FSF on OnlyOffice/EuroOffice: You cannot use the GNU (A)GPL to take software freedom away
Posted by 6e1a08c8047143c6869@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 113 comments
redballooon@reddit
What do they try to do?
TeutonJon78@reddit
Say no one else can do use trademarks but also any fork has to include the OnlyOffice logo...which they can't do.
So basically they want to be FOSS but prevent anyone else using their code.
StevenK71@reddit
Idiots
D3PyroGS@reddit
this has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with greed and power
BrodatyBear@reddit
I disagree. If they been smart enough, they would simply use another license that prevents redistribution or have causes against competitions and avoided all of that.
Something like a Business Source License, PolyForm Shield(?), or just a custom one. This is after a quick search, they probably could find something better with the right patent laws expert.
FlyingBishop@reddit
No, they're idiots. The terms make no sense. They might as well include no license at all. This has like sovereign citizen energy. The law doesn't work like that.
xyrus02@reddit
It makes sense, if you are a malicious actor who wants to block forks. It's not that they are stupid, they just got called out for their little trick.
Jarngreipr9@reddit
I don't think they're necessary a malicious actor for now. Can be compromised, for sure but at the moment I'm just going with a company that tried to exploit an open license to close the usage. Which is idiotic to me, since if they wanted to get that result, they could have just picked another licensing model
g1rlchild@reddit
Anyone trying to block forks to free software is, by definition, a malicious actor.
FlyingBishop@reddit
The thing about the law is that there are certain "tricks" which don't actually work. This trick doesn't work. It's very likely a court would rule their "trick" illegal which just leaves them with the AGPL.
Jarngreipr9@reddit
Russians don't like to share
moose_kayak@reddit
OnlyOffice claims their version of the AGPL has a further restriction:
And also that
Therefore, this let's them block any forks because you both need to attribute with the logo and you don't have permission to use it.
Of course this only works if claim 1 is enforceable, which the FSF says is not true
LousyMeatStew@reddit
So basically, OnlyOffice decided to resurrect the idea of the obnoxious BSD advertising clause from pre-1999 and thought the mistake XFree86 made when they added obnoxious advertising clauses in 2004 was that it wasn't in image form?
Study your history, people.
frymaster@reddit
much worse than that. They explicitly reserved all rights in the copyrighted image and wouldn't let anyone use it. So claiming open-source while preventing all use of their code, whether with obnoxious boilerplate or not.
LousyMeatStew@reddit
Thanks for pointing that out, I missed that. You’re right, that is so much worse.
mishrashutosh@reddit
Only Office has always given shady vibes. I imagine their codebase is robust which is why Euro Office decided to fork it instead of LibreOffice.
turdas@reddit
They didn't do it for advertising. They did it to keep it AGPLv3 while preventing forks.
spin81@reddit
I don't think they thought about it as deeply as you did
Correct-Commission@reddit
I was going to reference the infamous XFree86 license change. It had deep effects on X. For one, it resurrected old X.org while killing XFree86.
andrybak@reddit
These additions to the text of the AGPL-3.0 means that they cannot claim to be licensed under AGPL-3.0, doesn't it? Or does AGPL-3.0 allow adding text to it?
Blocking forks seems to be an anti-thesis to FOSS, so their text of the license is unlikely to be recognized as an open-source license by the Open Source Initiative and as a free software license by the Free Software Foundation.
ImNotABotScoutsHonor@reddit
this let us block any forks
whatThePleb@reddit
Because it's russia.
piesou@reddit
You can use our software but you need to include our icon. You can't include our icon because it's trademarked. Yes, it's open source.
Mother-Pride-Fest@reddit
I don't think that would even meet the definition of open source. Even the OSI requires you to be able to modify and distribute modified versions of software.
xyrus02@reddit
I think it might be OSS but not FOSS
LigPaten@reddit
No it pretty clearly is not OSS. That's what the OSI in the previous comment was about. It's more source available.
Claidheamh@reddit
Isn't this just "source available"?
beatbox9@reddit
EuroOffice is an attempt to fork off OnlyOffice into another new open office suite.
Though open source, OnlyOffice tried to prevent forks of the product by using a proprietary component: in this case, the logo.
