this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
568 points (89.8% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

54627 readers
850 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Watched Louis Rossman today, and he's part of the team behind a new app for watching online video content - not just youtube, but nebula, peertube, twitch and more.

adblock already integrated, works amazingly with a quick test on my end - it's an app in the Lemmy spirit

(it's got a paid model similar to winrar, you don't have to pay - but they do want you to - opensource and all)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

please edit this post to remove the incorrect claim that this is open source, as it is clearly not.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have found three comments from you, where you insert yourself as an expert on what Open Source is/not is. Although you do link to some sources, you do so without arguing your point. IMO this is not a constructive way of communication. Since I believe your perspective is purist but overall not too helpful, I will go through the trouble an actually argue the point:

Your problem is following sentence published by the OSI: "The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources." Which FUTO does - they won't allow you to put ads on top of their software and distribute it. But I hope that you would agree with me that GNU GPL is an Open Source License. However, they do have a copyleft which practically makes selling software impossible. If you use a library which uses the GPL, you have to make your sources available - which makes selling a compiled version a difficult task...

If we look at Wikipedia, we see following sentence: "Generally, open source refers to a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use or modification from its original design.", Grayjay fulfils this. Wikipedia continues: "{...}. Depending on the license terms, others may then download, modify, and publish their version {...}", you are allowed to download and modify Grayjay. They do not allow you to commercially distribute your modifications, which is a license term.

Lets look at a big OSS company. Red Hat writes: "An open source development model is the process used by an open source community project to develop open source software. The software is then released under an open source license, so anyone can view or modify the source code." These criteria are fulfilled by the FUTO TEMPORARY LICENSE (Last updated 7 June 2023). Red Hat does not mention the right to redistribute anywhere I could find it.

To those who actually read up to this point: I hope you find this helpful to form your own opinion based on your own research.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You can argue that "open source" can mean other things that what the OSI defined it to mean, but the truth of the matter is that almost everyone thinks of the OSI or similar definition when they talk about "open source". Insisting on using the term this way is deliberately misleading. Even your own links don't support your argument.

A bit further down in the Wikipedia page is this:

Main article: Open-source software

Generally, open source refers to a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use for any (including commercial) purpose, or modification from its original design.

And if you go to the main article, it is apparent that the OSI definition is treated as the de fact definition of open source. I'm not going to quote everything, but here are examples of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software#Definitions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software#Open-source_versus_source-available

And from Red Hat, literally the first sentence

Open source is a term that originally referred to open source software (OSS). Open source software is code that is designed to be publicly accessible—anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit.

...

What makes software open source?

And if we follow that link:

In actuality, neither free software nor open source software denote anything about cost—both kinds of software can be legally sold or given away.

But the Red Hat page is a bad source anyway because it is written like a short intro and not a formal definition of the concept. Taking a random sentence from it and arguing that it doesn't mention distribution makes no sense.

Here is a more comprehensive page from Red Hat, that clearly states that they evaluate whether a license is open source based on OSI and the FSF definitions.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

since you copy+pasted this wall of confused text to me in 3 different places I guess I'll reply here too, in the not-deleted thread: https://opensource.org/authority/ (this is not even a controversial topic)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The source is freely available, but it does not fit the common definition of open source. Namely, you're not allowed to redistribute with tracking, malware, or adds. I guess this has been a problem with piped?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yes, this has been a major issue for NewPipe, see here.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It is not free software but it is open source. Stop gatekeeping the term. I can look at the code and modify it to my hearts content. I can also watch as the project is being developed. That means it's open source. It would be free software if you where also allowed to redistribute it but I can fully see why they do not want that

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it is open source. Stop gatekeeping the term

i guess you didn't click the link in my comment? here is another, with a list of governments and other entities who all agree about the definition: https://opensource.org/authority/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh so what you're trying to say is that, because the license they chose is not on this list, it's not open source. Stupid take IMO but you do you

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It isn't about the list of approved licenses, it's about the criteria for being added to the list. New licenses regularly meet the definition. This license clearly does not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

so what Edward Snowden developed a closed source license

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

oh cool, if Edward Snowden did it I guess software freedom isn't important anymore 🙄

But seriously, did he? which one? I'm not familiar with that.

