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Comment by ucaetano | Hacker News Reader

"These logos are immediately recognizable, and will assure your users that their freedom is being protected."

Kinda wishful thinking, isn't it?

Just depends on who your users are, and if they care about free software.

But, in general, yes... it is probably wishful thinking. But just because the future looks dismal doesn't mean that you don't give it your best shot.

EDIT: never mind, I'm an idiot :)

This is a fallacy - we all have to direct our time and resources as we see fit, and it is not feasible or reasonable to expect everyone with a keyboard to contribute in some way to the downfall of ISIS.

Besides, given that we live in the information age, the legal treatment of the software that controls our world is Kind Of A Big Deal.

There's always something worse happenning somewhere. That's not a reason not to care about things like this.

Additionally, if you dislike terror threats and completely broken democracy, you're going to not-love how they interact with opaque and treacherous software and online services in the future.

EDIT: never mind, I'm an idiot :)

You really think there's more people concerned over proprietary software than ISIS? It seems your gauging of public outrage is disproportionate to real levels of public outrage. In any event, it's a fallacy of relative privation.

Yet you just spent time writing a comment on the internet because someone wrote something you disagree with (which means, something bad happened).

Saves time from having to download the software and look for LICENSE, COPYING, or even peeking at the source code for the license header. This protects the user's employer from being accused of using the software and violating the GPL by leaving web logs indicating it was downloaded.

This is a great service to everyone who needs to make sure they're not using GPL'd software.

No doubt about that, but it doesn't make the logos "immediately recognizable" or "assure your users that their freedom is being protected".

I'm not sure that I've ever seen these logos actually used anywhere, except on the GNU web pages, and on a page that I once maintained.

I certainly recognize them, but I'm not sure about most people...

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