GLib

Projects that follow the best practices below can voluntarily self-certify and show that they've achieved an Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) best practices badge.

If this is your project, please show your badge status on your project page! The badge status looks like this: Badge level for project 6011 is passing Here is how to embed it:

These are the Silver level criteria. You can also view the Passing or Gold level criteria.

        

 Basics 13/17 ●

  • Identification

    GLib is the low-level core library that forms the basis for projects such as GTK and GNOME. It provides data structure handling for C, portability wrappers, and interfaces for such runtime functionality as an event loop, threads, dynamic loading, and an object system.

  • Prerequisites


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST achieve a passing level badge. [achieve_passing]

  • Basic project website content


    Enough for a badge!

    The information on how to contribute MUST include the requirements for acceptable contributions (e.g., a reference to any required coding standard). (URL required) [contribution_requirements]

    https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md


  • Project oversight


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project SHOULD have a legal mechanism where all developers of non-trivial amounts of project software assert that they are legally authorized to make these contributions. The most common and easily-implemented approach for doing this is by using a Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO), where users add "signed-off-by" in their commits and the project links to the DCO website. However, this MAY be implemented as a Contributor License Agreement (CLA), or other legal mechanism. (URL required) [dco]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST clearly define and document its project governance model (the way it makes decisions, including key roles). (URL required) [governance]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST adopt a code of conduct and post it in a standard location. (URL required) [code_of_conduct]

    https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md?ref_type=heads


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST clearly define and publicly document the key roles in the project and their responsibilities, including any tasks those roles must perform. It MUST be clear who has which role(s), though this might not be documented in the same way. (URL required) [roles_responsibilities]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST be able to continue with minimal interruption if any one person dies, is incapacitated, or is otherwise unable or unwilling to continue support of the project. In particular, the project MUST be able to create and close issues, accept proposed changes, and release versions of software, within a week of confirmation of the loss of support from any one individual. This MAY be done by ensuring someone else has any necessary keys, passwords, and legal rights to continue the project. Individuals who run a FLOSS project MAY do this by providing keys in a lockbox and a will providing any needed legal rights (e.g., for DNS names). (URL required) [access_continuity]

    GLib, and all of its supporting infrastructure (such as the documentation website, tarball hosting, git hosting, etc.) is hosted by the GNOME Project on https://gitlab.gnome.org. This hosting is supported by the GNOME Foundation’s sysadmin team, which has a handover and restore procedure for if someone disappears. In the worst case, if the entire busload of GLib maintainers were to disappear, the sysadmin team would be able to hand the keys over to some other suitably trusted member of the GNOME community.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project SHOULD have a "bus factor" of 2 or more. (URL required) [bus_factor]

    The project currently (as of April 2024) has 19 people with maintainer access (see the <maintainer> elements in https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/glib.doap?ref_type=heads). Some of them are more active than others, but they are all trusted to do maintainer tasks.


  • Documentation


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST have a documented roadmap that describes what the project intends to do and not do for at least the next year. (URL required) [documentation_roadmap]

    Upcoming releases are planned as GitLab milestones (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/milestones). These list issues/tasks which are definitely planned to go into an upcoming release. Typically this planning is done on a 6-monthly timescale rather than a 12-monthly timescale.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST include documentation of the architecture (aka high-level design) of the software produced by the project. If the project does not produce software, select "not applicable" (N/A). (URL required) [documentation_architecture]

    While GLib is a utility library, and therefore more of a collection of APIs than something with a high-level design, it does have detailed documentation of those APIs: https://docs.gtk.org/glib/


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST document what the user can and cannot expect in terms of security from the software produced by the project (its "security requirements"). (URL required) [documentation_security]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST provide a "quick start" guide for new users to help them quickly do something with the software. (URL required) [documentation_quick_start]

    GLib is a utility library, not a user application. There is no one single thing which most users will want to start with when they first link GLib into their code.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST make an effort to keep the documentation consistent with the current version of the project results (including software produced by the project). Any known documentation defects making it inconsistent MUST be fixed. If the documentation is generally current, but erroneously includes some older information that is no longer true, just treat that as a defect, then track and fix as usual. [documentation_current]

    The documentation is built from comments in the source code (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/docs/reference/glib/meson.build?ref_type=heads). These comments are next to each function definition, so it’s easy to keep them up to date as functions change or as bugs are fixed.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project repository front page and/or website MUST identify and hyperlink to any achievements, including this best practices badge, within 48 hours of public recognition that the achievement has been attained. (URL required) [documentation_achievements]

    Best Practices badge shown at the top of https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib


  • Accessibility and internationalization


    Enough for a badge!

