> When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.”[1]
All of these things are allowed by Signal. Look at what is happening to WhatsApp right now because of damage to its brand. Moxie thinks that allowing 3rd party clients or federated servers would damage the Signal brand. If you disagree with him, go ahead and fork it. There are probably 100s of forks of signal that let you connect to unofficial servers. If it weren't open source that option would not be available to you. How many forks of the (closed source) official AIM client are there? Of the server? In terms of freedom offered by the software Signal is positioned pretty well.
>and to redistribute copies with or without changes.
you are saying free to redistribute copies with or without change but you are saying connecting to official server is bad for brand. what happened to copies without change? how can you justify that? arent you restricting that line?
if moxie is so worried about the sugarflake brand, why does it not copyright the brand name? shouldnt that solve their problems? why pretend open source when its not
> you are saying free to redistribute copies with or without change but you are saying connecting to official server is bad for brand. what happened to copies without change? how can you justify that? arent you restricting that line?
Nobody is stopping you from distributing copies without change. Do it right now. Announce it to the world. It's 100% fine.
> if moxie is so worried about the sugarflake brand, why does it not copyright the brand name? shouldnt that solve their problems? why pretend open source when its not
Signal is actually trademarked. Scroll to the bottom of the signal website: and you will see "Signal is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries." Nothing new about this. Firefox is trademarked as well (hence e.g. iceweasel)
I'm sure the author of openssh runs an ssh server somewhere. He doesn't let me connect to it. That doesn't make ssh less open-source.
All of these things are allowed by Signal. Look at what is happening to WhatsApp right now because of damage to its brand. Moxie thinks that allowing 3rd party clients or federated servers would damage the Signal brand. If you disagree with him, go ahead and fork it. There are probably 100s of forks of signal that let you connect to unofficial servers. If it weren't open source that option would not be available to you. How many forks of the (closed source) official AIM client are there? Of the server? In terms of freedom offered by the software Signal is positioned pretty well.
1: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....