Why is open source important?
Tags: Open Source, Linux
As a developer I am always faced with the future of technology, and the one thing that has gained a lot of ground in the last 10+ years is open source.
The open source community is alive and flourishing beyond belief, but the one thing the likes of Adobe and Microsoft are yet to come to grips with is the real benefits to this.
And why is this so?
A few weeks ago I posted the following Do you use a mac, are you sure you are not compromised? The amount of comments that email generated was over whelming, to the point that I stopped authorising the comments. Out of all the comments there was an extremely small percentage that I allowed to appear, the reason being was that the majority of the Mac and Unix users where extremely defensive upon the fact that their OS was immune to attacks, whether it be virus or Trojans.
As a follow up to that post I would like to say that if there is no threat to the both of these Operating Systems then why is there so many anti-virus software?
Anyway since that post new threats have come to light that should be taken just as seriously, and it appears that the threat has been around for almost 10 years, or at least since may of 2001.
This is where I think the open source community excels over the likes of Microsoft and Apple, even though Apple is based on a flavour of Linux using this kernel. The point is that Adobe could do the same with the CFML engine, as other engines are open source as well as OS's are.
The point is that if I wish to look deeper into a potential problem with the OS or scripting language I could look at the source code to see exactly what is happening, and if or others thing there is a potential threat it can be passed on for more scrutiny.
Anyway the point I am making here is that this problem with the Linux kernel has been around long enough to open exploits, or cause damage Open Source or not it should be taken extremely serious.
Linux NULL pointer dereference due to incorrect proto_ops initializations (CVE-2009-2692)
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I think Adobe already missed their chance with open-source: Railo is gaining a lot of popularity. I've even read a couple performance reviews that give Railo better marks than Adobe CF. At least Adobe is participating in the Open CFML project so that there can be some standards across CFML engines.
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I do not think Adobe have missed their chance, but what Adobe should be focusing on once ColdFusion 9 is fully released is leaving the CFML engine to the community and moving their focus over to supporting the integration of their products and idea into ALL CFML engines.
May never happen, but would be nice.
# Posted By Andrew Scott | 8/15/09 8:58 AM
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