[OpenWireless Tech] ANYFI IS PROPRIETARY!

[Natanael]

That sounds like "security through obscurity".

2013/8/14 Björn Smedman <bs at anyfi.net>:
> On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 7:24 PM,
> <michi1 at michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com> wrote:
>> On 21:10 Mon 12 Aug     , Björn Smedman wrote:
>> ...
>>> This "WPA over the wire" approach is a technically ambitious. But
>>> we've already gone through the trouble of implementing it (see
>>> http://anyfi.net) and would love to share with the community. Also the
>
> When I say we'd love to share our implementation with the community,
> that's me expressing a willingness to change the license. But exactly
> what that new license should be is not an entirely straightforward
> question (see below)...
>
>>> modern Linux Wi-Fi stack (mac80211) lends itself quite nicely to it;
>>> you can do it from user space with existing interfaces.
>>
>> I just saw that anyfi is proprietary:
>> http://anyfi.net/download/LICENSE
>>
>> I am pretty annoyed that I have found this deeply hidden on your site after
>> wasting my time looking at your project. Thank you for your respect to the
>> free and open source software community which enables you to build things
>> like this!
>
> I'm sorry you feel that way. But I assure you we go through no trouble
> to hide the license, linking to it both from the integration [1] and
> the faq [2] page.
>
> If you read the license you'll also see it's not your typical
> proprietary license: The software is publicly available in binary
> form, built for mips, arm and x86, linked against pretty much any libc
> you can find, and you can download, integrate and redistribute it
> without paying us a dime.
>
> But you may also notice some limitations of the license: You're not
> allowed to modify the software, and you're not allowed to interfere
> with it's communication with servers or peers in a way that impairs
> it.
>
> Why have we licensed the software under those terms? Because the most
> significant contribution to a project of this kind is not patches, but
> radios. If we were to release the software say under the GPL it would
> immediately be crippled, because much of the world operates on the
> assumption that it's in your best interest to restrict access to
> whatever radios you have.
>
> Or to paraphrase rms: Other licenses, including the GPL, inadvertently
> take away your mobility. By contrast, the Anyfi.net Standard Software
> License is intended to protect your mobility -- ensuring that you can
> connect to your favorite Wi-Fi networks whenever you come close to any
> access point running Anyfi.net software.
>
> I'm not saying there are no holes in that altruistic facade. We are a
> VC funded startup and we are out to make money (and we do license the
> software under other terms e.g. to ISPs). But there are plenty of
> startups that have made significant contributions to open source, and
> I think the community has a lot to gain by welcoming them. Or phrased
> slightly differently: I'm not sure the problem here is too many
> super-competent well-funded development teams offering their services
> free of charge.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Björn
>
> 1. http://anyfi.net/integration
>
> 2. http://anyfi.net/faq
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