The trojaning of mICQ

Posted Feb 22, 2003 20:51 UTC (Sat) by mongre26 (guest, #4224)
In reply to: The trojaning of mICQ by Steve_Baker
Parent article: The trojaning of mICQ

I agree Steve, the developer can add any features to his program he wishes, no warranties expressed or implied.

It is the responsibility of the maintainers/users of the software to use it responsibly. If they do not like his features, they should not use his software. It is their choice.

The removal of the name from the copyright is the big issue here. That is expressley prohibited under copyright law and illegal in countries that have signed international copyright agreements. The maintainer should be severely chastised for this, even more so since he is ostensibly a supported of software libre.

As far as this being some tip of the iceberg situation as the original LWN editor suggested, please, enough with the scare mongering. There is nothing new here save perhaps people had their assumptions challenged.

Using software, commercial or open source is a calculated risk. There are no guarantees. However I would suspect that we have much more to fear from incompetence than malice when it comes to software.