this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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When a service advertise as 100% open source, do you expect the website to be open-source too? (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Long title, wopsi.

Recently been checking out PIA VPN service(for research purposes), and they advertise their services to be 100% open source. However when checking their Github they don't seem to have their code base for website there.

So this have had me wondering, when you hear the term 100% open source. Do you expect ALL of what they do, including website part, to be open source? Or just the application / service that they offer?

Lemmyknow your thoughts!

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (4 children)

It's pretty common for companies like that to advertise that their app is 100% open source, but then stop short of guaranteeing anything beyond that. In PIA's case, I would point out that their infrastructure (the servers that they use to route your traffic) are closed, so they could be doing literally anything in there. Their desktop client being open source doesn't actually do much to guarantee your privacy.

If you want real transparency, Mullvad is the only real option: https://mullvad.net/en/help/open-source

Having said that, I personally use PIA because it's cheaper and I don't care enough.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think that the client is what really matters, because AFAIK you have no way to verify what's actually running on their servers.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Right, you can't be 100% sure, but there are measures that they can take to make you trust them a bit more. For example, I believe Mullvad runs systems in RAM and keeps no records of who uses what. You don't even have to give them your email address; they don't want it. And they submit to regular audits (provided you trust the auditors).

Also, if the client matters, then don't use their client. Use the OpenVPN client instead.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Thanks for the insight! Yeah aware that Mullvad is pretty much the closest to "state-of-the-art" as it gets, compared to the rest of these services in the market.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Mullvad website isnt open source (https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app/issues/5392)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

just pay 3 eurs more for better service tbh

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I mostly use a VPN for torrents, and not much else honestly. And Mullvad isn't very friendly to torrenters (for good reasons), they don't allow port forwarding.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

No, I don't expect a company's website to be open source, just their primary product or service

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

deleted

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Only if the website is part of the product. Like if to use the product I have to login on the website or am forced to regularly use it or whatever. Then if it is advertised as 100% open source I'd probably be like 'is it though?'.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The whole idea of a service being "open source" sounds like nonsense to me. "Open source" refers to code, not services.

Might as well call my cat "100% open source."

I might use a term like "open source friendly" for a service to mean "can be used without using any proprietary software."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Lol are you like 85 years old?

Open source is a term relating to software. Software is created using code. This isn't a hard idea to track.

Software as a service is common. Feel free to read up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

yes