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The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

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Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#41

Post by Gigachad »

Vortigaunt wrote: post #35
kattagarian wrote: post #4

Why would fedora have their own version of OBS studio when the package is already supported by the official team on flathub? Isn't this exactly the reason why flatpak was created, to avoid all the needless packaging that every distro had to do in order to install the program?

From what I've read the Fedora project has an interest in providing solely open source and non patent encumbered software like codecs. Which sounds like something OBS may infringe on

Sounds like if the want to provide their own forked and less functional versions of software, they should rebrand the software like distros used to do with Firefox. Rather than cripple it and leave people blaming OBS.

Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#42

Post by rincebrain »

This seems like a flashback to the xscreensaver fights with Debian of yore, given that the entire fight seems to distill to "OBS is shipping EOL Qt because of unfixed regressions in newer Qt, Fedora views shipping EOL Qt as unjustifiable neglect and repackaged it with newer Qt, which, as described, breaks things." [1]

For those who don't have that in their context - jwz got very upset at people reporting bugs against xscreensaver that had been fixed for a long time in upstream but e.g. Debian doesn't just ship upstream updates every 30 minutes. He requested Debian stop shipping it (or update it? I didn't go reread the entire chain before replying), Debian declined.

He then put in a piece of code that popped up a notification if the system time was sufficiently far past the hardcoded value, informing people they should upgrade, and Debian debated patching his message out.

[1] - jwz dot org/blog/2016/04/i-would-like-debian-to-stop-shipping-xscreensaver/

(Link turned into not a link because I had forgotten how jwz feels about HN referrers.)

Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#43

Post by akerl_ »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #36
akerl_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there legal precedent for that claim?

Absolutely. 1. Just read the license. Never is a trademark granted. Source code can and is granted completely independently of trademarks (otherwise, as one example, how does Apple license iOS SDKs without permission to use the name “Apple”? It’s just a more stringent license than a FOSS one.) 2. It’s already happened, Debian wanted to change Firefox, Mozilla said no, lo and behold we had “Iceweasel” for a decade. ht…

I think you're misunderstanding trademarks. As an example: if I buy a 12 pack of Coke, I can set up a table and sell them one can at a time. Trademarks require that I don't present that I'm sponsored by Coke, or label my non-Coke as Coke, or a variety of other things that would confuse consumers. That's the entire premise of trademarks: avoiding consumer confusion.

To your example: Debian had to rename their package because they were making modifications to the code of Firefox, so it wasn't Firefox anymore.

OBS could try to make the claim that how Fedora is packaging their code modifies the code, but that's way more tenuous given that building the product with different versions of its dependencies isn't really changing the code.

Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#44

Post by alexjplant »

rincebrain wrote: post #42

This seems like a flashback to the xscreensaver fights with Debian of yore, given that the entire fight seems to distill to "OBS is shipping EOL Qt because of unfixed regressions in newer Qt, Fedora views shipping EOL Qt as unjustifiable neglect and repackaged it with newer Qt, which, as described, breaks things." [1] For those who don't have that in their context - jwz got very upset at people reporting bugs against…

Don't link to this guy's site. He has a serious personal problem with every reader of HN (including the vast majority he's never met and knows nothing about) and serves an NSFW image to anybody that has this site in the referrer request header.

Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#45

Post by westurner »

akerl_ wrote: post #34
remram wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the linked comment: > This is a formal request to remove all of our branding, including but not limited to, our name, our logo, any additional IP belonging to the OBS Project Honestly it sounds very reasonable, if you want to fork it's fine, but don't have people report bugs upstream if you're introducing them.

I mean, I think the right fix is just for Fedora to stop packaging their own version. But I think that's about being good people; I don't think there's a strong legal argument here for forcing Fedora to do that.

Does Fedora's OBS ship with non-free codecs as required dependencies?

What should they call the (demanded) fork?

Also, Flatpaks have different file paths (like NixOS, which has updated packages according to e.g repology), and so selinux fails with many or most flatpaks.

Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#46

Post by rincebrain »

alexjplant wrote: post #44
rincebrain wrote: post #42

This seems like a flashback to the xscreensaver fights with Debian of yore, given that the entire fight seems to distill to "OBS is shipping EOL Qt because of unfixed regressions in newer Qt, Fedora views shipping EOL Qt as unjustifiable neglect and repackaged it with newer Qt, which, as described, breaks things." [1] For those who don't have that in their context - jwz got very upset at people reporting bugs against…

Don't link to this guy's site. He has a serious personal problem with every reader of HN (including the vast majority he's never met and knows nothing about) and serves an NSFW image to anybody that has this site in the referrer request header.

Yeah, I remembered that after, had to open another browser window to confirm it because otherwise I just got the cached one, and then edited.

Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#47

Post by gjsman-1000 »

akerl_ wrote: post #43
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. 1. Just read the license. Never is a trademark granted. Source code can and is granted completely independently of trademarks (otherwise, as one example, how does Apple license iOS SDKs without permission to use the name “Apple”? It’s just a more stringent license than a FOSS one.) 2. It’s already happened, Debian wanted to change Firefox, Mozilla said no, lo and behold we had “Iceweasel” for a decade. ht…

I think you're misunderstanding trademarks. As an example: if I buy a 12 pack of Coke, I can set up a table and sell them one can at a time. Trademarks require that I don't present that I'm sponsored by Coke, or label my non-Coke as Coke, or a variety of other things that would confuse consumers. That's the entire premise of trademarks: avoiding consumer confusion. To your example: Debian had to rename their package…

Considering that trademarks have a long case law with being used to force redistributors offline (i.e. to force my app to not be available on Download.com); I think it is fair to say that it is well established that a trademark gives the owner total distribution control except where the first-sale doctrine intervenes (resale of a product acquired through a legal seller). That doctrine only exists for physical products though, and specifically for items that can be “bought.”

Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#48

Post by akerl_ »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #40
akerl_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sort of the difference, isn't it? Debian forked Firefox and changed the code, so they had to rename it. But this doesn't look like changing the code, it's building it with different versions of its dependencies / different wrapping around it. Maybe there's a case here, but it feels pretty tenuous.

That's "changing the code." The main issue that I see, is that OBS doesn't want to be held responsible for the Fedora version, which is different from the "officially-supported" OBS version. They didn't modify anything other than the build, to exclude certain dependencies. But modifying the build, is modifying the code. They are allowed to do that, but they probably aren't allowed to slap the OBS name on the result.

> But modifying the build, is modifying the code.

Is it? Across Ubuntu, RHEL, and Archlinux, basically every package is being built against different versions of its underlying dependencies, and is being patched as needed to work with those distros. Trademarks weaken with lax enforcement, so you'd think if that interpretation held it would be amazingly dangerous for any trademark holder whose software was being packaged for Linux distros.

Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#49

Post by akerl_ »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #47
akerl_ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding trademarks. As an example: if I buy a 12 pack of Coke, I can set up a table and sell them one can at a time. Trademarks require that I don't present that I'm sponsored by Coke, or label my non-Coke as Coke, or a variety of other things that would confuse consumers. That's the entire premise of trademarks: avoiding consumer confusion. To your example: Debian had to rename their package…

Considering that trademarks have a long case law with being used to force redistributors offline (i.e. to force my app to not be available on Download.com); I think it is fair to say that it is well established that a trademark gives the owner total distribution control except where the first-sale doctrine intervenes (resale of a product acquired through a legal seller). That doctrine only exists for physical product…

Can you cite one of those cases?

Re: The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action

#50

Post by dismalaf »

akerl_ wrote: post #25
dismalaf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that OBS is GPL licensed, any legal action would have to be trademark-based, right? Yup. The issue isn't the code but misrepresentation of the origin. It's like back in the day when Debian "forked" Firefox for reasons... Edit - worded it poorly - never meant to imply Debian did anything wrong, only that they changed the branding to respect Firefox's trademark and avoid the situation that OBS is threatening Fe…

That's sort of the difference, isn't it? Debian forked Firefox and changed the code, so they had to rename it. But this doesn't look like changing the code, it's building it with different versions of its dependencies / different wrapping around it. Maybe there's a case here, but it feels pretty tenuous.

Oh it's a way different situation (Debian followed every letter of both the license and trademark law), but is an example that most FOSS people remember of a trademark issue related to a distro packaging an OSS project and needing to change the branding.
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