Open Source?

[tentron]

Various experts deem Open Source being more secure, with good reasons. It is tiring to discuss this topic over and over again when there are great articles like e.g. here in Wikipedia and at Bruce Schneier's Blog.

 

But one of the biggest misunderstandings is, that open source software does not make money. This is absurd if you look at companies like Red Hat that earn a lot with open source products.

 

So here are my four reasons why I will never use Bleep:

* Trust Issues: Source Code not revealed

* Trust Issues: Patriot Act

* Trust Issues: Official Statements

 

And, most important: There are good Open Source alternatives like TextSecure / Signal . I don't see any USPs in Bleep except using different technology which is uninteresting from a user's perspective.

[vasaka]

For me the main reason to want open source chat is to avoid fate of Skype. It was p2p in the past, now it is all routed through asure and provides eavesdropping capabilities for authorities, if skype was open source this would be solved by fork the moment this happens.

 

There is just no meaning to switch to Bleep when it is not protected from such scenario. Ill will of bittorrent.inc or some bad acquisition or legal obligations, and bam bleep is no more secure communication tool.

 

As we see on btsync example even ill will of bittorrent.inc is not an impossible scenario. We can face with subscription fee for 10+ contacts at some point or some similar nonsence.

[2disbetter]

I might be ignorant on this, and I haven't bothered to read the rest of this thread but as a fellow software engineer I really hope Bleep doesn't go open source. (AND CERTAINLY NOT SYNC) As far as I understand the underlying mechanics of both pieces of software are proprietary. They are built on what fuels BitTorrent as a company. Why would they want to give that all away? Especially when it's not needed. Open source is a noble pursuit, but expecting a commercial entity to do it just because it's the hip thing to do is ridicules. Bleep and Sync are complex impressive pieces of software that took many talented individuals a lot of time (read their lives) to create and continue to build. I don't expect anyone to work for free, unless they are in a position where they can. This position is not one people are typically in. 

 

I wish there was a way to monetarily support Bleep because I feel like it's heading towards abandonment and it is a real shame. 

 

2d

[r2dnb]

You should have read the rest of the thread. If you had done so, you would have realized that what you're saying has already been discussed.

Listen, you would be surprised of who you are talking to, I'm far from being an open-source guy. Everything I sell is closed-source.

The point of this topic is not proprietary vs open-source. The point of this topic is : selling a product whose unique selling proposition is privacy and p2p communications without releasing the source code is 1/ hilarious, 2/ dangerous for the user.

The way I see it : they've wasted their time. It was a big mistake. Textsecure and Tox are having a momentum, meanwhile Bleep is dying. Think about it for one second, has you said Bittorrent has decade of experience in P2P, but it managed to be bitten by people who reinvented the wheel from scratch. It is already a case study I mention in my consultancy sessions.

They might be good with technology but they didn't understand their market. And this is the point of this topic : Closed-source, this product is unfit for the market with the current selling line.