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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.

  • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
    1·
    11 months ago

    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@communick.newsOPEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      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
        1·
        11 months ago

        “People steal the profits from others’ labor all the time, that’s normal and good.” - You

        • rglullis@communick.newsOPEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          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.

          • madkarlsson@beehaw.org
            0·
            11 months ago

            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

            • amki@feddit.de
              0·
              11 months 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”