    The project (both project sites and project results) SHOULD follow accessibility best practices so that persons with disabilities can still participate in the project and use the project results where it is reasonable to do so. [accessibility_best_practices]

    GLib is a system library, and does not have a user interface (graphical or otherwise).


    Enough for a badge!

    The software produced by the project SHOULD be internationalized to enable easy localization for the target audience's culture, region, or language. If internationalization (i18n) does not apply (e.g., the software doesn't generate text intended for end-users and doesn't sort human-readable text), select "not applicable" (N/A). [internationalization]

    All user-visible strings produced by GLib are translatable, and translations exist for tens of languages. The translations are in https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/tree/main/po?ref_type=heads, and the current translation statistics are at https://l10n.gnome.org/module/glib/.


  • Other


    Enough for a badge!

    If the project sites (website, repository, and download URLs) store passwords for authentication of external users, the passwords MUST be stored as iterated hashes with a per-user salt by using a key stretching (iterated) algorithm (e.g., Argon2id, Bcrypt, Scrypt, or PBKDF2). If the project sites do not store passwords for this purpose, select "not applicable" (N/A). [sites_password_security]

    GLib is hosted on GitLab (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/) and GitLab meets this requirement.


  • Previous versions


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST maintain the most often used older versions of the product or provide an upgrade path to newer versions. If the upgrade path is difficult, the project MUST document how to perform the upgrade (e.g., the interfaces that have changed and detailed suggested steps to help upgrade). [maintenance_or_update]

  • Bug-reporting process


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST use an issue tracker for tracking individual issues. [report_tracker]

    https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/issues


  • Vulnerability report process


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST give credit to the reporter(s) of all vulnerability reports resolved in the last 12 months, except for the reporter(s) who request anonymity. If there have been no vulnerabilities resolved in the last 12 months, select "not applicable" (N/A). (URL required) [vulnerability_report_credit]

    The names of reporters are logged in GitLab alongside the vulnerability report, which is always labelled with label ‘1. Security’. So the names can be found by searching the issue list: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/issues/?sort=created_date&state=closed&label_name%5B%5D=1.%20Security&first_page_size=20


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST have a documented process for responding to vulnerability reports. (URL required) [vulnerability_response_process]

    https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/SECURITY.md?ref_type=heads#user-content-reporting-a-vulnerability


  • Coding standards


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST identify the specific coding style guides for the primary languages it uses, and require that contributions generally comply with it. (URL required) [coding_standards]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST automatically enforce its selected coding style(s) if there is at least one FLOSS tool that can do so in the selected language(s). [coding_standards_enforced]

    In as much as clang-format can support the coding style in GLib (which is not perfectly), it is checked for every merge request using a CI job which is allowed to fail: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/.gitlab-ci/run-style-check-diff.sh?ref_type=heads


  • Working build system


    Enough for a badge!

    Build systems for native binaries MUST honor the relevant compiler and linker (environment) variables passed in to them (e.g., CC, CFLAGS, CXX, CXXFLAGS, and LDFLAGS) and pass them to compiler and linker invocations. A build system MAY extend them with additional flags; it MUST NOT simply replace provided values with its own. If no native binaries are being generated, select "not applicable" (N/A). [build_standard_variables]

    GLib uses Meson, and Meson honours these flags (https://mesonbuild.com/Reference-tables.html#compiler-and-linker-flag-environment-variables).


    Enough for a badge!

    The build and installation system SHOULD preserve debugging information if they are requested in the relevant flags (e.g., "install -s" is not used). If there is no build or installation system (e.g., typical JavaScript libraries), select "not applicable" (N/A). [build_preserve_debug]

    GLib uses Meson, and Meson does this.


