02. 01. 09
Ms. Blankenhorn says that Mozilla Firefox is pretty much the only application that gets regular security updates. This is right and lets face it, 99% of security threats to the desktop will come from that source and as Mozilla keep on top of these risks then that leaves 1%. Any risk needs attending to but, I have to say I have NEVER come across any form of malware in my years of open source use.
An article by
Dana Blankenhorn on ZDNET is making a valid point regarding security updates or lack of them in the open source world. At first I thought, what is she talking about, of course open source gets regular updates but of course that doesn't specifically address security. More often these updates are mearly upgrades - extra functionality and bug fixes but, some organisations are doing something about it. RedHat have always provided support packages, likewise CentOS (A RedHat EL source recompilation). RedHat / CentOS is for server based industry but, desktop systems are included in this. Security has always been at the forefront of all NIX systems and by its very nature is a million miles more secure than Microsoft based systems. As Linux desktops become more well loved then there are going to be more security issues to consider but in my honest opinion it will never be the major concern that it is for Microsoft Windows.
The article does make a valid point but, is it a real risk?