Much like how Nintendo protected their IP on consoles like the GameBoy. (The GameBoy console would check to see if the logo was included on all games before it let them load. Games would violate trademark laws if they included the logo without a license. So games had to obtain a license from Nintendo to include the logo; and only then could they be played on the GameBoy).
OnlyOffice essentially said: 'It's open source under the AGPLv3 license. But also, you can't alter or distribute it without a license from us to include our logo.'
FSF (who issues the AGPLv3 license) essentially said: 'You (OnlyOffice) can't use our AGPLv3 license if you prevent people from altering or distributing it, including the logo.'
MorallyDeplorable@reddit
Sega sued Accolade for this and it was found to be "required for interoperability" and thus not a trademark infringement.
deanrihpee@reddit
the Nintendo one kinda does not fit since they're not trying to be "open" anything though, but fair…
beatbox9@reddit
But they protected their work via their logo…
…which is exactly what OnlyOffice is trying to do.
Did you really not understand that part? Or the part immediately after where I start with “the difference here though…”?
Has nothing to do with the “open” part of FOSS.
Did you ever see Zoolander? The part where he asks “But why male models?”
deanrihpee@reddit
no I know, but it's more of a drm not the "project", I'm saying because the context of the post was the open office project being forked, not about if open office can be run without it's logo
beatbox9@reddit
No. You misunderstand the post, because these two topics are one and the same.
OnlyOffice claims the project cannot be forked unless the logo is included and the logo cannot be included unless one obtains a license to do so feom OnlyOffice.
deanrihpee@reddit
huh????
beatbox9@reddit
https://tenor.com/6afo.gif
Maybe-monad@reddit
Tried to prevent forks
ronaldtrip@reddit
It seems every once in a while some outfit thinks they are clever and try to "loophole" an FSF license. OnlyOffice thought they were clever by claiming that their trademarked logo is author attribution and then deny any trademark rights. To bad for them FSF licenses are pretty ironclad. The only company ever that successfully circumvented the GPLv2 (while fully distributing the source according to the GPLv2) did it by putting the lock in the hardware. It prompted the GPLv3.
BackgroundCow@reddit
How about RedHat's trick of pressuring customers not to share source for RedHat's bugfixes or else they'd loose their service contracts?
Tireseas@reddit
Absolutely nothing wrong with terminating a service contract if the other party is in violation of the terms they signed on the dotted line for. They followed the licensing terms of the code to the letter.
BackgroundCow@reddit
It most certainly is a way to circumvent customers freely sharing code they have a legal right to share, which they would do if not bound by those terms. "Nothing wrong" is subjective, and in this case can be, and has been, debated.
xyrus02@reddit
Which makes it elegant. You are granted a freedom by one license, but another contract is taking it away again
Tireseas@reddit
No freedoms are taken away at all with the code that's distributed to you. Red Hat will just stop distributing to you in the future if you violate your support contract by sharing with unauthorized parties, which would be kind of idiotic to do since the patches end up in the publicly available source anyway.
mrlinkwii@reddit
its more another contract says if you leak it we will cut support you pay for
ImNotABotScoutsHonor@reddit
lose*
ronaldtrip@reddit
True. Although not as elegant as Tivo. They did a master stroke. Bad for everybody else and vile, but brilliant and elegant. Here is the full source, do with it what you will according to the license. And by the by, it's useless on your expensive Tivo box.
makingwaronthecar@reddit
Even the TiVo example is debated. The FSF considers it an exploit; however, Mr Torvalds has publicly stated that he does not. (Not only that, but he has also criticized the GPL3's "anti-tivoization" clause as an improper restriction on software freedom as he understands it.)
ronaldtrip@reddit
Linus' stance is known. But he isn't the issuer of the FSF licenses.
TheOneTrueTrench@reddit
I mean, the GPLv2 has a valid reason for existing, in my opinion, it exists specifically for the scenario that Linus wants it to, he WANTS the kernel to exist in ways that TiVOization can happen, while other engineers want to prevent it in their projects.
The FSF thinks it's a problem, but in true open source tradition, once they released v2 out there, they were no longer in control of who used it and who didn't.
