A security firm researching the safety of the mobile Android operating system has discovered a long list of security bugs, with at least some being thought of as a serious risk.
In a report, security firm Coverity claims to have identified several hundred bugs in the Android operating system. The researchers scoured over 60 million lines of open source code in their Coverity Scan Open Source Integrity Report, including the Android OS source used with the HTC Droid Incredible.
In total, 359 bugs were discovered by the team, with 88 of them categorized as being a “high risk”. Coverity praised Android for having a lower density of bugs per thousand lines of code than average open source software, but said it had a higher bug density than the Linux kernel. Some of the bugs, it argues, should have been caught before release.
All Android distributions are different in some way or another, but it is thought that most Froyo-based Android phones will be vulnerable to the discovered bugs.
Google has responded by preparing over-the-air fixes that it says will be delivered by January at least. The availability of over-the-air fixes is a huge plus for the Android operating system all by itself. Coverity will not disclose details on the vulnerabilities it discovered until patches are available and are being delivered.
Result for: open source software
Roku, makers of the Netflix by Roku set-top box, have announced that they will be making the player open source, giving developers a chance to create open source software for the device.
Roku CEO Anthony Wood confirmed the announcement and said the company would release an SDK (software development kit) before the end of the year. The new announcement also means that users will not only be limited to Netflix content anymore and will most likely be able to surf the Internet using the first generation devices.
Wood made sure to note that Roku’s relationship with Netflix is still sound and the new move will not hurt it. Roku makes all revenue from hardware sales and the company has always said it will be looking for partnerships with any content provider that wants one.
