Upstream have just releases a new version (0.2.0->0.2.1) with the only changes being a minor build system tweak, help text, and a licensing change. The new LICENCE claims to be GPLv3 but actually forbids use by anyone associated with freedesktop.org and some other organisations. This clearly isn’t a free licence and we should note the main reason we have this package in tree is for pipewire (a freedesktop.org project). You can see the new licence here: https://github.com/pali/libopenaptx/commit/811bc18586d634042618d633727ac0281d4170b8 Upstream are calling this GPL* which it clearly isn’t, which is harmful given it could cause severe confusion. We obviously cannot use any newer versions in Gentoo for the time being.
(In reply to Sam James from comment #0) > Upstream have just releases a new version (0.2.0->0.2.1) with the only > changes being a minor build system tweak, help text, and a licensing change. > > The new LICENCE claims to be GPLv3 but actually forbids use by anyone > associated with freedesktop.org and some other organisations. > > This clearly isn’t a free licence and we should note the main reason we have > this package in tree is for pipewire (a freedesktop.org project). > > You can see the new licence here: > https://github.com/pali/libopenaptx/commit/ > 811bc18586d634042618d633727ac0281d4170b8 > > Upstream are calling this GPL* which it clearly isn’t, which is harmful > given it could cause severe confusion. > > We obviously cannot use any newer versions in Gentoo for the time being. I wouldn't be so sure about this. It could be read as termination of the license for a specific licensee because of a repeated license violation. The copyright holder is allowed to do that per section 8 of the GPL-3. Also per section 8, downstream licensees won't be affected by that termination.
(In reply to Ulrich Müller from comment #1) > (In reply to Sam James from comment #0) > I wouldn't be so sure about this. It could be read as termination of the > license for a specific licensee because of a repeated license violation. The > copyright holder is allowed to do that per section 8 of the GPL-3. > > Also per section 8, downstream licensees won't be affected by that > termination. Part of what I'm concerned about here is the vague references to any parties using a Code of Conduct to ... - that's not the same as licence violations by those parties, that's a personal reason to exempt people from using the software. It's also not really clear if they expect us to be able to use libopenaptx with pipewire? Are they just saying that fd.o upstream themselves cannot ship it with their project?
(In reply to Sam James from comment #2) > Part of what I'm concerned about here is the vague references to any parties > using a Code of Conduct to ... - that's not the same as licence violations > by those parties, that's a personal reason to exempt people from using the > software. We don't know the background of this. It is at least unusual to make such statements about individual parties in the package itself. Maybe ask upstream if it is a license termination (GPL-3 section 8) or something else? > It's also not really clear if they expect us to be able to use libopenaptx > with pipewire? Are they just saying that fd.o upstream themselves cannot > ship it with their project? IANAL, but that's how I would read it. Again, ask upstream?
(In reply to Ulrich Müller from comment #3) > > It's also not really clear if they expect us to be able to use libopenaptx > > with pipewire? Are they just saying that fd.o upstream themselves cannot > > ship it with their project? > > IANAL, but that's how I would read it. Again, ask upstream? Spoken to Debian to see if they had any views too. Yeah, I'll file a bug.
FYI, I bumped the version. It is now GPL v3+. §8 (termination) is not valid/doesn't apply to us (keep in mind that GPL v3 isn't an EULA: By design, GPL is licensing the distribution of the software, rather than its use. This means for a consumer that you are not required to agree to the GPL to install and/or use a piece of software licensed under GPL. You're required to agree to it only if you decide to redistribute it. So only mirrors would be affected in theory. But because we don't bundle package...).
Since it doesn't concern me, I didn't bother reading the entire [very long] commit message or analyze its content but PipeWire with the commit https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/commit/d08b6fac6bec0d334ee9fc785d551a67832f95fe has effectively decided to not accept libopenaptx with versions equal to or higher than 0.2.1
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gst-plugins-bad/-/merge_requests/2235 has various background (including marked as resolved threads), and a pointer to some work on a fork here (forked from before license change and ported to use meson as build system): https://github.com/tp-m/libopenaptx
IMHO https://github.com/pali/libopenaptx/issues/12 is sufficient as a clarification that the license hasn't changed and is still GPL-3 or later. That would mean that this bug can be closed without further action.
Closing per comment #8.
