4 ms·

Seriously, most of your facts are wrong. Source: I'm the president of VideoLAN, I did the VLC relicensing[1], and spent a lot of time on GPL/stores compatibilit

by jbk 11y ago

Seriously, most of your facts are wrong. Source: I'm the president of VideoLAN, I did the VLC relicensing[1], and spent a lot of time on GPL/stores compatibility [2]. VLC was GPLv2+ and so was libVLC (the engine library that was spawned from VLC). VLC was put on iOS store as a GPLv2 app, which was not compatible with Apple ToS, and was therefore removed by Apple. At the same time, libVLC was relicensed over 2 years to LGPLv2.1+ for reasons that were non related to appstores. As a side-effect, VLC for iOS was rewritten and licensed as MPLv2 to be on the AppStore, with a slight bit less features. For your information, the main reason that the AppStore is not GPL compatible, is because the AppStore DOES NOT allow you to use an application as you want (even non-open-source ones). This is forbidden by the GPL. Which shows exactly that the GPL tries to enforce the users freedom. [1] http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/I-did-it http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/I-did-it [2] https://archive.fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/appstores/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/appstores/

minot 11y ago
Thank you for your work. I have a question about copyright assignment. You wrote: >Unlike a lot of large open source projects, authors of VLC keep all their rights on their code, even if the code is minimal. http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/How-to-properly-relicense-a-large-open-source-project http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/How-to-properly-relice... For an entirely new project, would you rather require all contributors to assign copyright to a single entity which then manages licensing or would you have individuals retain copyright? (Off topic: is this even possible in France?)
- jbk 11y ago
  > For an entirely new project, would you rather require all contributors to assign copyright to a single entity which then manages licensing or would you have individuals retain copyright? (Off topic: is this even possible in France?) First, there are more than 2 options. I'd say there are 3. Copyright assignment is ALWAYS the wrong answer. It's a bad idea, and I would even that this is unethical, and illegal in numerous countries. If you want more control, notably for a potential future license change, do a Copyright agreement that is not an assignment. Explain clearly what is in the agreement and what is not. Total individual copyright is a great idea, but if you care about an application that will go on an appstore, don't go this route. If you integrate a lot of library, same. But if you do a new cool software, just for fun, yes, keep it like this.
wedowhatwedo 11y ago
I apologize that my facts were wrong. I didn't mean to offend you. I understand that my view of this is against the circlejerk of the commenters on this post, but my original comment and your last paragraph agree, end users do not have the freedom to run GPL software on the Apple platform even if they have the source code. This doesn't seem very free to me.
deleted 11y ago
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by jbk 11y ago

minot 11y ago

Thank you for your work. I have a question about copyright assignment. You wrote: >Unlike a lot of large open source projects, authors of VLC keep all their rights on their code, even if the code is minimal. http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/How-to-properly-relicense-a-large-open-source-project http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/How-to-properly-relice... For an entirely new project, would you rather require all contributors to assign copyright to a single entity which then manages licensing or would you have individuals retain copyright? (Off topic: is this even possible in France?)

jbk 11y ago
> For an entirely new project, would you rather require all contributors to assign copyright to a single entity which then manages licensing or would you have individuals retain copyright? (Off topic: is this even possible in France?) First, there are more than 2 options. I'd say there are 3. Copyright assignment is ALWAYS the wrong answer. It's a bad idea, and I would even that this is unethical, and illegal in numerous countries. If you want more control, notably for a potential future license change, do a Copyright agreement that is not an assignment. Explain clearly what is in the agreement and what is not. Total individual copyright is a great idea, but if you care about an application that will go on an appstore, don't go this route. If you integrate a lot of library, same. But if you do a new cool software, just for fun, yes, keep it like this.

wedowhatwedo 11y ago

I apologize that my facts were wrong. I didn't mean to offend you. I understand that my view of this is against the circlejerk of the commenters on this post, but my original comment and your last paragraph agree, end users do not have the freedom to run GPL software on the Apple platform even if they have the source code. This doesn't seem very free to me.

deleted 11y ago

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