ELI5, Why is Open Source Software considered safe if it can be accessed and changed by anyone?
In: Technology
**Security**
some people have bad intentions, but most people have good intentions. the good people outnumber the bad people, but the bad people may outnumber the people who built the program.
when you hide the way things work from everyone, only the people with bad intentions will break it open to find a way it can be used for bad. but when you invite everyone to look at how it works, good people will likely find the things that bad people can use and fix them before bad people can use them
**Operation**
because only a few people are involved in building things, they can’t have everything figured out. maybe someone who will use it will see that with a little change they can use it in a whole new way that a lot of other people would really like, too.
maybe the way the builders put something together doesn’t work exactly like they wanted or exactly like the majority of the people using it want it. someone else can look at it and find a better way to make it work like people want it to
**Filtering**
when one of the good people finds a way to fix a problem, make it work better overall, or even add new things to it, the big group of good people have a chance to look at the changes and see if the changes will make it operate better or worse, more secure or less secure. after the good group has looked at changes and seen that they make it work better and don’t make it less secure, they agree the changes should be sent to everyone who is using it.
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