Hacker News Reader

Comment by Digital-Citizen | Hacker News Reader

If what you say is true a more productive approach is to make a derivative of the last known non-malware release of FileZilla with a new name. FileZilla's code respects your software freedom (FileZilla is licensed under the GNU GPL v2, last I knew), so there's no reason not to use that freedom to make a derivative which doesn't come with a tricky installer. Rejecting free software when improvements can be had is an overreaction that could lead to a reduction in software freedom which would obviously be bad. Free software is the path to being able to trust the software you run.

View on HN

the statement you're replying to was probably intended for users (ie the people who use ftp in some capacity all the time). they should absolutely stop using filezilla. sure, in the general sense there's no reason the project couldn't be productively forked, but the immediate concern is the fact that FZ presents itself as a modern open source client when in fact its stuck in 1998 and bundles f*ing popups

The hard part is search engine ranking.

And that little issue with trademarks: https://filezilla-project.org/trademark_policy.php

This is also a non-issue as long demonstrated by Debian and GNU when they distributed Firefox and Thunderbird derivatives under different names with different logos. The section of that page under "Modifications" is quite clear on what needs to be done. Please don't try to invent non-existing difficulties. I realize HN is demonstrably averse to any serious discussion which centers on the importance of software freedom for its own sake but that's no reason to reject leveraging software freedom to improve one's own lot or help others.

That's a non-sequitur and not difficult: make the derivative, publish the derivative, and continue to publish the derivative without malware. You'll establish a history people can trust and earn users and search engine rankings in time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com