This post was in response to a fellow classmate's response to our discussion about the term open source. "Software that is cheap, flexible and less likely to succumb to numerous issues with virus and spyware attacks can be tentatively categorized as open source." The response focused mainly on open source software and not the idea. I expanded on that perspective by saying :
“Open source software is usually supported by an open source community that invests time, resources, updates, patches and important information for distribution to the user base.” From what I see, the open source software community consists of individuals who are skilled at vulnerability detection, virus creation and testing, usability testers and others providing expertise for the benefit of a project. I wouldn't know how to measure how much safer open source applications are in comparison to commercial software products without specific quantitative data, but it's safe to say the the software business “big dogs” are getting the most attention from digital thugs, creating havoc across Internet land.

open source