The Open Source approach—opportunities and limitations with respect to security and privacy

Today’s software often does not even fulfil basic security or privacy requirements. Some people regard the open source paradigm as the solution to this problem. First, we carefully explain the security and privacy aspects of open source, which in particular offer the possibility for a dramatic increase in trustworthiness for and autonomy of the user. We show which expectations for an improvement of the software trustworthiness dilemma are realistic. Finally, we describe measures necessary for developing secure and trustworthy open source systems.