What should we do about license violations in apps that rely on work of Lemmy contributors? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I found two apps that seem to be violating the AGPL license. They both use the AGPL-licensed lemmy-js-client library, which means the apps themselves should also use the same license (which is the whole purpose of Copyleft). But they aren't. I don't know if Lemmy developers and contributors are aware of this.

The apps:

https://github.com/ando818/lemmy-ui-svelte - Apache license

https://github.com/aeharding/wefwef - MIT license

What should we do about this as a community? I informed one of the app's developers about this and it doesn't seem like they care. I wonder if some of the proprietary apps that are being developed right now also rely on this library.

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[-] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Looks like you are correct, these projects are required to be AGPL: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/2684/monetizing-and-licensing-with-agpl-libraries

When your program uses an AGPL library, then your whole program must be licensed under the AGPL.

I would simply create an issue in the relevant repositories and let them know.

[-] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

After reviewing this, I’ve updated the license for Memmy. Frankly had no idea, good idea to let people know like you said and just kindly inform them through GitHub or otherwise.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks for changing it so quickly :). Your app looks very cool, btw. I don't use iOS, but I will start recommending it to others.

Edit: just noticed that it's for Android too. But I assume it's not in the store yet?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I think I got stuck in review hell. I resubmitted a build today.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Could you submit it to fdroid too since it is GPL now ;)

this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023

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