By Michael Hall, Editor
A spokesman for Zero-Knowledge has replied to questions
regarding whether his company plans to continue to provide the
source code to new versions of its products in the wake of its
discontinuation of a Linux version and the move from free-of-charge
downloads to a pay-only model. The move also represents a possible
shift from a services-based revenue model.
Dov Smith, Director of Public Relations for the company, issued
this statement:
“We believe transparency is an important part of the
relationship between consumers and their security and privacy
providers. That’s why Zero-Knowledge has taken and will continue to
take a leading role, among consumer-facing privacy and security
companies, in pursuing a policy of openness with our customers.
This includes activities such as publishing white papers,
initiating peer review activities (including inviting outsiders to
review our technology), and in some cases publishing source code.
Source code that’s already been released will remain available at
http://opensource.zeroknowledge.com/. Any future plans or
developments relating to publication of code will be announced as
events warrant.”
Zero-Knowledge, which produces the Freedom Internet Privacy
Suite, has been lauded in the past for its embrace of the open
source development model by figures in the open source community
such as Eric S. Raymond, who was quoted
in an October 2000 story appearing in the Montreal Gazette as
noting that the management at Zero-Knowledge understood the logic
behind making security software open source very well. People
within the company were similarly enthusiastic at the time, saying
in the same report that they’d decided to open the source to their
products not to be trendy, but rather because the only way to
guarantee that security software works exactly as advertised is if
it remain “completely transparent and open,” which “requires it to
be open source.”
Beyond the issues of development methodology and security most
often cited by open source proponents, Zero-Knowledge’s revenue
model was also considered an
indication of the potential success of a services-based business
based around open source software, since Zero-Knowledge offered
the software for no cost and a set of for-pay services to
supplement the basic functionality of their software suite. With
the discontinuation of no-cost downloads and the possible closure
of source code to future products, it looks as if Zero-Knowledge is
also backing away from that model.