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LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

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Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#111

Post by homarp »

godelski wrote: post #108
throwaway89201 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint is that three sentences away, there's a clear "You are licensed to use the source code" for the non-server parts. It can certainly be argued that there's an intentional difference. Extended court cases have been fought over mere punctuation. In any case, the FUD that this creates is enough to make anyone think twice about reusing the server code, especially as they have refused to clarify for many ye…

You may be licensed to use source code to create compiled versions not produced by Mattermost, Inc. in one of two ways: 1. Under the Free Software Foundation’s GNU AGPL v3.0, subject to the exceptions outlined in this policy; or 2. Under a commercial license available from Mattermost, Inc. by contacting commercial@mattermost.com My read: We provide you with two options, either: 1. Follow Apache License 2. Pay us and…

how you jump from AGPL to apache?

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#112

Post by emacdona »

I am not a lawyer.

My reading of the license is: either (a) buy a license or (b) be bound by the AGPLv3 -- with _very_ limited exceptions.

So, my question is: are the people that are upset with the "ambiguity" people who neither (a) want to buy a license nor (b) be bound by the AGPLv3?

If so, I have no sympathy.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#113

Post by mring33621 »

Ok, their license is pretty strange: https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost/blob/master/LICENSE...

MIT for binaries distributed by Mattermost.

But, if you compile it yourself: GNU AGPL v3.0 XOR Paid-for Enterprise License

Then, for some odd reason, they append the text of Apache License Version 2.0!!!

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#114

Post by throwaway89201 »

godelski wrote: post #108
throwaway89201 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint is that three sentences away, there's a clear "You are licensed to use the source code" for the non-server parts. It can certainly be argued that there's an intentional difference. Extended court cases have been fought over mere punctuation. In any case, the FUD that this creates is enough to make anyone think twice about reusing the server code, especially as they have refused to clarify for many ye…

You may be licensed to use source code to create compiled versions not produced by Mattermost, Inc. in one of two ways: 1. Under the Free Software Foundation’s GNU AGPL v3.0, subject to the exceptions outlined in this policy; or 2. Under a commercial license available from Mattermost, Inc. by contacting commercial@mattermost.com My read: We provide you with two options, either: 1. Follow Apache License 2. Pay us and…

> But maybe I'm misunderstanding? If so, I don't know what I'm missing

You're apparently missing the two points I made in the post you are replying to, or at the very least you're not responding to them. By which I don't mean to say they are necessarily valid points.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#115

Post by tecoholic »

zem wrote: post #73
arjie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh that's a classic trick. It's been going on for decades. One example I am particularly familiar with is that of Larry Philpot / User:Nightshooter on Wikimedia Commons. He would upload his photos there with an addendum on how he should be attributed. Any slight impression in the attribution would be followed by legal action. It was obviously a copyright troll mechanism and now all of his photos on Wikimedia Commons…

I am honestly flabbergasted that his pictures weren't expunged with great prejudice. what is the value they add to wikimedia that makes being associated with this sort of sleaze okay?

I don’t understand why this is sleazy TBH. It’s CC-BY-SA. If attribution isn’t provided it’s a valid case. I once uploaded a map of my state with all the districts in labels in English and my language Tamil to commons under CC-BY-SA. It was used left right and centre, from publications, map sellers to the point I can see them hanging in offices. It’s always pained me, nothing could be done about it. Now I didn’t want money, would have liked the recognition, but would have settled for just seeing the CC-BY-SA logo on it at the least.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#116

Post by comex »

tazjin wrote: post #85
pixelpoet wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a Zulip server and it's pretty good. The way they organise channels is extremely convoluted unfortunately (I wish they would just use absolutely standard channels layout like every other chat, and have everyone able to see them on join!) but well, beggars can't be choosers.

