Call from Google to protect open source software!

After a tech summit at the White House, Google moved in for open source software projects.

Following an open-source security summit at the White House, Google called for increased government involvement in identifying and securing open source software projects.

In a blog post published shortly after the summit, Kent Walker,Google and Alphabet’s Head of Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer , said cooperation between the government and the private sector would be needed for open source financing and management.

“Weneed the most basic safety assessments and improvements, a public-private partnership to help prioritize and allocate resources, as well as identify critical open source projects,” Walker said.

Google seeks assurance request for open source software

The blog post also called for an increase in public and private investments to keep the open source ecosystem safe. The financing and review of such projects is mostly carried out by the private sector.

Walker, the Google official, said:

“Open source software code is public, free for everyone to use, modify or review. Therefore, it appeals to many of the critical infrastructure and national security systems. However, there is no official resource allocation and several official requirements or standards to ensure the security of this critical code. In fact, most of the work to protect and improve the security of open source, including fixing known vulnerabilities, is voluntary.”

Eric Brewer, Vice President of Infrastructure at Google, said in a statement:

“Although it was called a summit, today’s meeting was an effective working session to develop concrete, pragmatic solutions to improve open source security. Participants agreed broadly on approaches to identify and secure critical projects, and in particular guaranteed these efforts with real investment. It is especially important that those who maintain open source projects are given the resources and support they need to ensure that they are well maintained and can quickly fix vulnerabilities. We applaud the White House for their leadership on this important issue.”