Security Reads wrote: The open source community uses this argument to assert that open source software is more secure than proprietary software. Advocates of proprietary software attack this argument on a variety of grounds, but here’s a little secret: Raymond was right. One cannot deny the logic. In fact, it is a tautology. If you assume that all individuals have a non-zero probability of finding and fixing a bug, then all you need is “enough” individuals. A million monkeys banging on a million keyboards will eventually produce Twelfth Night. Mathematically, the many-eyeballs argument, and the million-monkeys argument are equivalent.
The problem with this logic is that it takes a million years for a million monkeys banging on a million keyboards to produce Twelfth Night. When it comes to security, a lesser number of smarter monkeys who have no morals loot the jungle in far less time than that. RE: Thinking About Security : Microsoft’s Many Eyeballs and the Security Development Lifecycle |