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Concerns Raised Over Bitwarden Moving Further Away From Open-Source
(www.phoronix.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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so the "no longer open source" means they'll be moving to a saas model or something? i'm not super cybersecurity savvy but bitwarden is what i use
No, technically they already are SaaS company. That's mostly how they make their money.
Also it should be noted "no longer open source" doesn't mean they've done a "our code is now closed and all your passwords are ours" rug pull like some other corporations. This is a technical concern with the license and it no longer meets proper FOSS standards (in other words, it has a restriction on it now that you wouldn't see in, for example, the GPL).
So by and large the change is very minimal, the code is still available, it's still the best option. However, this does matter. It may be a sign of the company changing directions. It's something they should get pushback about.
The SDK was never FOSS, and was never under the GPL. Hence why they can add the text mentioned in the article. You don't get to change the text of a FOSS license to begin with. It isn't unheard of for text like this to be part of proprietary software that integrates with and uses FOSS that are under different licenses.
That said, this is concerning, but whether it changes BW's FOSS state is a matter of legal bickering that has been going on for decades.
You can’t retroactively change FOSS licensing, but oft times you can alter the licensing moving forward. Not always the case, of course. But in no way are all FOSS licenses set in stone.
It means we have less insight on what they are doing with our passwords.
It doesn't mean that in this case, except perhaps very indirectly.
great..