Can businesses trust open source?

Open source software (OSS) has gained a reputation for being more secure than proprietary software, but some experts disagree with such a broad generalization.

Most point to its open nature of development as a source of both security and flaws. In one camp are those who say the mass participation effort guards against malicious code inserted; the other side says the lack of penalties for insertion of such code may give hackers free reign to wreak havoc.

Laurent Lachal, senior analyst and open source director at Ovum, thinks OSS provides a similar level of security to that of proprietary software, and that enterprises should make educated decisions on the products they are looking to adopt.

Lachal told ZDNet Asia in an interview: "It is hard to generalize, but from a security point of view, OSS is on par with proprietary software."
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