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The Signal client may be open source, but it's not free. It purports to be distributed under the GPL, but if you actually try to avail yourself of the primary b
by boring_twenties 6y ago
The Signal client may be open source, but it's not free. It purports to be distributed under the GPL, but if you actually try to avail yourself of the primary benefit of the GPL -- the right to modify the software and distribute your modified version -- you get what you see in your own [1].
- einpoklum 6y agoOh, you mean they're being anal about the name? Ugh. That reminds me of years of Debian (and others ?) quibbling with Mozilla over this stuff.
- boring_twenties 6y agoNot just the name, but connecting to their server. Regarding the name, he's certainly well within his rights to enforce his trademark. I take no issue with that. Easy enough for LibreSignal to have used a non-infringing name. As to the server claim, frankly it seems to me that that claim by Moxie is without any basis. The license clearly allows redistribution modified or unmodified, so redistributing the unmodified default server setting would seem to be legit. IANAL, though. Even failing that, the libre app could have removed the default server altogether and made every user enter the address manually. What could Moxie possibly do about that? I'm saddened that they decided to back off. I know Moxie has a lot of street cred in the security community but honestly after reading that thread years ago I have trouble seeing him as anything other than a bullshitter and an asshole. (What "benefit" does he imagine the LibreSignal authors would derive from their 100% free app, anyway? It's the potential users that he's screwing, not the devs...) I decided I'm never going to run any binaries from him, period. If he ever changes his mind and gets the official Signal app into the main F-Droid repository, I'll consider that. Until then (ha!), you won't find me on Signal.