Cipherfunk Shutdown by GPL Police
Update
Matthew Garrett has requested that you look at the email he sent to cipherfunk and judge it for yourself. It can be viewed at http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/polite_note.txt To me, it sounds like Matthew was being polite and reasonable. Other GPL advocates could learn a thing or two from Matthew's example.
Unfortunely, when it comes to the GPL, misunderstandings happen easily and tempers flare quickly. Especially when someone, for example Cipherfunk, who feels that his work is not appreciated, is contacted by someone whom he feels is being heavy handed.
Original Article
The cipherfunk web site, which made extra packages available to Ubuntu and MEPIS users, was shut down in response to complaints from Ubuntu team members Matthew Garrett and Philipp Kern. It is my understanding they alleged that cipherfunk was not making modified GPLed source code available in a timely fashion. You can read about it at http://64.71.152.24/index.html and try to figure it our for yourself. If you used the cipherfunk repository, please make a donation to cipherfunk while you're there--or at least send a note of support and thanks.
AFAIK, Matthew and Philipp are students is a student. Perhaps they he should be forgiven if you think they he lacks judgement or maturity. And no one should blame Ubuntu for the actions of a couple of its contributors. On the other hand, if you think this sounds exactly like something the blind followers of an unethical hacker of the 1970s would be encouraged to do, you're probably right.
Warren
