Ubuntu Touch Fully Forks Its Email Client

[TheBlackCat]

Back or Cross-porting isn't an issue as long as the two project keep the same GPL version and/or it either change then the new GPL version is still compatible with the old.

That is the whole point. They no longer have the same GPL version.

[dh04000]

That is the whole point. They no longer have the same GPL version.

That clause removed doesn't affect GPL, they still have the same GPL version, afaik. GPL3 for both.

[dh04000]

Since I can't edit...

This whole thing is no different than the license issues that result in ANY opensource project. Ask VLC how thier change from GPL2 to LGPL3 went. It was a mess.

As things stand, both projects CAN cross port code. No problems. In the end, this may actually be a good thing for Trojita because it frees them from having to worry about Canonical's needs, which may not be 100% platform agnostic, while still allowing Trojita benefit from any cross portable code Canonical makes in the future. Having a company bigger than you being part of your project is a very heavy double edged sword as it helps to have paid professional developers and hurts to have a company with specific needs pushing projects in certain directions. This will be good for Trojita to be free to succeed or fail on their own.

[TheBlackCat]

That clause removed doesn't affect GPL, they still have the same GPL version, afaik. GPL3 for both.

No, one is "GPL 3", the other is "GPL 3 or whatever greater version KDE e.v. decides". The trojita developers cannot accept GPL 3-only code when their license requires that later versions be accepted.

[dh04000]

No, one is "GPL 3", the other is "GPL 3 or whatever greater version KDE e.v. decides". The trojita developers cannot accept GPL 3-only code when their license requires that later versions be accepted.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
the License or (at your option) version 3 or any later version
accepted by the membership of KDE e.V. (or its successor approved
by the membership of KDE e.V.), which shall act as a proxy
defined in Section 14 of version 3 of the license.

It says that you are free to use and modify it under GPL2 or GPL3 or any successor approved by their KDE overlords. GPL3 and GPL2 are already approved by KDE as it says in plain text and they are free to use and modify it under those licenses without change. Canonical's fork is GPL3 as is the Torjta. It doesn't say that at KDE's request, "all code must be convertible to GPL4 or other license at a moments notice at our command, owner's permission or not". It just says, the code must be a license KDE approved of, which GPL3 and GPL2 are licenses that they approve of.

There is no conflict here. There is literally NOTHING here but your lack of reading comprehension..... dude please stop. This is over.

[TheBlackCat]

It says that you are free to use and modify it under GPL2 or GPL3 or any successor approved by their KDE overlords.

Yes, and the fork does not have that clause. They cannot take code written for the fork, and add that clause without the owners' permission.

[dh04000]

Yes, and the fork does not have that clause. They cannot take code written for the fork, and add that clause without the owners' permission.

I give up, I don't know how to explain this to you. You don't get it.

[CoderniX]

I'm overwhelmed by the hatred some people still have about what they don't like.

You hate Canonical, okay we understand that, but to be so gullible that you can't check for your facts out of laziness is pure ignorance and arrogance and honestly, it doesn't serve the haters any good.

The Fork is Pure GPL 3:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-emailclient-app

Actually that's not the code.

https://launchpad.net/dekko is.

Even with that, they keep the licenses separated, in fact, they stated the 3 licenses used in Dekko for the 3 parts independently:

Dekko, Email client for Ubuntu
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright (C) 2014 Dan Chapman <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Boren Zhang <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Daniel Beck <[email protected]>

This file is part of Dekko email client for Ubuntu Devices/

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
the License or (at your option) version 3

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moka Icons used for Accounts Icons

from moka-icon-theme https://github.com/moka-project/moka-icon-theme

Copyright (C) Sam Hewitt

used under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published
by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
any later version.

Full License found at

https://github.com/moka-project/moka-icon-theme/blob/master/LICENSE

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Licence for Trojit?, Qt IMAP e-mail client
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright (C) 2006 - 2014 Jan Kundr?t <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 - 2014 Thomas L?bking <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 Pavol Roh?r <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 Caspar Schutijser <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 - 2014 Stephan Platz <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Michael Hall <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Dan Chapman <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Boren Zhang <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Karan Luthra <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Niklas Wenzel <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Pavel Sedl?k <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Luigi Toscano <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 Glad Deschrijver <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Yazeed Zoabi <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2014 Danny Rimmer <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 - 2014 Yuri Chornoivan <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 Jai Luthra <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 Benjamin Kaiser <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 - 2013 Peter Amidon <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2011 - 2012 Thomas Gahr <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 Shanti Bouchez <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 Mohammed Nafees <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 Sreepriya Chalakkal <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 Stefan K?gl <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 James Turner <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 Mayank Jha <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2013 Andr? Marcelo Alvarenga <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 - 2013 Albert Astals Cid <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 - 2013 Ahmed Ibrahim Khalil <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2010 - 2013 OpenMFG LLC, dba xTuple
Copyright (C) 2013 Adri?n Arroyo Calle <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 Allen Winter <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 Chusslove Illich (Часлав Илић) <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 Michael Sprauer <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 Chase Douglas <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2012 Wim Lewis <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2011 Tom?? Kouba <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2011 Jun Yang <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2009, 2011 Jiř? Helebrant <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2011 Mariusz Fik <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2011 Andrew Brouwers <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2010 Benson Tsai <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2009 Justin J <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2000 - 2001 Dawit Alemayehu <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2001 Rik Hemsley <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2000 Sven Carstens <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2010 Klar?lvdalens Datakonsult AB, Stephen Kelly <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2009 Stephen Kelly <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2007 Trolltech ASA
Copyright (C) 2009, 2010, 2012 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies)
Copyright (C) 2012, 2013 Filipe Azevedo <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2009 Witold Wysota <[email protected]>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
the License or (at your option) version 3 or any later version
accepted by the membership of KDE e.V. (or its successor approved
by the membership of KDE e.V.), which shall act as a proxy
defined in Section 14 of version 3 of the license.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~dpniel/dekko/trunk-1/view/head:/LICENSE

The point is, all what people were spreading was pure FUD, and it's sad that no one cared to bring up the actual license text, rather everybody spoke as if Canonical had already hijacked the source code, changed its actual license, and made it impossible for others to benefit from.

[popey]

Yes, and the fork does not have that clause. They cannot take code written for the fork, and add that clause without the owners' permission.

Where are you seeing the license in the fork? Could you please link to it?

[Awesomeness]

Where are you seeing the license in the fork? Could you please link to it?

There is nothing to see because the ?or any later version? clause is not there.
KDE went through a similar relicensing process as VLC to remove ?GPL v2 only? code but years earlier. KDE, as a community, is old already. They had contributors that passed away already. Should, at some point in the future, it be necessary to migrate to a newer GPL, those contributors could no longer relicense their code. It's a legal mess.
As such GPL code without ?any later version? clause is not permitted. Canonical knows that. And so they once again created a one way street to ensure that code can only flow from KDE to Canonical bit not the other way around.

https://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy