FDroid debating Aves Libre app TOS as reason for removal | Hacker News Reader

FDroid debating Aves Libre app TOS as reason for removal

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I feel like the pro-FOSS commenters position is clear and reasoning well articulated. If the developer doesn’t want to comply then fine, at least it’s nice to see the this debate unlike the black box of typical app stores.

Edit: It’s the fdroid IRC mod not fdroid leadership. My mistake!

F-Droid's position on this particular app is non-existent. The F-Droid maintainer who has replied on the issue has so far just asked "aren't we over-reacting a bit?"

Someone not directly affiliated with F-Droid is trying to get the app removed.

Note: They appear to be a moderator of the F-Droid IRC, so while not project leadership, not totally unaffiliated either.

Ah, fair enough, I stand corrected. I was looking at their GitLab profile, which has a few minor contributions to F-Droid projects over several years but definitely doesn't have maintainer status.

It is still accurate to say that F-Droid doesn't have a formal position on this app, and that the only position any maintainer has adopted so far is "why are we freaking out?"

Ah yeah, I can see that. Admittedly I assumed based on the title of this post the person debating represented Fdroid, so perhaps it should be updated to reflect this?

This is one of those situations where it feels like the issue creator is being annoying and pedantic, but ultimately they are probably correct. I actually have a lot of sympathy for Izzy's initial "what's the big deal" reaction, but I think it is also explained quite clearly what the issue is.

IMO the issue is mainly with "authorized" and "acceptable", which are very vague and could certainly be construed as an attempt to limit user freedom. They are so vague and nebulous that I suspect the author simply slapped them on without giving them much thought because they sound like legalistic, CYA-esque language. Beyond the hassle of changing the code and pushing the changes to the IzzyDroid repo, I can't imagine the author could have much of an objection to removing them - they're certainly not doing much to actually protect him.

The discussion of the reference to "legal" use is more interesting to me. You could argue that even that is a restriction on freedom 0, but equally, you could argue that the language does not actually take away any legal right/freedom, as (by definition) you don't have the right to do illegal things in the first place. (It is not generally considered illegal to do things that are crimes in other countries, as laws are not generally considered to have extra-territorial effect.)

Not sure why there was so much discussion about it; whatever about the quibbles over what the TOS _means_, it fairly clearly makes it not FOSS.

How does the TOS make it not FOSS?

>A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:

>The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).

>The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

>The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).

>The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

By adding a ToS, you remove Freedom 0.

It's not FOSS in the distributed form. But with a FOSS license on the source, anyone can build from source and run without caring about the TOS. So the source code is almost FOSS, and can be legally turned into FOSS by an end user.

How do this ToS contradict Freedom 0?

It's not clear how, because it's not clear what e.g. "acceptable" means.

It forbids the user from using the software in illegal or unauthorized manners, whatever that means.

Would such a user care and feel bound by a TOS?

May as well just throw pirated commercial software into f-droid too, since if you don't care about the license terms then it's just as open, right?

>FOR ANY PURPOSE

The ToS says you can't use it for certain purposes. It's pretty cut and dry.

Because Freedom #0 says "you may use this software for any purpose". Including terms of service to curb that freedom makes it non-Free.

I don't know about clearly not FOSS, but it clearly makes it not licensed under the BSD license that the software claims to be licensed under.

Doesn't matter if extra terms are added in the license document itself or in a popup in the software, they're an amendment all the same.

Open source is not the same thing as FOSS. If you have too restrictive of a license then it is not free as in freedom. Only free as in free beer.

Did you read the thread? It's explained pretty clearly.

This is an excellent question.

Which part of the 3-clause BSD license that the author selected is inconsistent with the "TOS" that the app shows?

Or is the 3-clause BSD not a FOSS license?

If you add your own extra restrictions to the 3-clause BSD license then it is not the 3-clause BSD license any more.

>Why would anyone care about any of this? Just torrent working warez apps and be done with it.

It seems people miss the most occupies obvious part about this. F-droid is not limited to free software. So the whole chain out the argument is moot. They usually get a label.

… Wait, really? I thought that was the whole point of it.

The commenter might be alluding to how f-droid allows adding additional repositories that may contain proprietary apps. However, that's completely irrelevant since the issue is about including this app in the primary repository, which has strict requirements on apps being fully foss.

