Talk:Openwares.Org
From iA wiki
A few questions:
- Is there a list of adwared software available? With SHA1's?
- What is the license of the original software used as adwared software?
- Are there any other legal issues involved?
- Are there any legal procedures planned by (an) author(s) of the original software?
- How many people have est. fallen into this trap?
If the license allows this, this behaviour points out a negative side effect of some open source software licenses. I've had theories like this one with negative side effects like trojans and spyware for quite some while and i'm happy it is finally put into practice because it proofs a weak point in the philosophy of open source often overlooked. If the software is GPLed and they put malicious software in it as binary, we're gonna have legal 'phun' similar to IPTables legal procedures. E.g. they'll have to pay for damages to both users and authors, and/or will have to put their malicious code into the GPL -- dpi
A few people are taking GPL open source software such as audacity, changing the name then selling it on ebay. This is an interesting one because it's legal provided the software has a notice saying it is GPL and they provide the source if asked. Presumably the name change is so that people can't put the name into google and find they can download it for free. The creators of the software would prefer people to know the original name so there is a chance they will contribute to the project. ziv
'* What is the license of the original software used as adwared software?' > gpl among others. they even wrote a buggy internet explorer 'security' patch that sent data home (google remembers)
'* How many people have est. fallen into this trap?' hard to say, but the fake version of peerguardian on download.com (1.99.21) had 100,000+ downloads. and there were several mirrors (all down now :D ) and it was only one fake of many.
sadly google already cleared its cache and i forgot what this other 'remember old sites' page was, so i cant list the apps
- Thank you for your feedback. I read earlier about an open-source Internet Explorer security patch which was laten to be found a crippled one with something malicious. Can't remember what exactly but i'm wondering if that were the same. -- dpi
