Defense & Intelligence Policy, Business and Technology

Pentagon's move toward open source software isn't going to enhance security

The Hill: The expected 2018 Pentagon and Department of Defense (DoD) budget includes a new pilot program which requires at least 20 percent of custom developed code to be released as open source software (OSS). The OSS program holds many advantages, notably reducing costs and increasing code reuse, but one of its claimed benefits — improving security — is not quite as simple as it seems.

The perception that open source software is more secure than its closed source cousin is best explained with Linus’s Law. The law, named after the creator of the open source Linux operating system, states that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” Since the code of open source software is publicly available, the entire community can inspect it, uncovering all flaws and security holes. This statement may have been correct when it was coined in 1999, when OSS was still in its infancy, but it was rendered invalid as the usage of open source skyrocketed.

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