They might well think it's a mistake for Linux to keep using v2, but they would absolutely back him up if someone tried to force him to switch licenses. It's his project, his code, and if he wants to use v2, that's his right.
ronaldtrip@reddit
When Linus chose the GPLv2, tivoization wasn't a thing. By removing the "or later" clause, he definitely said that the license will forever be GPLv2.
His stance on GPLv3 is very much academic. His kernel is GPLv2 and relicensing is practically impossible, even if they wanted too. He got lucky that his ideas about hardware and software licensing are congruent with the licensing he chose in 1991.
Claiming that the GPLv2 was specifically written to allow tivoization is false. Tivo found a succesful loophole. The FSF never meant for GPLv2 licensed software to be locked out of the hardware it runs on. How do I know? It is clearly stated in the GPLv3 and the FSF encourages the use of the "or later" clause.
TheOneTrueTrench@reddit
So, your comment got me interested, and I went looking into the licensing history. To be clear, you were entirely right in your comment, never disagreed, still don't, just got curious.
I looked into the history in git, and the initial commit of the git version of the kernel repo is April 16, 2005, which predated the FSF even talking about writing the v3. In that version (v2.6.12-rc2, btw), the COPYING file, containing the license, specifically states that it's only this precise version of the license, not any other version of the GPLv2.x or v3.x. He definitely removed it before GPLv3 was even introduced.
Interesting, I also came across some interesting GPL2.0 historical issues in
LICENSES/preferred/GPL-2.0. I'll copy from the relevant commit comment:Apparently, the FSF has been pretty lax about versioning their license, and there's no authoritative GPL-2.0... :-X
ronaldtrip@reddit
2005 is way past when Linus applied the GPLv2 to the Linux kernel code. He used one of the versions of the GPLv2 in circulation in 1991, the year Linux was released (from then on frozen as THE Linux kernel license). The very first kernel releases weren't even GPL licensed. Linus did switch to GPLv2 quickly after the initial release though.
As an aside, from 1991 to 2002 kernel commits were handled on the Linux kernel mailing list. From 2002 to 2005 they switched to proprietary Bitkeeper (and much drama ensued). In 2005 Linus wrote git after the relationship with Bitkeeper went sour and that is the kernel commit tool ever since.
TheOneTrueTrench@reddit
... yeah, I know. That's just the first version that's in git. That's why I mentioned it's the initial one in git.
It's proof that the removal of "or later" had to happen at some time before April of 2005, and v3 happened after April of 2005, so this is merely proof that it couldn't have been in response, and I don't have to go looking to figure out exactly when. That's all I'm saying.
And I am extremely aware of the history of the kernel and git, I started using UNIX (AMIX) on the Amiga 3000UX, and eventually switched to Linux with Debian 3.0.
ronaldtrip@reddit
GPLv3 was in response to Tivo actually finding the loophole. Linus wasn't involved in any way, shape or form in the drafting of the GPLv3. He let his disdain known for drafting licensing terms that involve restrictions on the hardware, but that was academic in relation to the kernel, which was GPLv2 only from 1991 onwards.
FSF drafting GPLv3 had nothing to do with Linux an sich. FSF was concerned with the hardware locking trick applied to more than the kernel. FOSS is rather useless if every piece of hardware refuses to run non-vendor versions.
TheOneTrueTrench@reddit
I don't know why you're so obsessed with trying to explain things to me that I already know.
I was there for it, I followed it intensely at the time.
ronaldtrip@reddit
I don't understand why you bring in Linus Torvalds opinions on the GPLv2, GPLv3 and tivoization. It's neither here nor there on the topic of tivoization, other than that tivoization doesn't bother him. To which I say good for him. When it comes to the Linux kernel, since the license is frozen on the GPLv2 only, it will always be tivoizable.
On a personal level, I don't like tivoization. Linus doesn't mind. So we don't see eye to eye on it, but I don't see why his opinion on the matter has any bearing on what I wrote.
TheOneTrueTrench@reddit
I should have been more precise in my language, it continues to exist in broad usage because Linus wants to continue using it, not because he could foresee the usage. That's what I meant in my previous comment, but I was being lazy in how I wrote it.
