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<title>Free Software is More Reliable!
- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)</title> Foundation</title>
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<h2>Free Software is More Reliable!</h2>

<p>Apologists
for <a href="/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware">proprietary
software</a> like to say,
“<a href="/philosophy/free-sw.html">free software</a> is a nice
dream, but we all know that only the proprietary system can produce
reliable products.  A bunch of hackers just can't do this.”</p>

<p>Empirical evidence disagrees, however; scientific tests, described
below, have found GNU software to be <em>more</em> reliable than
comparable proprietary software.</p>

<p>This should not be a surprise; there are good reasons for the high
reliability of GNU software, good reasons to expect free software will
often (though not always) have high reliability.</p>

<h3 id="GNUUtilitiesSafer">GNU Utilities Safer!</h3>

<p>Barton P. Miller and his colleagues tested the reliability of Unix
utility programs in 1990 and 1995.  Each time, GNU's utilities came
out considerably ahead. They tested seven commercial Unix systems as
well as GNU.  By subjecting them to a random input stream, they could
“crash (with core dump) or hang (infinite loop) over 40% (in the
worst case) of the basic utility programs…”</p>

<p>These researchers found that the commercial Unix systems had a
failure rate that ranged from 15% to 43%. In contrast, the failure
rate for GNU was only 7%.</p>

<p>Miller also said that, “the three commercial systems that we
compared in both 1990 and 1995 noticeably improved in reliability, but
still had significant rates of failure (the basic utilities from
GNU/Linux still were noticeably better than those of the commercial
systems).”</p>

<p>For details, see their
paper: <a href="ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/pub/paradyn/technical_papers/fuzz-revisited.ps">
Fuzz Revisited: A Re-examination of the Reliability of Unix Utilities
and Services (postscript 223k)</a> by Barton
P. Miller <a href="mailto:bart@cs.wisc.edu"><bart@cs.wisc.edu></a>,
David Koski, Cjin Pheow Lee, Vivekananda Maganty, Ravi Murthy,
Ajitkumar Natarajan, and Jeff Steidl.</p>

<h3 id="WhyReliable">Why Free Software is More Reliable</h3>

<p>It is no fluke that the GNU utilities are so reliable. There are
good reasons why free software tends to be of high quality.</p>

<p>One reason is that free software gets the whole community involved
in working together to fix problems. Users not only report bugs, they
even fix bugs and send in fixes. Users work together, conversing by
email, to get to the bottom of a problem and make the software work
trouble-free.</p>

<p>Another is that developers really care about reliability.  Free
software packages do not always compete commercially, but they still
compete for a good reputation, and a program which is unsatisfactory
will not achieve the popularity that developers hope for.  What's
more, an author who makes the source code available for all to see
puts his reputation on the line, and had better make the software
clean and clear, on pain of the community's disapproval.</p>

<h3 id="CancerClinicReliesOnFreeSoftware">Cancer Clinic Relies on Free
Software!</h3>

<p>The Roger Maris Cancer Center in Fargo, North Dakota (the same
Fargo which was the scene of a movie and a flood) uses
Linux-based GNU systems precisely because reliability is essential.  A
network of GNU/Linux machines runs the information system, coordinates
drug therapies, and performs many other functions.  This network needs
to be available to the Center's staff at a moment's notice.</p>

<p>According to
Dr. G.W. Wettstein <a href="mailto:greg@wind.rmcc.com">
<greg@wind.rmcc.com></a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>
The proper care of our cancer patients would not be what it is today
without [GNU/]Linux … The tools that we have been able to
deploy from free software channels have enabled us to write and
develop innovative applications which … do not exist through
commercial avenues.
</p>
</blockquote>

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<p>Updated:
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$Date: 2013/10/11 08:10:41 $
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