"Apple Computer is banking on the open-source heritage of its operating system to spare Tiger, the fifth version of the software, from the security woes that have dogged Microsoft.

The operating system update, due to debut in the first half of 2005, is based on the Unix platform, and Apple executives reckon the open-source nature of the product means it's inherently more secure than certain proprietary offerings.

Bertrand Serlet, senior vice president of software at Apple, said Wednesday that having a greater number of people keeping an eye on source code leads to better software security. 'A lot of security problems derive from the core," he said. With open-source code, "thousands of people look at the critical portions of source code and...check those portions are right. It's a major advantage to have open-source code.'"

C|Net