I wanted to ask my fellow Android users what they think about this.
Today I went with a friend who wanted to buy an Android based tablet, he finally settled on the one he wanted at PC World. While the salesman was processing the payment he "warned" that because Android is open source, it is therefore vulnerable.
The way this guy said it seemed to suggest that it is something the staff have been trained to say. We later worked out that he probably meant that Android Market can contain malware since it seems that it is generally open for anyone to upload apps. Correct me if I'm wrong but I can't imagine why else he would say it.
I've been a Linux user and an open source advocate for over 10 years now, I've never heard or seen this sort of thing said outside of Microsoft's own FUD.
Anyone else ever got such a "warning" from PC World or any other retailer?
I've never been to PC World to be honest. Though, I'd have to agree with you. While open source projects could have vulnerabilities added to them by hooligans, other members will just fix the security hole created.
I'd say open source is nearly *always* more secure for that reason. As soon as a problem is found, someone is fixing it.
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None of this wait until "Patch Tuesday" non-sense. Zero-day exploits still exist in the GNU/Linux world but, they are caught and fixed much faster as well.
None of this wait until "Patch Tuesday" non-sense. Zero-day exploits still exist in the GNU/Linux world but, they are caught and fixed much faster as well.
Exactly, first of many thoughts that came to mind is the Mozilla developers. They seem to fix vulnerabilities real quick, within hours sometimes while Microsoft for instance seem to release a temporary workaround while they fix the actual issue which has been known to take over a week or so. Apple have also been known to do the same while avoiding fixing security holes for several weeks (a fairly serious DNS related issue if I recall).
I can imagine someone who is not tech savvy might get put off by such a comment and you know what they would recommend instead, especially since the first thing you see when you walk in the store is particular brand in your face everywhere you look.
Oh and my bad, the store was Currys, not PC World. They are both next door to each other at the trading estate we went to. same group though so I wouldn't be surprised if the same would be said in PC World too.
Interestingly Honeycomb is not Open Source .Only the Android Phone OS are Open Source . Urban legends are amusing .
Hmm... didn't know that. I heard that they didn't release it right away, but assumed they were just waiting for some bugs to be worked out....
Too bad really. I'm sure the community could have figured it out... Maybe the developers will whip the phone OS into a table OS with their mad programming skills...
I think HC will be released with ICS, but I'm not sure on that. They basically didnt want to release it because they cut a lot of corners.
(Oversimplified / dramatic example)
Let's say they knew the tablet screen width in pixels.
Instead of writing some complex method of detecting the width, they could just return the number 768 -- because they know all HC tablets were going be 768 pixels wide.
This would be a bad thing to release to the community as people would put it on devices without the same specs.
There may have been other business and political reasons for Google not to release the source, but the above is the one they gave publicly -- anything else is just speculation.
Back to the topic, retail sales and tech support people almost always have no idea what they are talking about. But the stories are always fun to hear
I wanted to ask my fellow Android users what they think about this.
Today I went with a friend who wanted to buy an Android based tablet, he finally settled on the one he wanted at PC World. While the salesman was processing the payment he "warned" that because Android is open source, it is therefore vulnerable.
The way this guy said it seemed to suggest that it is something the staff have been trained to say. We later worked out that he probably meant that Android Market can contain malware since it seems that it is generally open for anyone to upload apps. Correct me if I'm wrong but I can't imagine why else he would say it.
I've been a Linux user and an open source advocate for over 10 years now, I've never heard or seen this sort of thing said outside of Microsoft's own FUD.
Anyone else ever got such a "warning" from PC World or any other retailer?
Just interested.
While I still use Winders to do more than just let a breath of fresh air into my room, I use all the FOSS software I can on my Win boxes. I'm glad I was not at that Curry's - I would have guffawed in his face and demanded to get my money back pronto, then explaining to *him* that anyone who makes such a hare-brained statement to me is not worthy of receiving m money for any sort of service rendered.
IDGAF if it is corporate policy to say it - I would neither say it nor make any other sort of false statement in the interest of a sale (yes, even one that is contradictory to the current sale being made).
PC World and open source