Candid_Highlight_116@reddit
https://xkcd.com/1494/
Exw00@reddit
Simple EuroOffice decided to break the license now they complain,
AGPL states that extra claws can be added in cases of protecting trademark as it is here 1 keeping the logo, 2 not using the logo outside the scope of the office suit.
And lets not forget the license was fine for Nextcloud untill a few years ago when they used Onlyoffice for free in their cloude suit.
And OnlyOffice is based in Lithuania not Russia, with devs from Russia, witch should not change anything since you cant just take other peoples work change the name logo and call it yours witch EuroOffice did.
They could have forked LibreOffice witch has a les restrictive licence but that needs competence witch they lack, they took eu grants for eu office and tried to steal the work of other people fuck them.
Zatujit@reddit
You know you can also be proprietary
Exw00@reddit
So in your genius mind open source devs should be exploited, great.
turdas@reddit
If you don't want people to fork your application then don't make it open source.
McDutchie@reddit
There it is. The FSF's fundamental hypocrisy, laid bare for all to see in that one sentence. It's never been about freedom with these guys.
BashfulMelon@reddit
I'm a certified FSF disliker but this take is dumb as hell. A license can't protect freedom if it loses its meaning.
lainlives@reddit
Yeah in reality FSF basically is just a library of, and enforcer of licenses more than anything else. It's their entire thing these days.
Zatujit@reddit
Lol what
Scheeseman99@reddit
The whole point of copyleft is to exploit/hack copyright to protect the rights of users rather than copyright owners. Where is the hypocrisy?
calrogman@reddit
Which of the four essential freedoms do you suppose are violated by the FSF requiring that bad actors (Ascensio System SIA, et al.) not ratfuck their licenses?
Jarngreipr9@reddit
Please. Product and license cannot be compared
0xe1e10d68@reddit
As a law student, I thought the argument of OnlyOffice to be quite weak. I very much agree with the FSF here. There are multiple issues with the license OnlyOffice tries to push onto licensees; but the simplest way to find their claim invalid is to determine that (A)GPL does not permit to impose the requirement of including the original logo.
I‘m a bit surprised OnlyOffice thought they could or should stir so much shit up even though their claim sits on legally shaky ground, quicksand if you will.
spin81@reddit
Haven't read the article yet, but this sort of thing feels like they actually don't want to have out in the public like this. To illustrate my point, I have been a Linux user at home for about 25 years now and I had never heard of either OnlyOffice or EuroOffice until stumbling across this thread just now.
Sinaaaa@reddit
Only Office is very popular, because it has a pretty UI & is more compatible with MS than Libre Office.
Sinaaaa@reddit
All this drama notwithstanding, If Euro Office becomes something I can run without compiling a full office suite, I'll be sure to take a look. Though I doubt for my use case it would be better than Libre Office, despite the much better ui.
ActivityIcy4926@reddit
This is a pretty scathing, and correct, assessment.
Despite them denying it using feigned ignorance, OnlyOffice's intentions were very clear: we want to claim to be open source, but we don't want anyone using our source code. While everyone is free to do such a thing, AGPL is not the license for that.
Mother-Pride-Fest@reddit
If you wanted to do that you could use a source available license like FUTO. Although in this case they can't add the restrictions at all because it has already been released under GPL.
derrick81787@reddit
They can release future versions of the software with a new license, I think, but yeah the ones that are released are already GPL.
Mother-Pride-Fest@reddit
The vast majority of code in a future version is the same as that in the old version, and you can't redistribute GPL code or binaries under a different license. It might be possible to distribute patches that people could apply when they are compiling the code themselves, I'm not sure.
daniel-sousa-me@reddit
You can if it's your own code. A license grants rights to other people, but doesn't take rights away from the creator
aEverr@reddit
Only specifically to your own code. All other contributors have to agree otherwise which I assume is very difficult for a large and long lived open source project
NexEpula@reddit
I think it's actually possible for OnlyOffice. They made contribution from community nearly impossible, so the company has control over the source code in its entirely.
mishrashutosh@reddit
but surely they use components from other gpl projects? rarely anything these days is built 100% in-house, much less a complex software like an office suite.
mrlinkwii@reddit
not really no , if most the changes arent copyrightable ( like translations and typo fixes) they not required to get permission
or the fact their is litytle to no external contributers like in the case of OnlyOffice or if theirs a CLA
rg-atte@reddit
Depends on if they have any dependencies that would force them to publish their source code under AGPL or GPL.
