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Note that, unlike the title says, Albert is not open source. A while back the website claimed it was GPL, but there was no indication of that in the codebase. I

Note that, unlike the title says, Albert is not open source. A while back the website claimed it was GPL, but there was no indication of that in the codebase. I filed an issue, which seems to now have been deleted, requesting to clarify the matter. Turns out the author has some reservations incompatible with any definition of open source and thus Albert is basically non-free source-available. This means that it's dead in terms of wider adoption – no distros will package it, that was directly reported by many package maintainers in the now gone issue.

deleted 4y ago
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galkk 4y ago
They literally have section on the website: https://albertlauncher.github.io/installing/#from-source https://albertlauncher.github.io/installing/#from-source that refers their github: https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert.git https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert.git
- amarshall 4y ago
  Source available ≠ Open Source. The source code has no license, so is fully copyrighted and thus is likely illegal to modify or redistribute in any way. It is this not Open Source but “source available”. It’s there, but you can’t really do anything with it except maybe compile it for personal use (but I’m not even sure about that).
  - rebeccaskinner 4y ago
    Even if the author gives you permission to download, build, and run the software, you might also need to buy a Qt license. AFAIK your choices for Qt are GPL or the (fairly expensive) commercial license. Since the software isn’t under a GPL compatible license my understanding is that you may well be obligated to buy the commercial Qt license.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
aragilar 4y ago
Wayback link to the issue: https://web.archive.org/web/20210225183856/https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert/issues/765 https://web.archive.org/web/20210225183856/https://github.co...
- resoluteteeth 4y ago
  Yes, based on this the author clearly removed the license because they wanted to prevent modifications, so the article title is incorrect. They unfortunately also couldn't be bothered to actually state this clearly (and they deleted this issue!), so they are causing unnecessary confusion.
  - imglorp 4y ago
    Further confusion, the contributing page says > By contributing your code, you agree to license your contribution under the GPL license. According to the goals, only code that is well designed, documented, clear and readable will be accepted. Not sure what to make of it either.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Oh wow I didn't know about this. I never contributed code, but hacked around some wayland issues when it caused crashes. I find the behavior baffling to be honest. On one hand ManuelSchneid3r claims to not be a lawyer, on the other hand he dismisses comments about included code and linking in GPL plugins as not relevant and not being copyrightable (well you have to be a judge really to determine that). Then he says he doesn't want to have to spend time on discussing licensing, but then creates this whole storm in a teacup by changing the license and then says even even wants to write his own license. Then he says his comments (in a now deleted issue even) that you can package for distros are sufficiently binding, but on the other hand claims that his note on the website that Albert is GPL did not mean the code was GPL because there was no license file in the repository. I think it would be good for him to sit down and sort out what are the goals that he would like to achieve. At the moment his behavior is clearly counterproductive. His main worry seems to be redistribution with changes, because somebody might do something malicious. But realistically what are the chances, and

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galkk 4y ago

They literally have section on the website: https://albertlauncher.github.io/installing/#from-source https://albertlauncher.github.io/installing/#from-source that refers their github: https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert.git https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert.git

amarshall 4y ago
Source available ≠ Open Source. The source code has no license, so is fully copyrighted and thus is likely illegal to modify or redistribute in any way. It is this not Open Source but “source available”. It’s there, but you can’t really do anything with it except maybe compile it for personal use (but I’m not even sure about that).
- rebeccaskinner 4y ago
  Even if the author gives you permission to download, build, and run the software, you might also need to buy a Qt license. AFAIK your choices for Qt are GPL or the (fairly expensive) commercial license. Since the software isn’t under a GPL compatible license my understanding is that you may well be obligated to buy the commercial Qt license.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

aragilar 4y ago

Wayback link to the issue: https://web.archive.org/web/20210225183856/https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert/issues/765 https://web.archive.org/web/20210225183856/https://github.co...

resoluteteeth 4y ago
Yes, based on this the author clearly removed the license because they wanted to prevent modifications, so the article title is incorrect. They unfortunately also couldn't be bothered to actually state this clearly (and they deleted this issue!), so they are causing unnecessary confusion.
- imglorp 4y ago
  Further confusion, the contributing page says > By contributing your code, you agree to license your contribution under the GPL license. According to the goals, only code that is well designed, documented, clear and readable will be accepted. Not sure what to make of it either.
cycomanic 4y ago
Oh wow I didn't know about this. I never contributed code, but hacked around some wayland issues when it caused crashes. I find the behavior baffling to be honest. On one hand ManuelSchneid3r claims to not be a lawyer, on the other hand he dismisses comments about included code and linking in GPL plugins as not relevant and not being copyrightable (well you have to be a judge really to determine that). Then he says he doesn't want to have to spend time on discussing licensing, but then creates this whole storm in a teacup by changing the license and then says even even wants to write his own license. Then he says his comments (in a now deleted issue even) that you can package for distros are sufficiently binding, but on the other hand claims that his note on the website that Albert is GPL did not mean the code was GPL because there was no license file in the repository. I think it would be good for him to sit down and sort out what are the goals that he would like to achieve. At the moment his behavior is clearly counterproductive. His main worry seems to be redistribution with changes, because somebody might do something malicious. But realistically what are the chances, and