[whispersystems] Censorship

[a***@guerrillamail.org]

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It is with immense sadness that I post to this mailing list about this.
There has been a lot of censorship on github lately. I'm sure everyone
has seen how quick moxie is to quit issues and limit the comments to
collaborators (twitter is full of people complaining about it). But
today we got to a level of censorship that I find very disappointing. A
developer commented an issue saying that he had forked Signal (creating
Signal plus
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=3Dorg.privatechats..secure
sms) and had added some long-desired features to it. I immediately
replied to the comment saying I'd try his app, and then after a few
hours both our comments had disappeared. But it gets worse. After that
I posted a comment saying that it was appalling how they were trying to
censor comments, and someone at whispersystems edited my comment to
hide that information (yes, moderators on github can edit anyone's
posts). It is obvious (to me) that this project is not even close to
the definition of FOSS. It's open source at best, but definitely not
"free" as in freedom, since forks are higly discouraged and even
censored. All this is rather disappointing, as no one can trust nor
support a company that engages in censorship activities.


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[Shankar Kulumani]

I thought the issue was the this other app was using a similar name and
causing confusion.

Before jumping to conclusions it's probably best to get the actual
reasoning for the github actions.

In the end Open Whisper Systems is developing Signal. They're the ones
responsible for it and responsible for all the subsequent issues. We can
all contribute but it's OWS who holds responsibility. As a result it seems
fair that they can make any decisions they see fit about the software and
it's direction.

No one will go to github and find a random contributor to complain about
his/her change breaking the app or causing a security flaw.

They already have enough shit to deal with and it seems that some of the
"devoted" community only adds to the pile instead of helping to reduce it.

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It is with immense sadness that I post to this mailing list about this.
There has been a lot of censorship on github lately. I'm sure everyone has
seen how quick moxie is to quit issues and limit the comments to
collaborators (twitter is full of people complaining about it). But today
we got to a level of censorship that I find very disappointing. A developer
commented an issue saying that he had forked Signal (creating Signal plus
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=3Dorg.privatechats..securesms)
and had added some long-desired features to it. I immediately replied to
the comment saying I'd try his app, and then after a few hours both our
comments had disappeared. But it gets worse. After that I posted a comment
saying that it was appalling how they were trying to censor comments, and
someone at whispersystems edited my comment to hide that information (yes,
moderators on github can edit anyone's posts). It is obvious (to me) that
this project is not even close to the definition of FOSS. It's open source
at best, but definitely not "free" as in freedom, since forks are higly
discouraged and even censored. All this is rather disappointing, as no one
can trust nor support a company that engages in censorship activities.
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[Raphael Brandis]

Nothing in the GPL entitles you to promote your software all over
another project's Github issue tracker using a newly created spam
account. Please stop stealing everyone's time.

Post by a***@guerrillamail.org
It is with immense sadness that I post to this mailing list about
this. There has been a lot of censorship on github lately. I'm sure
everyone has seen how quick moxie is to quit issues and limit the
comments to collaborators (twitter is full of people complaining about
it). But today we got to a level of censorship that I find very
disappointing. A developer commented an issue saying that he had
forked Signal (creating Signal plus
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=3Dorg.privatechats..securesms)
and had added some long-desired features to it. I immediately replied
to the comment saying I'd try his app, and then after a few hours both
our comments had disappeared. But it gets worse. After that I posted a
comment saying that it was appalling how they were trying to censor
comments, and someone at whispersystems edited my comment to hide that
information (yes, moderators on github can edit anyone's posts). It is
obvious (to me) that this project is not even close to the definition
of FOSS. It's open source at best, but definitely not "free" as in
freedom, since forks are higly discouraged and even censored. All this
is rather disappointing, as no one can trust nor support a company
that engages in censorship activities.

[Per Guth]

On a more general note maybe the concept of OPEN open source is of
interest to you. Maybe for the projects you start.

https://github.com/feross/webtorrent/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#webtorrent-is-an-open-open-source-project

Viele Gruesse,
Per

***

In another exchange leaked [...], Zuckerberg explained to a friend that
his control of Facebook gave him access to any information he wanted
[...]:
ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don’t know why
ZUCK: they “trust me”
ZUCK: dumb fucks

- http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-facebook

[Joshua Lund]

I remember when I was a little boy and PepsiCo discontinued Crystal
Pepsi. A vanishingly small minority of people were *extremely* upset.
There were signs in the grocery store next to blank shelves, and
helpless cashiers were saying "I don't know why they stopped," but
nobody in the world thought that it would be OK to start making their
own clear Pepsi and call it "Crystal Pepsi Plus."

