Hacker News Reader

Comment by arp242 | Hacker News Reader

If I tried to be obnoxious and got paid for it, I would still be less obnoxious than that asshole.

Looking at their website, "denis bider" is not just "support" but the main person beyond Bitvise, FYI. He also seems to think that "Biological viruses are made up. Virology is a fake field of study. [..] Virology, like journalism, is where an entire field is fraudulent".[1] When you're so triggered having to wear a mask for public safety you just start dismissing entire fields of science that don't fit your ideology and offend you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's no surprise the reasoning in that email is so bizarre and barely connects to the actual question. It's just this person's personality.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20250417152336/https://blog.deni...

View on HN

I went and read the e-mail thread and had to check back to your comment twice, because I thought my tired mind was mixing things up. You're suggesting _Bider_ is the obnoxious one?!

No OP but of course!? Are you suggesting otherwise? That denis bider person doesn't answer a single question the "journalist" asks. OP wasn't referring not to the email exchange [0] tho but the personal blog of denis bider where it gets even more obnoxious.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20250714144716/https://putty.org...

I've seen the putty.org site. It's about the most friendly it could be to putting putty at top and disclaiming association.

The reporter was an unbearable asshole. They were not reporting but pushing and agenda through questions. They were definitely jaq-ing off and trying to push their own view that holding putty.org is unethical. I fail to see what research the so-called "journalist" was conducting.

I applauded Denis. There was no correct answer that could have been given here. The "journalist" just wanted a quote to attach to an article which was already written in their mind about how the site was unethical and "stealing" putty.org.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Asking_Questions

Yes? And rightfully so? How can this possible not be unethical (or however you want to call it)?

They are selling a commercial product by using the name of a popular open source tool, which on top of that is additionally a direct competitor. How "friendly" the site is designed is a factor but doesn't change that fact in the end.

> How can this possible not be unethical

Anyone has the right to buy a domain.

The site serves the purpose which you could criticise him for not serving:

It lets you download PuTTY.

putty.com sells jars with goo, and they don't provide links to the SSH client.

> They are selling a commercial product by using the name of a popular open source tool

You have to look with a historical perspective here.

He's giving away related software for free.

Sure, you can buy a commercial license, but almost nobody does.

> on top of that is additionally a direct competitor

I've heard the market for free Windows SSH clients is fierce!

> How "friendly" the site is designed is a factor

Yes, it certainly is.

It is a factor that spells out his intent quite clearly as one that isn't ill-willed.

He's putting the real PuTTY client first on the site.

He's not doing weird stuff like serving his own executables.

He's not showing ads.

He's disclaiming that his own software is not endorsed by PuTTY.

He's giving away similar software.

He's basically saying,

"Hey, now that you're here, I made an SSH client, too, you might like it!"

Now I'm even more confused! You linked to the same e-mail exchange, but on the archive.org, or did I miss something?

When you say OP, you mean on here, and so neither Bider nor the "journalist"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com