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We raced to comment on this. I'm not even sure licensing the project as MIT is even relevant given the non-free dependency. Doesn't make much legal or practical

by yazzku 4y ago

We raced to comment on this. I'm not even sure licensing the project as MIT is even relevant given the non-free dependency. Doesn't make much legal or practical sense.

hollerith 4y ago
IANAL, but it makes perfect legal sense to me just like it is perfectly legal to run an open-source app on a proprietary OS.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I also ANAL, but is it really like running on a proprietary OS? It seems more like having a dependency on a non-free library. An open source program which requires, for example, DirectX is pretty severely hampered, right? Of course this one is a little bit more grey-area because it seems that it is easy to get free individual licenses for this code.
  - hollerith 4y ago
    OK I admit that the analogy is not worthwhile on second thought. But if you have the legal right to run a proprietary OS the of course you can run open-source apps on it. Similarly if you acquire somehow the legal right to run Ultralight then you can legally run Muon.
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      > But if you have the legal right to run a proprietary OS the of course you can run open-source apps on it. Similarly if you acquire somehow the legal right to run Ultralight then you can legally run Muon. For sure, it is definitely legal. Sorry, I used "grey area" in my previous comment which is basically incorrect because "legal grey area" is a really common expression. I'm just thinking it is less useful. Like hypothetically in the absurd case you could release an open source project that is: #include "proprietary_library.h" int main() { run_proprietary_code(); } which is open source but who cares, right?
      - yazzku 4y ago
        I do care, and in your example, it depends on what license the project uses and how "proprietary_library" is distributed. In this specific case, if Muon distributed a copy of Ultralight (which it doesn't seem to; I'm not sure why I'm spending so much time on this), the it could not be GPL'ed, for example, because Ultralight has a proprietary (incompatible) license [2]. For a license like MIT or BSD, I think applying that license is technically valid, but again, not very practical. I doubt Muon would make it into the OpenBSD repos, for example. Its distribution is hindered by the depedency. Basically, "open source" doesn't really mean anything in this context; you need to consider specific licenses and circumstances. [1] https://github.com/ImVexed/muon/tree/master/ultralight https://github.com/ImVexed/muon/tree/master/ultralight [2] https://github.com/ultralight-ux/Ultralight/blob/master/license/LICENSE.txt https://github.com/ultralight-ux/Ultralight/blob/master/lice...
- yazzku 4y ago
  I don't think it's the same thing. That program may be cross-platform and not actually need the proprietary OS, for example. This, on the other hand, has a core dependency that is non-free.
- jcelerier 4y ago
  It's exactly like electron: the GH "electron" scripts are MIT but the dependency on Blink requires you to respect its LGPL license for apps you ship

by yazzku 4y ago

We raced to comment on this. I'm not even sure licensing the project as MIT is even relevant given the non-free dependency. Doesn't make much legal or practical sense.

hollerith 4y ago

IANAL, but it makes perfect legal sense to me just like it is perfectly legal to run an open-source app on a proprietary OS.

bee_rider 4y ago
I also ANAL, but is it really like running on a proprietary OS? It seems more like having a dependency on a non-free library. An open source program which requires, for example, DirectX is pretty severely hampered, right? Of course this one is a little bit more grey-area because it seems that it is easy to get free individual licenses for this code.
- hollerith 4y ago
  OK I admit that the analogy is not worthwhile on second thought. But if you have the legal right to run a proprietary OS the of course you can run open-source apps on it. Similarly if you acquire somehow the legal right to run Ultralight then you can legally run Muon.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    > But if you have the legal right to run a proprietary OS the of course you can run open-source apps on it. Similarly if you acquire somehow the legal right to run Ultralight then you can legally run Muon. For sure, it is definitely legal. Sorry, I used "grey area" in my previous comment which is basically incorrect because "legal grey area" is a really common expression. I'm just thinking it is less useful. Like hypothetically in the absurd case you could release an open source project that is: #include "proprietary_library.h" int main() { run_proprietary_code(); } which is open source but who cares, right?
    - yazzku 4y ago
      I do care, and in your example, it depends on what license the project uses and how "proprietary_library" is distributed. In this specific case, if Muon distributed a copy of Ultralight (which it doesn't seem to; I'm not sure why I'm spending so much time on this), the it could not be GPL'ed, for example, because Ultralight has a proprietary (incompatible) license [2]. For a license like MIT or BSD, I think applying that license is technically valid, but again, not very practical. I doubt Muon would make it into the OpenBSD repos, for example. Its distribution is hindered by the depedency. Basically, "open source" doesn't really mean anything in this context; you need to consider specific licenses and circumstances. [1] https://github.com/ImVexed/muon/tree/master/ultralight https://github.com/ImVexed/muon/tree/master/ultralight [2] https://github.com/ultralight-ux/Ultralight/blob/master/license/LICENSE.txt https://github.com/ultralight-ux/Ultralight/blob/master/lice...
yazzku 4y ago
I don't think it's the same thing. That program may be cross-platform and not actually need the proprietary OS, for example. This, on the other hand, has a core dependency that is non-free.
jcelerier 4y ago
It's exactly like electron: the GH "electron" scripts are MIT but the dependency on Blink requires you to respect its LGPL license for apps you ship