this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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Is there a particular aspect of the FUTO license you are concerned with? The code is publicly available, and the license seems to allow you to do anything you want, except sell the code. Other than not allowing you to re-package and sell the code, it seems like your rights are very similar to anything distributed via the GPL.
Am I missing something?
repackaging is a fundamental software freedom. that's just for starters.
Here I leave a comment I saw here for a more detailed explanation.
Friendly reminder that Grayjay is only source-available.
FUTO Temporary License (FTL) violates the following open-source principles:
The FTL enables the following practices:
My main gripe here is that the video sells a source-available software with severe usage restrictions as open-source. These restrictions may sound reasonable to people outside of the open-source world, especially to people who use similar wording in their own terms of service, but nobody would touch your software with a ten foot pole with a software license like that.
Re-packaging is fine. You just can't sell it.
They're just trying to prevent a company from making money off the free labor of the authors. It's the same issue that has plagued other projects, such as Elastic Search, which ultimately led it to change licenses. And it's why MariaDB created the BSL, which they and other companies have adopted (very similar terms here - source free to use for non-commercial purposes).
If the hangup is specifically that they can change the terms, or revoke rights altogether, the other licenses also allow for that - that's how these projects are changing licenses at all, and it happens quite a bit. I have personally contributed to projects that were GPL, and then went Apache.
As a developer, I could certainly see not wanting to build on the project while the license is what it is, but as a user, I don't think this license is bad. I also think this is likely temporary (hence the name - "FUTO Temporary License"), and the tight grip on the rights are probably just so they can re-license later (hopefully to something a little more permissive). I could definitely be wrong, but given Louis's track record of fighting for things like right-to-repair, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt here. He could certainly prove me wrong though, if they do anything shady. Feel free to rub it in my face if he ever does.
Edit:
Just for proof, here's the specific line that says you can re-package and redistribute, from section 2, line 2:
It's a revokable license. Nobody in their right mind will touch software with a revokable license.
As a user, or a developer? As a user, I don't think it matters. As a developer, I think other licenses have similar carve outs, e.g. the GPLv3 section 8 is a whole section on "termination" - the copyright holder can revoke your rights for any ticky-tack violation of the license, and at their discretion, the revocation can be permanent.
Additionally, even with other FOSS licenses, the copyright holder can re-license the project. If I had to guess, this ability to re-license is probably why it is written as it is - the license is called the "FUTO Temporary License." I would assume it's written as is so they can re-license later, and they just want to cover their bases now. It's entirely possible that's incorrect, and they'll clamp down. I'm personally willing to give them the benefit of the doubt (though having said that, I have no intention of buying, using, or contributing to this project).
the GPL revocation requires violating the license terms and it's a clause just to prevent people from using GPL code and not giving back their code. The GPL allows your fiercest competitor or enemy country to use your code and you can't revoke the license as long as they publish their code too.
the FUTO license can revoke the license just because Rossmann says so. It is a mechanism to keep Rossmann the owner of everything that spawns from the code of the app and being the only one who can make money from it. If Rossmann doesn't like someone who wants to redistributes the app, he can immediately revoke their license. Which is fine for a proprietary app. The issue is that he keep calling it "open source".
This is not true. The GPL does not force anyone to give up their code, unless they distribute it. From the "Definitions" section:
And
And from the "Basic Permissions" section:
Under the terms of the GPL, the owner can revoke your access for any violation of the license, and at their discretion, they can make that revocation permanent. The GPL does not guarantee equal treatment - an author can punish one person harshly, and another not at all. It still comes down to the author. Yes, there is a small barrier in that you have to find a violation, but if you look hard enough, you can probably find a violation - especially in large projects using libraries distributed under multiple different licenses.
Quoting from my comment here:
This is not true. You can make and sell plugins, you could offer support, you could sell your services as a code auditor/security expert... anything other than selling the code you didn't write. On top of that, in practice, this isn't different from anything else - most contributors to open source projects don't profit from them, unless they work for the organization that owns the project. When the non-owners do profit, it's usually big companies and results in the license changes I've described above.
Re-licensing the project means future releases go out under a new license. Past releases remain as they are, because they are non-revokable (unless breached; but let's be real, if you breach an agreement you should stop benefiting from it).
Both. A user that doesn't care about licensing is typically called a pirate.
The license literally does not govern the usage of the app. Here's the first line:
Read the entire license (it's only 32 lines), and you won't find anything related to using the product, only the code.
This license should only be scary to developers, who might build on the project, and then have it taken away. As a user, your concerns are different, and this license vs the GPL, or any other FOSS, or even source available license, are more-or-less the same. As a user, your primary concerns are probably going to be related to the security and privacy related aspects, and as long as you have access to the source, you can audit it and ensure it meets your standards. If they choose to revoke access to the code, as a user, you're in the same boat you described - don't take new versions because you can't audit them, but you can stay on the old version. They can't revoke that access with this license, because again, this license literally does not govern usage of the product.