But even if he did release something under one, I would be extremely surprised if he called a non-free license "open source" as FUTO is doing here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

top 10 most deserving people to be on an emkay video number 2:

edit: also i borderline didn't understand what he was saying

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/grayjay/-/blob/master/LICENSE: FUTO TEMPORARY LICENSE It seems like it's more CC non-commercial and not truly libre but I can understand why someone would say open source.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I can understand why someone would say open source

I can understand why too: it's either because they were not aware of the widely agreed-upon definition of the term, or because they're being disingenuous. I'm assuming it was the former; whether OP edits the post will reveal if it was actually the latter.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This whole discussion is like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It depends completely on how you define open source, and there is no single universally agreed upon definition. Per this article, there are over 80 variations of open source licenses all with different term and conditions. Some are more permissive, some less so. Yet they can all be considered a variation of open source, though I'm anticipating you wouldn't agree? For this particular app, there are some restrictions in place aimed to protect users from malicious forks. IMO this is a good thing. I can't understand why you are acting like the definition police here, it seems very pedantic tbh.

Many software buyers – even new developers – misunderstand the term “open source” to mean the software is available to use, copy, modify, and distribute as desired. This misunderstanding may arise from confusing open source with public domain or shareware, both of which are free to use and modify without specific permissions or licensing.

The truth is that, for the most part, open-source software is covered by one of several types of open source licenses and is not necessarily free of charge either.

In contrast to proprietary software where vendors typically make it impossible to access, copy or modify the source code, open source code permits the use, reuse, sharing, modification, and distribution of the code in other programs or applications. But just as with proprietary software licensing, open source software is subject to various legal terms and restrictions, depending on the type of open source license in force.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

there is no single universally agreed upon definition

There is an overwhelmingly agreed-upon definition. Look at who agrees with it: https://opensource.org/authority/

And who doesn't agree? Historically, a few of the giant software companies who were threatened by the free software movement thought that "open source" was a way for them to talk the talk without walking the walk. However, years ago, even they all eventually agreed about OSI's definition and today they use terms like source-available software for their products that don't meet it.

Today it is only misinformed people like yourself, and grifters trying to profit off of the positive perception of the term. I'm assuming Louis Rossman is in the former category too; we'll see in the near future if he acknowledges that the FUTO license is not open source and/or relicenses the project under an open source license.

there are over 80 variations of open source licenses all with different term and conditions. Some are more permissive, some less so. Yet they can all be considered a variation of open source, though I’m anticipating you wouldn’t agree?

There are many open source licenses, and many non-open-source licenses. there is a list of licenses which OSI has analyzed and found to meet their definition; licenses which aren't on that list can be open source too... but to see if they are, you would need to read the license and the definition.

Have you read The Open Source Definition? I'm assuming not.

I can’t understand why you are acting like the definition police here, it seems very pedantic tbh.

It's because (1) FUTO are deceiving their customers by claiming that their product is something which it isn't, and (2) they're harming the free and open source software movements by telling people that terms mean things contrary to what they actually mean.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You make some good points, but whether it exactly meets every criteria of open source software as per that definition or not, I really can't bring myself to care that much either way. I get that it's important to you, and that's fine, but not everyone cares that much about it. People can read and vet the source code, the intention of the project seems good, and the intention of the authors in deviating slightly from pure open source principles seems to be to protect their users from scammy clones, which also seems fine with me. TBH we're not really into strictly following the letter of the law in the pirate community, and if this app helps people to avoid surveillance capitalism and puts even the slightest dent in Google's massive profits then I'm all for it. Anyways, have a good one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

deviating slightly from pure open source principles

saying that prohibiting redistribution is just "deviating slightly from pure open source principles" is like saying that a dish with a bit of meat in it is just "deviating slightly" from a vegetarian recipe.

if you saw a restaurant labeling their food as vegetarian because their dishes were based on vegetarian recipes, but had some meat added, would you say that it seems like their intentions are good?

to protect their users from scammy clones

As I said in another comment, the way free open source software projects should (and can, and do) generally do this is using trademark law. He could license it under any free software license but require derivatives to change the name to avoid misleading or confusing users. This is what Firefox and many other projects do.

TBH we’re not really into strictly following the letter of the law in the pirate community

In the video announcing the project Louis Rossmann explicitly says he intends to vigorously enforce this license. Since it is a copyright license, the only ways of actually enforcing it are to send DMCA takedowns and/or sue people for copyright infringement.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

What fresh hell of goalpost moving is this? You're so bad faith.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Oh go on you absolute fucking blowhard. Go print out a copy of osi and jerk off in your closet and leave the rest if us functional adults alone.