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| From: | David Hedlund |
| Subject: | Re: Lift "runs on GNU/Linux" requirement |
| Date: | Tue, 3 Aug 2021 22:48:34 +0200 |
| User-agent: | Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Icedove/78.11.0 |
From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B%2B#Political_messaging
In March 2008, the "Boycott Beijing 2008" banner was placed on Notepad++'s SourceForge.net homepage.[29] A few months later most users in China were unable to reach the SourceForge.net website from 26 June to 24 July 2008. This led to the widespread belief that China had banned SourceForge.net in retaliation for the Boycott banner.[30][31][32]
In January 2015, the Notepad++ website was hacked by activists from the Fallaga Team who objected to an Easter egg endorsing Je suis Charlie.[33] The Fallaga Team has been linked to ISIL and is also believed to be responsible for the 2017 hacking of websites of the British National Health Service.[34]
In October 2019, Notepad++ released a version codenamed "Free Uyghur" (v7.8.1). In the release notice, the author expressed concern that hundreds of thousands of Uighurs are believed to have been "subjected to political indoctrination, and sometimes even torture" in the Xinjiang Re-education Camp. He called for "additional pressure on the Chinese government to stop their oppressive actions and crimes concerning the Uyghur people".[35] The software's dedicated site came under a distributed-denial-of-service attack and its GitHub issue page bombarded with nationalistic rhetoric, though it later recovered after being moved behind Cloudflare's anti-DDoS service.[36][37]
In July 2020, Notepad++ released a version codenamed "Stand with Hong Kong" (v7.8.9). In the release notice, the author expressed his concern on the Chinese government implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong.[38] In retaliation, Chinese browsers developed by Tencent (QQ Browser and WeChat’s built-in browser), Alibaba (UC Browser), 360 and Sogou started blocking official site's "Download" page, but not other pages.[39]
The easter eggs were a bit questionable at times, but Notepad++ is still free software whether you agree with them or not.
I'll proceed and write down some of the jokes you are - I suppose unknowingly - referring to:
* "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it doesn't, you hunt that bitch down and kill her."
* "I'm not saying I hate her. I just hope she gets fingered by wolverine."
* "The reason women will never be the ones to propose is because as soon as she gets on her knees, he will start unzipping."
...and I also explained in the previous emails what I saw.
Free software should have a place in the Free Software Directory.
...and the word "should" is key. You wrote "should", not "must", because you know allowing Notepad++ has the potential of compromising your future, since this software has officially become a political tool, thus by linking to it you'll be forced into a political stance against certain "hot" countries.
If one day China or another aggressive country decides to not only censor Notepad++ but also all websites that link to it, your current decision would cut off millions of end users from the FSD and the FSF.
In addition, you likely don't want to attract the attention of a government which isn't an ally of your country, because that would also mean that your users/staff would end under surveillance too in case something negative happens.
As a curiosity, did you know that China has a database to track the online communications of many Italian citizens, even people who never went to China once? If they do that with Italians, I have the goosebumps in thinking of what they do with the citizens of the new continent.
If I were in you (and of course I could never be), I would be careful in keeping the FSF out of politics and scandals of any kind.
So, I suggest to extend your wise words a bit:
> Free software should have a place in the Free Software Directory as long as it is not a PUP/PUA, malware or developed for political motives.
Maybe nothing bad will ever happen, but why increase the odds? :-)
Il 03/08/21 15:34, Michael McMahon ha scritto:
The easter eggs were a bit questionable at times, but Notepad++ is still free software whether you agree with them or not.
Free software should have a place in the Free Software Directory.
Best,
Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
https://fsf.org | https://gnu.org
On 8/3/21 4:32 AM, Lorenzo L. Ancora via wrote:
While Notepad++ is one of the best editors for Windows coders, its developer is infamous for his (very) questionable "Easter Eggs" hidden in the software from time to time and for the insecurity of his distribution channels.
From time to time I have to use Windows and I remember that one morning I executed that editor to take some notes and I got scared when suddenly it started typing by itself a message. Standard routine: disconnect the RJ, immediately reboot in recovery, run AV scans, ... but, soon after, I discovered it was a weird joke from the developer. I've read that after that he kept hiding political and sexual "jokes" into the code and, given one day he pretended to be hacked and after that he was really hacked by Islamic terrorist groups and he's also involved in political stuff, I decided to steer away because I thought "today its a jumpscare, tomorrow will be ransomware".
A few months ago, China blocked Notepad++ after he inserted a political message directly in the release name - message which I personally support and find right - but that created a severe disservice to end users. Very unprofessional.
Il 02/08/21 22:27, David Hedlund ha scritto:
Notepad++ is notable: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B%2B
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