Framing this as a problem specific to open source implies that proprietary applications are inherently more trustworthy. Regardless, the reason to use free software is so you can have the four freedoms, not necessarily because it is easier to audit.

This is strikingly similar to an account on reddit that has been posting variations of some LLM-generated screed about the supposed problem of trust in open source. I wonder what the end goal of this is.

It’s a cultural thing mainly. Things like rust and npm came out of the “Github generation” of open source developers which trend towards permissive licensing, in part thanks to Github’s own anti-copyleft bias. Github’s founder openly advocated to “open source almost everything” (the “almost” part being “core business value”), arguing that open source serves as a foundation upon which to build proprietary products. In this world, participating in open source is merely a way to gain PR and volunteer labor for the proprietary product.

I’m not automatically opposed to permissive licensing (nor is FSF/GNU, in fact!) but in making it the norm we put proprietary software companies in control of what ultimately becomes available in the commons.

It’s not free and open source.

I am not exactly defending this particular scheme but the source code is available under a free software license. It’s only the binaries that are under a proprietary EULA.

No part of a free software license requires that binaries be made available (gratis or otherwise) or that users be allowed to submit bug reports or feature requests. It is also not against the free software movement philosophy to sell free software.

But I’m one of the few privileged users who can build from source.

There are avenues available for less-privileged viewers to obtain builds of free software projects (e.g. GNU/Linux distributions, F-Droid, and so on).

Yeah I feel like this is the one instance of applying EULA’s to free software projects that I don’t disagree with on principle, because the source code remains free software (unlike FUTO, Commons Clause, and so on). For another example, Mozilla applies an EULA to Firefox binaries and still releases the source code under a free license, which is an overall good to the free software movement.

Maintainership of a free software project can be very taxing so it’s refreshing to see attempts to address that that aren’t intrinsically at odds with the free software movement. Remember that users of free software have no entitlement to anything other than source code. There is no requirement in any free software license that a project have maintainers, take bug reports, accept pull requests, offer support, etc.

Also remember there are avenues to obtain third party builds of free software projects (e.g. GNU/Linux distros, F-Droid, etc) and those third parties should be able to take up the support burden for their user communities.

Edit: From their faq, this is the most concerning thing to me:

Also, if you choose to not pay the Maintenance Fee, but find yourself returning to check on the status of issues or review answers to questions others ask, you are still using the project and need to pay the Maintenance Fee.

This seems like an over-reach. Limiting participation in communities to fee-payers is understandable but attempting to restrict people from even reading in these communities is a bit too far (and I am not even sure if it can be enforced, but I am not a lawyer).

People buy copies of proprietary software and then share them for free.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Freeware

Please don’t use the term “freeware” as a synonym for “free software.” The term “freeware” was used often in the 1980s for programs released only as executables, with source code not available. Today it has no particular agreed-on definition.

There is a misunderstanding that the free in free software or FOSS refers to price (and is hence a synonym of freeware). https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.html

Others use the term “FOSS,” which stands for “Free and Open Source Software.” This is meant to mean the same thing as “FLOSS,” but it is less clear, since it fails to explain that “free” refers to freedom.

Different senses of “free.” “Free software” refers to freedom, not price. “Freeware” refers to price, not freedom.

“Freeware” typically has the connotation of being proprietary but it doesn’t have to be. Most people call actual free software “free software,” “FOSS,” or “open source.” I think this is a side effect of proprietary being the assumed default.

There is a misunderstanding that “FOSS” means it is freeware and open source. You can see that misunderstanding even in this thread.

FOSS is always Freeware

“Free software” refers to freedom, not price. It’s possible for free-as-in-freedom software to be sold.

“Freeware” is always about price, not freedom.

“Free” in free software refers to freedoms, not price.

“Free” in “freeware” refers to price, not freedom.

The two are not at all synonymous although typically most free software is also freeware.

Why? Thunderbird announced it is not adopting the Firefox EULA.

https://mastodon.online/@thunderbird/114112105485771954

Unfortunately Vivaldi is proprietary, so it’s not an option for me.

Yeah I am unconvinced of this line of thought. If I use (say) Kate Editor to edit a document, do the developers of Kate need a license to the content of that document in order to save it to my desktop? Since the text content is stored in a Qt widget does Qt also need such a license? Linux itself carries the data from the application to the disk, do the Linux developers (all of them?) also need a license?

It is abnormal for a free software project to have an EULA (i.e. a contract that one must agree to in order to install and use the software). This particular EULA does not seem to be as onerous as most but it may still place substantial restrictions on use.

The acceptable use policy, for example, covers much more than just crime (including a prohibition on “graphic depictions of sexuality or violence”). However, it also specifically refers to “Mozilla services” so one could argue that it doesn’t apply to normal usage of Firefox; however, the Firefox EULA also specifically claims it does. Is Firefox itself a Mozilla service? I would assume not under the usually understood definition of such, but it’s not really clarified.

It’s far easier to use something unburdened by an EULA, so I’m typing this from Librewolf.

Both of these appear to be proprietary, not actually free (libre).

Per the comment on this issue, the flatpak does indeed contain a proprietary build of Bruno. It is also - despite being unverified - an official package.

It should be noted that Heliboard does not “have glide typing” but rather it supports loading the proprietary Google swype library.

This article is clearly about beans, not onions.

The situation has been resolved.

https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/discussions/9837#discussioncomment-11568667