content: Contrary to popular belief, FOSS does not actually make programs more secure. It's actually a dangerous mindset because it promotes laziness over vigilance in FOSS. There are much better ways to determine whether a given program is secure or not aside from what license its under. I will say though that I do believe FOSS is more secure on average but I don't have hard data (no one really does) so it's just an opinion A good read on this. Skip to the conclusion if you are lazy.  And in the end this paper would argue that it is not the number of eyeballs that have stared at code that makes a difference in software quality. What matters are design, specification, implementation, and the education, talent and commitment of everyone associated with the project