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Ubuntu Software Center is Mixing Proprietary and Free Software in a Dangerous Way

posted by n1 on Monday June 08 2015, @03:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the mix-and-match dept.

tonymercmobily writes:

I have been watching the evolution of the Ubuntu Software Center for quite a while now. I had doubts about its interface and its speed, but I liked the fact that it offered an easy, down-to-earth interface that allowed users to install software easily. However, I have to say that the way the Ubuntu Software Center has evolved is worrying me -- a lot. I am not against the idea of selling software. What I am against, is confusing proprietary software with non-proprietary software, The Ubuntu Software Center seems to be doing just that.

[ Editor's Note: The submission appears to have come directly from the author of the original article. ]
Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by TLA on Monday June 08 2015, @06:32AM

    by TLA (5128) on Monday June 08 2015, @06:32AM (#193539) Journal

    does either the GPL or the BSD licence specify that derivative code has to go out on the same terms, or do one or both of them allow you to distribute derivative code on a different licence?

    Example:

    I take a piece of GPL code, modify it and distribute the modified code under the BSD licence, is this allowed by the GPL?

    Alternatively, can I take BSD code, modify it and distribute the modified code under GPL?

    --
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by hemocyanin on Monday June 08 2015, @07:31AM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday June 08 2015, @07:31AM (#193554) Journal

    No.

    You can take a piece of MIT/BSD software, use it in your project, and GPL the combination -- for that matter, you could even decide to go closed source with the MIT/BSD stuff you cribbed, all you have to do is indicate that you used some BSD/MIT code, acknowledge who you got it from, and reference the license (you could even just close source MIT/BSD software, make no changes, and sell it, though that seems sort of pointless).

    However, you can't go the other way and relicense GPL software under an MIT/BSD style license, because the MIT/BSD licenses allow you to do things with the software (e.g. make it proprietary closed source) that the GPL forbids. If you could do this with GPL software, it would provide a mechanism to defeat the entire purpose of the GPL, which is to prevent publicly released software based on other GPL software from being made secret.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License [wikipedia.org]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses [wikipedia.org]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday June 08 2015, @06:39PM

      by isostatic (365) on Monday June 08 2015, @06:39PM (#193757) Journal

      because the MIT/BSD licenses allow you to do things with the software (e.g. make it proprietary closed source) that the GPL forbids.

      Technical point, the GPL doesn't forbid anything. Neither does the BSD or MIT licenses. They simply allow differing amounts of stuff.