Comment by adriand

Comment by adriand 7 days ago

I’m curious about the open source nature of this and how you / people in general manage a project where you are hosting it and need to maintain its security, but are also presumably merging pull requests as people contribute to the project. I would be quite paranoid about this, ie concerned that someone might slip a line of code in with the intent of breaching the service that I would not catch during code review. I know this is true of any open source project but it feels especially fraught when you are also hosting it and letting people sign up and pay for it. I’m wondering if you or others have experience with this and what approaches and practices mitigate this risk.

gabeio 7 days ago

Just because a project is “open source” doesn’t actually mean you must accept or even merge PRs from others. After reading others pointing this out my opinion of managing open source projects have significantly changed. Of course, you can entertain PRs and see if the idea behind them is sound but not accept the raw code from others and implement the features they way you envision instead. Keep in mind it’s always possible to have a vulnerability without anyone else’s assistance. This is especially true if you use dependencies, as you don’t keep track of every line of code they add.

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withinboredom 7 days ago

> This is especially true if you use dependencies, as you don’t keep track of every line of code they add.
You absolutely should vendor your dependencies and review them before accepting the new version. Even though they are dependencies, you are ultimately responsible for using them. "They are just dependencies" doesn't absolve you of responsibility.

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- dlln 7 days ago
  
  Great points about dependencies and reviewing PRs. In addition to manual reviews, layering security tools within your CI/CD pipeline is key. Tools like static code analyzers, dependency scanners, and security linters help catch vulnerabilities early. Open source can also be a valuable way to uncover security gaps, but having a secure channel for reporting vulnerabilities is crucial to address them quickly. Leveraging techniques like Content Security Policies (CSPs) adds extra layers of protection, promoting proactive security throughout development and deployment.
  
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skeeter2020 7 days ago

For users of OS projects, a very common approach is to clone into a private repo, then only pull upstream changes within your own timeline/process, and potentially open public PRs at some point after working in private, i.e. you do your business in private, and share in the public part as & when works. For the project maintainer people can open PRs whenever they want but you are under no obligation to accept them or use any of the code; they're doing this to help others but don't need to for their own scenario.

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