The Conservative Party is "misguided in its
criticism of the
UK government over its lack of support for open source software",
says a security company, and "open source software exposes users to
significant and unnecessary business risk" anyway.
"The Conservatives have accused the government of failing to
capitalise on open source software, despite reports from government
agencies that have recommended its usage," said Richard Kirk,
Fortify Software
vice-president and general manager of Europe.
He said, "Our own
research, however, has concluded that open source software
exposes users to significant and unnecessary business risk, as the
security is often overlooked, making users more vulnerable to
security breaches.
"That is not to say that commercial software is not without
risks, but any flaws on commercial applications tend to get patched
a lot faster than on open source, as the suppliers producing the
software have a lot more to lose than an open source programmer,"
said Kirk.
Last year, security holes in Google's first open-source Android
smartphone
were blamed on the open source development process by other
security researchers.
Kirk said, "It is highly questionable whether the Conservative
Party has thought this issue through before criticising the current
government for failing to support open source.
"There are a lot more issues to account for than the direct
costs of migrating from commercial to open source applications. The
government should not just consider OS because it significantly
reduces costs, especially after their recent history of data
breaches. They have to be able to guarantee that it is robust from
a security stand-point too."