4 ms·

There are quite a few other GNOME devs that have signed the letter, and presumably share the same sentiment.

sumtechguy 3y ago
That will be an issue they will need to deal with because of the license they chose. They picked GPL (https://help.gnome.org/admin/gdm/stable/license.html.en https://help.gnome.org/admin/gdm/stable/license.html.en) that means as long as the intermediary ships their changes too then all is good. They are basically asking to be the only fork of their code. I get it, they have spent tons of time getting it 'just right'. They may find that a hard sell to some integrators who make it a point to put their own spin on their distro. This is basically a 'do not fork our code' ask.
- shkkmo 3y ago
  It's more of a "don't fork, modify and distribute our code without QAing those changes and proving your own support."
  - sumtechguy 3y ago
    I get the idea. But the GPL allows for this? They would need a different license to get that? Pretty sure GPL is 'we may or may not give support if we feel like it' sort of license. The only real obligation is to provide the code including any changes you make.
    - shkkmo 3y ago
      This letter isn't a legal demand, this is a request to people who are interested in the health of the ecosystem and community. The way similar sorts of issues are often enforced legally is by using trademarks so that if someone forks your project, they have to be clear that it is separate. In this case, it isn't a fork and it's hard to see how those tools would apply but the underlying issue of user confusion and brand harm are still similar.
      - sumtechguy 3y ago
        Oh I get that. But what many do not realize when they give the work away like in the GPL you also give away control. They have given away control but now are asking for it back. That is up to the distros if they want to do that. They are perfectly allowed to do so. But they are perfectly allowed to not do so. This is one of the 'downsides' to open source. People may use your source in a way you do not like. I have this same conversation every few years with people on the net. It is usually about the time they realize people are not giving stuff back up stream (their intent) but realty is GPL does not require that. It basically is for a better term a fork. A small fork but a fork non the less. There are changes they are distributed downstream, but the rub is not back upstream. In this particular case people are going thru the trouble of making a theme pack that is kind of unfinished. But not finishing the work and not upstreaming it either for whatever reason. Hence the letter. But strongly worded letters do not always get things done. Maybe it will but I doubt it. The distros forked because the upstream was not doing what they needed. So the distro managers did it. But now they are asking 'just ignore that part of the GPL that says you can modify the code'. This is basically a missing feature of the upstream so downstream is adding it in. I see both sides I really do. But if you give away code do not always expect it to be used in the way you expect.
        shkkmo 3y ago
        You seem to have some fundamental misunderstandings about what is happening here. > people are going thru the trouble of making a theme pack that is kind of unfinished. But not finishing the work and not upstreaming it either for whatever reason. Hence the letter. No, this is not an "unfinished theme" for the specific app. This is a default theme that is being applied to every single app by the distribution. > There are changes they are distributed downstream, but the rub is not back upstream That is not the rub nor even tangentially related to the issue here. "Upstreaming" doesn't make any sense in this context. > They have given away control but now are asking for it back. > The distros forked... Again, this has nothing to do with GPL other than as an analogy. This is not a fork, it is a user configuration feature. It is one that these developers could easily chose to disable by hardcoding styles (thus requiring anyone who wanted to customize the UI to fork and compile their own, which they would be able to do under GPL.) However, the developers want to continue offering users this feature so are asking distributions to stop choosing a consistent look and feel across apps over the risk that their untested default theme break the underlying application without users being aware of why. I personally don't understand how distributions would care so little about the negative impacts on users and developers. It seems perfectly plausible that distributions that care so much about a consistent appearance could QA the effects of their theme on core apps and then have a prompt on launch before applying their themes to apps which they have not QA'd. You say you see both sides here, so perhaps you can explain why it makes sense for distributions to risk breaking apps with untested default themes without informing the user just to ensure that apps in the OS look similar.

That will be an issue they will need to deal with because of the license they chose. They picked GPL (https://help.gnome.org/admin/gdm/stable/license.html.en https://help.gnome.org/admin/gdm/stable/license.html.en) that means as long as the intermediary ships their changes too then all is good. They are basically asking to be the only fork of their code. I get it, they have spent tons of time getting it 'just right'. They may find that a hard sell to some integrators who make it a point to put their own spin on their distro. This is basically a 'do not fork our code' ask.

shkkmo 3y ago
It's more of a "don't fork, modify and distribute our code without QAing those changes and proving your own support."
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  I get the idea. But the GPL allows for this? They would need a different license to get that? Pretty sure GPL is 'we may or may not give support if we feel like it' sort of license. The only real obligation is to provide the code including any changes you make.
  - shkkmo 3y ago
    This letter isn't a legal demand, this is a request to people who are interested in the health of the ecosystem and community. The way similar sorts of issues are often enforced legally is by using trademarks so that if someone forks your project, they have to be clear that it is separate. In this case, it isn't a fork and it's hard to see how those tools would apply but the underlying issue of user confusion and brand harm are still similar.
    - sumtechguy 3y ago
      Oh I get that. But what many do not realize when they give the work away like in the GPL you also give away control. They have given away control but now are asking for it back. That is up to the distros if they want to do that. They are perfectly allowed to do so. But they are perfectly allowed to not do so. This is one of the 'downsides' to open source. People may use your source in a way you do not like. I have this same conversation every few years with people on the net. It is usually about the time they realize people are not giving stuff back up stream (their intent) but realty is GPL does not require that. It basically is for a better term a fork. A small fork but a fork non the less. There are changes they are distributed downstream, but the rub is not back upstream. In this particular case people are going thru the trouble of making a theme pack that is kind of unfinished. But not finishing the work and not upstreaming it either for whatever reason. Hence the letter. But strongly worded letters do not always get things done. Maybe it will but I doubt it. The distros forked because the upstream was not doing what they needed. So the distro managers did it. But now they are asking 'just ignore that part of the GPL that says you can modify the code'. This is basically a missing feature of the upstream so downstream is adding it in. I see both sides I really do. But if you give away code do not always expect it to be used in the way you expect.
      - shkkmo 3y ago
        You seem to have some fundamental misunderstandings about what is happening here. > people are going thru the trouble of making a theme pack that is kind of unfinished. But not finishing the work and not upstreaming it either for whatever reason. Hence the letter. No, this is not an "unfinished theme" for the specific app. This is a default theme that is being applied to every single app by the distribution. > There are changes they are distributed downstream, but the rub is not back upstream That is not the rub nor even tangentially related to the issue here. "Upstreaming" doesn't make any sense in this context. > They have given away control but now are asking for it back. > The distros forked... Again, this has nothing to do with GPL other than as an analogy. This is not a fork, it is a user configuration feature. It is one that these developers could easily chose to disable by hardcoding styles (thus requiring anyone who wanted to customize the UI to fork and compile their own, which they would be able to do under GPL.) However, the developers want to continue offering users this feature so are asking distributions to stop choosing a consistent look and feel across apps over the risk that their untested default theme break the underlying application without users being aware of why. I personally don't understand how distributions would care so little about the negative impacts on users and developers. It seems perfectly plausible that distributions that care so much about a consistent appearance could QA the effects of their theme on core apps and then have a prompt on launch before applying their themes to apps which they have not QA'd. You say you see both sides here, so perhaps you can explain why it makes sense for distributions to risk breaking apps with untested default themes without informing the user just to ensure that apps in the OS look similar.