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FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

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Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#31

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

rahuldottech wrote: post #20
Danieru wrote: post #18

Let's all wait for BSD license apologists to insist true freedom is the freedom to blackmail your users. Props to the OS Xfuse maintainer, he does deserve a fat payout so begrudging him. Still, it paints the clear picture of how BSD is an inferior license when it comes to freedom for users. Maybe this comment is too slashdot 2006 era, but still, licenses matter.

Correct me if I'm misinformed, but I don't see your point? The original author of code is always free to stop publishing their software as FOSS, regardless of which license they use, as long as they don't try and stop the re-distribution and forking of existing FOSS releases?

The current maintainer is not the original author of osxfuse/macfuse/whatever, Google is.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#32

Post by mantap »

dmitriid wrote: post #6
ixtli wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what happened with VLC? I didn’t realize they ran afoul of the “Cathedral”

The only thing I can remember is that VLC was removed from AppStore due to GPL.

That was because one of the contributors made a (legally sound if unsporting) copyright claim though wasn't it?

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#33

Post by Epskampie »

ixtli wrote: post #4
Epskampie wrote: post #3

Well, all I can really think after reading this is “fuck apple”. I’m getting very very tired of their walled off closed shit where they even try to make life as hard as possible for people who try to support it despite the odds. This isn’t the first time either, it happened to VLC before.

Wait what happened with VLC? I didn’t realize they ran afoul of the “Cathedral”

apple kept changing/breaking Api’s to try to kill vlc so that they could try make money of the paid version of the QuickTime player which then existed.

I must admit it was just comments made by VLC devs, so it’s anecdotal.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#34

Post by tra3 »

khc wrote: post #17
mike_d wrote: post #13

It is buried in the footnotes of the post, but the ultimate reason behind going closed source is that Google built their enterprise GDrive syncing client for mac off a fork of osxfuse. The original author of osxfuse feels entitled to some compensation for that and is doing his damnedest to make it happen.

the footnote doesn't say that's the reason osxfuse went close source

He doesn’t call google out by name but what grandparent says explains this:

> Starting with this release, redistributions bundled with commercial software ...

The question is, is google going to call his bluff and pay up or reassign some internal resources? I’m assuming they’d want their gdrive fork to work on Catalina.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#36

Post by oefrha »

mike_d wrote: post #13

It is buried in the footnotes of the post, but the ultimate reason behind going closed source is that Google built their enterprise GDrive syncing client for mac off a fork of osxfuse. The original author of osxfuse feels entitled to some compensation for that and is doing his damnedest to make it happen.

Seems like an entire valid use case of BSD-licensed code. If you don't like it you shouldn't have chosen the BSD license in the first place.

Edit: Interestingly, from https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/blob/master/LICENSE.txt:

> FUSE for macOS is a fork of MacFUSE. MacFUSE has been developed by Google Inc..

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#37

Post by rahuldottech »

stouset wrote: post #24
rahuldottech wrote: post #15

IIRC, FUSE is also required for VeraCrypt to function. So now the source code of this library (module? whatever) that's used by popular encryption software won't be available for public scrutiny. Amazing. The author is, of course, completely within their rights to stop publishing the source code of their software, but this is a real pity. The way to go would be for members of the FOSS community to fork the last versi…

VeraCrypt is for Windows. This is a FUSE implementation for macOS.

You are mistaken. VeraCrypt supports Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. On macOS, it requires FUSE.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#38

Post by kibwen »

mike_d wrote: post #13

It is buried in the footnotes of the post, but the ultimate reason behind going closed source is that Google built their enterprise GDrive syncing client for mac off a fork of osxfuse. The original author of osxfuse feels entitled to some compensation for that and is doing his damnedest to make it happen.

Given that the main selling point of permissive licenses is that they make it easy for businesses to incorporate code into a project that can be closed-source for the sake of competitive advantage, this would seem to be an incident that might have been prevented with a license more in line with the author's motivations.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#39

Post by yegle »

mike_d wrote: post #13

It is buried in the footnotes of the post, but the ultimate reason behind going closed source is that Google built their enterprise GDrive syncing client for mac off a fork of osxfuse. The original author of osxfuse feels entitled to some compensation for that and is doing his damnedest to make it happen.

FWIW, MacFUSE was open sourced by Google: http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2007/01/taming-mac-os-x-file-s...

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#40

Post by [deleted] »

Epskampie wrote: post #3

Well, all I can really think after reading this is “fuck apple”. I’m getting very very tired of their walled off closed shit where they even try to make life as hard as possible for people who try to support it despite the odds. This isn’t the first time either, it happened to VLC before.

[deleted]
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