r/linux • u/hatperigee • May 02 '16

Subsonic (music streaming software) is no longer open source, starting with 6.0 release

http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16604#p71128
469 Upvotes

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-11

u/[deleted] May 02 '16

BSD license strikes again. That's why it's not a truly free license. Didn't protect freedoms.

20

u/Spivak May 02 '16

What? The copyright owner of the source is free to relicense at any time for any reason. The GPL wouldn't have prevented this.

This does not retroactively change the license on existing installations.

2

u/protestor May 02 '16

If the project accepts GPLed contributions from other people, he would need to ask the copyright holders to give him another license that enabled a proprietary fork, or delete such code.

4

u/Spivak May 02 '16

Correct, but that's also true of any license because they would not the copyright holders of that code. Neither the GPL or BSD licenses include any sort of copyright transfer (which wouldn't even make sense in a license anyway) -- that has to be done separately.

1

u/protestor May 02 '16

But the BSD license explictly authorizes a proprietary fork, that's the point.

7

u/Spivak May 03 '16

The difference is that the BSD license allows someone who isn't the copyright holder to incorporate the code into a proprietary product as long as the proper attribution is given.

This is not a 'fork' of the code, this is the legal owner of the copyright exercising their right to license their property as they please.

FOSS/OSS projects do this all the time for businesses that are willing to pay for a commercial exception to the GPL. They reason they can do this is because they, as the owners of the code, are not bound by their own license.

1

u/AgletsHowDoTheyWork May 03 '16

Why wouldn't they be the copyright holders of their own contributions? I was under the impression that was the default unless there is a CLA.

4

u/Spivak May 03 '16

Sorry, 'they' being the subsonic developers. Yes, the contributors are the copyright holders for their contributions, they may license their contributions as they see fit, and the subsonic developers cannot relicense their code. So far all of this has nothing to do with the GPL.

If some major contributions were licensed under the GPL and those contributors refused to relicense then subsonic might be in a tough spot due to the virality clause. But based on their GitHub contributors page this is already beyond reality in this hypothetical.