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samuelmaddock / metastream

Watch streaming media with friends.
https://getmetastream.com/
2.5k stars 213 forks source link

Licensing #296

Open Pastitas opened 4 years ago

Pastitas commented 4 years ago

Have you considered making the app free software via a free software license? Either way i would consider adding one in order to protect your hard work and the community, congratulations on this great proyect!

nfitzen commented 4 years ago

Any code in the Metastream Remote extension after https://github.com/samuelmaddock/metastream/commit/b4b1605439c04fb752bd2d71b0dd996fd1d08b8e seems to not have a license on purpose.

The latest Metastream versions that are still free software are anything before that, and it seems the latest release is v0.7.2.

Edit: see my comment below: https://github.com/samuelmaddock/metastream/issues/296#issuecomment-782815555

Edit 2: copyright doesn't control use of software, to my knowledge.

aloisdg commented 3 years ago

When you said free software you meant gratis not libre, right?

Pastitas commented 3 years ago

I meant libre, because with this kinds of services the users immensely benefit from it being open source, and benefit humanity by being free software, gratis is just the business model which works for me if no data mining is involved, heck I'd even pay some for it.

rugk commented 3 years ago

For a start, could you explain the reasoning behind https://github.com/samuelmaddock/metastream/commit/b4b1605439c04fb752bd2d71b0dd996fd1d08b8e? Why do you want to make the browser extension proprietary and everything else FLOSS (MIT license)? What has pushed you to do this?

Note that if you want to ensure this project stays FLOSS forever (cannot be integrated in proprietary things), the (A)GPL may be better.

nfitzen commented 3 years ago

I did want to note that the addon page on AMO still says it's under the Expat/MIT License. I'm guessing that either only applies to the compiled form or is totally inaccurate. It'd be nice to have a clarification of this.

I see no reason a gratis app shouldn't be free besides a simple power grab. Given the timing and wording ("under my copyright") of https://github.com/samuelmaddock/metastream/commit/b4b1605439c04fb752bd2d71b0dd996fd1d08b8e, I'm guessing it's due to the pandemic and a misunderstanding of what copyright is.

nfitzen commented 3 years ago

Wanted to also add that the latest free Metastream Remote commit is https://github.com/samuelmaddock/metastream/commit/dbf35ab89c97f16183b39079e1225684ab69ace8 (based on the commit history), and thus the latest Metastream Remote version that is free software is 0.4.1, and it appears to work fine for most things. The Web app is still licensed under the Expat license. You can download it from AMO, but it doesn't appear that the Chrome Web Store has version history. Make sure to disable automatic updates.

Since the Web app is free software at the time of writing, you can use Metastream with entirely free software this way. For now. It's not a stable solution, obviously.

Edit: never mind. This doesn't work; it only works if you already had a copy of an old Metastream version, due to how copyright law works. I'm just not going to use the app, I guess. Unless I reverse-engineer the protocol.