this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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I support free and open source software (FOSS) like VLC, Qbittorrent, LibreOffice, Gimp...

But why do people say that it's as secure or more secure than closed source software?

From what I understand, closed source software don't disclose their code.

If you want to see the source code of Photoshop, you actually need to work for Adobe. Otherwise, you need to be some kind of freaking retro-engineering expert.

But open source has their code available to the entire world on websites like Github or Gitlab.

Isn't that actually also helping hackers?

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If I can see the code, I can see if said code is doing something fucky. If I can't see the code, I have to just have faith that it's not doing something fucky.

[–] bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works -4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You theoretically can see the code. You don’t actually look at it. Nor can you even have the knowledge to understand and see security implications for all the software you use.

In practice it makes little difference for security if you use open or closed source software.

[–] Grenfur@pawb.social 17 points 2 days ago

No, you literally can see the code, that's why it's open source. YOU may not look at it, but people do. Random people, complete strangers, unpaid and un-vested in the project. The alternative is a company, who pays people to say "Yeah it's totally safe". That conflict of interest is problematic. Also, depending on what it's written in, yes, I do sometimes take the time. Perhaps not for every single thing I run, but any time I run across niche projects, I read first. To claim that someone can't understand is wild. That's a stranger on the internet, you're knowledge of their expertise is 0.

In practice, 1,000 random people with no reason to "trust you, bro" on the internet being able to audit every change you make to your code is far more trustworthy than a handful of people paid by the company they represent. What's worse, is that if Microsoft were to have a breach, then like maybe 10 people on the planet know about it. 10 people with jobs, mortgages, and families tied to that knowledge. They won't say shit, because they can't lose that paycheck. Compare that to say the XZ backdoor where the source is available and gets announced so people know exactly who what and where to resolve the issue.