Free and Open Source Software

17916 readers

112 users here now

If it's free and open source and it's also software, it can be discussed here. Subcommunity of Technology.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Gaywallet@beehaw.org

alyaza@beehaw.org

122

Grayjay is not Open Source (hiphish.github.io)

submitted 1 year ago by rglullis to c/foss@beehaw.org

67 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] 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.