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Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot's posts Post Back to profile
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot

I've been informed that a popular PlayStation emulator, called DuckStation, became proprietary software (was under GPLv3, then PolyForm 1.0.0 Strict, now CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

This potentially violates the GPL, because of contributors. I've emailed the author, contributors and SFC. See:

vimuser.org/duckstation.html

I've archived the GPL version:

codeberg.org/vimuser/duckstati

Software freedom is an important right that everyone must have.

If you were using DuckStation, please ask the dev to reinstate GPL.

13 September at 18:12 | Open on mas.to
16 comments
Psyhackological

@libreleah nice enshititifaction. Good that you forked it.

13 September at 18:39 | Open on mastodon.social
Lorenzo Ancora :verified:
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot

@LorenzoAncora Well, that commit message says 6 hours ago. I learned of it before then. I'll have to look more closely at it, because the developer still says this in that new commit (which you linked):

"Packaging is still **not** permitted"

Also, the old license was GPLv3, then the author changed it to PolyForm Strict 1.0.0 (nonfree license)

New commit says "Switch back to CC-BY-NC-ND" but it was GPL - and does the author have permission to change it? (does duckstation contain derived works)

13 September at 19:46 | Open on mas.to
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot

@LorenzoAncora To be clear: the "ND" (non-deriv) creative commons licenses are non-free.

CC-BY/CC-BY-SA/CC-0 libre.

I believe the author should put the license back to GPLv3; retroactively force-push recent commits of the last few weeks, to expunge any such licensing changes, before the source is tainted.

It's uncertain as to whether DuckStation contains derived works, regardless of if if it stays free - changing from GPLv3 to another free license may still be bad. Better just stick to GPLv3.

13 September at 19:52 | Open on mas.to
Emelia/Emi

@libreleah @LorenzoAncora Smells to me like they got tired of distros breaking things with haphazard packaging, and instead of clarifying that you go to the distro first for support, they just decided to pull the legally-dubious option of "switch to a license that disallows packaging" to attempt to force distro maintainers to stop packaging it.

And since they accepted lots of outside contributions, presumably without a CLA, including some that are almost certainly eligible for copyright protection if they were to be used elsewhere, I'm not sure they can re-license it from GPLv3+...

@libreleah @LorenzoAncora Smells to me like they got tired of distros breaking things with haphazard packaging, and instead of clarifying that you go to the distro first for support, they just decided to pull the legally-dubious option of "switch to a license that disallows packaging" to attempt to force distro maintainers to stop packaging it.

13 September at 20:27 | Open on tech.lgbt
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot

@becomethewaifu @LorenzoAncora You can grep for copyright names other than the author's, also:

git shortlog -sne

This gives you a list of authors and how many commits they pushed. Then for example you can do:

git whatchanged --author="author's name"

You can then replace "whatchanged" with "show" in each instance:

git show COMMITID

This shows the diff. Then run:

git blame file

"file" is the file that changed. Find the lines created by that diff.

Find names other than the lead maintainer.

14 September at 9:48 | Open on mas.to
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot

@becomethewaifu @LorenzoAncora Note that, even if all parts not belonging to stenzek were removed, anything deriving from those parts must also be removed, even if belonging to stenzek.

That is, unless stenzek gets permission from those authors for such relicensing.

See, this is why people may use the MIT license instead. If they want to later be able to make proprietary versions of the software, they can; they cannot do this if it's under GPL unless the copyright is fully theirs, on all code.

14 September at 9:51 | Open on mas.to
:mima_rule: Mima-sama

@becomethewaifu@tech.lgbt I don't think they had to go as far as relicensing to non-free if the concerns is about distros breaking things. They could've gone the Mozilla way and required those distributing modified versions to not use the same name and branding as Duckstation. GNU thinks this is acceptable since you're modifying the software already anyway; might as well do the branding too while at it

@libreleah@mas.to @LorenzoAncora@ieji.de

14 September at 10:16 | Open on makai.chaotic.ninja
Syphist :verifiedtrans:

@libreleah@mas.to they paused invites to their discord LMAO. Gives off cowardly vibes.

13 September at 20:07 | Open on zoner.work
Christopher Snowhill

@libreleah Stenzek frequently had to deal with people stealing his work. I'm sure that this license change will solve that problem nicely. /s

14 September at 3:35 | Open on social.losno.co
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot

@chris "Stealing" reveals a very closed minded attitude toward the world. I prefer to think that all work is derivative, and that we stand on the shoulders of giants. So when a piece of previously free and open source software becomes proprietary, that concerns me.

How much work did Stenzek base his own on, directly or indirectly? Did he learn all that he knows in a vacuum? Or did he get such knowledge from many sources?

Perhaps you can own your expression of an idea but the idea is not yours.

14 September at 8:56 | Open on mas.to
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot

@chris Interesting; look at the screenshot. This is from running "git shortlog -sne" on duckstation.git (master branch).

Quite a number of authors, and most of the commits aren't even Stenzek.

Therefore, Stenzek is violating the GPL.

I will be doing further auditing, and probably getting in contact with Stenzek myself in due course.

EDIT: I realised Connor Mclaughlin is stenzek. There are still many authors though, whose copyright is being violated.
14 September at 10:14 | Open on mas.to
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot

@chris In other words, the Android app that Stenzek releases, is illegal and could be removed from the Google App store. This is because, for the Android version of DuckStation, Stenzek is withholding the source code even though most of the code in duckstation.git does not belong to him, and was provided under GPLv3 - so, not providing source is copyright infringement.

Someone should report the Android app. A fork is needed; SwanStation for example is a fork of DuckStation and part of libretro.

14 September at 10:21 | Open on mas.to
Kevin Karhan :verified:

@libreleah pretty shure it's not legal to change from #GPLv3 to #proprietary legally unless all contributors signed off on this AND made a new project woth the same codebase as a hard fork.

- And even then it may be questionable.

Consider hinting that at #SoftwareFreedomConservancy, #BrucePerens and gpl-violations.org ...

14 September at 10:23 | Open on infosec.space
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot

@kkarhan Yes. Please read this other part of the thread:

mas.to/@libreleah/113135360019

I have determined that Stenzek is indeed violating the GPL. I will be doing more auditing for this, and submit to those entities.

I'll contact Stenzek myself first, to tell him why I think the code should remain under GPL.

The freedom to fork, including for commercial purposes, is a right everyone must have and it's the reason free software thrives.

Also, there is a fork of DuckStation:

github.com/libretro/swanstatio

@kkarhan Yes. Please read this other part of the thread:

mas.to/@libreleah/113135360019

I have determined that Stenzek is indeed violating the GPL. I will be doing more auditing for this, and submit to those entities.

I'll contact Stenzek myself first, to tell him why I think the code should remain under GPL.

14 September at 10:36 | Open on mas.to
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