Open Source a Little Too Open Published: Mar 31, 2006

• Rating

  4/5

There are so many great things that make open source wonderful. Far to many to list here but there are some things that I think shouldn’t be open source. Whenever you rely on a shopping cart that’s completely open source I think you’re putting yourself at a far greater risk than if you were to purchase one from a stable, reputable organization that maintains their software.

I’ve come to find numerous holes in products such as OsCommerce and
Agora Cart that have frankly scared the hell out of me with information
leaks that are unacceptable. I won’t go into detail about some of the
issues with these for users who are prone to these type of attacks but
I’d suggest changing your software.

Any largely popular script instantly becomes a popular target with
publicity as well. Things like phpBB, Calendar and other easy PHP
scripts have had their share of security problems. I’m glad that some of
these companies take these kind of holes seriously but the problem is
that users never update their software anyways. I guess sometimes users
would rather the risk of being hacked than the almost for sure risk of a
broken upgrade.

I guess everyone needs a few lessons in security, prorammers, store
owners and customers a like.