Similarly, I have seen a lot of software forks in my life. I remember
when XFree86 was forked and became X.Org. It took forever to recompile
on my Gentoo box, but as I worked through all of the conflicts I was
really glad that they didn't call it "XFree86 Enhanced" and try to
retain exactly the same directory structure. Another more recent example
was the fork of Node.js that called itself io.js, not "Node.js V8-Update
Enterprise Edition."

Open Source doesn't mean that every single idea is valid. Some ideas are
just bad ideas, even when they are associated with an open pull request.
Open Source also doesn't mean that disagreements about a project's
direction automatically indicate nefarious behavior. Signal has been
successful precisely because of its opinionated approach. If you read
the development team's comments and watch their commits, it's clear that
decisions are not being made capriciously. There's a unifying vision
that has resulted in apps with best-in-class security for three major
platforms (Android, Desktop, and iOS) that were all developed by a very,
very small team.

Having maintainers who can say "no" and say "no" quite often is a
critical component of a healthy open source project. Every tedious
little UX-tweak checkbox is new code to maintain and a new set of
options that threaten to overwhelm the user. Every so-called "power
user" feature is an open invitation for people to make bad choices
("Which cipher should I select? What the hell does that even mean?").

"Signal Plus" is a terrible name for a fork. It's lazy, dishonest,
morally bankrupt, and intentionally misleading. Its modifications might
bring some minor joy to the same type of person who installed BonziBUDDY
on their PC in order to make their mouse cursor look like a rocket ship,
I guess, but they seem like odd reasons to start a new project.

The maintainer is using someone else's hard-earned reputation,
application name, server infrastructure, issue tracker, and code. Now
the censorship victim card is being played too? Absolutely pathetic.

[Per Guth]

Now the censorship victim card is being played too? Absolutely
pathetic.

Yeah, it's simply their turf.

Viele Gruesse,
Per

***

In another exchange leaked [...], Zuckerberg explained to a friend that
his control of Facebook gave him access to any information he wanted
[...]:
ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don’t know why
ZUCK: they “trust me”
ZUCK: dumb fucks

- http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-facebook

[Leo Francisco]

Everything anyone can say to this has already been said, see here:
https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/wiki/Welcome-to-the-Signal-Community

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is with immense sadness that I post to this mailing list about
this. There has been a lot of censorship on github lately. I'm sure
everyone has seen how quick moxie is to quit issues and limit the
comments to collaborators (twitter is full of people complaining about
it). But today we got to a level of censorship that I find very
disappointing. A developer commented an issue saying that he had
forked Signal (creating Signal plus
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=3Dorg.privatechats..securesms)
and had added some long-desired features to it. I immediately replied
to the comment saying I'd try his app, and then after a few hours both
our comments had disappeared. But it gets worse. After that I posted a
comment saying that it was appalling how they were trying to censor
comments, and someone at whispersystems edited my comment to hide that
information (yes, moderators on github can edit anyone's posts). It is
obvious (to me) that this project is not even close to the definition
of FOSS. It's open source at best, but definitely not "free" as in
freedom, since forks are higly discouraged and even censored. All this
is rather disappointing, as no one can trust nor support a company
that engages in censorship activities.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This email was sent via Anonymous email service for free.
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Message ID= 262078
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[johanw]

Post by a***@guerrillamail.org
It is with immense sadness that I post to this mailing list about
this. There has been a lot of censorship on github lately.

Well, I can understand some of the frustrations but on the other hand
I can also understand that the developers are trying to prevent their
time being wasted with flamewars.

The last time something like this happened, when encrypted SMS was
removed,
a fork was also created. That fork was first called SecuredText (when
Signal
was still TextSecure), and the fork was renamed on request of the
developers
because the names were too similar. After that, both forks lived
together
without bothering each other and certainly without one team calling the
other names (like in Github issue 5181).

Later there were some forks to keep the Android emojis but after Signal
supported native emojis I have not heard much from those.

I compile my own version with some changes (voice messages back in,
encrypted
backups, and non-expiring binaries) so I certainly understand the desire
to
make some changes to Signal but have no plans to fork it on Github or
publish
it on Google Play.

But I suggest both teams let the emotions calm down and go their
separate ways.
I assume we all want a good encrypted messenger, fighting among each
other
works only counterproductive. Save that energy for the war on encryption
v2
that is being waged right now.