PieFedFSF on OnlyOffice/EuroOffice: You cannot use the GNU (A)GPL to take software freedom away
Ek-Hou-Van-Braaihttps://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/agpl-is-not-a-tool-for-taking-freedom-away
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VeraxisAs someone out of the loop on this, it would be helpful if they didn’t wait until 4 paragraphs into the article to state what OnlyOffice actually did. Likewise the article they link to by OpenOffice doesn’t state what EuroOffice did until 7 paragraphs in.
Apparently it’s a dispute about EuroOffice changing the logo when they forked OnlyOffice?
Apparently it’s a dispute about EuroOffice changing the logo when they forked OnlyOffice?
Yes, pretty much.
OnlyOffice added a restriction that says you can’t change the logo and the FSF explaining why 1. They’re not allowed to add additional restrictions and 2. The AGPL’s license says if they do, you can ignore them (basically).
And to be more clear: OnlyOffice also did not grant permission to use said logo. They used this to try to deny people the ability to create forks, which goes against the core principles of the AGPL and open source.
From the blog-
Pursuant to Section 7 of AGPLv3, the copyright holder is expressly entitled to impose additional conditions. In the case of ONLYOFFICE, such conditions include, in particular:
- the obligation to retain the original product logo (Section 7(b));
- the denial of any rights to use the copyright holder’s trademarks (Section 7(e)).
Such additions to the License were implemented on May 25, 2021, and can be found at line 655 of the License.
ie. You’re not allowed to rebrand the software as something else and additionally, not allowed to use their trademarks without their consent - they’re trying to turn something agpl into ‘shared source’ proprietary software.
ليتني كوري شماليI’m glad someone forked OnlyOffice but wish they came up with a better name than EuroOffice
The Open Source community really sucks at naming things
There are three options naming open source projects:
- Open/Libre something.
- This is not This acronym
- Kinky sounding acronym
Why not combine all three?
Introducing: OpenLibreSPANK! It stands for “Spank Proudly Ain’t Not Kinky”!
antsu
Jay🚩I think from a political perspective its a good choice. It conveys that it’s a european software fitting right into the EU becoming less dependent on foreign software.
I’ve been using OnlyOffice for years and was quite happy with.
I’m thinking about switching to LibreOffice. Anyone knows if LibreOffice would be able to connect to kDrive? Maybe through WebDav?
What should they have done alternatively?
Can understand them seeing it as racism towards them and wanting to oppose such things, if the fork was solely made because of the country of the developers.
But the rule change seems weird.
What would be an alternative?
Wait, how is it racist? This has absolutely nothing to do with race?
Russian isn’t a race, just like South-African isn’t a race.
Aah. What would it be called?/
If some people are grouping people in a country, and excluding them as punishment based on that ice ity, then what would it be called?
And isn’t it bad?
Like, would people support it if people asked for USAmerican developers to be excluded from apps aimed at children, because their president and former rulers were in groups with the pedo-trafficker Epstein and where they are even using a war(also for petrodollar, so not one objective only) to draw away attention?
Or started forking apps to exclude such developers?
What would it be called? Discrimination based on country of origin?
I don’t think people are discriminating against Russians. They just recognize that we can’t depend on Russian tech.
Most people don’t have issues with Russians, Americans, Chinese etc.
But fuck all three those countries, and we should not rely on either of their tech, and cut out dependencies on their tech, especially in the government sector.
If they are forking it because of developers being Russian, is that not likely discriminatory? Are they forking software developed by USAmerican developers?
If they are forking all major software they use, it would be natural. But if it is against one country alone, is it not discrimination?
But fuck all three those countries
And fuck the European countries too then, assuming that you are European and have left them out.
I think most people ignore them, since they act like pro-democratic, while supporting genocides, invasions and conducting neocolonialism. Also, by not admitting remorse or apologu on evils conducted in their name. As an Indian, last week was the 107^th^ anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, so it is recently fresh on my mind with your comment saying fuck all those 3 countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre
Tho, I too hope my country also starts to work more on reducing dependency on foreign tech in places where it can be avoided. So, agreeing on that part.
They aren’t forking US tech because the US tech doesn’t pretend to be open source, so they can’t fork them.
The are building Euro-Office specifically to stop reliance on US tech though, it’s not targeted at once nation, it’s targeted at all nations that try to control tech. Which is mostly the US.
IDK what tangent you’re going on with the other things you’ve said, that’s off topic.
But yea India, like all nations, shouldn’t rely on foreign tech for infrastructure.
mathemachristian[he]If they are forking it because of developers being Russian, is that not likely discriminatory?
absolutely but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here? or I don’t see a reason think that, they claim that onlyoffice is infringing on the original agpl license and that’s why they’re forking and from my uninformed perspective it looks valid.
