Ultimate solution

Arrakis arrakistor at gmail.com
Sun Mar 25 17:56:40 UTC 2007


Nick,

You  are  right.  We  don't allow governments to subvert our software,
commercial competitors, or people to install spyware and redistributed
that way.

Saying free and open-source software isn't "Free" and "Open Source" is
giving  in to a combination of semantics and snobbery of licensing. It
isn't  as  though  any  organization owns the definition of "Free" and
"Open  Source"  and has the authority to pin it down to their specific
hoops we must jump through, nor should anyone assume we have.

The source is totally free, and that isn't "Free" but free, _except_ I
don't allow for other commercial services to rip it off and use it for
their  personal  gain since I am giving it away to the public, and you
can't install tracking/spyware/malware in it and then redistribute it.
Those  are  pretty  much  the  only restrictions. Perhaps GPL fanatics
think  I  owe  it  to spyware manufacturers, or I need to give away my
intellectual  property to every 3rd-rate commercial anonymity service?
The  bottom  line  is, everyone benefits by these restrictions, except
for malware manufacturers and commercial anonymity services.

> I'm no lawyer, but the term in the license above seems like a clear
> violation of the Debian Free Software Guidelines to me.

I think your software is a pretty clear violation of the TESLA license
because you specifically allow spyware and malware to be inserted into
your  software due to your licensing terms, but then again, you didn't
release  yours  under TESLA, and nor am I required to conform to DFSG.
Because  I've seen the light of an ethical software license agreement,
I  no  longer give much credence to "Open-Source" definition or "Free"
according to hoyle or DFSG.

But it definitely is a balance that must be struck. Tor probably has a
good license, even if it isn't 3 clause BSD, because it is straight up
difficult  to  use  for  the average user. But Torpark is too easy for
conforming  to those definitions, because with convenience it makes to
a  little  too  easy  for  malware and snoopers to reach users because
users no longer have to have a techinical understanding or perform due
dilligence  on  their  software, so we have to provide some protection
for them. The TESLA license is just that.

To be quite clear, I am enamoured by the HESSLA.
http://www.hacktivismo.com/about/hessla.php

Regards,
Steve





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