Re: [Fsfe-uk] BCS on Open Source

[Alex Hudson]

On Fri, 2010-07-30 at 12:18 +0200, address@hidden wrote:
> I don't think that the article deserved the response that it got.
> 
> More importantly I don't think that this kind of reaction does Free Software 
> in the UK any favours. The first comment is totally inappropriate in style, 
> and 
> there are not really any balancing comments to counteract this.

I have to disagree. There is a time and a place for "reasoned debate",
but this isn't it. "Can open source be secure?" is a headline that
invites and deserves flames. It's an offensive stance, and based on
hilariously mis-informed twaddle:

        "Due to the lack of commercial responsibility and the un-managed
        nature of an open source system, established IT support offered
        by organisations such as Microsoft is rare and relying on a
        disparate team of developers who write open source code has
        obvious risks." 

That statement is written by someone who has no commercial experience of
"open source", and who is egregiously unaware of the numerous
mission-critical deployments of said software. Someone who could write
that is demonstrably unable to write authoritatively on the security of
such deployments.

The correct response to that isn't, "I'm sorry, I disagree with you
because <X, Y, Z>". There is no debate to be had here.

Cheers

Alex.


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