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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

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Considering that Netscape used to have “about:jwz” as an Easter egg URL and he was influential in open sourcing Netscape…

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

#63

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…

Aforementioned image for those who are curious: https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2024/hn.png

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

#64

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.

[deleted]

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

#65
post #48

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…

I think the specific argument being made here, is that the technical details of how Fedora implements this mean that people who do not read carefully and click a checkbox may attempt to install the official flatpak version and get Fedora's rebuild of it instead, with no obvious cue that they did so, other than the bugs that they then go report, not understanding the internals of Fedora's opinions on flatpaks.

I suppose the closest analogy I can imagine from non-malicious(arguably) history would be software hosting sites that would repackage installers with their own adware or toolbar or whatever "value add".

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why do you need an article? Just find a link to some page on http://jwz.org somewhere on news.ycombinator.com, and click it. Note that you will get a (really quite tame) NSFW image. Said image will explain jwz's feelings regarding Hacker News.

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

#68
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why do you need an article? Just find a link to some page on http://jwz.org somewhere on news.ycombinator.com, and click it. Note that you will get a (really quite tame) NSFW image. Said image will explain jwz's feelings regarding Hacker News.

Presumably they are looking for more than the 2 lines in the image that don't explain anything about why.

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

#69

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

they infringe on that only on braindead legislatures that recognize software patents though

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

#70
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think the specific argument being made here, is that the technical details of how Fedora implements this mean that people who do not read carefully and click a checkbox may attempt to install the official flatpak version and get Fedora's rebuild of it instead, with no obvious cue that they did so, other than the bugs that they then go report, not understanding the internals of Fedora's opinions on flatpaks. I suppo…

I think it is possible that OBS could make that nuanced argument in court: that what Fedora is doing here confuses consumers specifically because of how they stack multiple default repos and override the 1st party package. But it would hinge on whether consumers are confused about the product they're getting, and I think that's unlikely to succeed. Notably, I think the fact that users are going to the OBS project to report bugs is more likely to work against their case than for it, because it shows that consumers do accurately realize that the OBS Project owns OBS, not Fedora.
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