STUDY SAYS OPEN-SOURCE CODE IS HIGHER-QUALITY CODE Reasoning, a consulting firm that offers software inspection services, found fewer errors in the networking TCP/IP code in Linux than in five other closed-source operating systems. Per 1,000 lines of code, the Linux defect rate was 0.1, compared to between 0.6 and 0.7 for general-purpose operating systems (two of three were UNIX versions) and between 0.1 and 0.3 for two embedded operating systems. Reasoning obtained access to proprietary software for the test but would not disclose the names of the operating systems that were compared to version 2.4.19 of the Linux kernel. Offered through Red Hat and SuSE, Linux competes with Microsoft Windows and UNIX-based operating systems such as Sun Microsystems' Solaris, IBM's AIX, and Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX. The study bolsters the view that open-source software is better than proprietary code because it allows for wider scrutiny, which translates to quicker identification and resolution of software problems. CNET, 19 February 2003 http://news.com.com/2100-1001-985221.html
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