Corfy's Corner My little corner of the web.

How does Microsoft feel about open-source software? They don't like it one bit. Microsoft will tell anyone who is willing to listen that open-source software is insecure compared to "closed-source" or proprietary software. To me, that is pot calling the kettle black. Microsoft has a long way to go before they can complain about insecurities in other people's products. (More on this in a moment.)

And I wouldn't say that open-source isn't a threat to Microsoft, or at least, I wouldn't say that it isn't a threat to Microsoft's virtual monopoly (I doubt open-source will put Microsoft out of business, but it can cut into their profits). More and more businesses are switching their servers away from Microsoft to Linux, an open-source operating system. Already, 70% of all servers running web pages are Linux-based. (For the record, I have no idea what our web server is, although I suspect it is Windows-based). The PBS server you connect to through Telnet is a Linux computer, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux computer, to be exact, although to be fair, it used to be a UNIX server, not a Windows server. And several businesses are switching their desktop machines over as well (A story appeared a few weeks ago talking about how Novell is switching all of it's 1,500 workstations over to Linux), and many more are looking into it. (Don't worry, there is no danger of me moving the Daily Reporter to Linux, although don't think I haven't thought about it.) Many home users are also making the switch to Linux. Windows is still installed on 90%+ of all computers in the world, but Linux is gaining ground.

Mozilla Firefox, an open-source, stand-alone web browser based on the Mozilla Suite, which in turn was based on Netscape, has taken the web by storm in the two years or so since it was first released, and particularly in the last year. It got a slow start in it's first year because it was so "young," but over the past year it has gained considerable interest. Granted, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still used by 90% of the people who surf the web, but last June, that number was 95%. And not coincidentally, Firefox is used by 5% of the people who surf the web.

Back to the security issue. I saw a report the other day that in 2004, a fully-patched version of Internet Explorer was open to known vulnerablities for 98% of last year. There was a week in October where a fully patched Internet Explorer was not vulnerable to something. Conversely, Firefox was only vulnerable 15% of the year. Opponents say that Firefox wasn't vulnerable because it wasn't targeted, since it had such a small usage. They also argue that since the source code for Firefox is open, then all you have to do is look in the source code for vulnerabilities. Proponents say even if Firefox was targeted, it is still less vulnerable to attacks because two of the things that make Internet Explorer really unsecure (ActiveX and the fact that it is integrated into Windows) are not and never will be problems with Firefox. And they argue that since the source code is open, you have more people looking for those same holes the hackers are with the intent of patching the holes.

For the record, I use Firefox for my regular web browsing, not because of security purposes (well, that is A reason, not THE reason), but because I think Firefox is a better browser. Unfortunately, there are a few pages that I come across that do not load properly, if at all, in Firefox, but I would say that well over 95% of the pages I visit work just fine with Firefox.

And how secure is Linux compared to Windows? There are many factors to look at, but here is one that is scary. There are over 90,000 viruses written for the Windows Operating System. There are around 150 written for Linux, and most of those 150 don't work that well.

I already mentioned I use OpenOffice.org at home. Why? For one, I don't feel like spending $400 for Microsoft Office when I don't really need Microsoft Office, I just need the functionality of Microsoft Office. Second, I never had Microsoft Office at home, so I don't have a lot of Microsoft Office documents that I need to worry about. Third, I rarely get Microsoft Office documents at home that I need to open. Finally, I do need a powerful word processor and spreadsheet. I didn't always use OpenOffice.org, though. I first purchased Corel WordPerfect Suite 8 back in 1998, and later upgraded to Corel WordPerfect Office 9 (aka WordPerfect Office 2000). I ran that up until recently, when I looked at OpenOffice.org and realized that I can do everything I did with WordPerfect Office and more, and OpenOffice.org will run on both Windows and Linux, so I can use the same files no matter which operating system I am in. Granted, it took some time to convert my documents over (both WordPerfect Office and OpenOffice.org will read Microsoft documents, but they won't read each other's documents... the new version of OpenOffice.org, which is still in testing, is supposed to change that, though).