Scott wrote: >> LARS is a really bad name, btw. Probably not a good idea to be >> that open about what your trying to accomplish (ie pirate music).
....and later added: > Just to point out, this comment was me basically saying "Pirating > music is wrong, you probably shouldn't be writing this program. I > recommend against doing it, but [...] why [...] would you name it > LARS if you were?" I'm not writing the client, though I probably would if I had the time. Whoever writes it will probably pick a different name of their own, thus the issue of naming it "LARS" appears to be moot already. There is a more general issue, however, that I think deserves some brief(!) debate before a quick-fix Napster replacement goes out. The dev list really isn't for these issues, so please keep it very brief and to the point. If you aren't a core developer, please be silent. The issue is: would the core team prefer that the quick-fix Napster replacement take a "hard" stand that they are unapologetically here to let people share .mp3 files, illegal or otherwise; or should it take more of a "plausible deniability" stance that we are deeply opposed to such things, and those awful users are to blame? I ran the name "LARS" up the flagpole for two reasons. One was that having a client which took an in-your-face stance would attract heat away from Freenet. The client is temporary, so it's no loss when it gets shut down, be it from lawsuits or that fact that it sucks. The other reason was Ian's expressed sentiment that a more unequivocal stance was better. Is he right? I honestly don't know. To tell the truth, my thoughts about nanotech and AI have let me to a stance that is quite opposed to the usual "free-speech uber alles" mindset that seems to dominate hackerdom, but that is an issue for another list. At this late date, however, there's no changing the fact that if the client takes off fast & gets some large-scale attention, then Ian will be in front of the camera more than the rest of us combined. Lots of people have put in lots of work on this project (not including me, since about all I've done is to to keep silent when I didn't have anything tangible to offer). Even so, Ian is still the front man for the forseeable future. That doesn't mean that we all kowtow to his opinion, but it does mean that whatever is being expressed by the team as a whole is usually going to go through his mouth and fingertips. If we can't sell Ian on the idea of taking a plausible deniability stance, then he isn't going to be very persuasive at presenting it to the public. It's much, much easier for a 20-something coder to be persuasive and beliveable if the stance that he's presenting is close to what he would say if he were speaking purely for himself. And no, Ian, you cannot back out and say that you never represent anyone other than yourself. Right or wrong, the public face of Freenet will be your face, just as Linus Torvalds has become the public face of Linux. You still have your personal identity privately, but you also now have the responsibility of managing the public face of Freenet. Much as I respect RMS, he never seemed to catch on to that concept, which has hurt the FSF. Mr. Torvalds seems to grok, though, so I suggest him as the better role model. My suggestion is that Ian weigh in (briefly) with some idea of what "attitude" he'd prefer to have in the client. Others who are core members can (briefly) comment if they have a stong objection. Those who are not in the core, such as me, stay quiet. Ian reads over the comments, and posts a final, don't-argue-about-it ruling as soon as possible -- tomorrow would be preferred. Leadership sucks for everyone, doesn't it? :-) Obviously, the client authors are free to do as they wish, but may choose to respect the wishes of the Ian and/or the rest of the core team. If the core team only offers the lawyer-friendly "public" answer, but feel otherwise privately, then so be it. Your call. --Will (Not speaking for his employers, who are reminding me that my lunch break has ended and it's time for me to get back to work now.) willdye at freedom.net _______________________________________________ Freenet-dev mailing list Freenet-dev at lists.sourceforge.net http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/freenet-dev
