Flathub and Snap Store entries for KGeoTag

[Simon Redman]

Pedantically, my reading of LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL, it does not allow distributing software under LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL.

The text is here:
https://community.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy#LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL

"""
you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 3 of the license or [e.V. approved later version]
"""

So at the time you redistribute the software (to flathub, etc.), you need to make a choice. At the moment, the only allowable choice is GPL3.

If you stamp LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL on something which you are distributing, you're (again, pedantically) violating the license because it says that you can redistribute it as GPL3, but does not say you can distribute it as LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL.

Consider more practically: whomever is downloading the flatpak should know what version of the GPL license it adheres to. "GPL3 or some future version" is not a license, it's a collection of licenses! If GPL4 is written to prevent some future-TiVoization, then future-TiVo really needs to know whether the project is distributed as GPL3 or GPL4.

Thanks,
Simon


On January 4, 2024 6:47:11 AM EST, Scarlett Moore <scarlett.gately.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
>I agree, I will bring it up with snapd devs. I have zero pull with Flatpak.
>Scarlett
>
>On Thu, Jan 4, 2024, 4:33 AM Tobias Leupold <tl at stonemx.de> wrote:
>
>> Am Donnerstag, 4. Januar 2024, 11:08:34 CET schrieb Scarlett Moore:
>> > So looking at
>> https://github.com/snapcore/snapd/blob/master/spdx/licenses.go
>> >
>> > LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL is not recognized as a valid SPDX licence
>> > in the snap world.
>> > Either change it to GPL3 or I can manually put a license: field in the
>> > snapcraft.yaml
>> > Cheers,
>> > Scarlett
>>
>> Thank you for the follow-up!
>>
>> I meanwhile put "GPL-3.0-only" as the project license into the
>> appdata.xml. I
>> think this is the most appropriate SPD-X license, as -- as far as I can
>> grasp
>> it -- "LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL" is only KDE's backdoor to later
>> approve
>> (or refuse) a GPLv4 if there should be one in the future. So, effectively,
>> this means that our stuff is licensed as GPL 3 only, isn't it?
>>
>> At least, this is what Johannes did for KPhotoAlbum, and I think he has
>> more
>> insight of all that than me ;-)
>>
>> It would be kind if you would put this into snapcraft.yaml at the correct
>> place. I then also can adapt it for KPA.
>>
>> Thanks in advance!
>>
>> Apart from that, IMO those Snap and Flat guys should include
>> LicenseRef-KDE-
>> Accepted-GPL. It's not that this is some strange vendor-specific
>> commercial
>> license. I mean, we're one of the Big Boys here, aren't we?! ;-)
>>
>> Cheers, Tobias
>>
>> > On Thu, Jan 4, 2024 at 2:47 AM Tobias Leupold <tl at stonemx.de> wrote:
>> > > Am Mittwoch, 3. Januar 2024, 00:12:06 CET schrieb Carl Schwan:
>> > > > On Tuesday, January 2, 2024 10:50:07 PM CET Tobias Leupold wrote:
>> > > > > Hi all!
>> > > > >
>> > > > > As far as I can grasp it, https://apps.kde.org/de/kgeotag/ is
>> > > > > automatically
>> > > > > generated from KGeoTag's appdata.xml file. However, the site lists
>> > > > > both
>> > > > > Flathub and the Snapcraft as a possible installation source for
>> > > > > KGeoTag,
>> > > > > with "KDE" referenced as the publisher on both sites. I never used
>> > > > > neither,
>> > > > > so I don't know much about this besides those two are approaches to
>> > > > > provide
>> > > > > distribution independent packages, without relying on the
>> respective
>> > > > > package manager.
>> > > > >
>> > > > > But what this is about:
>> > > > >
>> > > > > On Flathub, one can read "No changelog provided" and "Proprietary:
>> > > > > This
>> > > > > app
>> > > > > is not developed in the open, so only its developers know how it
>> > > > > works. It
>> > > > > may be insecure in ways that are hard to detect, and it may change
>> > > > > without
>> > > > > oversight."
>> > > > >
>> > > > > Obviously, neither is true ...
>> > > >
>> > > > No changelog provided is true. You don't have any changelog in your
>> > > > appdata.xml, you can look at how we do this in NeoChat
>> > > > https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat/-/blob/master/
>> > > > org.kde.neochat.appdata.xml?ref_type=heads#L407
>> > > >
>> > > > Generally I recommend to follow the quality guidelines of Flathub
>> > > >
>> https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/appdata-guidelines/quality
>> > > > -gui delines/
>> > > >
>> > > > For the proprietary part, I asked in the flatpak matrix channel and
>> this
>> > > > is
>> > > > probably an issue with appstream-glib used by gnome software and
>> flathub
>> > > > and that doesn't recognize LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL in your
>> > > > appdata.xml. Discover actually has the same issue...
>> > > >
>> > > > I'm not sure we need to add the LicenseRef in the appstream file is
>> > > > actually needed. For the user it's interesting that the project is
>> > > > licensed under gpl 3 not that it could also potentially be licensed
>> > > > under gpl 4 in the future. This is an information only needed in your
>> > > > source code, I would say but INAL ;)
>> > > >
>> > > > > On Snapcraft, there's a similar "License: unset".
>> > > >
>> > > > This is afaik not taken from the appstream file and doesn't affect
>> only
>> > > > KGeoTag, the way I got this resolved in the past is to ask Jonathan
>> to
>> > > > fix
>> > > > it ;)
>> > > >
>> > > > > How can this be fixed? Is there something I can do about this? By
>> > > > > adding
>> > > > > something to the invent repo? Or somewhere else?
>> > > > >
>> > > > > Thanks for all help!
>> > > >
>> > > > I hope this helps :)
>> > > > Cheers,
>> > > >
>> > > > Carl
>> > > >
>> > > > > Cheers, Tobias
>> > >
>> > > Thanks for all the information so far :-) I'll see what I can fix ...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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