People go through all this trouble to host convoluted chat systems, and all this time IRC is right there. There's modern servers like Ergo and modern clients like Halloy (or for the JavaScript addicts: Convos, The Lounge, Kiwi, ...) providing all the multi-device history sharing and emoji reactions you could need. All on top of a super simple, extremely battle tested protocol.

But according to https://ircv3.net/software/clients, none of the clients you mentioned actually support emoji reactions (draft/react), and other features like multi-line messages and image uploads are likewise extremely limited in server/client support. So, for the time being, you can't use these features if you want to actually be interoperable with existing IRC users and their clients. Sounds like if you want decentralized, Matrix is still the better bet.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#117

Post by corranh »

homarp wrote: post #111
godelski wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be licensed to use source code to create compiled versions not produced by Mattermost, Inc. in one of two ways: 1. Under the Free Software Foundation’s GNU AGPL v3.0, subject to the exceptions outlined in this policy; or 2. Under a commercial license available from Mattermost, Inc. by contacting commercial@mattermost.com My read: We provide you with two options, either: 1. Follow Apache License 2. Pay us and…

how you jump from AGPL to apache?

The commenter doesn’t jump to Apache, the license does…if you scroll down it’s the Apache license not the AGPL.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#118

Post by throwaway150 »

emacdona wrote: post #112

I am not a lawyer. My reading of the license is: either (a) buy a license or (b) be bound by the AGPLv3 -- with _very_ limited exceptions. So, my question is: are the people that are upset with the "ambiguity" people who neither (a) want to buy a license nor (b) be bound by the AGPLv3? If so, I have no sympathy.

> So, my question is: are the people that are upset with the "ambiguity" people who neither

> (a) want to buy a license nor

> (b) be bound by the AGPLv3?

No and no. People first want to know what the correct licenses are even before deciding which licensing path (including buying a commercial license) to take. You don't just commit to buying a commercial license without first understanding your options and comparing those options. People want to know what those options are.

People are upset that a company cannot get the simple matter of open source licensing right. It's the easiest kind of licensing. But they cannot get it right. These upset people would now never want to do business with this company.

People who would have otherwise been happy to purchase a commercial license would also stay away from the company because messing up open source licensing is a red flag. Who knows what kind of mess would be present in their commercial contracts. Yes, you can hire a lawyer to sort it out but I'd much rather do business with a company where I'm confident that the company is acting in good faith even before lawyers get involved.

> If so, I have no sympathy.

Your sympathy means nothing to me when I am picking vendors for my business. When I'm picking my vendors, I'm going to rely on professional legal expertise available to me, not the sympathies of random strangers on the internet.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#119

Post by dang »

Submitted title was "Mattermost say they will not clarify what license the project is under", which is against the site guidelines: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

I'm open to a different title than "LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant", which is obscure enough to qualify as misleading if not linkbait. However, its replacement should be an accurate, neutral title that preferably uses representative language from the article itself (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).

Re the "don't editorialize" bit in the rules: If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#120

Post by teraflop »

zem wrote: post #73
arjie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh that's a classic trick. It's been going on for decades. One example I am particularly familiar with is that of Larry Philpot / User:Nightshooter on Wikimedia Commons. He would upload his photos there with an addendum on how he should be attributed. Any slight impression in the attribution would be followed by legal action. It was obviously a copyright troll mechanism and now all of his photos on Wikimedia Commons…

I am honestly flabbergasted that his pictures weren't expunged with great prejudice. what is the value they add to wikimedia that makes being associated with this sort of sleaze okay?

If you read the discussion, they weren't kept because of their encyclopedic value, or because they were "widespread". I'm not sure why the parent commenter said that.

They were kept to preserve a record of their having been uploaded, and to not create a legal risk for third parties who might be relying on the Commons page as their way to provide attribution.

The original proposal was to keep the image pages with the metadata, but delete the image files. That turned out to have some technical hurdles, so instead the images were overwritten with versions containing big ugly attribution messages, to discourage their use.

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