Request from GPGShell author

[Andrew Lee]

I just received an email from the author of GPGShell:

Hello,

I'm the author of GPGshell. Please remove my program from your download-area because the license does not give you the right to publish it. Thanks.

https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2068

--
Roger Sondermann

I'm just wondering how I should respond to it, being the first time this has happened in all the years of TPFC's operation.

The entry in question being private aisde, I am not sure merely the act of linking to a website is at the discretion of the target's site owner.

Does anyone know?

[SYSTEM]

Yes, we don't need his permission to link to his website.

And indeed, the entry is private. There is no way to find it other than following a direct link to it.

[joby_toss]

But the PROGRAM is not in the download area of this website. It's just a link (which doesn't work by the way).
Maybe he saw the reference to this entry here: sourceforge.net/projects/gpgshell4usb (no idea who the page owner is)?

[webfork]

Before I begin, I don't care about this particular topic. The site is dead, the program is dead, and very few people care about GPG in the first place (especially a very long out of date, definitely insecure version) so if you want to make an exception this once you can zap the entry, that's fine. To be clear, this has happened before with the Serva episode where the author got his feelings irrationally hurt that we called his program nagware (even though it was very obviously nagging software).

If you don't want to make an exception, let me point out a few things here that make this absurd:

• Linking There is no legal framework around preventing people from linking to a website. I've seen a few court cases talking about "deep" linking (see the Ghacks-Adobe episode) but certainly nothing for dead links. SYSTEM is correct. As Slashdot has gone into great detail about over many years, any court ruling on this topic it would basically threaten the whole Internet, which is about links.
• Open Source Links There is a legal framework around the GPL where license holders have compelled some of the biggest companies in the world (like Microsoft) to host the code of executable files. Even in that case, they didn't ask for the link to be deleted but more links to point to hosted source code. We are not hosting anything except images and text so this doesn't apply to us. Even if we were, the FSF is not taking a tiny website like ours to court.
• Ownership Even if there was something in the license that allowed for blocking linking and even if you could legally influence people on the web to delete dead links to dead programs, he can't prove he's the license holder. We can for example verify who is running PortableApps.com by contacting someone from that domain. That's impossible to do when all we have a is a dead link to a website that doesn't exist anymore. It's even been excluded from archive.org. It's just as possible that this is someone who hates GPG for unknown reasons wanting us to delete anything to do with that program.

Feel free to just send the author a link to this thread.

[Midas]

Pretty much what webfork said way better than I would...

[Andrew Lee]

Cool. I will direct him to this topic and see what else he has to say.

[xor]

Reading his software license sounds like arguing with a mad girl, in the end you are supposed to accept all his terms and conditions whether you agree or not, but, we can always just walk away.

[Andrew Lee]

My exchange with him so far:

Hi Roger,

As you know, TPFC is a community-driven website where users are free to post and
discuss their favorite apps, and other users get to decide whether they become
"public" i.e. searchable from the database.

I am so far unaware of any law that prohibits simply linking to a website on the
Internet, otherwise search engines and blogs will cease to exist.

I have posted this as a topic in the forum:

https://www.portablefreeware.com/forums ... =2&t=23386

If you are interested to discuss this further with the community, I urge you to
go there.

Regards.
--
Andrew Lee

His reply:

Hello,

you're right, you just linked. My error, sorry.

However I do not want to discus anything with people who publish private mails. When I want to publish something I can do it myself. It's some thing of privacy if you can remember what this is.

--
Roger

So I guess we're cool.

My reply to him:

Hi Roger,

I hope you understand that if the email was about me personally, I would not
have posted it in the forum.

But since it's about TPFC matters, I have to discuss it with the community.
That's how TPFC works.

I would have preferred it if you'd posted the question in the forum originally,
under "Site Matters, Suggestions/Discussions", or "The Portable Freeware
Collection, Portable Freeware Discussion". Saves me the trouble. The
community is generally very responsive with queries and comments.

Regards.
--
Andrew Lee

I hope that's the end of the matter!

Case closed.

[webfork]

Case closed

Good stuff, thanks for keeping us in the loop.