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Re: linphone, still free?


From: Craig Topham
Subject: Re: linphone, still free?
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2024 12:15:31 -0700
User-agent: Icedove Mail

On 10/28/24 21:31, Ineiev wrote:
On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 06:16:07PM +0000, Runciter wrote:

1) On Android and Guix, the graphical UI asks the user to check a box
signifying the user accepts some "Terms and Conditions". Interestingly,
although that may be just an incorrectness of the interface,

It depends on what those terms and conditions are. if they are GPL,
it's fine, <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ClickThrough>.

the user
needs to accept those Terms before he can setup any kind SIP account, be
it to create an account with Linphone themselves, or to setup linphone
to work using an existing account with any other SIP provider.

If creating SIP account is about using someone else's server, then
it's a service rather than software, so it has nothing to do with
the package in question being free or proprietary.

2) F-Droid claims and warns users that the software has an anti-feature:
"part of the upstream source code is not free."

This is concerning.  Do they provide any details?

3) A few days ago I went quickly to the website of Linphone, which is
now edited by a company Belledone Communications (this has changed since
2002), and I paraphrase from memory: the website advertises that
Linphone is open source but can be licensed as proprietary for
enterprise client should they wish, because Belledone enacts a
double-license mechanism.

As far as I understand, they are selling exceptions, which is
an acceptable practice,
<https://www.gnu.org/p/selling-exceptions.html>.



I agree with Ineiev's comments, and I will take a closer look at Linphone this Friday during the Free Software Directory meeting.

Runciter: If you would like to join us to work on Linphone, the FSD meetings are every Friday @ 12:00-15:00EDT in libera.chat in the #fsf channel.

--
All the best,

Craig Topham
Copyright & Licensing Associate
Free Software Foundation
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Boston, MA 02110
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Fax: +1-617-542-2652
Email: craigt@fsf.org
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