Hijacking Trust? Bitvise Under Fire for Controlling Domain of Open-Source Project PuTTY
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In the open-source world, trust, transparency, and community stewardship form the foundation of public credibility. But a recent case involving the domain name putty.org calls these values into question.
The domain, long associated by users with PuTTY, the widely-used open-source SSH and Telnet client, is not controlled by the PuTTY project itself — but by a commercial competitor: Bitvise.
Bitvise offers its own SSH client, and while their software is available free of charge, the company now faces criticism for its appropriation of a domain name that clearly and historically signals the PuTTY project — a project maintained for over two decades by developer Simon Tatham.
A visit to putty.org brings users to a page that references PuTTY, links to the official download site — but also prominently advertises Bitvise's own SSH client. Critics argue this amounts to misleading branding and exploitation of public trust in open-source software.
Update: Bitvise escalates with personal attack after publishing private correspondence
Following publication of this article, Bitvise took the unusual step of publishing the entire email exchange with the journalist on their public support site, including the journalist’s full name without consent — despite a clear request to anonymize or redact personal information.
When asked to censor the name, a Bitvise representative responded not with a correction, but with verbal abuse:
“Lol 😂 You fucking idiot.”
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