4 ms·

We're hearing one side of the story here, so who knows, but looking at it from Unity's perspective... Unity doesn't want to have be the "cops" and "prosecutors

by jmull 3y ago

We're hearing one side of the story here, so who knows, but looking at it from Unity's perspective... Unity doesn't want to have be the "cops" and "prosecutors" who have to go around to find, investigate, adjudicate and enforce violations in the store agreements. They want partners who, having agreed to the store terms, will make reasonable efforts to adhere to them. E.g., Unity may have come to the conclusion that VLC violated the terms of the store agreement not by simple mistake or a reasonable different interpretation of the agreement, but on-purpose or through negligence. In that case, the reasonable thing to do is to simply stop doing business with VLC (if it's not too costly to do so), because of the relatively high likelihood it will happen again. Don't forget that Unity could be sued for violating the terms of LGPL'd software. If they "have received a report" of an LGPL violation, they have to take it seriously. Any future lawsuit would likely be more successful if they had previously received a report of a violation and did not resolve it..

dangus 3y ago
> ...if they had previously received a report of a violation and did not resolve it.. "Resolve it" would include working with the offender to remove the LGPL violation. They could easily document the process and demonstrate a good-faith effort to comply. Sure, Unity is well within their rights to kick Videolan off their store. It's the cheapest way to comply: no need to collaborate with store vendors and put any hours into that sort of thing. But that's all it is, a cheap way to comply. It's the laziest form of compliance at the expense of their own customer experience.
smaudet 3y ago
Except that's not what happened at all, at least per the article they use LGPL and have LGPL code all over their store, and refuse to work with the OP at all over the issue. Unity are absolutely to blaim here, this is indefensible.
- jmull 3y ago
  > Except that's not what happened at all You're not disputing anything I wrote though. If a license violation is reported and Unity ignores it their legal risk is higher than for violations no one has reported. The report forces their hand, to a degree. From the post: "Enforcement is seemingly totally random, unless you get reported by someone, apparently." ... which is another way of acknowledging enforcement isn't random. The report matters. That's what moves the responsibility for adhering to the license from the asset provider (VLC in this case) to Unity. BTW, "other people are doing it too" isn't a great excuse for violating license terms. If that was OK, then licenses would be generally be almost meaningless. Regarding Unity's direct usage of LGPL code, that's on them. They need to make sure to honor the LGPL license. Nobody made the claim they weren't, so I'm not sure it's relevant. Here's another bit from the post that I thought was telling: "After months of slow back-and-forth over email trying to find a compromise..." What compromise? If you find out you're violating an open source license you stop as promptly as you reasonably can. It's not a matter of negotiating with Unity -- that's a separate agreement. It sounds like they eventually came to the right conclusion re the LGPL components, but why was honoring the LGPL license even in doubt? It makes me think they aren't really sincere about open source licenses (and maybe other licenses or any kind of agreement). Note, this point is entirely independent of Unity and whether or not they are screwing VLC. When distributing binaries built with LGPL code, they have a responsibility to honor the license, but only seemed willing to do so reluctantly and belatedly, after pressure from a business partner.
  - smaudet 3y ago
    You can't simultaneously claim ignorance and the moral upper hand. Unity knows they are generally in violation/does nothing, then refuses to work with folk? No. The OP could have been in the wrong, yet they are willing and capable to make change. Unity has no such defense, merely a combination of laziness/ignorance. Neither of which are a starting place for anything approaching a reasonable defense.

by jmull 3y ago

dangus 3y ago

> ...if they had previously received a report of a violation and did not resolve it.. "Resolve it" would include working with the offender to remove the LGPL violation. They could easily document the process and demonstrate a good-faith effort to comply. Sure, Unity is well within their rights to kick Videolan off their store. It's the cheapest way to comply: no need to collaborate with store vendors and put any hours into that sort of thing. But that's all it is, a cheap way to comply. It's the laziest form of compliance at the expense of their own customer experience.

smaudet 3y ago

Except that's not what happened at all, at least per the article they use LGPL and have LGPL code all over their store, and refuse to work with the OP at all over the issue. Unity are absolutely to blaim here, this is indefensible.

jmull 3y ago
> Except that's not what happened at all You're not disputing anything I wrote though. If a license violation is reported and Unity ignores it their legal risk is higher than for violations no one has reported. The report forces their hand, to a degree. From the post: "Enforcement is seemingly totally random, unless you get reported by someone, apparently." ... which is another way of acknowledging enforcement isn't random. The report matters. That's what moves the responsibility for adhering to the license from the asset provider (VLC in this case) to Unity. BTW, "other people are doing it too" isn't a great excuse for violating license terms. If that was OK, then licenses would be generally be almost meaningless. Regarding Unity's direct usage of LGPL code, that's on them. They need to make sure to honor the LGPL license. Nobody made the claim they weren't, so I'm not sure it's relevant. Here's another bit from the post that I thought was telling: "After months of slow back-and-forth over email trying to find a compromise..." What compromise? If you find out you're violating an open source license you stop as promptly as you reasonably can. It's not a matter of negotiating with Unity -- that's a separate agreement. It sounds like they eventually came to the right conclusion re the LGPL components, but why was honoring the LGPL license even in doubt? It makes me think they aren't really sincere about open source licenses (and maybe other licenses or any kind of agreement). Note, this point is entirely independent of Unity and whether or not they are screwing VLC. When distributing binaries built with LGPL code, they have a responsibility to honor the license, but only seemed willing to do so reluctantly and belatedly, after pressure from a business partner.
- smaudet 3y ago
  You can't simultaneously claim ignorance and the moral upper hand. Unity knows they are generally in violation/does nothing, then refuses to work with folk? No. The OP could have been in the wrong, yet they are willing and capable to make change. Unity has no such defense, merely a combination of laziness/ignorance. Neither of which are a starting place for anything approaching a reasonable defense.