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  • 29/04/2008

The entire US defence system is based on open source

In 2001, the European parliament asked the European Commission and member states to promote software projects with open source codes as it was the only way of guaranteeing that no backdoors were built into the software. "The different layers of security that is built into FOSS protects it from viruses. Any new programme in FOSS can run only when the administrator activates the programme. The administrator can enter the system only through the administrator password. Hence even if a virus enters a system it remains deactivated till an administrator activates it,' says James Mathew of SPACE. FOSS users validate such claims. "We have not faced any problems related to viruses or systems failures since we shifted to FOSS over a year ago,' says Rajshekhar Kurup, nodal officer for computerization, Kerala Khadi and Village Industries Board.

The other problem with proprietary software is the monitoring mechanism. Since proprietary software companies ensure that one copy of operating system or a software application is used in one computer, it has a system to track the copy of the software through a tracking number. FOSS activists say that this gives the company access to the data stored in a system.

"Computer networks which house data on strategic matters like defence should never be put under a software that is so vulnerable to surveillance,' says Venkatesh Hariharan of Free Software Foundation, India.

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