[tor-talk] How to contribute / takeover a sub project?

proper at secure-mail.biz proper at secure-mail.biz
Wed Mar 7 18:05:04 UTC 2012


> On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 6:27 PM,  <proper at secure-mail.biz> wrote:
> >
> ... What I mean by taking over is, when you go on torproject.org, you see
> "Our Projects"...
>
> note that Tor VM is not on that page. ("taking
> over" Tor VM would not
> grant you a spot ;)

There are only spots for projects which are already in productive state, i.e. really easy, stable, mature. So highest chance to be listed there is only once the "1-click-installers" are ready.

Another flaw in my logic was to assume that TorVM is an official project because some files are hosted on torproject.org.

>
>
> >> [virtual box device
> support]
> > Fortunately they fixed that. Everything, internal, bridged,
> NAT. All networking is working out of the box in VirtualBox.
>
> for a redistributable
> installer / portable app you'd need to build
> virtualbox from source with
> different visible content.

And I am not convinced
yet that we will have to hide buttons form Virtual Box. I mean, adding a NAT/bridged adapter to the Tor-Workstation is almost equally stupid like removing the proxy settings in the Tor Browser Bundle.

>
>
> >> i am fond of "there is only one
> >>
> mode, and it is secure." approach.
> >
> > Perhaps if we were to fork
> VirtualBox (Portable(apps) Edition) and disable the critical configuration
> buttons, but that looks like a lot of work (patch it, keep sync with upstream).
>
>
> yes; it would be better to have a controller / wrapper around existing
> VirtualBox
> so that it could be launched in a robust mode of operation
> automatically,
> so there is no need for manual steps the user may not
> perform correctly.
>
>
> for redistribution, you may need to make some slight changes for
> builds
> but nothing like a fork.

Actually we do not need the Virtual Box graphical user interface.
The gui is 100% independent from the core. There exists even an alternative php based Virtual Box gui. It should not be so hard to hack it. The php gui might not be suited for our needs, then we also would have to redistribute a web server.

I have not checked it in details, but it looks for me, like we can control Virtual Box only using command line arguments. Then all dangerous buttons are hidden. And the ones who add a nat/bridged network adapter to the Tor-Workstation with the command line, they can not be helped anyway.

<snip>
>
> > I though it's better to take over an old project, than starting
> a new one. Amongst other TorVM/JanusVM and their lack of progress motivated
> me to start TorBOX.
>
> they're pretty different. if there are aspects of Tor
> VM that would be
> useful in TorBOX the license is permissive and owned by
> The Tor
> Project, Inc. (excluding the third party components
it is based of
> off
> like openwrt, etc. of course)

TorBOX license also shouldn't cause any problems.
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorBOX/Authorship
Actually I believe it's X11 and since it's hosted on torproject.org, they have also ownership.

> the only parts that seem relevant may
> be the controller for windows or
> the openwrt builds for the Tor-Gateway.ova
> like functionality.
>
>
> TAILS is likely another great resource, although i
> know much less
> about that system.

Yes, I am frequently monitoring that project. There are a lot similarities.

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