It’s technically xenophobia, russophobia if it’s targeted at russians, but honestly racism is a good enough descriptor for anyone to understand what you’re talking about. The name “euro-office” comes from the companies targeting this product for the european public sector who has finally (much too late imo) started to attempt to liberate itself from the yankee software giants grip. You can see at the bottom of the readme
Is Euro-Office just for Europeans? Isn’t open source without borders?
Open Source is an international movement, and we are definitely open to contributions by anyone, anywhere! All code will be judged on its merits, not on its origin, and receive equal review. And, of course, anyone is welcome to use Euro-Office in line with the provisions in the AGPLv3 license!
The Ramen DutchmanRacism?
Sorry.
What would the term be called?
I saw your other response.
There is no evidence of national selectivity or “racism” involved here, you seem to be interpreting this yourself. The fact that this is about an EU-related fork is a coincidence.
It is the highjacking of the license to restrict the implied spirit of freedom is what is at issue here.
And whatever they say really makes any difference.
Yes because a) they are the biggest authority on these licences in the world, b) have many lawyers at hand actually and c) are the ones who can significantly damage your brand.
Imagine someone with a lot of friends, lawyers and money telling you “be careful, pal”.
If all they do is force OnlyOffice to no longer use the AGPL3 liscence (or remove those restrictions)
That would damage their brand permanently, they main reason people use OO is because the pretend to be FOSS.
Many of their customers would start looking for alternatives
I read that as sarcasm :D
KissakiThe (A)GPLv3 makes it clear that it permits all licensees to remove any additional terms that are “further restrictions” under the (A)GPLv3. It states, “[i]f the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.”
Interesting, and quite clear.
The whole response is very good, reasonable, and direct.
I’m interested to see what OnlyOffice will do. Maybe they’ll relicense their whole product, leading to a community fork under AGPL.
aichanI’ve grown to like the freedom concept in software less and less over time. Software is the one set of technology anyone can develop without the need of extensive material resources, and yet we have standardized the idea that its distribution and use must be apolitical and open to anybody or anything. We could have a beautiful system like this for, lets say, the pharma industry. Have all R&D in medicine be unrestrictable and public. But we only do this in software, and if you attempt to license stating that “this software is forbidden to use for military purposes” the FSF will look at you with discontent because your software is not free. Their argument for this is that if we let “good” licenses break freedom, then we legitimize everyone doing it, including bad actors. Same centrist logic avid las respecting people uses all the time. This gives me a bad feeling.
Same goes for open-source though in the “no military usage” example, as the OSI says “No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups” and “The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor”
In euro office’s case, the fsf acknowledges a lot of licenses as free and many allow additional terms (MIT for example). The AGPL just isn’t one of them, and if onlyoffice decided that they did want to add rules, they could’ve chose another free license.
Cooperation and sharing performs significantly better for collective gains. This applies to all kinds of concepts. Science, public infrastructure, common goods, common resources, governance, trade agreements, EU, medicine, software…
Where it becomes problematic is when parties reap gains without participating. Using science to develop products and gain further knowledge without sharing them, using public infrastructure without paying taxes, using common infrastructure and frameworks without committing to them, nationalism, monopolies on medicine, proprietary software and platforms that are not cooperative…
Much of our transformation and development speed and gains in the last century has been in a framework of cooperation. In the current global politics, we can see and imagine what rejecting cooperation could lead to and where it could lead us to.
FOSS is great for the same reasons as other forms of cooperation: Collective gains.
Unfortunately, we have not solved the issue of beneficiaries that don’t actively participate and contribute yet.
In patent law, you publish your findings and get a timespan of authoritative use and control but at the same time commit to it being publicly accessible and at some point usable. Some software licenses attempt to do the same.
In music licensing, there’s frameworks for collective licensing.
Some frameworks use centralized/government regulation and prosecution to ensure play-fair systems. (To varying degrees and success, obviously.)
I get where you’re coming from, but I disagree [with disliking the software freedom]. The upsides and collective gains of software freedom are undeniable. Where we need to do and establish more, and some things are happening in some places, is to ensure a positive collaborative environment overall.
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To be fair, the FSF is partially incorrect; a government can indeed craft their copyright laws such that OnlyOffice’s license restrictions are valid. However, to my knowledge, no government has done so to date, so the FSF is correct in practice; the extra restrictions in the repository violate international copyright laws.
HA. Get bent OnlyOffice for your shitty uncooperative behaviour.