    Enough for a badge!

    The build system for the software produced by the project MUST NOT recursively build subdirectories if there are cross-dependencies in the subdirectories. If there is no build or installation system (e.g., typical JavaScript libraries), select "not applicable" (N/A). [build_non_recursive]

    Glib uses Meson, and Meson handles dependency trees correctly. Builds all start from the top level, and cannot be done on individual subdirectories.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST be able to repeat the process of generating information from source files and get exactly the same bit-for-bit result. If no building occurs (e.g., scripting languages where the source code is used directly instead of being compiled), select "not applicable" (N/A). [build_repeatable]

    GLib is regularly tested by the reproducible-builds project and has consistently reproducible builds: https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/debian/rb-pkg/experimental/amd64/glib2.0.html


  • Installation system


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST provide a way to easily install and uninstall the software produced by the project using a commonly-used convention. [installation_common]

    GLib uses Meson. Meson allows installation using meson install (https://mesonbuild.com/Installing.html) and uninstallation using meson uninstall.


    Enough for a badge!

    The installation system for end-users MUST honor standard conventions for selecting the location where built artifacts are written to at installation time. For example, if it installs files on a POSIX system it MUST honor the DESTDIR environment variable. If there is no installation system or no standard convention, select "not applicable" (N/A). [installation_standard_variables]

    GLib uses Meson, and Meson supports DESTDIR (https://mesonbuild.com/Installing.html#destdir-support).


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST provide a way for potential developers to quickly install all the project results and support environment necessary to make changes, including the tests and test environment. This MUST be performed with a commonly-used convention. [installation_development_quick]

  • Externally-maintained components


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST list external dependencies in a computer-processable way. (URL required) [external_dependencies]

    All dependencies are declared using the dependency() function in Meson. For example: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/5c8fbc3cdafabea3e2e188bd5a23c7028b1acc8d/meson.build#L2184


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    Projects MUST monitor or periodically check their external dependencies (including convenience copies) to detect known vulnerabilities, and fix exploitable vulnerabilities or verify them as unexploitable. [dependency_monitoring]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST either:
    1. make it easy to identify and update reused externally-maintained components; or
    2. use the standard components provided by the system or programming language.
    Then, if a vulnerability is found in a reused component, it will be easy to update that component. [updateable_reused_components]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project SHOULD avoid using deprecated or obsolete functions and APIs where FLOSS alternatives are available in the set of technology it uses (its "technology stack") and to a supermajority of the users the project supports (so that users have ready access to the alternative). [interfaces_current]

  • Automated test suite


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    An automated test suite MUST be applied on each check-in to a shared repository for at least one branch. This test suite MUST produce a report on test success or failure. [automated_integration_testing]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST add regression tests to an automated test suite for at least 50% of the bugs fixed within the last six months. [regression_tests_added50]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST have FLOSS automated test suite(s) that provide at least 80% statement coverage if there is at least one FLOSS tool that can measure this criterion in the selected language. [test_statement_coverage80]

  • New functionality testing


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST have a formal written policy that as major new functionality is added, tests for the new functionality MUST be added to an automated test suite. [test_policy_mandated]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST include, in its documented instructions for change proposals, the policy that tests are to be added for major new functionality. [tests_documented_added]

    https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#user-content-features-and-enhancements


  • Warning flags


    Enough for a badge!

    Projects MUST be maximally strict with warnings in the software produced by the project, where practical. [warnings_strict]

    warning_level=3 is Meson’s highest level of warnings: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/1dfea6bc9312a5367f603d4cf3c68e0c54084d41/meson.build#L7


  • Secure development knowledge


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST implement secure design principles (from "know_secure_design"), where applicable. If the project is not producing software, select "not applicable" (N/A). [implement_secure_design]

  • Use basic good cryptographic practices

    Note that some software does not need to use cryptographic mechanisms. If your project produces software that (1) includes, activates, or enables encryption functionality, and (2) might be released from the United States (US) to outside the US or to a non-US-citizen, you may be legally required to take a few extra steps. Typically this just involves sending an email. For more information, see the encryption section of Understanding Open Source Technology & US Export Controls.

    Enough for a badge!