No, clearly most people in this discussion don’t actually pay attention to the details that fdroid supports and doesn’t spend the 15 minutes of research necessary to understand it. Sad really, creating unnecessary friction as well.

https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Anti-Features/

None of those Anti-Features make software not FOSS. FOSS is still a hard requirement, but an app is allowed to talk to non-foss services, or might have open source analytics, etc. These things are flagged when true.

The issue is that the TOS requires the user to not do anything "illegal". While on the surface this may seem an innocuous contract to agree to, in actuality this TOS pointlessly spits in the face of anyone living in a country where speaking out against oppressive leadership can incur serious consequences (such as a lengthy prison sentence). Take a photo of yourself protesting an authoritative regime? Well, you just violated the app's TOS. So, that's why it's not in the spirit of FOSS. It is needless quasi-legalese. It is "lawful neutral" in a negative way.

In the Aves GitHub issue the author said "thanks for being sane" to IzzySoft and later down the thread IzzySoft disagreed with him. Surprised the issue still isn't locked. Usually things like this turn into a popcorn fest.

It seems most likely the author's intent was to limit his own liability by including a vague TOS. What makes more sense is to provide the software strictly "AS-IS", without any guarantees, liabilities, warranty, or implied use-case. Y'know, like many FOSS licenses (GPL/BSD/MIT/etc). So, the BSD license used for the app itself actually had the author covered.

Yeah, I'm not sure why there's an issue. It's just a reminder that F-Droid still has to make subjective decisions.

There doesn't seem to be anything in the repository that would make me think the Terms of Service in the notice are attached to the license on the Source Code. Anyone who doesn't want it or wants to provide it to other people who don't want it could fork it and make a build without the notice, or with their own notice.

The issue is that the TOS has ridiculous, absurd requirements while granting the author of the software no actual, real-world benefit. And that the software can no longer be considered FOSS when it easily could have been. It's like writing a TOS that states: "Thou shall only use this software in accordance with the seven heavenly virtues".

Here is the TOS: https://github.com/deckerst/aves/blob/main/assets/terms.md

It does sound pretty problematic from a FOSS point of view.

> You must use the app for legal, authorized and acceptable purposes.

In particular the "authorized" and "acceptable" part. Authorized by whom? Acceptable to whom?

What I find more interesting: they're not saying you must not use it for illegal, unauthorized or unacceptable purposes.

Do something legal, authorized and acceptable and you've fulfilled that requirement. Then do whatever you want with it.

Haha, that's funny. Having installed it and accepted the ToS, you have violated them if you do not then use the app for something legal, authorized, and acceptable. If you hit Accept but close the app before the next screen that means you are a violator.

I like your reading of it.

Haha yeah. Pretty typical of non-lawyers trying to sound officious and legalistic. Weird that he's choosing this to pick a fight over.

IANAL but the fact that those are that open to interpretation says to me that they're probably legally unenforceable.

My guess is that the f-froid maintainers (or their users) don't want the possibility of having to pay to defend that argument in court.

Perhaps after the OGL stunt by wizards of the coast, the issue reporter was also feeling less charitable about vague uses of authorized, also

Those terms are so ridiculously loose. It basically looks like this is an "it's not my fault if people use this app for illegal stuff" ass-covering maneuver by the dev.

This is grounds for removal? Really?

Yes, really. The terms are so loose they are unusable, which is a large part of the problem.

Whether something is "open source" is usually determined by The Open Source Definition, maintained by the Open Source Initiative. In this case, the problematic part would be:

"6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research."

In practice this means clauses like "you cannot use this software for evil" or "you cannot use this software for illegal stuff" mean it is no longer open source. We've seen this before with The JSON License and many others, and the argument is well-settled.

Well, yes.. JSON parsing library was not allowed to be used for evil... So it wasn't included in Debian for years https://dzone.com//articles/jsonorg-license-literally-says

IBM requested, and received, permission to use it for evil. https://youtu.be/-C-JoyNuQJs?t=2473

This is incredible

FDroid is for FOSS, restricting usage is not FOSS. It's pretty simple.

What is authorized? Authorized by who? Can they deauthorize? Change the criteria for authorization?

I agree with FDroid here but as a compromise if the author wants to keep his little TOS banner he could instead turn it into a less forceful disclaimer with less forceful language.

Basically instead of a TOS popup with "You cannot use it for illegal..." it ends being a disclaimer with something like "This app was designed for legal use..."

