Free Software and Torpark

[Fabian Keil]

H D Moore <torspam at metasploit.com> wrote:

> On Sunday 25 March 2007 14:06, Fabian Keil wrote:
> > ... and the people who currently don't use Torpark because it isn't
> > free software and the people who don't care about Torpark itself but
> > would appreciate it if the term "free software" wouldn't be watered
> > down.
> 
> Watered down? C'mon. Do a google search for "free software". At least
> half of the results refer to software that is "free as in beer" vs "free
> as in speech".

According to Google my search request for "free software" "looks similar
to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application"
and can't be processed right now, so I couldn't verify your claim.

According to the first MSN Search page the ratio is 9 to 1 in favour
of the FSF interpretation, though.

> If you want to show the difference between "free" and
> "Free", capitalize it like everyone else. Just because something isn't
> "Free" doesn't mean you have to pay for it.

I never said you had to pay for Torpark.
 
> Speaking of freedom, what about a giving a software developer the
> freedom to prevent commercial abuse? Would you prefer to give them the
> "Freedom" to stop working on their software because they don't want it
> ripped off by scumbags?

If by "commercial abuse" you mean "commercial use", they already have
both of these freedoms and I never argued that they shouldn't have them.
 
> >Torpark's license just doesn't give the user enough rights to
> >call Torpark either free software or open source software
> >without causing confusion, raised eyebrows or being laughed at.
> 
> I argue that anyone trying to redefine the english word "free" to only 
> mean software licensed according to the FSF guidelines deserves to be 
> laughed at.

It's not about redefining anything. Please have a look at
<20070326162931.GE13237 at itd.nrl.navy.mil> if you haven't already.

> This is a stupid argument to start with -- ignoring the license, TorPark 
> should be recommended based on the quality of the code and the features 
> of the software. If TorPark LLC does something evil at a later date,
> stop recommending them.

I don't know anything about the quality of the code and I never
recommended Torpark or Torpark LLC in the first place (not because
of its code quality or its license, but because I don't know enough
about it).

I would assume though, that license and code quality aren't
completely unrelated and that non-free licenses make it less
likely that the code gets audited by third parties that aren't
paid to do it.

Fabian
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