I just downloaded and have been loving this. It loads pretty quickly, navigation is intuitive, and I’ll finally stop forgetting that Nebula exists because it’ll all be in my one big subscription feed.
Since I’m new to moving over to open source, I want to ask the veterans: is this as incredible as it seems right now, or is there something I’m missing?
Why isn’t it FOSS? The licence is clearly a quick and dirty fix. But it’s clear, that a libre approach is being made.
Please do not automatically equate FOSS with “free as in beer”/gratis.
It isn’t free and open source software, because it’s not contributing to the ecosystem, if this company goes out of business, nobody can pick up the code and keep modifying it. It’s just like closed source software in that regard.
The license includes an immediate revocation clause, so if anybody does build anything with this anyway, the license could be pulled away.
The license explicitly does not allow modifications and distribution of the modifications.
So it’s source available, source viewable, museum source… But it is not open source as most people understand it. It’s not part of the ecosystem that people can use as Legos to build the next project.
It’s fine, it’s a commercial venture, and I wish them the best success, but it is not open source. RMS would not approve.
I see, thanks.
Let’s hope that the project will see the light at some point. ;)
The License is clearly not Free by imposing restrictions to e.g. commercial vs non-commertial usage or distribution. It also restricts usage of name and logo aswell as terminating the license when legal action is taken against the provider.
While i can understand the reasoning, the license still stands against FOSS.
I believe you could have clearly separated them as provider and the software like its done in most cases. By wanting to protect their software, they had to restrict the License, so its no longer Free to use in any form you’d want.
As far as I can tell, their temporary nonfree license only really affects people interested in making money from redistribution, and potential bad actors.
Privacy enthusiasts and individuals who want to mod it for their own personal use are pretty much unaffected AFAICT. Although I prefer FOSS software, this license honestly has no downside I can see for individuals like ourselves, unless I’m missing something
Enthusiasts love to share their modifications to the community and their friends, and this look but dont touch license prevents that.
They encourage you to contribute to the project and add plug-ins, they are just making sure your modification does not become the defacto so they can make sure malware, trackers or ads are not implemented into the application. They have the right to go after you if you go against this but sharing a modified apk with a friend is not going to revoke your license or get you targeted.
We can fight if that’s the right approach but it’s certainly not open source, just source available!