The author's position is that they are "not interested in this kind of issues"[1]. They aren't willing to do anything to address this at all.

[1] https://github.com/deckerst/aves/issues/517#issuecomment-142...

They are so "uninterested" that they took the time to implement a TOS dialog in their app.

For your information, your suggestion has been the solution https://github.com/deckerst/aves/pull/519

That's nice. I didn't expect my suggestion to be considered!

I wish there was something the law would do about legalese that says something obvious. The terms only use for legal things should be understood already, and this illegal to waste the users time with. People reading a contract should feel like it is important to read the contract because it says something they wouldn't be sure of. When the contract just says what you already know it is a waste of everyone's time and the writer should be penalized for that.

Note, I also think EULAs should be individually negotiated and signed. If the limits on use of the program are something other than what the law (possibly fair use) already says I should have a lawyer involved on my side.

Under several jurisdictions, the depiction of Muhammed is a crime (with extremely harsh punishments).

Am I, a citizen of a free country, not allowed to use this app to read a book that has such a depiction? Is this "acceptable"?

Surely if the author lives in such an oppressive country it should be obvious that they don't want me to use the app for this purpose, and I would clearly be in violation of their terms of service, going directly against the open source license and principals.

I don't know who the author is or where they live but the point still stands. And that doesn't even consider the moet vague terms of the sentence.

This looks like one of those "don't pirate books with our app" clauses that's very well-intentioned, but at odds with the open source license attached to the product.

This is what you get when laymen start doing lawyer work, and why copy-pasting legalese is much safer than trying to write your own.

Obviously neither F-Droid nor any of its users are at any risk of violating the ToS, let alone any consequences of doing so. The problem is that you can either allow ToS/license violations or you can't, there's no in-between.

It should also be noted that F-Droid itself may have issues, since the official repository only contains code F-Droid compiles unlike other app stores where you can upload compiled applications.

It's an interesting problem that I'm sure will be solved quickly without too much hassle, but it's also a lesson for open source developers to watch out when it comes to writing terms and conditions.

I feel really sorry for the people that act illegally but still do abide by TOS.

Depends on what is illegal about their acts. Sometimes I have sympathy for them having to deal with unjust laws. Other times I hope they get caught.

"Wasting someone's time" should not be illegal.

FDroid hasn't provided a solution for browser extensions so there's room for another iteration, perhaps to a federated universal app store, possibly with NFTs. Like with Mastodon you could have allowlists/blocklists of servers rather than individual packages. In the mean time I think FDroid is doing a pretty good job being gatekeepers to prevent malware. Keep in mind, this is being blocked on open source grounds, but they use open source to be able to audit the security of packages. They could allow non-open source source available but that would be extra work and why should they give that to non-open source projects?

>you could have allowlists/blocklists of servers rather than individual packages

That's already how F-Droid works. The default repository only allows FOSS apps, but you can add any third-party repository you want and you'll be able to install its apps from F-Droid.

https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721

How would NFTs help?

There are numerous ways they could help, but it may not be easy. NFTs are just tokens in a blockchain. A few applications that come into mind are:

1. incentivizing reproducing builds, kinda like Solana Validator Nodes (this would work well w/ WASM, but more rewards could be given to those running a container or MicroVM based on an OCI image)

2. DAOs for governance of an instance (like a Mastodon instance, imagine big ones like mastodon.social as well as little ones) (I'm surprised I haven't heard of DAO-led Mastodon instances)

3. Curation - a namespace could require tokens to get a name, just like crypto domain name registries

4. Crowdfunding - you could buy NFTs to crowdfund and then be left with a token that might be worth something

Terms of service? For a "gallery" program that displays locally stored pictures? There is no "service" there. (One hopes.)

So, do they run into problems with anything that uses JSON?

(JSON has a clause in their license: "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.")

The first party Crockford implementation? Not free software.

The specification diagrams or text on json.org? Similarly non free.

The JSON format itself? Arguably not copyrightable. Maybe patentable, had Crockford tried 20 years ago, but that's more an argument for the lunacy of many software patents.

If you're concerned about the implications of the JSON license on JSON implementations, wait until you hear about the ISO8601 spec's license

jslint

I enjoy the author's response, a reminder that excess piety does not grant you time out of someone elses day. After replying with this, he closes the ticket

"I'm not a lawyer and I'm not interested in this kind of issues.

