Re: [security-discuss] gnuradio project DoS attacks GNU wget users

[Anonymous]

Alfred M. Szmidt said:

>    But some of whome embrace freedom 0 don't want to be forced to
>    use the tools in a restricted capacity.  A privacy-proponent
>    might want to use wget over Tor, as follows:
>
> To use a program you have to have a copy of it, there is no
> obligation (be it ethical, moral or otherwise) on the distributor
> that they have to distribute a copy to you over your prefered means.

This is simply a position statement.  There is an ethical duty for a
GNU project to respect freedom 0 - and not just to the extent that
they can legally get away with.  You're trying to defend an ethical
claim as though it were a legal claim.  No legal basis was put forward
(w.r.t freedom 0).  So using the legal argument to say it's also
ethical and moral doesn't follow.  To elaborate further:

>      "The freedom to run the program as you wish means that you are
>       not forbidden or stopped from doing so."
> 
> GNU Radio abides by that, it is licensed under the GNU GPL version 3
> and thus can use it for any purpose you wish.

This is a red herring.  There was no point of contention with the "not
forbidden" phrase.  The part you snipped described non-compliance with
the "or stopped" phrase.  This is what you need to address.

>      "a free program should come with manuals providing the same
>       freedoms that the software does."
> 
> Should and must are not the same.  The Preamble sets out the purpose
> of the license, i.e. a license that will see that free software can
> have free documentation as well.  It does _not_ force someone to
> provide said documentation, or actually distribute it as part of
> free software program.

A violation is not necessarily enforceable.  In fact the whole GFDL
could be discarded by a court simply because a creator can say the
"the source code *is* the documentation; use the source, Luke."

Would a court interpret the GFDL to wholly undermine the purpose in
the Preamble?  Perhaps, but this is not a court, and the discussion
herein can only inspire reasonable freedom-respecting people to act
reasonably in the interest of freedom.

>      "Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include
>       plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input
>       format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and
>       standard-conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed
>       for human modification."
> 
> These are examples, not mandates.

The quote of examples was a means to bring you to the relevant part of
the GFDL, without quoting an unreasonably large portion in the post.
The subject "HTML" uses the adjective "simple" because things other
than simple may fail to satisify the mandate that:

  A "Transparent" copy of the Document 

is made available.  Or if you actually believe this serves as "a
transparent copy" of the manual:

  
https://entp-tender-production.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/3e9d7001fcc0dae367198e8a815204317db43320/anki_nongui.png?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAISVUXXOK32ATONEQ&Expires=1800510383&Signature=0l1hqGIHAdagtNzBGUWJo7PldeM%3D

please explain.

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