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Open source software is reliable and accurate. Ask a Question

Open source software is reliable and accurate.
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5 Answers

wow i dont even know what that is >.>none the less use it <.<

1 Replies to emocookie's answer

You absolutely use it indirectly, but I'd bet you directly use some open source software. You just may not know it.

Do you use Firefox, Thunderbird, or OpenOffice, for example? Those are some examples.

I'm watching this on Firefox!

It is not inherently any more or less reliable and accurate than closed source software. It depends on the quality of those coding and debug it.

If you have a lot of good coders working on and importantly reviewing and trying to hack the code looking for bugs, then it can be the best.

If you only have one person working on his pet open source project and he is not a good coder, then it is going to be pretty bad.

In the end, it isn't whether the source is open or closed, but the time and effort put in to the code (writing and debugging) that is important.

I would guess I use about 50% open source software.

2 Replies to dr1024's answer

Open source does mean that more people can cast their eyes on it and can prevent silly things like "_NSAKEY" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

"Can", and when they do that is good. But their are thousands and thousands of open source projects and software out there. Do you think they all, or even most of them, get scrutinized rigorously?

Yes. It may not start out that way--all complex code has bugs--but because the source code is available to many people using it many ways world-wide, the feedback and correction phase is much more efficient. Which is why Windows screws up all the time, and Firefox almost never.

1 Replies to dauguy's answer

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It depends. I MOSTLY trust it, but, not enough to use the bleeding-edge trunk builds, and not enough to trust my entire operating system on.