If you think the app, as it is with its terms, should be removed from F-Droid, feel free to reach out to them."

It's really the only healthy response. If you want to use his work, comply with his license. If F-Droid doesn't accept his licensing, they don't have to distribute it.

The main reason I use F-Droid is because of the apps that they don't distribute. The standards they set allow me to feel safe installing unknown software. I like F-Droid for the same reason that Apple fanatics like their app store; because of what's not allowed.

The main reason I use F-Droid is because, it's closer to a Ubuntu style repository, that I can assume it's basically open source, maybe some licesning restrictions, certainly not like 'free' apps in the appstore designed to generate income for the author.

And it's almost always me getting stupid apps that should just be part of the OS.

A Calendar app, I can use without having a gmail account

A note taking app

A sound recorder

etc.

It's perfectly ok to ask if he want to change the license. Even more a change like this, that takes nothing at all from him. It's as ok as he not wanting to.

The real question is why does local software come with a TOS? I would nope out of it without even reading, and would (and am) become a bit wary of F-Droid for including this.

Is there any lawyer here who is willing to give a not legal advice opinion on whether or not the MIT license permits forking and removing the objectionable clickwrap agreement?

Why wouldn't it?

The problem with any condition that says "Must be used legally" is that by implication you're supporting the law of every country in the world.

If I had it my way, my app store would only allow GPL, MIT, BSD, WTFPL, maybe Apache. You want a EULA, go beg Google to host your restrictive app.

The app in question is BSD 3-clause... the EULA can be removed by a forker, and perhaps it will be.

I don't think it's as cut-and-dry as you're making it sound. This question seems like something you need an actual lawyer for.

How is it not as cut-and-dry as it sounds? There is nothing in the source license which requires the developer to include the EULA in other works.

These terms are an extension of the license.

I know very little about open source licenses, would you be willing to clarify why maybe apache? I have thought of apache as „MIT but don’t sue me over patents.“ is that correct?

> The issue upstream was quickly closed, and I am now banned from commenting on it, so it doesn't look like we can ask upstream much.

This is all I needed to see to know that the upstream developer is in the wrong.

TL;DR - software author implements TOS with some vague language. Someone loosely affiliated with F-Droid complains it doesn’t meet F-Droid’s inclusion standards. Author confirms F-Droid is free to remove it if they wish.

PSA: *Please* don't brigade the Github issue of the app. It's not productive, doesn't help anyone, and can only make things worse for both sides.

This. Odds are there’s a comment that covers what you have to say. You can thumbs up it if you feel the need.

Oh, the irony.

In my defence I added additional ideas. But not in my defence: I do love some irony.

That doesn't really work too well. What does work is flagging forum crosslnks to live ongoing project drama off the front page and even better, just not posting things like that to HN.

too late!

Your childish spamming [1] backfired so you went and edited it into an even more irrelevant nonsense? Impressive.

[1] https://github.com/deckerst/aves/issues/517#issuecomment-142...

Don't worry. I can't even read it. It's just a header and a blank white page. I miss back when gitlab had HTML.

FDroid can remove the app if they want, but it's annoying that folks decided to show up and harass the developer on his Github repo.

https://github.com/deckerst/aves/issues/517

~~I don't see harrasment there, dev is free to do as he wishes with his app, but there's nothing wrong with bringing it up. What is not okay is being a dick and calling people "zealots" over it.~~

EDIT: I didn't see the further replies that happened after this was posted on HN. I misunderstood and referred to creation of the issue itself.

Why do people always feel entitled to tell people what to do? The guy said he doesn't care and to remove it from FDroid if needed. The guy can be a dick, the guy can be as distasteful as humanly possible. It's "okay".

That's that, if you want to use it just fork it.

The guy decided to upload his project to GitHub and make it public, there was nothing in the initial issue that would warrant the response it did.

Author is free not to remove ToS, but he doesn't have to be a dick about it.

Have you ever maintained a popular-ish open-source project? People will send you questions every day, you need to fix actual issues, you get a random email from Deloitte consultants because someone somewhere is using your code and they want to clarify the licensing. It's work, it's somewhat thankless so yes I will be empathetic with the maintainer that got cut two random issues for a ToS that contains 2 lines which are only an issue to a handful of people using FDroid and being called a jerk because he called those people "zealots" after they insisted he fix his ToS despite him politely saying no.

