In the paper “Opening the Open Source Debate”, scheduled to be released friday by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, there are claims that Open-Source leads to less secure software than with proprietary software. The report warns goverments against relying on Open-Source software for national security. What is interesting is that Microsoft funds the Washington based think-tank.
The Register – Open source invites terrorism – study:
We imagine the argument will have to go something like this: Microsoft software is safer because the company carefully conceals its security flaws; thus evil terrorists will never find them on their own. But with open source products, the Evil Doers will be able to audit the source code and find novel weaknesses they can exploit to bring Christendom to its knees.
We say that because we know they can’t possibly try to argue that MS offers inherently more secure products. Although they might; as our friend Richard M. Smith points out, the Institution takes money from Redmond.
Wired – Did MS Pay for Open-Source Scare?
“It is not our policy to comment on supporters; I’m sure you can understand. From this you should not infer that information you have is correct or not correct; we just don’t comment,” Fossedal wrote in an e-mail.
“These folks really need to be more straight-forward about this,” security researcher Richard Smith said. “Not commenting makes it appear as if they have something to hide.”
To me it seems like this package of FUD, apparently appearing from Redmond by ways of the Microsoft funded think thank, is going to backfire on Microsoft.