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!

  • PeachMan@lemmy.world
    12·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
    61·
    1 year ago

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

  • RQG@lemmy.world
    51·
    1 year 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?’.

  • TootSweet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    54·
    1 year ago

    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.”