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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 l

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.
    - sumtechguy 3y ago
      > You seem to have some fundamental misunderstandings about what is happening here. Upstream devs want to control what down stream devs are doing to their code/configs that are under the GPL and the downstream are doing a crummy job at it? What is to not understand? An open letter signed by a bunch of people saying 'dont do this to our code' sounds like they want some sort of control. They gave away that control. > 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. That sounds broken and unfished to me. I do not see it as anything but not finished. If 'bugged out' suits you better then just use that term. If the distro spent more time making it all look right that would be finished would it not? Distros do this all the time to packages. I have dozens where I have to go unbork a broken package because of what the distro did or neglected to do. >"Upstreaming" doesn't make any sense in this context. Why not? They are making changes then shipping them but not contributing it back. It would make it easier on everyone else. But they want to keep their 'secret sauce' is my guess or lack the will to do the proper work to upstream it. >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. They can totally do that. It is what most distros do to differentiate themselves from other distros. Some distros are bog standard no changes others have all sorts of tweaks to make their distro special. See something like an Arch vs RedHat. Arch is closer to 'no real changes other than recompiled for your machine and rolling release' whereas RedHat touches everything to make it special. This is usually considered a feature in the linux world. That they are shipping broken themes is on the distro. As per the GPL again. The originators of the package are asking for a 'hey fix your junk'. That may or may not happen. The distro packages are under no obligation to fix it. They probably should but that does not mean they will. I have some distros I use where the packages are 3+ years out of date. Because no one maintains it. You seem to be deliberately ignoring that GPL covers all of the files in the package. Including preconfigured items. That would include any preconfigured theming. The GPL does not really make that distinction. It is border line a 'you touched it last' style of working. It is one of the reasons people created CC licenses to make that distinction and what is the expectation. I am not saying it is right or wrong. I am saying they are within their rights to do it. Why would they risk doing that? No idea. It is not something I would personally sign my name to. I would guess time, money, or lack of understand or a combination? Gnome would just be better off naming and shaming them and saying 'xyz distros are breaking our code be careful'. That Gnome is saying 'please stop' is probably because they are getting all sorts of noise from broken distros. Put that at the top of your forum and say 'if you are coming from distro XYZ we may or may not look as they broke it here is a link to the distro forum'.

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.
  - sumtechguy 3y ago
    > You seem to have some fundamental misunderstandings about what is happening here. Upstream devs want to control what down stream devs are doing to their code/configs that are under the GPL and the downstream are doing a crummy job at it? What is to not understand? An open letter signed by a bunch of people saying 'dont do this to our code' sounds like they want some sort of control. They gave away that control. > 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. That sounds broken and unfished to me. I do not see it as anything but not finished. If 'bugged out' suits you better then just use that term. If the distro spent more time making it all look right that would be finished would it not? Distros do this all the time to packages. I have dozens where I have to go unbork a broken package because of what the distro did or neglected to do. >"Upstreaming" doesn't make any sense in this context. Why not? They are making changes then shipping them but not contributing it back. It would make it easier on everyone else. But they want to keep their 'secret sauce' is my guess or lack the will to do the proper work to upstream it. >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. They can totally do that. It is what most distros do to differentiate themselves from other distros. Some distros are bog standard no changes others have all sorts of tweaks to make their distro special. See something like an Arch vs RedHat. Arch is closer to 'no real changes other than recompiled for your machine and rolling release' whereas RedHat touches everything to make it special. This is usually considered a feature in the linux world. That they are shipping broken themes is on the distro. As per the GPL again. The originators of the package are asking for a 'hey fix your junk'. That may or may not happen. The distro packages are under no obligation to fix it. They probably should but that does not mean they will. I have some distros I use where the packages are 3+ years out of date. Because no one maintains it. You seem to be deliberately ignoring that GPL covers all of the files in the package. Including preconfigured items. That would include any preconfigured theming. The GPL does not really make that distinction. It is border line a 'you touched it last' style of working. It is one of the reasons people created CC licenses to make that distinction and what is the expectation. I am not saying it is right or wrong. I am saying they are within their rights to do it. Why would they risk doing that? No idea. It is not something I would personally sign my name to. I would guess time, money, or lack of understand or a combination? Gnome would just be better off naming and shaming them and saying 'xyz distros are breaking our code be careful'. That Gnome is saying 'please stop' is probably because they are getting all sorts of noise from broken distros. Put that at the top of your forum and say 'if you are coming from distro XYZ we may or may not look as they broke it here is a link to the distro forum'.