Carefully, Correctly Wrong ([info]diffrentcolours) wrote,
@ 2005-04-12 23:30:00
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Current mood: cynical
Current music:Radiohead - "Sit Down Stand Up"

GPL Nazi

One of the things I did today was install WinSCP on a Windows box to transfer some files off my Linux box using the Secure FTP protocol. It's a reasonably good application based on the venerable PuTTY SSH client, though the documentation is somewhat lacking - it claims that making "insecure connections" with SSH is "impossible", for starters. Most programs, when you install them, present you with an End User License Agreement (EULA) and require you to click some form of "acceptance" (of dubious legal validity) before you can install the software, and WinSCP is no exception. However, the license under which WinSCP is distributed is the GNU General Public License, which only covers distribution and not usage. I reckon it's a violation of the GPL to actually force a user to accept it, and have outlined my complaints in this bug report which I'm hoping will get some attention.

As [info]scarynetworkguy points out, the GNU GPL is the foundation of the Free Software movement - it's the license under which essential parts of Free Software like KDE and the Linux kernel are released. Having an application present the license to users is useful (and indeed required under section 2(c) by my reading). It provokes discussion on the GPL and on Free Software in general, and the benefits and freedoms it offers to users of software. However, requiring somebody to accept the GPL merely shows that the author hasn't actually understood the license they're using, or are not taking it seriously. And if Free Software developers don't take the GPL seriously, who will?


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[info]frobisher
2005-04-13 05:06 am UTC (link)
Out of curiosity, if you're using a PuTTY derived scp, why not use pscp?

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[info]lastaii
2005-04-13 06:31 am UTC (link)
With WinSCP you can just drag 'n drop. Unless you've only got a couple of files to transfer it's way faster than pscp.

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[info]diffrentcolours
2005-04-13 10:16 am UTC (link)
Pretty GUI! Ooh!

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[info]frobisher
2005-04-13 07:32 pm UTC (link)
Ah. Wasn't aware of the SHINY FACTOR. Carry on.

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[info]steve_c
2005-04-13 08:00 am UTC (link)
You might want to try FileZilla http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

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Correct me if I'm wrong.....
(Anonymous)
2005-04-13 10:08 am UTC (link)
....but isn't FileZilla just an FTP client? Very different from an SCP client.

Perhaps the solution to the GPL issue is to display it, but not to imply "acceptance" in the click-forward.

mrBen

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Re: Correct me if I'm wrong.....
[info]diffrentcolours
2005-04-13 10:13 am UTC (link)
No, FileZilla also does SFTP, according to the copy installed on our "test" Windows box.

The interface is pretty cluttered, WinSCP seems much nicer.

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[info]diffrentcolours
2005-04-13 10:14 am UTC (link)
There's nothing inherently wrong with WinSCP as a program, and I prefer the interface to that of FileZilla. This license fix should be pretty trivial, and doesn't affect how well WinSCP performs as an SFTP program :)

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(Anonymous)
2005-04-21 08:36 pm UTC (link)
Since I switched to using OSX as a desktop I noticed the majority of people packaging free software for the mac like to show off how they understand the mac installer and can do things the mac way and force users to accept the gpl when installing. I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this trend. Perhaps it's because I have read the gpl and I always ignore the click wrap licences as legal bollocks and therefore meaningless to me.

sparkes

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[info]omega_amigo
2005-04-24 08:26 pm UTC (link)
Found another one of these: http://www.websitebaker.com/ (another content management system like WordPress). I thought your bug report was well written, so have put up a fairly verbatim copy at: https://www.websitebaker.org/bugs/bug.php?op=show&bugid=64&pos=0

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