Quote: Original post by BeanDog
Agreed. I disagree with the GPL's intentions, but making publicly-funded source code public makes a whole lot of sense. The more mission-critical it is, the more I'm convinced it should be public.

Would you like the source code of some advanced missile guidance system fall into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists ? What about the software that generates the precisely timed explosions compressing a plutonium implosion core in exactly the right way to make it detonate at full yield ?

See, neither would I. While peer review is a really good idea, sometimes security by obscurity is also a perfectly valid concept. Some knowledge should not be available to everyone.

Quote: Original post by stupid_programmer
What I meant is the US goverment already gets dozens (hundreds?) of attacks everyday on its computer systems. Putting out the source code would just about be like giving the hackers the keys to place. Fixing a buffer overflow error that got missed after a hacker has launched the nukes might be a bit of a moot point. Even if it is bug free you are giving them the tools to know what to design around to get what they want. With bank software you might not feel so good after a bug was fixed that drained your bank account.

I doubt the machine with the big red button has either a single big red button and public internet access, I also doubt bank software hacking would get you much more than you could get with social engineering alone.

Quote: Original post by Promit
Go tell the Linux or BSD guys your theory about computer security and see what happens.

Are there Linux computers controlling the launch silo of a missile? Hell, there might be which makes my point moot. But there is security and then there is security. When it comes to national security denying the bad guys as many tools as you can seems like a good idea.

Quote: Original post by Kwizatz
I doubt the machine with the big red button has either a single big red button and public internet access, I also doubt bank software hacking would get you much more than you could get with social engineering alone.

True enough, my examples are a bit extreme. But if you can make a hackers job that much harder by just doing a simple thing as not releasing source doesn't that sound like a good idea? I'm not trying to come across as anti open source. Just that the opinion that all software should be free has the potential to be a bad idea.

Quote: Original post by Yann L
Would you like the source code of some advanced missile guidance system fall into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists ? What about the software that generates the precisely timed explosions compressing a plutonium implosion core in exactly the right way to make it detonate at full yield ?

See, neither would I. While peer review is a really good idea, sometimes security by obscurity is also a perfectly valid concept. Some knowledge should not be available to everyone.

What would you do with the source code for the advanced missile guidance system without the actual missiles? if you get the missiles, wouldn't you get the binaries anyway? wouldn't the binaries be enough for you to launch the missiles?

Quote: Original post by Kwizatz
What would you do with the source code for the advanced missile guidance system without the actual missiles? if you get the missiles, wouldn't you get the binaries anyway? wouldn't the binaries be enough for you to launch the missiles?

Maybe more realistic and worrisome to suggest it gets around to, say, North Korea.

Quote: Original post by Kwizatz
What would you do with the source code for the advanced missile guidance system without the actual missiles? if you get the missiles, wouldn't you get the binaries anyway? wouldn't the binaries be enough for you to launch the missiles?

It's more about reverse engineering it to find flaws. By having the source, you can run tons of simulations that would let you find effective ways to evade the missile or even manipulate it. You would be able to exactly tell how the missile would react to certain situations.

Quote:
Maybe more realistic and worrisome to suggest it gets around to, say, North Korea.

Yeah.

I still don't quite buy it, I think you guys are overestimating what can be done with source code alone and may be missing some things that are possible even without it.

Quote: Original post by Wan
No, the licenser's intention is irrelevant. If the terms are unclear or ambiguous, it's the licenser's problem. He can't point at a preamble and say "but that's what I meant".

I think he probably can, at least in some jurisdictions. After all, anything you write in a natural language (like English) is ambiguous, so what matters is how people understand what you wrote. And the preamble shapes (to some extent) how people understand the rest of the license terms.

Quote: Original post by Promit
Maybe more realistic and worrisome to suggest it gets around to, say, North Korea.

How would the source code for american missiles be useful to North Korea who doesn't have american missiles?