this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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Free and Open Source Software

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Today FUTO released an application called Grayjay for Android-based mobile phones. Louis Rossmann introduced the application in a video (YouTube link). Grayjay as an application is very promising, but there is one point I take issue with: Grayjay is not an Open Source application. In the video Louis explains his reason behind the custom license, and while I do agree with his reason, I strong disagree with his method. In this post I will explain what Open Source means, how Grayjay does not meet the criteria, why this is an issue, and how it can be solved.

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[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It prevents commercial distribution of the program, and thus it discriminates against persons and groups who wish to distribute the program commercially.

Uhhhh what? That's not how any of that works.

"No discrimination against persons or groups" is about protected classes.

Interpreting it to mean "anyone for any reason" would mean that open source allows people to simply assert sole ownership of it, because to not allow them to is to discriminate against people who want to assert sole ownership. That's an ad absurdum broadening of the OSI ethos.

Edit: a helpful commenter has found where on OSI's website it does prohibit non-commercial-use clauses...

...and the blog author was in fact incorrect in their assertion that it violates the personal discrimination clause (clause 5). It is a violation of Clause 6, “No Discrimination Against Field of Endeavor.” Also, the section specifically talks about prohibiting its use by a business, which is not the same as its sale by a business.

Let's say Alice develops an application with maintainer lock-in, but for whatever reason the need for a fork arises. Bob has been studying the code and knows how to maintain in properly. However, because Alice's code has a non-commercial redistribution clause Bob cannot make money off his maintainership. If the software is sufficiently complex that Bob has to spend a lot of time on it, or if Bob must be able to provide paid support (e.g. for regulatory reasons) he is not allowed to do so. Only Alice can demand financial compensation and thus in practice she is the only one who can afford to maintain the code.

Oh no. This person literally IS trying to just be able to start charging money for someone else's code.

[–] rglullis 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This person literally IS trying to just be able to start charging money for someone else’s code.

That happens all the time, never has been a problem, and it should not ever be.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

"People steal the profits from others' labor all the time, that's normal and good." - You

[–] hiddengoat@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I suggest you learn how free software actually works unless you want to look like an idiot.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

It's not an open-shut answer. Ubuntu is Open Source, but they also have clauses requiring certain changes you must make to remove trademarked branding before you can distribute or sell it commercially, much like the clauses the author is talking about. There are tons of discussions about the specifics of what qualifies as FOSS.

[–] cacheson@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

That'd be covered by #4:

The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.

[–] amki@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly and the model of make changes and remove trademark has worked very well for them. Why not introduce arbitrary other limitations when they are clearly not neccessary?

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I am not the CEO of Grayjay, so I can't speak to their reasons, but Canonical is a massive organization with a dedicated legal team (which anyone who wishes to OEM Ubuntu has to negotiate with directly, per the license - you can't just remove branding yourself and go) who know the ins-and-outs of trademark law, and knows what they can and can't do without accidentally giving up their Trademark claim. I know I sure wouldn't feel comfortable navigating that.

[–] amki@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Your point is that copyright law is easier to enforce than trademark law? I doubt it. I personally don't care that the lawyers you will definitely need for this and for long do exactly.

[–] rglullis 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

People build on top of each other's work all the time. That's normal and good.

If the people selling are passing someone else's work as their own, that's stealing. Otherwise, it's just Free Software working as intended.

If someone is writing software but wants to prevent redistribution, then go ahead and make a license that forbids it. But then don't get to call it "Open Source" or anything like that.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If the people selling are passing someone else’s work as their own, that’s stealing.

Which they are, unless they somehow only charge you for the portion of the code they wrote, in which case it wouldn't run afoul of this license anyways, since you're not charging for Grayjay. :)

Also, looking at OSD.org, nothing requires allowing commercial redistribution of the original code outside of as a component of an aggregate package, in rule 1.

Rule 3 says that derived works must be allowed (and says nothing about being charged money for) using the same license as with the original distribution, which would in this case mean a license that restricts commercial redistribution.

Also, the author of this has clearly not read many of the OSI licenses, because MANY of them revoke the license if patent litigation is initiated against the distributor:

7.2 If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Covered Source or a Product constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or You seek any declaration that a patent licensed to You under this Licence is invalid or unenforceable then any rights granted to You under this Licence shall terminate as of the date such process is initiated.

[–] rglullis 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The point is super simple: if the author of Grayjay has any provision in the license saying anything to the effect of "you can only redistribute this under certain conditions", then it's not Open source as defined by OSI. You may not agree with it and you might fully support Grayjay's opinion, it doesn't change the fact that it. is. not. open. source.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Can you please link to where on opensource.org it says that? This just sounds like your or a general community interpretation. I don't see that in writing anywhere.

I literally quoted their website NOT saying what you claim, and your only response is, "nuh uh, it's what I said."

[–] madkarlsson@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

If the people selling are passing someone else's work as their own, that's stealing. Otherwise, it's just Free Software working as intended.

Do you not see the contradiction in this statement? Where do you find the line of what is stealing and "working as intented"?

If someone is writing software but wants to prevent redistribution, then go ahead and make a license that forbids it. But then don't get to call it "Open Source" or anything like that.

There are so many licenses for this model already, I'm inclined to believe that you havent actually published any OSS yourself and your attitude in these threads are mildly said, off putting.

I am a big fan of OSI and support their work, but you are treating them (based in what i can read in this thread) like some holy, all defining entity, of what is open source. They are not, and true open source, cannot, and should not, ever derive its power from a central agency setting rules and definitions. If that happens, that will be the end of open source.

Please stop gatekeeping OSS, it hurts all of us

Edit: some autocomplete stupid grammar

[–] rglullis 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are so many licenses for this model already,

Open Source != "Source available". The whole point is that distinction is important, and there are plenty of companies now (MongoDB, Elastic and more recently Hashicorp) that are trying to claim to be "Open Source", but in fact use licenses that prevent redistribution and impose conditions to use, which means that they are definitely not open.

I’m inclined to believe that you havent actually published any OSS yourself .

There you go. You can find projects that I've done for myself, projects that I've done while working for companies with real open source products, small libraries that were not core to the company and I convinced them to open source...

You know what they all have in common? All these licenses (MIT, GPL, AGPL) adopting allow code re-use, modification and redistribution.

Please stop gatekeeping OSS, it hurts all of us

First: please don't use the Royal We. It's a cheap rhetoric trick.

Second: you know what really hurts me. Companies that use "Open source" as a marketing point and to build community but remove freedoms when it's no longer in their interests.

[–] madkarlsson@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago

But I never used a royal "We", in fact "we" was never used in my text at all. I used us, to refer to all the other comments that you can note does not agree with your assessment of open source.

Instead of you arguing my "cheap rhetorical skills", how about you actually answer more than, estimated, a fifth of my statements? How about you stop with your own victimization of " what really hurts me". Because that, in essence, is actually cheap rhetorics.

I fully agree that when companies do this, that it is disgusting. But you have to take a step back and look at the actual effect. This is not by any means new, it happened likely before I was even conceived.

What would you say your point is. To shame grayjoy or make a point that this is a threat to open source? Both? Neither?

[–] amki@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Do you not see the contradiction in this statement? Where do you find the line of what is stealing and “working as intented”?

If you redistribute someone else's open source code as open source but change nothing why would I get it from you and not the original developer? There is no incentive and no reward to "steal".

If you make enough changes to create additional value I might and then it is "working as intended"