OpenSSL Project Roadmap • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#11

Post by privong » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 4:00 PM UTC

snvzz wrote: post #8

I don't expect much to come from rewarding failure. Throwing money away at OpenSSL isn't suddenly gonna make its developers good. I'll be running LibReSSL, and I expect most Linux distributions to do the same by default once the Linux port is released.

> I don't expect much to come from rewarding failure.

What about adequately supporting developers who have provided a product used by a huge number of people? Yes, they've had failures and have clearly done some things wrong. But they have also made positive contributions. I guess it's a matter of whether one thinks the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater.

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#12

Post by kllrnohj » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 4:11 PM UTC

snvzz wrote: post #8

I don't expect much to come from rewarding failure. Throwing money away at OpenSSL isn't suddenly gonna make its developers good. I'll be running LibReSSL, and I expect most Linux distributions to do the same by default once the Linux port is released.

Not necessarily. They could start by rolling in the changes from LibReSSL. This is exactly what happened to GCC back in the day. GCC development stalled, EGCS forked it, and eventually FSF declared EGCS as the official GCC thereby re-uniting the two projects.

Wouldn't be entirely surprising to see something similar happen here.

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#13

Post by wfjackson » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

snvzz wrote: post #8

I don't expect much to come from rewarding failure. Throwing money away at OpenSSL isn't suddenly gonna make its developers good. I'll be running LibReSSL, and I expect most Linux distributions to do the same by default once the Linux port is released.

There are different degrees of failure. Expecting someone to work for free for you(you as in all the big and small companies making a ton of money) while not inspecting the code for bugs is one of them. Blaming the resource constrained developers accomplishes nothing.

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#14

Post by kbenson » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

wfjackson wrote: post #13

snvzz wrote: post #8

I don't expect much to come from rewarding failure. Throwing money away at OpenSSL isn't suddenly gonna make its developers good. I'll be running LibReSSL, and I expect most Linux distributions to do the same by default once the Linux port is released.

There are different degrees of failure. Expecting someone to work for free for you(you as in all the big and small companies making a ton of money) while not inspecting the code for bugs is one of them. Blaming the resource constrained developers accomplishes nothing.

I think that just points to failure on both parts. Users of OpenSSL failed to correctly vet the codebase, and OpenSSL developers (according to numerous reports I've seen) failed to build a secure and clean (in this case, I think those are related) codebase.

This happens occasionally, a product is the leader in it's market because it was the only game in town, but eventually it's replaced as something beats it in one or more of the categories of features, speed, reliability, or freedom. See ssh.com vs OpenSSH.

The truth of the matter is, many people have concerns about the security of OpenSSL (and IMHO, rightly so), and no matter how bad we feel for the developers, this is not a case where we should trust in our loyalty. This is our personal security, the security of the businesses we work for, and the customers that use them. I can't in good faith use anything but what I consider the best choice, given whatever constraints I already face.

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#15

Post by viraptor » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 5:02 PM UTC

cnst wrote: post #9

snvzz wrote: post #8

I don't expect much to come from rewarding failure. Throwing money away at OpenSSL isn't suddenly gonna make its developers good. I'll be running LibReSSL, and I expect most Linux distributions to do the same by default once the Linux port is released.

Yes. It's also funny that if you look at each of the 8 points identified in the posted link, they're like all have already been identified and many have already been fixed in LibReSSL. Why use OpenSSL, if LibReSSL already has had a head start on each issue? And OpenSSL probably doesn't even intend to address some of these, like removal of FIPS support.

Can they remove FIPS at all? Big distributions will certainly want to (have to) offer the FIPS-capable version to some of their customers. I imagine it would cause some serious overtime at RedHat for a number of weeks (months?) if OpenSSL decided to drop FIPS completely.

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#16

Post by maximumoverload » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 5:13 PM UTC

snvzz wrote: post #8

I don't expect much to come from rewarding failure. Throwing money away at OpenSSL isn't suddenly gonna make its developers good. I'll be running LibReSSL, and I expect most Linux distributions to do the same by default once the Linux port is released.

LibreSSL is yet very experimental and OpenBSD-focused.

Which is not wrong, but I wouldn't say it's right now well-baked for inclusion in major Linux distributions.

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#17

Post by anaphor » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 5:27 PM UTC

maximumoverload wrote: post #16

snvzz wrote: post #8

I don't expect much to come from rewarding failure. Throwing money away at OpenSSL isn't suddenly gonna make its developers good. I'll be running LibReSSL, and I expect most Linux distributions to do the same by default once the Linux port is released.

LibreSSL is yet very experimental and OpenBSD-focused. Which is not wrong, but I wouldn't say it's right now well-baked for inclusion in major Linux distributions.

You're vastly overstating the difficulty in porting LibreSSL. It's 99% POSIX standard use of APIs and modern portable C except for a few security related functions they use that are non-standard such as explicit_bzero, reallocarray, and strlcpy.

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#18

Post by anaphor » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 5:42 PM UTC

InfiniteRand wrote: post #7

While I would not necessarily prioritize this above any of their other concerns mentioned in the roadmap, I would love to see openssl use a more standard build process instead of generating code through perl as part of their build

It would also be nice if they tested builds with infrequently used options. I've tried building with documented options, e.g. no-comp (disables compression) and it completely failed. Presumably because the CPP generated something that no longer built using that option.

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#19

Post by Nakatomi_Plaza » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 5:50 PM UTC

anaphor wrote: post #17

maximumoverload wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LibreSSL is yet very experimental and OpenBSD-focused. Which is not wrong, but I wouldn't say it's right now well-baked for inclusion in major Linux distributions.

You're vastly overstating the difficulty in porting LibreSSL. It's 99% POSIX standard use of APIs and modern portable C except for a few security related functions they use that are non-standard such as explicit_bzero, reallocarray, and strlcpy.

Indeed https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=140332790726752&w=2 there are portable versions of strlcpy, explicit_bzero ect.

Re: OpenSSL Project Roadmap

#20

Post by leccine » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 6:04 PM UTC

wfjackson wrote: post #13

snvzz wrote: post #8

I don't expect much to come from rewarding failure. Throwing money away at OpenSSL isn't suddenly gonna make its developers good. I'll be running LibReSSL, and I expect most Linux distributions to do the same by default once the Linux port is released.

There are different degrees of failure. Expecting someone to work for free for you(you as in all the big and small companies making a ton of money) while not inspecting the code for bugs is one of them. Blaming the resource constrained developers accomplishes nothing.

I never asked any OpenSSL guys to work for free for me. Btw. I am contributing to FOSS projects before you are accusing me that I never done anything to the community. I totally understand the responsibilities of open source developers. Having software that supposed to provide security is a huge responsibility and in those projects following best practices (not re-implementing malloc badly, etc.) is insanely important. Just because it is free it does not mean that you can throw out everything we know about software engineering, and it does not justify broken software. There is a tendency in the software community that if it is free it can be crap and nobody can complain about it. This is bad attitude. If you can't write great software just please don't do it and try to hide behind the open source flag.