Open source programs 1

[rpk2006]

Publicly available source code is a must for any privacy software. Users can themselves study the code and decide about its accuracy and backdoor if any.

I want to ask that even if the source code of the Open Source programs are released, how many users know enough C to study the code. The source code is in a very cryptic language. The users of privacy software are many, both a general user (non-programmer) and programmers.

Even among programmers, how many are C programmers?

In most cases, excluding PGP from PGP Corp., I have found Open Source programs buggy and with poor look and feel. You simply will not enjoy using them. It hangs or crashes in most cases, as in GnuPG.

Secondly, if a bug in a program is released after encrypting and sending an encrypted document to a recipient, there is no one to take responsibility.

The declaration of Open Source programs says that it will be not be responsible for any damage caused by the program.

It is good for an open source program to be in commercial hands, so that there is a guarantee of its accuracy, as in the case of PGP available from PGP Corp. You are sure that the source code has been scrutinized by the engineers in the company.

 

[MichealC4]

Not sure if this is a flame attempt or what, but I'll answer this trying to avoid flames.


First off, open source programs are not ugly, or at least don't have to be. It is up to the community to voice their opinions. Also, open source programs are not buggy, or again don't have to be. The community can go over the code and give their comments. Yes, there will be people who don't know C, but then again, there will be people who do. Besides, not everything is in C. You have PHP, Perl, Python, Java, Ruby, and so on. I have never had GnuPG crash on me. Never. Not even due to my stupid mistakes while using it. (The manual is your friend ^_^)

Secondly, I'm guessing you had a bad experience with GPG. The joy of open source is that you can go through the code and identify bug and security holes without (necessarily) throwing everything at it to make sure it works, as the user. Therefore, if you have successfully gotten GPG to work, and have tested it on your system, you can be reasonably assured that it will work at the other end. I have never had problems sending and receiving encrypted emails or documents using GPG.

Not all licenses are the same. However, yes, a number of licenses do indeed say that there is no guarantee. However, I volunteer for two open source projects. I'm a developer of one, and a support tech of another. The one I'm a dev. for is still in SVN (CVS on steroids ), but is extremely stable thus far. The one I'm a support tech for runs the largest website that uses bulletin board software (and it is documented, so I'm not just making claims.

http://www.big-boards.com).

That says something. It says that the software is stable, as well as being well-supported.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but this is just one piece of software, and should not dictate your use and slamming of the genre. If you didn't like a certain horror film, would you put down all horror films? Probably not.

----------------------------
"Security is like an onion" - Unknown