(10-12-2013, 09:15 PM)atom Wrote: However, i liked two arguments here. The one was that hashcat does not need to be open source. That's right.
The practical reason I brought up the closed-source question is that I would like to look into making optimizations for a few of the hash types. With Hashcat being proprietary my only option is to implement something from scratch, or implement something on top of John the Ripper. If I manage to come up with something more efficient, it would not be integrated with Hashcat so would not have the various features of Hashcat like the rules and masks. Or maybe your implementations are just about optimal and I end up wasting my time developing something only as performant as Hashcat. On the other hand, are you sure your implementations are optimal and could not be improved by someone like me?
Quote:The other one was that micromanagement and a small team of very good developers make can make a superior product. I think both are correct and reflect more or less my opinion.
You could still have it that way if the program were free and open source! Don't accept major commits outside your core group of developers if you don't want to. It's not like once you open the source you lose control and everyone's crappy code starts polluting your codebase. There is nothing to lose and only to gain. Maybe you already have all the various TrueCrypt cipher cascades implemented if external contributions were more possible, for instance.