Another security hole found in Excel

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Let's do some research...

"Open Office is not secure, never has been secure and never will be secure. This isn?t conjecture, its an established fact widely reported on around the net for years, and continues to have security issues to this day as was recently reported in bugs that required a series of patches or a complete upgrade."

This entire post is based on nothing but conjecture and almost no facts. Sure security issues can't be removed from software, but security issues are not unique to OpenOffice.

From a security standpoint (if you actually understand anything about security), it is much more secure.

The distros patch the software the end user gets updated software when upgrading as a security fix.

It would be interesting if you could point when the entire Office suite had to be updated to fix a security problem. Most of the version upgrades have only provided feature enhancements and additional functionality.

"What they are not telling you is there is flaws in the new upgrade as well, but its going to take someone who wants to spend the time to go in and find them the way MS does, or IT security firms do."

Right... What a silly statement. To even make such a statement shows that you have very little understanding of the concept your discussing.

If you actually believe that Microsoft is actively looking for deficiencies in their software your sadly mistaken. You have to understand the grand scale it requires to then fix the vulnerabilities because of what is commonly referred to as Integration.

The problem with integration is that you can't just fix just the broken piece you also has to fix all the other pieces that get broke because of it.

You see? And in Vista, Office 2007 will be integrated into the OS which will only make problems worse...

"Nobody is in a big rush to solve Open Office problems though so they typically lay their and rot for months until someone finally admits to them."

Lay there and rot? How insightful. The reality is that there is an open system of reporting bugs and vulnerabilities in open source software so it is relatively easy all kinds of reports. The important point is that they are open to community review and this also provides much quicker fixes.

"Follow the lower links for just a few of the reports we have seen of Oo issues that have come up, one link shows 2005, others go right to a few days ago. Open Office will always be a sieve."

You should actually look at the links your posting before making wild generalizations. It is easy to grab a bunch of links for old vulnerabilities, vulnerabilies that been fixed etc.

The three most current vulnerabilities:

Java Applets, CVE-2006-2199
* State: Resolved

Macro, CVE-2006-2198
* State: Resolved

File Format, CVE-2006-3117
* State: Resolved

You know what resolved means? Other than that, providing references other 2004 and 2005 vulnerablities that have been corrected long ago.

"And as far as Open Office so called superior performance goes? Ha. It gets by, but it?s a clearly inferior product when you compare it to Windows Office. Ha! In fact a lot of people who use open source will tell you that Open Office has problems and they will not use it. Read the following quote from madpenguin.org, a pro Linux website"

?No open source project is perfect, and OpenOffice.org certainly has flaws. Some people complain that it is too bulky and slow to load, especially when compared with Koffice or GNOME Office or AbiWord or text editors such as Emacs. Some people don't like the fact that there is a greater emphasis on Java in OOo 2.0.?

I didn't see any reference to "people not using it" as you put it, but you may see it that way. The rest of the paragraph is as follows:

"But diversity is the strength of free open source software, and the very existence of those other office productivity software packages is what makes OOo 2.0 stronger. Where OOo 2.0 is weak, those other excellent projects pick up the slack. And with KOffice and AbiWord moving to the OpenDocument format (ODF), the synergy between these various office productivity packages will become more significant."

Basically it isn't a mad competition going between open source projects that support ODF.

The reality is that worldwide acceptance of ODF as open standard is growing whether you like it or not. The functionality of software that supports ODF will also grow as more and more individuals and groups begin to use it.

I have been there done that and I understand the truth.

Posted by: gotitright   Posted on: 07/09/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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