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Is there more info about active development? That site doesn't say much. I found some GitHub repos that were last updated in the summer[0]. It's going to be unf

Is there more info about active development? That site doesn't say much. I found some GitHub repos that were last updated in the summer[0]. It's going to be unfortunate if they stay with AGPL. 0 - https://github.com/orchidsource https://github.com/orchidsource

saurik 8y ago
(I am now in charge of technology at Orchid. None of that source code is relevant to our project. I am sorry for the confusion.) Can you explain why you are concerned with the usage of AGPL? Are you hoping to make a closed-source hosted fork eventually?
- kodablah 8y ago
  > Can you explain why you are concerned with the usage of AGPL? Are you hoping to make a closed-source hosted fork eventually? This can get very copy-left philosophical very quickly, so I'll be brief. For transit technology, especially if adoption matters, the less a license infects downstream projects the better for ecosystem growth. For example, I have an open source Tor library that is MIT licensed and it statically links Tor. I want the world to use my library, commercial/closed and open alike. I would never be able to do that with Orchid and therefore would not touch the tech. Make what you build on your network AGPL, but the underpinnings themselves should be as restrictionless as possible. These are my opinions and I understand the other opinion of "if you want the right to use our stuff, you have to abide by our openness rules on your stuff" but just know that you are trading adoption for principles.
  - saurik 8y ago
    FWIW, you are in fact talking to a team of people who are core Free Software people (such as Brian Fox, who was the first person employed by the Free Software Foundation)... but like, it must be pointed out that your Tor library is almost certainly a client library, and the license of the Tor server you are accessing would not affect the ability for people to use it: "statically linking Tor" is kind of simplistic, as it assumes Tor is a monolithic component (and maybe it strangely is... I honestly have never looked much at its code). In case it helps immediately clarify: you absolutely will be able to use the Orchid platform to build commercial, closed source distributed, semi-distributed, and even centralized applications. For philosophical background on this, I encourage reading the position of Richard Stallman on why the Ogg Vorbis library should not be licensed under GPL. Our mission (to decentralize software and communication) causes similar quirks. https://lwn.net/2001/0301/a/rms-ov-license.php3 https://lwn.net/2001/0301/a/rms-ov-license.php3 (Exactly what the boundaries are on the components and under what license they will be released is thereby not yet finalized as we continue to work on architecture, but there are at least a couple things we are building that will seriously be released under 0-BSD.)
    - kodablah 8y ago
      I appreciate your efforts and all efforts to improve privacy. The library I was referencing is actually for building Tor servers too, though even just its client part communicates with either a local Tor daemon or the statically linked Tor in the executable, both of which would be subject to the AGPL regardless of the server part. But if the principles are similar to the Ogg lib and liborchid is LGPL/BSD/MIT/Apache/etc then we are in complete agreement. Consider me as one of those that, when the core lib is built/available, will make things with it.
- tuxxy 8y ago
  Just want to chime in and say thank you for building free software. :)
- seibelj 8y ago
  Hey j, we did work together in another life. I met brian fox at a conference in Boston earlier this year that he spoke at, but haven’t heard anything about Orchid since. Shoot me a note on Twitter in my profile if we could find time to chat.

saurik 8y ago

(I am now in charge of technology at Orchid. None of that source code is relevant to our project. I am sorry for the confusion.) Can you explain why you are concerned with the usage of AGPL? Are you hoping to make a closed-source hosted fork eventually?

kodablah 8y ago
> Can you explain why you are concerned with the usage of AGPL? Are you hoping to make a closed-source hosted fork eventually? This can get very copy-left philosophical very quickly, so I'll be brief. For transit technology, especially if adoption matters, the less a license infects downstream projects the better for ecosystem growth. For example, I have an open source Tor library that is MIT licensed and it statically links Tor. I want the world to use my library, commercial/closed and open alike. I would never be able to do that with Orchid and therefore would not touch the tech. Make what you build on your network AGPL, but the underpinnings themselves should be as restrictionless as possible. These are my opinions and I understand the other opinion of "if you want the right to use our stuff, you have to abide by our openness rules on your stuff" but just know that you are trading adoption for principles.
- saurik 8y ago
  FWIW, you are in fact talking to a team of people who are core Free Software people (such as Brian Fox, who was the first person employed by the Free Software Foundation)... but like, it must be pointed out that your Tor library is almost certainly a client library, and the license of the Tor server you are accessing would not affect the ability for people to use it: "statically linking Tor" is kind of simplistic, as it assumes Tor is a monolithic component (and maybe it strangely is... I honestly have never looked much at its code). In case it helps immediately clarify: you absolutely will be able to use the Orchid platform to build commercial, closed source distributed, semi-distributed, and even centralized applications. For philosophical background on this, I encourage reading the position of Richard Stallman on why the Ogg Vorbis library should not be licensed under GPL. Our mission (to decentralize software and communication) causes similar quirks. https://lwn.net/2001/0301/a/rms-ov-license.php3 https://lwn.net/2001/0301/a/rms-ov-license.php3 (Exactly what the boundaries are on the components and under what license they will be released is thereby not yet finalized as we continue to work on architecture, but there are at least a couple things we are building that will seriously be released under 0-BSD.)
  - kodablah 8y ago
    I appreciate your efforts and all efforts to improve privacy. The library I was referencing is actually for building Tor servers too, though even just its client part communicates with either a local Tor daemon or the statically linked Tor in the executable, both of which would be subject to the AGPL regardless of the server part. But if the principles are similar to the Ogg lib and liborchid is LGPL/BSD/MIT/Apache/etc then we are in complete agreement. Consider me as one of those that, when the core lib is built/available, will make things with it.
tuxxy 8y ago
Just want to chime in and say thank you for building free software. :)
seibelj 8y ago
Hey j, we did work together in another life. I met brian fox at a conference in Boston earlier this year that he spoke at, but haven’t heard anything about Orchid since. Shoot me a note on Twitter in my profile if we could find time to chat.