Indeed, for those of us not taking the time (or lacking the expertise) to audit code ourselves, this is all ultimately appeal to authority.<p>If anything, the advantages of open source here are more about open <i>development</i> processes and being able to know just who is the gate keeper. As an example, if you use OpenBSD, you have reasonable assurances that Theo will do a good job, because he has earned his reputation.<p>Juniper? Who really knows what goes on internally? How are people allocated and shuffled around? It&#x27;s a black box.<p>Ultimately I&#x27;d put more trust in OpenBSD than in Juniper because of this, but I&#x27;m still making a leap of faith. And OpenBSD is an extreme example of how much trust a project can earn; a vast majority of open source code is not held to such scrutiny.