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Dumb question: how do I know if an open source project is trustworthy? (lemmy.one)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by BurningnnTree@lemmy.one to c/programming@programming.dev

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Some background: I'm a software developer, and I've never really participated in the open source software community before. (i.e. I don't contribute to open source projects, I don't know anyone who does, and I don't really know anything about the companies who start these projects to begin with, or what their motivations are for being open source.)

I'm currently trying to find software that my team at work can use to solve a particular problem we have. After doing some googling, it looks like this open source product called OpenReplay is a good fit for what we need: https://openreplay.com/

But when I first visited that website, I noticed that the background artwork looks AI generated. This made me feel skeptical of the project, and it makes me wonder: what if it's actually a huge scam and it's actually malware? For example, maybe OpenReplay is actually a copy of a different legitimate product that I'm not aware of. Maybe all of the stars, forks, and discussions on the GitHub page are from fake accounts. When I Google OpenReplay, there aren't a whole lot of results. How do I know if it's trustworthy if I can't find an authoritative source telling me it is?

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. But this is basically the first time in my career where I've tried to vet a new piece of software for my team to use, and I want to make sure I'm doing it right. How do you know when a product like this can be trusted?

EDIT: I don't mean to cast doubt on OpenReplay specifically, I'm just using that as an example because it's the product I'm currently looking into. My question applies to any piece of software that isn't widely known about.

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[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Personally I wouldn't trust it.

First red flag🚩: there's an "enterprise" self hosted version.

Second red flag🚩: It isn't open source, the licensing structure is confusing 🚩, but it appears to be at best some mix of source available🚩 and open core🚩 (core available?).

[–] BurningnnTree@lemmy.one 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Can you explain why the enterprise version is a red flag? Would you expect the company to make money some other way?

[–] RonSijm@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's not a big red flag, but it indicates that the product is not fully open source. You can get the full community edition from Github, but for the Self-hosted Enterprise version you have to contact sales.

So all the Enterprise features are most likely closed source, and when you buy/license it, you'll just get the compiled version. And since their Cloud hosting model has a "Per 1,000 sessions/mo" model, their Enterprise self hosted model might have that as well. So it'll have some kinda DRM/License managing, and maybe a "call home" to check your license or usage every once in a while

[–] nik9000@programming.dev 3 points 5 months ago

The point of the license combination they use is to allow the enterprise version to be open and live in the same repo as everything else. Dunno if that's what they do, but that's why the elastic license exists.