License update

The GPL requires others to follow its terms, because that's the only license of the code that's available to them. There is no clause of the GPL or any software license that I'm aware of that prevents you from doing whatever you want with your own code under different terms.

Therefore, you can do something negative (sell software that uses changes to GPL'd code without providing those sources to others when they ask for it), while maintaining a positive image ("look, I license my code under the GPL because I care about software freedom").

You can see this happening in practice with software that has a "community" edition available under the GPL, but a paid version that's not GPL'd. The holder of the copyright gets to profit off of other people's well meaning contributions (which almost certainly will have had their copyright assigned to the original copyright holder), but the people who contributed don't get the benefit of the copyright holder's changes to that code that are only available to paid customers.

You can argue that those contributors made their contributions knowing that would happen, but the fact that it is possible somewhat undermines the entire point of the free software movement.

i.e. Don't pretend to be "Open", altruistic, acting only in users security interests, selling benefits of open source, taking public interest donations, contributions, etc - and then prevent users from actually exercising simple neighborly freedoms. It's not like LibreSignal were doing anything particularly different to Desktop. LibreSignal would have been thrilled to have just had it upstreamed anyway.

How many Signal users don't have GCM or Play Store? 1%? Hardly an extreme server load burden. More so, it would have attracted code contributions to further improve Signal. Equating THAT with assault as you have, is rather fkng melodramatic.

Oh, wait, people are taking liberties and entitlements? Well what the hell do you think you're doing by using the GPL in the first place? What was the spirit and intent of the authors who wrote it? Do you think THAT is being respected?

Quite simply, don't give people nasty lock-in surprises. If you intend to be a closed, tightly-controlled cathedral of non-optional dependencies on large swathes of commercial mystery meat blobs - then just say so in the first place. If you start off with non-commercial protocols like SMS, then switch to GCM, plus have federation clearly in your plan, until you're big enough you don't have to care and can rip it - then give people an out that doesn't involve losing their whole network.

Whether you like it or not, a big part of the reason Signal attained the critical mass of users necessary to take it to the next level, was the promotion and backing of the FOSS community.

The attack on open protocols, cooperation, standards and community is hence the most disappointing part. We wouldn't even be having this conversation, if we weren't here standing on the shoulders of giants of open protocols from IETF, W3C, etc. Signal's contribution was respected as one of those, until it transformed (or revealed?) itself as a closed monopoly.

> 3.8: You agree that Google and/or third parties own all right [...]. You agree that you will not, and will not allow any third party to, (i) copy, sell, license, distribute, transfer, modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Products, unless otherwise permitted

And primarily 4.2, which you already found: In the event of a conflict between the Terms and any such licenses, the open source software licenses shall prevail with respect to those components.

These in combination has the effect I described.

https://play.google.com/intl/en_us/about/play-terms.html

> You may not sell, rent, lease, redistribute, broadcast, transmit, communicate, modify, sublicense or transfer or assign any Content or your rights to Content to any third party without authorization

Copyleft license is automatic authorization.