open source - .NET OpenSource projects and strong named assemblies?

Question

I am currently thinking about open-sourcing a project of mine and am in the process of preparing the source code and project structure to be released to the public. Now I got one question: how should I handle the signature key for my assemblies? Should I create a new key for the open-source version and publish it along with the other files to the SVN repository? Should I leave the key out and everyone who wants to compile the code should generate his own key?

How do you handle this? I feel a little bit uncomfortable with releasing a signature key to the public.

Answer 1

For Protocol Buffers, I release the key. Yes, that means people can't actually trust that it's the original binary - but it makes life significantly easier for anyone who wants to modify the code a bit, rebuild it, and still be able to use it from another signed assembly.

If anyone really wants a version of Protocol Buffers which they can trust to be definitely the legitimate one built with the code from GitHub, they can easily build it themselves from the source that they trust.

I can certainly see it from both sides though. I think if I were writing an Open Source project which revolved around security that might be a different matter.