illustrate its point. This article follows up the anecdotal evidence presented in the original paper by providing an analysis of similar software applications, their development methodology and the frequency of the discovery of security vulnerabilities.
The purpose of this article is to expose the fallacy of the belief in the "inherent security" of Open Source software and instead point to a truer means of ensuring the quality of the security of a piece software is high.
Apples, Oranges, Penguins and Daemons
When performing experiments to confirm a hypothesis on the effect of a particular variable on an event or observable occurence, it is common practice to utilize control groups. In an attempt to establish cause and effect in such experiments, one tries to hold all variables that may affect the outcome constant except for the variable that the experiment is interested in. Comparisons of the security of software created by Open Source processes and software produced in a proprietary manner have typically involved several variables besides development methodology...
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