Date: 04/19/05 (Mozilla)    Keywords: software, linux, microsoft

A couple articles I've come across today that I thought I might share in case people missed them.

I found both on Slashdot, not surprisingly.

The first is The Pros And Cons Of Firefox, by Fred Langa on InformationWeek. Although he makes some good points for either side of the debate, he does miss on key area. There may be as many bugs in Mozilla software as in Microsoft, the major difference is what is likely to happen when someone finds this vulnerability. I think Open Source/Linux supporters are more likely to create a patch and pass it on quickly.

The difference is that the people who know how to read and write the code for Linux operating systems are part of the open source community and there are likely far more of them than the ones who would take advantage of the bug for profit or whatever.

Not the same with Microsoft. Some people might alert them, but I think the ones looking for the vulnerabilities are the ones wanting to exploit them. Microsoft's code is not open source as everyone knows, so there is no intelligent user base checking the code to ferrett out these bugs and fix them quickly.

The second article was all about users. The full article is in the Boston Globe, but I only read the summary on Slashdot.

Users as Innovators - Why Open Source Works

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/273953.html