Since nobody has provided any evidence that OWS ever suggested that using their documentation was improper, you might just as well suggest Moxie use this "incident" as an opportunity to announce that he's stopped beating his wife.
Most of your communication has centered around asking us to change the license on our source base to something other than the GPL. We like the GPL for the quality control that it provides. If someone publicly says that they're using our software, we want to see if they've made any changes, and whether they're using it correctly.
You don't like the GPL because you feel that it is incompatible with the Apple App Store, despite our feelings to the contrary. If you'd like to do the work of developing a strong copyleft version of the GPL that you feel is appropriate for use in the app store, and get it OSI approved, we'd certainly look at using that.
As for documentation, there has never been a protocol called AxolotlV2. There was TextSecure, the crypto layer of which has evolved into Signal Protocol. We'd like to get this better documented so that people without crypto expertise can integrate it without having to talk to us, but that's a pretty heavy task that comes with a massive amount of responsibility, and some parts of this are still evolving. It's a priority, but we are taking the time to do it right, and hopefully we'll have more to publish this year.
We haven't patented any of the concepts here, and we've done a lot to explain and popularize them. We're happy for people to use these concepts to build their own implementations of similar protocols, but we don't want people slapping things together and calling that Signal Protocol.
If the answer is yes, I strongly encourage you to publish an official statement from OWS stating so. I know for a fact that FOSS projects are losing their funding because of the impression that even if they write their interoperable implementation from scratch there would still be licensing questions.
You've clarified this somewhat on Twitter before, but if you can publish a short statement on behalf of OWS, that would go a long way into clearing up the issue for a lot of free software developers. Thanks.
To publish in the App Store some app you've been distributing under GPL, you basically have to give a separate, more permissive, license to Apple.
https://frinkiac.com/gif/S07E18/362795/366966/IExvb2sgb3V0IE...
This is FUD.
I'm not sure if you're missing the context. This branch of the thread forked off me asking the same thing as another poster, namely the likelihood of being bothered by IP or Copyright claims for a real, proper clean room implementation of the protocol, zero code copied, assuming there is sufficient documentation available.
Oracle vs Google is relevant, but it seems we're talking past each other and maybe I'm missing a point you're making.
I simply disagree with you that Moxie Marlinspike is in any way accountable for what Oracle does with Java.
I also take exception to the argument that Open Whisper Systems needs to do something to mitigate your false impression that they've disallowed developers from using their documentation. They have not, nobody has credibly claimed otherwise, even the Wire people, and so I don't think it's proper to suggest that OWS take this "opportunity" to address a fictitious concern.
Maybe my English is imprecise, but that's not what I tried to express. We may have to disagree that the OracleVsGoogle fallout is relevant in the hypothetical case of Axolotl IP, but as we're both not lawyers, it's moot to continue that debate.
> I don't think it's proper to suggest
It wouldn't cost Moxie anything to clear such concerns, even if it's just a handful of HN reader (including me), in light of this public event and would increase the positive profile of the protocol. You make it seem like by documenting that clearly Moxie would admit to doing something, but that's wrong and a curious way to look at things, especially as you're confident of there being no problem like that.