On Monday, February 8, 2021 at 16:24, Charles Meyer eloquently inscribed:

> There seems to be a puch-back from administration about offering open
> source software on our public PCs.

That's not unusual as they (or the lawyers) fear what they don't understand.

> Is there any built-in vulnerability with open spruce software as long as
> you download it from the developer's site and not some mirror site?

That is an argument as old as OSS.  Advocates say it's more secure than commercial software ("many eyes" theory).  Detractors (usually administration and commercial vendors) argue it can't be more secure because the "bad guys" can see all the code.

You could point out that MS used to take the "OSS software is bad" approach, but they've changed their tune and now push several, public OSS projects (PowerShell being one).

> Why would GIMP male the library's public computers more vulnerable to
> badware than MS Word?

It wouldn't.  Actually, in a GIMP vs Word comparison, the latter being so integrated with Outlook and with the ability to run Macros is far more vulnerable if not configured properly.

Erich