On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 1:28 AM, Anivar Aravind <[email protected]> wrote: > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Richard Stallman <[email protected]> > This is pertinent because IT for Change gives, as an example of a > program that should not be "FOSS", a program to break encryption. The > argument is that the government might want to develop this but would > not want to publish it. Perhaps so -- but it does not follow that the > program is not free software. On the contrary, if the government has > the four freedoms in using the program, the program is free even > though it is private. (Whether it is good for the government to be > able to break our encryption is a question that we need not raise > here.) > > When IT for Change argues that public software is not necessarily > "FOSS", it cites the example of software that "should not be > published". However, that example is not pertinent to free software. > (Open source might be a different issue.) Software users all deserve > freedom, so all software should be free, but this does not mean that > all software must be published. > > With case eliminated, perhaps there is no case in which public > software would not be free software. >
This is being too soft on the encryption related s/w. Closed source encryption software can never be trusted. This paper, for example, details a powerful strategy: Young, A., Yung, M.: 'Kleptography: Using cryptography against cryptography' in Advances in Cryptography (Funny, W. Ed), LNCS-1233 Springer-Verlag, 1999, 62—74. > If some public software may not be free, the free software movement > will have to argue against the claim that public software is, in > general, desirable or ethical. But if all public software is free > software, that disagreement doesn't arise -- which would be a relief. If some s/w is permitted to be free, then implementations may never see free s/w in a country like India. Are these two sites being used by the same people? http://public-software-centre.org http://www.public-software.in Best A. Mani -- A. Mani ASL, CLC, AMS, CMS http://www.logicamani.co.cc _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
