For as long as we keep re-inventing the wheel, there will be holes in the spokes. For every company that reinvents a daemon process, there's another set of security holes to be exploited. Its human nature to continually alter working/running systems, throw away code, etc. These are cultural/ethical issues which the security spooks know they can continually exploit, and have done so for centuries.
The problem with security is entirely an ethical one, and not at all technological. No amount of technology can make up for an ethical dilemna. What we have with the NSA/GCHQ/five-eyes is entirely a cultural artifact perpetuated upon us all by those who stand to profit - greatly - from hatred, distrust, enmity among people. The fact is, as long as we continue to support the machinations of the military-industrial complex, and its endless streams of justifications for why it is we need to 'hate those people', we will be subject to their rule.
Shut down the warrior class, and we have a better chance at a secure future.
There are times when the wheel at hand is an ill fit or perhaps there genuinely is a better way to do things Ex: Libressl. And so the wheel needs reinvention.
Reinvention of the wheel, reimplementation of a paradigm or some other repetition in a slightly different or totally different way isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as the underlying concepts are well understood and it is executed with competence. I still believe malicious tampering is unnecessary when carelessness - or tiredness - on the part of the developer will do just as well.
I'm not sure that you can use LibreSSL as an example of something that is a "genuinely better way to do things", given that it's an essentially brand new project. There are reasons to believe it's a better way to do things, but we won't know how well it performs until there's time for people to start trying to exploit it.
The problem with security is entirely an ethical one, and not at all technological. No amount of technology can make up for an ethical dilemna. What we have with the NSA/GCHQ/five-eyes is entirely a cultural artifact perpetuated upon us all by those who stand to profit - greatly - from hatred, distrust, enmity among people. The fact is, as long as we continue to support the machinations of the military-industrial complex, and its endless streams of justifications for why it is we need to 'hate those people', we will be subject to their rule.
Shut down the warrior class, and we have a better chance at a secure future.