Comment on OnlyOffice invokes AGPLv3, says Nextcloud must restore removed logos in Euro-Office fork

Natanael@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  They use a modified version of the AGPL that includes a requirement to use their logo.

  They also, in a separate section, note that no permission is granted to use their trademarks.

  As far as I can tell, the goal is to create a catch-22 that prevents you from forking the project: if you don’t include the logo, they complain that you didn’t include it, and if you include the logo they complain that you’re infringing their trademark.

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  • Natanael@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Fun fact - FSF doesn’t let you claim it’s a GPL variant if you have added claims to it. If you say it’s GPL then others gets to assume it’s GPL proper

    www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL

    You can legally use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar).

    If you want to use our preamble in a modified license, please write to licensing@gnu.org for permission. For this purpose we would want to check the actual license requirements to see if we approve of them.

    Although we will not raise legal objections to your making a modified license in this way, we hope you will think twice and not do it. Such a modified license is almost certainly incompatible with the GNU GPL, and that incompatibility blocks useful combinations of modules. The mere proliferation of different free software licenses is a burden in and of itself.

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