search

Meecast / meecast

MeeCast - multiplatform highly customizable open source weather forecast client based on OMWeather code. Copyright (C) 2006-2024
GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
27 stars 18 forks source link

ToDo: Clarify ambiguous or outdated information (comments, license etc.) #50

Open Olf0 opened 1 month ago

Olf0 commented 1 month ago

Two unrelated questions, I stumbled over when I worked with the spec file and which I am willing to fix when I have some time:

  1. You stopped using Spectacle for generating the spec file for the SailfishOS builds, correct?
  2. Which licence is exactly meant? It is stated consistently GPLv2.1, but no such license exists: There is the GPLv2.0 and the LGPLv2.1, see spdx.org/licenses or opensource.org/licenses. As the full license text is missing, I cannot tell what the intended license is. If you do not remember, I suggest using the LGPLv2.1 (i.e., interpret that the "L" is missing instead of the "1" being wrong), because it still ensures that all assets (code etc.) of MeeCast must stay Open Source licensed under this license, but allows proprietary software to directly use these assets (e.g. libraries, icons etc.); in short, it allows a broader reuse of the work created here. Additionally I wanted to check if GPLv2.0-only / LGPLv2.1-only or GPLv2.0+ / LGPLv2.1+ was intended, because the GPL3-family of licenses differs significantly from the GPL2-family to an extent that they are legally incompatible with each other: With the + ("or any later version") everybody can choose to reuse the assets of MeeCast under any later license of that type (GPL, LGPL, AGPL) the FSF publishes and the GPL3-family imposes restrictions which practically make using such licensed software impossible in scenarios where the device owner is not the user of that device (which is why Jolla, Google etc. avoid them like hell). The classic example are devices owned by institutions (companies, governmental offices etc.) which are used by their employees and administrated by the IT-department of the institution. Personally I think the GPL3-family of are unfree licenses, because they practically prevent certain use-cases, which contradicts "freedom #0" as the FSF calls it, which states that "anybody may use this software for any purpose at any time anywhere". Furthermore, nobody knows which changes even newer versions may bring, hence the + ("or any later version") implies arbitrary uncertainty. This is the reason why I always prefer to use a specific license, i.e. -only.

If you @vasvlad provide me with feedback to these two points, I will rectify point 1 with a PR for the sailfishos branch and point 2 with a PR for the master branch (full license text, correct license ID etc.).

vasvlad commented 1 month ago
  1. Yes. I don't currently use Spectacle. I edit the spec file manually. I think this yaml file can be completely removed from source tree.
vasvlad commented 1 month ago
  1. I agree with you about GPL 3 and agree with the suggestion to use LGPLv2.1 in Meecast. Thank you very much for your help.
Olf0 commented 1 month ago

Thank you for your clarifying both points. I will create two PRs addressing these issues, when I have some time for that.

Olf0 commented 2 weeks ago

Part 2 is not finished yet, see PR https://github.com/Meecast/meecast/pull/51#issuecomment-2163933383

I did not start to work on part 1, but that is by far the less tedious one.