The XZ Utils backdoor, discovered last week, and the Heartbleed security vulnerability ten years ago, share the same ultimate root cause. Both of them, and in fact all critical infrastructure open source projects, should be fixed with the same solution: ensure baseline funding for proper open source maintenance.
Hear me out. What if instead we just included a respected developers open-source project into our multi billion dollar product, paid them nothing, and gave them the pressure of ensuring it’s working for millions of users at the threat of their reputation until their mental health is in shambles? 🤔