pull down to refresh
220 sats \ 6 replies \ @nullcount 16 Apr \ on: Who pays for Bitcoin wallets? bitcoin
Not necessarily. There are plenty worse/dangerous/insecure examples of software with a FOSS-flavored LISCENSE.txt in their repo.
Would you use a closed source bitcoin wallet?
reply
Depends. If I started a company and built a new wallet from scratch but I decided not release the source, I would probably still use it since I wrote it and could review the source anytime I wanted.
Or if a company I knew and trusted released a closed source wallet, I'd consider using it if I knew that hundreds of smart people were auditing the code.
Its probably not the best business decision since new customers probably don't trust the business and making the wallet FOSS would allow people to trust the community to vet the software instead of just one centralized team.
Do you audit and review the source code of all the FOSS wallets you use?
reply
Great point, but I don't understand the idea of using a closed source wallet (unless of course you are the developer yourself).
At least open source someone can review it. If it's closed source, how do you even know what it is doing? (It might look fine, but then if you have more than a certain amount of btc, it gives you an evil tx to sign).
reply
If you aren't able to review every line of code yourself...
But you trust the wallet maintainers not to be malicious...
And you trust that hundreds of competent engineers have reviewed the source...
Then whats the difference between using closed and FOSS?
Imagine if Apple included a closed source wallet on every iPhone. I trust Apple not to steal from me... they have a lot to lose by being malicious. And I trust that Apple is employing smart engineers to review the code.
Sure they're probably logging data about me, and that might make the closed source option "worse" in this case. But FOSS could also log data in a way that goes unnoticed for a long time
reply
Apple has a lot lose by stealing from a user, definitely true.
Using an open source project with a lone maintainer and a tiny user base doesn't seem great.
Bitcoin Core on the other hand or Sparrow or Electrum or Blue Wallet have pretty huge user bases.
So the question is: is my trust assumption that competent users are doing a good job reviewing my open source project of choice a bigger leap than the assumption that a large company isn't willing to risk their reputation to steal from me?
I'm not sure how to best evaluate that question.
reply
I prefer FOSS because it is more trustless. But trustlessness alone does not necessarily yield better software.
Excellent software can emerge from both FOSS and closed source, is my point.
In 2032, all software is written and audited by AI so funding development is about to get way cheaper /s