-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Douglas Lucas wrote: > Periodic reminder that despite promises and people's positive emotional > investments in Phil Zimmerman, Silent Circle is still not open source. > > We need an IsHemlisOpenSourceYet.com
I think that this is the most difficult balancing act that anyone has as a developer. If you offer open-source software, the very act of being more transparent directly impacts your bottom line. And not every side-effect is a positive one. So from a business perspective, I can respect that both Silent Circle and Hemlis have made the decision not to offer their full source. But I am also in a position to choose -- I choose not to support Silent Circle -or- Hemlis and to openly caution people about the risks of using closed-source communication software. There's too much opportunity to fail quietly (silently, even), either through bad code or outside pressure or various legal quandries or greed. Too many times people have put their faith into something that is closed-source and for-profit, only to have unforeseen security problems crop up later. But it's a balancing act - perhaps particularly if you're a service. If you open-source all of your code, someone could create a competing service. If a company is transparent about receiving a subpoena for customer data, they run the risk of users leaving. It's easy to say "no big deal" when it's not your rent money. But on balance, I would much rather support organizations who are willing to take that risk and put faith in their users. Silent Circle is clearly not willing to give a potential user like me the benefit of the doubt. So while I like the idea of us all using cypherpunk walkie-talkies, I'd rather code my own solution than give my money and my voice to Silent Circle. Again, it has nothing to do with them as people, and everything to do with their business practices. I don't come at this discussion lightly. I use closed-source software every day. I've built stuff that uses Twilio, which is a closed-source communications API. Other people feel differently about this topic and that is Okay. ~Griffin - -- "Cypherpunks write code not flame wars." --Jurre van Bergen #REDACTED / PGP: 0xAE792C97 / OTR: sa...@jabber.ccc.de My posts are my own, not my employers. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJSI5ArAAoJEOMx/SmueSyX7AcP/i4bLALt4TsUF9Z/qgPiCcMl Ub6auMYa3wTO5aiuwD9613PtQ8iLZF/OHq/3ldAYUlKdqrwTEMPgqNoLBzl+6Xjo 17gmBtjC0aH4faZAbq62O7dxKu1kjCM9DTtUQ8tA192b10Kph5t1Q/lPvsHDT6sz u4hRMCxxk3MdZTZdb53yWgrZVlp805ZRVZ3I20YmdakIiL4fr4lA7s3xk4gNpmmu 5FvBi41tDaIxEwtKuSN1KnrlM0PhlYVAsm4gHp+E/N5sYrVrF6K6kxKtvJNmkr6T l8UlBgf+rTrJVK4C62enCix92BnbD8MwR9e+yvaJy0O8WPM9RJPjw/NRj+6K+mzD /+7LpYGaGJ5IJB/tmkrBaguJMux5MF4Yq1/aZKtmtuZc/GeYjPgzQhTp2px38zin JQfiEDIqltSo4ot67B0Kj2quCMwdRB2EpE54M8okrY7sD7MKvkAtL6s11I/an6bL Jz/eHpp/VRx4RmA6gWZi+UvJ+QjFqgnpoDb7WWJYaBSlfeIEkqHlzuReKfQSteOQ iN4hE1lxBxcKrU/mgnRdC/WTrdZfuKDgBhnRguVaez0SYEVJjQ/rWR7R830JKbmo OD/kiDrO48yYJdQEr/s4VSNTtA2gBYPbx5r6+CMc8jFTr9jcWW5ZhvsPQEPB8r+R jZ1iaJGgFXxo83IWmJ7G =oQzE -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
