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qbittorrent / qBittorrent

qBittorrent BitTorrent client
https://www.qbittorrent.org
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Ty Coon, President of Vice #7749

Closed a-raccoon closed 6 years ago

a-raccoon commented 6 years ago

Dear people of qBittorrent. You left an unmodified GNU General Public License in your software. It is now version 4 and hundreds of millions of people have since clicked that they agree to the terms of this license.

I, Ty Coon, have returned to now hereby lay claim as President of Vice as lord and master over this project, and all those who have agreed to the terms of the agreement, post haste and hitherto.

sledgehammer999 commented 6 years ago

What are you talking about?

a-raccoon commented 6 years ago

Read the legally binding license agreement you authorize every time you install qBittorrent.

DU911 commented 6 years ago

lol He's joking, altough there is a mistake in your license. Everyone knows Ty Coon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Coon Check the GPL: src/gui/gpl.html https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/blob/3ea81be2ccf863f21733b08f23dc2280b2bf98ed/src/gui/gpl.html This project also has a link (on the main bar) to the standard GNU definition, whereas Ty came from.

sledgehammer999 commented 6 years ago

It is the GPL v2 license. You have the right to use our source and modify it if you also give your modifications as GPL v2.

(although most of our source files are GPL v2+ actually)

I don't understand what you think you discovered here...

DU911 commented 6 years ago

He is just joking about line 491 of src/gui/gpl onwards, it's just sample 'nononono', 'loren ipsum', etc. It may be left there, but makes room for the infamous joke. I myself don't think anything is found there - but the OP may be another story. Oh, I think GPL is too ver-boze and would go Berkeley (2 term) - but that's me. And thanks for a fine free torrent client ;D

sledgehammer999 commented 6 years ago

lol He's joking, altough there is a mistake in your license. Everyone knows Ty Coon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Coon Check the GPL: src/gui/gpl.html https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/blob/3ea81be2ccf863f21733b08f23dc2280b2bf98ed/src/gui/gpl.html This project also has a link (on the main bar) to the standard GNU definition, whereas Ty came from.

Great! This is a remnant from the previous author/maintainer lots of years ago. Since then noone bothered with that file. It seems that the original author (Chris Dumez) just copy-pasted it. In any case, it is clear that the program is distributed under the GPLv2 license. I'll mark this eventually fixing the file too.

DU911 commented 6 years ago

Yup! Old school groupware ;) Just a memento, harmless! Cheers!

sledgehammer999 commented 6 years ago

Hmm, a related PR that sadly didn't touch the gpl.html file: https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/pull/3976

ehea617 commented 6 years ago

Can I omit the preamble of the GPL, or the instructions for how to use it on your own programs, to save space?

The preamble and instructions are integral parts of the GNU GPL and may not be omitted. In fact, the GPL is copyrighted, and its license permits only verbatim copying of the entire GPL. (You can use the legal terms to make another license but it won't be the GNU GPL.)

The preamble and instructions add up to some 1000 words, less than 1/5 of the GPL's total size. They will not make a substantial fractional change in the size of a software package unless the package itself is quite small. In that case, you may as well use a simple all-permissive license rather than the GNU GPL.

From https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOmitPreamble

The removed text from the license needs to be added back as this goes against the GPL.

DU911 commented 6 years ago

Although I agree with what FSF says, and apologize if I did any damage.

In my defense: It also says "END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS" but nowhere it says "END OF THE LICENSE/DOCUMENT/FILE". It is a verbatim copy of license, not instructions, and so I've seen it being used many years long. The SITE FAQ says you can't do it, but that is not the license. Someone added that in lieu of people not seing instructions as part of it just because they were in the same text (file).

So imo "this is nonsense from creators mandate and necessity to fight the rogue lawyers on their own field". Stallman work, even if good-hearted and well-willing, created a stall in form of a rethoric and legal loop. Iteraction with the real world added fuel to the thing, and I presume the next GPL version will have like 10 pages... But I'm for Berkeley, so it's your take.

Again, forgive me if I failed on checking the news. I guess last time I did, there wasn't even yet a site for it.

sledgehammer999 commented 6 years ago

Commit reverted with https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/commit/53cc8e11156d891e10f0315e98c8ddc8653fe6e7 I think the GPL folks are a bit overzealous. I don't think the omission actually constitutes a different license nor that the license itself is copyrightable. But anyway, I want to avoid possible drama, so I reverted the commit. Thank you @ehea617 for bringing this to my attention.