Zdrobot@reddit
Huh, I didn't know Futo Foundation use a license of their own.
TIL it's not a FOSS license too.
mrlinkwii@reddit
honestly most licenses are unenforceable
beatbox9@reddit
How ironic.
OnlyOffice to EuroOffice: 'We don't grant you a license to partially use an altered form of our product.'
FSF to OnlyOffice: 'We don't grant you license to partially use an altered form of our product.'
centurion236@reddit
It's addressed in the article:
You can use an altered license, but you can't call it GPL.
ivosaurus@reddit
Is GPL trademarked?
West_Possible_7969@reddit
In the sense that misrepresentation would be legally fraud, nothing to do with the name itself.
Zdrobot@reddit
Yep, but they already did call it AGPL, so now they must comply ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
boukensha15@reddit
GPL family of licences are not products of FSF.
calrogman@reddit
The GPL disagrees with you. Apologies to the FSF for abridging their work here:
boukensha15@reddit
Product means something meant to be sold.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/product
xyrus02@reddit
It is the result of a labour. And in mercantile terms, it is something to be distributed. Not necessarily sold. I think that is a difference.
dutch_connection_uk@reddit
It's kind of interesting how they shy away from the actual definition that a product is the result of a process of production despite it being rather obvious in the examples (the first of which is calling a person a product of the system they grew up in), and instead have a bunch of scattershot things like "the result of a chemical reaction" or "something used for hair care".
beatbox9@reddit
That’s because you have to go hunt for the definition you want when you are being pedantic and referencing a dictionary.
beatbox9@reddit
Then who are they products of?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_License
boukensha15@reddit
Product means something meant to be sold.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/product
beatbox9@reddit
That’s just one definition, and it’s naive to think that words have only a single definition. What do you get when you multiply two numbers?
A product can also be anything produced as a result of a process.
Watch this: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/product
Now look up the word “pedantic.”
ImNotABotScoutsHonor@reddit
Words have multiple meanings that change based on the context in which they are used.
Your very own link shows:
The product, or the result of
randomhacks@reddit
Im the case of FSF - it’s brand and trust damaging to confuse people about how AGPL works.
wireless82@reddit
This action/statement is one that I appreciate from FSF.
nelmaloc@reddit
I don't see how this can be «further restrictions». They're allowed by the license itself.
Inorioru@reddit
So OnlyOffice has no problem with Russian state proprietary fork (R7-office), but when Europe doing it far more gracefully it's suddenly a big issue...
Dalnore@reddit
That's how they earn all their money, of course they have no problem with it.
Mother-Pride-Fest@reddit
I am certain that OnlyOffice is in the wrong here, but I don't know which situation applies. They are either breaking the FSF's copyright by calling their modified license the "AGPLv3", or they are adding additional restrictions that can and should be ignored by licensees.
mpgazaza@reddit
I found OnlyOffice to be more comfortable for my use cases and have thus been using it for a long while. Not like it'll make a big difference, but I wont participate in this bs. Back to LibreOffice...
T8ert0t@reddit
It never bothered to make an actual spell check navigable tool for documents...
The moment I realized that I never bothered.
int6@reddit
Or onwards to EuroOffice once it’s more mature
Oflameo@reddit
An uncommon FSF W.
Zatujit@reddit
i added the little following additional restriction to my open source project:
" - You will not be granted a copy of the source code, you may not redistribute it, you may not modify it and everything before this additional restriction is void null "
"Yeah its open source, its literally AGPL bruh".
0riginal-Syn@reddit
As anyone with had any common-sense and rudimentary understanding of the license or just basic reading comprehension.
Zatujit@reddit
its so ridiculous, its obvious; they want to have all of the advantages (marketing blah blah) while not wanting it to actually be open source... I guess being like Freeoffice (which is proprietary) is not compelling enough.
whamra@reddit
"The (A)GPLv3 makes it clear that it permits all licensees to remove any additional terms that are "further restrictions" under the (A)GPLv3."
Tgis perfectly sums up the whole issue and answers the question.