    The default security mechanisms within the software produced by the project MUST NOT depend on cryptographic algorithms or modes with known serious weaknesses (e.g., the SHA-1 cryptographic hash algorithm or the CBC mode in SSH). [crypto_weaknesses]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project SHOULD support multiple cryptographic algorithms, so users can quickly switch if one is broken. Common symmetric key algorithms include AES, Twofish, and Serpent. Common cryptographic hash algorithm alternatives include SHA-2 (including SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384 AND SHA-512) and SHA-3. [crypto_algorithm_agility]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST support storing authentication credentials (such as passwords and dynamic tokens) and private cryptographic keys in files that are separate from other information (such as configuration files, databases, and logs), and permit users to update and replace them without code recompilation. If the project never processes authentication credentials and private cryptographic keys, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_credential_agility]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The software produced by the project SHOULD support secure protocols for all of its network communications, such as SSHv2 or later, TLS1.2 or later (HTTPS), IPsec, SFTP, and SNMPv3. Insecure protocols such as FTP, HTTP, telnet, SSLv3 or earlier, and SSHv1 SHOULD be disabled by default, and only enabled if the user specifically configures it. If the software produced by the project does not support network communications, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_used_network]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The software produced by the project SHOULD, if it supports or uses TLS, support at least TLS version 1.2. Note that the predecessor of TLS was called SSL. If the software does not use TLS, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_tls12]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The software produced by the project MUST, if it supports TLS, perform TLS certificate verification by default when using TLS, including on subresources. If the software does not use TLS, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_certificate_verification]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The software produced by the project MUST, if it supports TLS, perform certificate verification before sending HTTP headers with private information (such as secure cookies). If the software does not use TLS, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_verification_private]

  • Secure release


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST cryptographically sign releases of the project results intended for widespread use, and there MUST be a documented process explaining to users how they can obtain the public signing keys and verify the signature(s). The private key for these signature(s) MUST NOT be on site(s) used to directly distribute the software to the public. If releases are not intended for widespread use, select "not applicable" (N/A). [signed_releases]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    It is SUGGESTED that in the version control system, each important version tag (a tag that is part of a major release, minor release, or fixes publicly noted vulnerabilities) be cryptographically signed and verifiable as described in signed_releases. [version_tags_signed]

  • Other security issues


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project results MUST check all inputs from potentially untrusted sources to ensure they are valid (an *allowlist*), and reject invalid inputs, if there are any restrictions on the data at all. [input_validation]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    Hardening mechanisms SHOULD be used in the software produced by the project so that software defects are less likely to result in security vulnerabilities. [hardening]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST provide an assurance case that justifies why its security requirements are met. The assurance case MUST include: a description of the threat model, clear identification of trust boundaries, an argument that secure design principles have been applied, and an argument that common implementation security weaknesses have been countered. (URL required) [assurance_case]

  • Static code analysis


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST use at least one static analysis tool with rules or approaches to look for common vulnerabilities in the analyzed language or environment, if there is at least one FLOSS tool that can implement this criterion in the selected language. [static_analysis_common_vulnerabilities]

    I think Coverity does?


  • Dynamic code analysis


    Enough for a badge!

    If the software produced by the project includes software written using a memory-unsafe language (e.g., C or C++), then at least one dynamic tool (e.g., a fuzzer or web application scanner) MUST be routinely used in combination with a mechanism to detect memory safety problems such as buffer overwrites. If the project does not produce software written in a memory-unsafe language, choose "not applicable" (N/A). [dynamic_analysis_unsafe]

    oss-fuzz is run on GLib: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/fuzzing/README.md valgrind’s memcheck tool is run on the unit tests in GLib weekly: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/.gitlab-ci.yml#L222



This data is available under the Creative Commons Attribution version 3.0 or later license (CC-BY-3.0+). All are free to share and adapt the data, but must give appropriate credit. Please credit Philip Withnall and the OpenSSF Best Practices badge contributors.

Project badge entry owned by: Philip Withnall.
Entry created on 2022-04-27 12:34:27 UTC, last updated on 2024-04-15 18:18:45 UTC. Last achieved passing badge on 2024-04-12 19:30:34 UTC.

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