[tor-project] obfs4 license enforcement [was: Tor as critical infrastructure]

[Roger Dingledine]

On Mon, Nov 19, 2018 at 06:51:38AM +0000, Yawning Angel wrote:
> On 11/18/18 9:42 PM, Roger Dingledine wrote:
> > - The Tor Project is the origin and center of the pluggable transports
> > idea, where our modularity means that tools like Lantern and Tunnelbear
> > can (and do) directly reuse our obfs4 system for their own censorship
> > circumvention goals.
> 
> As annoyed as I get when people don't honor the terms set out in the
> rather liberal licenses I commonly apply to my code, that pales in
> comparison to when they charge people to it.
> 
> The phrase "personal liability tort" springs to mind.

Good point -- it's great that both of these tools are using our obfs4
tool, but it's crappy that neither of them seem to understand how free
software licenses work.

We will make both them and our space better by helping them follow
our license.

I've sent some mails to get that process started. Hopefully they'll
both just fix it. If some time passes and they haven't fixed it, it'll
be time to bust out the "public shaming" next, and hopefully that will
be enough.

Thanks,
--Roger