The only thing that truly protects open source from corruption is the fact that it's open source. We can look at the code and we can fork it or choose not to us

The only thing that truly protects open source from corruption is the fact that it's open source. We can look at the code and we can fork it or choose not to use it or, as most of us do, rely on other people looking at it. Surely if a bad actor wants to do nefarious things to the code base there are cheaper and more reliable methods, such as simply becoming trusted contributors and sneaking in back doors.