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Concerns Raised Over Bitwarden Moving Further Away From Open-Source
(www.phoronix.com)
oh thank god
The community's reaction is a but funny if this was a honest mistake
600 upvotes and only 10 downvotes on literal fake news. I wish readers were less lazy, it’s very frustrating.
Edit: made my statement a bit less toxic. I was mad.
How is it fake news? They are moving functionality into a proprietary SDK and have a whole framework ready to get around the GPL.
No one is listening I'm sorry to say. I corrected a couple people but then realized it was pointless. The discussions in the crossposted communities (which - holy shit I don't think I've seen something so thoroughly spammed across multiple tech communities before) are just as bad or worse.
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can we start reading the articles and not just the headlines??? it literally says it's a packaging bug
It is really not just a packaging bug. If you read that comment of the Bitwarden person a little further, you'll notice that he's talking about that proprietary "SDK" library that they are integrating with their clients. Even if they manage to not actually link it directly with the client, but rather let the client talk to that library via some protocol - it doesn't make the situation any better. The client won't work without their proprietary "SDK", no matter if they remove the build-time dependency or not.
oh shit i didnt know that, mb man
When I read this this morning, I had concerns, but then I did some research. The SDKs source is fully available for all to look at and compile. The main issue that people bring up is the license that states:
3.3 You may not use this SDK to develop applications for use with software other
than Bitwarden (including non-compatible implementations of Bitwarden) or to
develop another SDK.
This part seems to be what most people take issue with, as it makes the sdk no longer modifiable, yet a requirement of the core source itself. The head of BitWarden has come out and stated the SDK being required to compile BitWarden was a mistake, however, and if this proves to be true (which I have no reason to doubt) then I see no reason why any of this is an issue.
From a security standpoint, since the SDK is source available, it can be audited by anyone still (and compiled) so personally, I'm fine with this.
The head of BitWarden has come out and stated the SDK being required to compile BitWarden was a mistake, however, and if this proves to be true (which I have no reason to doubt) then I see no reason why any of this is an issue.
I don't see why this should make any difference at all. Sure, I get why he is are saying they are going to fix it - he thinks that this gets them in compliance with the GPLv3. But from a practical point of view there is no difference at all. The software is useless without that SDK part. Even if it does indeed get them in the clear from a legal point of view (which I am not convinced that it actually does), it is still a crappy situation.
I think, it would look way less shady, if they said they are going fully source-available and not pretend that they are keeping the client open source. I would still dislike that, of course. At least that wouldn't have eroded the trust in them as much as it did for me.
…in the update that came out after this article was posted and the discussion took place.
mb i didnt see the update part
In general, if it's Phoronix, I assume the headline is a bit more exaggerated. They put out pretty good content, but they also put out a lot of content, so the editing can be a little lacking IMO.
Update: Bitwarden posted to X this evening to reaffirm that it's a "packaging bug" and that "Bitwarden remains committed to the open source licensing model."
According to Bitwardens post here, this is a "packaging bug" and will be resolved.
I'm going to keep using Bitwarden because KeepassXC sucks, but not as a paying user. Once this package inclusion is removed, if it is removed, i'll pay again.
what sucks about keepassxc?
I never had any success getting it to work consistently with Firefox.
on some sites the plugin fails to properly detect which fields correspond to which, true (usually when javascript fuckery is involved). But fixing that by manually pointing out the fields once on such sites is easy enough for me. I also switched firefox to use keepassxc for passkeys, which makes them actually portable and usable for me.
Daniel García, owner of the Vaultwarden repo, has recently taken employment for Bitwarden.
The plot thickens.
Honestly, if he can replace the current Bitwarden BE w/ Vaultwarden, that would be awesome! The last time I looked at the Bitwarden self-hostable BE, it was super heavy, which is the entire reason I was interested in Vaultwarden.
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Some guy at bitwarden clicks a button wrong on a license drop-down option and all these people crawl out of the woodwork to declare the end of bitwarden being trustworthy. Nothing in the article or the company's statements indicates an actual move away from open source. Big nothingburger
Maybe you want to read the comment by kspearrin in that Github issue again. They are clearly moving away from open source. He explicitly states that they are in the process of moving more code to their proprietary "SDK" library.
EDIT: The article has been updated and it was described as a “packaging bug” and not an intended change.
How many times do I need to pack up and move to the next “best option”
In this case, zero, because it's a packaging bug, not an actual change in direction. Read the update on the article:
Update: Bitwarden posted to X this evening to reaffirm that it's a "packaging bug" and that "Bitwarden remains committed to the open source licensing model."
Next time, before jumping to conclusions, wait a day or two and see if the project says something.
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Oh, for fuck’s sake. Can we have a decent password manager that isn’t tied to a browser or company? I pay for Bitwarden. I’m not being cheap. But open source is more secure. We can look at the code ourselves if there’s a concern.
They have confirmed it was a packaging bug and will be resolved.
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This is an important issue IMO that needs to be addressed and the official response by Bitwardens CTO fails to do so.
There is not even a reason provided why such a proprietary license is deemed necessary for the SDK. Furthermore this wasn’t proactively communicated but noticed by users. The locking of the Github Issue indicates that discussion isn’t desired and further communication is not to be expected.
It is a step in the wrong direction after having accepted Venture Capital funding, which already put Bitwardens opensource future in doubt for many users.
This is another step in the wrong direction for a company that proudly uses the opensource slogan.
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this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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