It's a topic of fierce debate among high-tech cognoscenti: What's more secure - "open source" code such as Linux and Apache, or proprietary "closed source" operating systems and applications, Microsoft's in particular?

The regularity with which Microsoft has taken to announcing vulnerabilities and consequent software fixes has left few cheering about its security. In contrast, high expectations endure for open source, with proponents arguing that it's inherently more secure because a much larger set of developers can read the code, vet it and correct problems.

"I'm struggling to think of anyone who would argue the other way," says Adam Jollans, chief Linux technologist at IBM Software Group.

Tim Clarke, IT director at Manifest, a maker of electronic voting and research tools for investment firms in England, feels much the same way about open source security. He says open source developers are "more agile and feel more exposed on a personal level to criticism at whatever level that might be aimed at their products."

Buying into the philosophy

Thus, open source developers are "more able to respond quickly and to use new and more secure techniques. Because they perform for peers' kudos, this, too, behooves them to perform well," Clarke says.

"Open source development is centered around operating systems designed many years ago with security and Internet connectivity as a base requirement," he adds.

Open source is foremost an "ethos" that "is precisely the best social environment for the best development of anything," Clarke maintains. "By contrast, the principle culprit of poor security, Microsoft, has several major issues with producing secure code."

"Microsoft seems lax to security threats," says Robert Swiercz, managing director of the Portal of Montreal, the city's Web site. "I have less and less ability to trust them." He, too, expresses confidence in the open source community, saying, "this is where the solutions are coming from."