The article discusses the importance of long-haul security in open source projects, focusing on the stages of project development and the need for sustained security efforts in the stable maintenance state.
Challenges include finding contributors interested in security work, maintaining trust with new contributors, and enabling security tooling by default.
Ideal long-haul security involves consistent onboarding of new maintainers, timely vulnerability reporting and fixing, and keeping project configuration and tools up-to-date.
Key questions for discussion include engaging users in security contributions, rewarding long-term maintenance, and building trust with new contributors interested in security work.
The article also touches on financial risk quantification, security funding mechanisms, and the balance between security and usability in open source projects.
It highlights the importance of maintaining secure defaults, fostering contributor trust, education on security features, and transparent vetting processes for contributors.
Overall, the discussion emphasizes sustainability, secure defaults, proactive solutions, and the challenges of vetting contributors in open source projects.