On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 1:07 PM, mlmikael <mlmikael@???> wrote:
> On 2014-05-13 17:52, Peter Todd wrote:
>> Thus I strongly support distributing LibBitcoin under the maximally free
>> license possible, the Affero GPL.
>
> Users can do this independent of if the license is Affero GPL or MIT -

Here is the attack vector:

A malicious user downloads a copy of libbitcoin off Github or
wherever. They add some sneaky patches that lie about history, and
then start an obelisk server using their modified libbitcoin. "Hello,
everybody! Feel free to connect to my server," they say. Anybody who
does is instantly owned.

With an MIT license, this is perfectly legal, and the users have no defense.

With the AGPL license, the malicious user is legally required to show
their changes. The license probably won't stop a real attacker, but it
should at least prevent companies or other law-abiding entities from
doing this sort of hack.

Thus, the AGPL really does help users.

-William