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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

#51

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

akerl_ wrote: post #48
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 packa…

Maybe, but IANAL. Many build pipelines are almost as complex as the code they weave together.

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

#52

Post by dralley »

guelo wrote: post #24

Centralized App stores are bad enough, but App Stores tied to each OS release and the random whims of distro maintainers is insane. It holds back the whole ecosystem.

There's little real difference between OBS packaged as flatpak and OBS packaged as distro RPMs.

This is basically the same conflict between upstreams and distro developers that has been raging since time immemorial.

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

akerl_ wrote: post #49
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by xyst »

wilg wrote: post #20

Lots of Linux-related drama on HN lately. Maybe someone should offer free conflict resolution classes for libre software maintainers.

The "Linux-related drama" is child's play compared to what I have seen occur within corporate governance meetings.

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

#55

Post by iotku »

diego_sandoval wrote: post #33

Last time I checked, Flathub was rife with unofficial packages posing as official ones (using the URL of upstream, with no verification, when the upstream dev has no association to the package). That's the main reason I never took Flatpak seriously.

It's greatly improved with Flathub's "Verified apps" [1] implementation, but you can make similar arguments about downstream packaging (e.g. from distros) not being clear about being independent of "offical" builds.

It's also very worth noting that `Fedora's Flatpaks` are sourced separate from the "Main" `Flathub` service which most people expect flatpaks are generally being sourced from which has many "official" flatpak releases of software directly from projects leading to extra confusion.

Flathub itself is fairly auditable (but not trivially so) and built through their CI, but I still agree that the unofficial packages are often of questionable security/quality.

That said, Many of the "native" (e.g. not Flatpak) distro packages are using far from supported/official builds with often missing/broken features and it's an unreasonable support burden when nearly all of issues related to distro packaging end up on the upstream issue trackers/support channels.

It's especially troublesome when the upstream has official builds available and it's unclear to the user reporting issues that they are not actually using official builds.

[1] https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-users/verification/

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

#56

Post by quickslowdown »

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.

This is a piece of Internet lore I'm not familiar with! Any good summary or article or anything you'd recommend?

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

#57

Post by talldayo »

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.

Sounds like a sensible and principled fellow.

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

#58

Post by cxr »

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.

[flagged]

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

#59

Post by senthilnayagam »

johnea wrote: post #28

Moral of the story: Don't use flatpack...

initially used redhat then fedora till 2006

switched to ubuntu for desktop and debian for server in 2006 for my company, by 2020 most developers chose mac for desktop and debian/ubuntu for server

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