Author is doing nothing wrong, not even in tone.

One could argue that demanding something of a developer of software you don't pay for is the jerk move.

FDroid still has the option to remove the app. Author appears to be okay with that. No issue, unless you are demanding something of the developer.

Freedom cuts both ways, both for the user and the developer.

>Freedom cuts both ways, both for the user and the developer.

Author is free to call people "zealots", others are free to see it as being a dick.

It was simply uncalled for, if author does not want to deal with this he could've stopped replying after closing the issue as "Won't Fix", instead he decided to insult people that care about the free software.

> Author is free to call people "zealots", others are free to see it as being a dick.

He didn't initially, his reply was

> I'm not a lawyer and I'm not interested in this kind of issues.

> If you think the app, as it is with its terms, should be removed from F-Droid, feel free to reach out to them.

which I find completely reasonable. After that wasn't enough and people kept pestering him, he said that he doesn't want to deal with zealots.

>After that wasn't enough and people kept pestering him

That's false? https://i.imgur.com/EFIfxRF.jpg

There was another issue that I believed to have come after the first, from the same user, complaining that he had some tracking/telemetry/whatever in there, which the author then closed, saying that the language clearly stated it was voluntary and with consent only. He additionally asked him to not bother him with issues about these kinds of technicalities.

If the order was reversed, you're right.

Said issue is indeed in the screenshot I provided, and it still is not "After that wasn't enough and people kept pestering him" as it was indeed a separate issue and not "a technicality".

Some people take their freedoms seriously and "Libre" version of the app mentioning tracking in ToS is a big no-no.

From what I can see the author just dismissed two valid (and separate) issues on the matter that he does not care about it, it's his right, but in no way it was "pestering" or "harassing".

I wouldn't call it harassment either, but it felt annoying to me (much like some other comments on that issue). People can and should take their freedoms seriously, they have the freedom to fork and make changes and publish those changes themselves and that's about it.

Beyond that, I think they should respect that no means no and not bother authors because they take themselves or their freedoms (too) seriously.

It's fine to be a zealot about FOSS, and to think the letter of the license is important. If you were personally insulted by someone calling people who complain about morality clauses being added to FOSS licenses zealots, you don't have to accept that as a description of yourself.

The person writing you free (as in beer) software is not hurting you, they are trying to help you in a way you don't completely approve of.

I am a zealot for FOSS licensing.

>If you were personally insulted

I'm fine, reason why I posted reply is because top comment called creating an issue on a public issue tracker "show[ing] up and harass[ing] the developer". Hence my reply that the only harassment(however mild) I saw was from the developer himself, as per his right, but it still goes against the comment I was replying to.

The people who care about the free software should take the free software and make binaries and change the name or whatever they feel useful to get it into F-Droid.

The moment they show up in his issue tracker complaining about it, they're being zealous.

Author took his time to get this into F-Droid in the first place and references the F-Droid link on their repo, what is so zealous about creating the issue to make sure it stays there?

The behavior of users on that thread makes me want to never publish anything in F-Droid.

Why the entitlement to have the project do the work for you?

>Why the entitlement to have the project do the work for you?

Because I for example consider a good tone at least giving upstream a heads up before forking and cutting out pieces of it.

There's nothing entitled about creating an issue on a public issue tracker that author can disable or limit at any time.

Why are you making things harder for the author? Once they marked it as something they don't want to fix, nobody else should be commenting or posting it on HN.

I am not making it harder for the author, nor have I posted it on HN. And person that has posted it on HN has linked to FDroid issue tracker, not projects GitHub link.

You as in the people commenting on GitHub aka "you lot", not you personally... :)

People are allowed to disapprove of the actions of FOSS devs and maintainers, and to post their disagreement online in places such as HN.

Feels like it's not okay to brigade someone's issue tracker.

Okay, but that's not what you said, nor what I commented about.

Oh yeah who wants to deal with those nasty thumbsdown clicks. If you're not willing to deal with rational (and well reasoned) arguments, don't develop in public or allow issues on your repo. You can't go to the "town square" and shout your opinions and call any kind of push back "harassment".

The developer has total right to say he doesn't care but the issue is quite clear and as such the app should be removed as it does not comply with free software. Let the developer start his own app store that allows for such shenanigans.

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