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Source Code & License


draje

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I see that the emby-web-mobile repo has been deleted. This inquiry was related to that repository.

 

Guess that mean's it's proprietary?

 

EDIT: I have a downloaded version of the emby-web-mobile repo and am not sure if I can legally redistribute it.

Edited by draje
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EDIT: I have a downloaded version of the emby-web-mobile repo and am not sure if I can legally redistribute it.

 

That repository was not licensed and, therefore, cannot be redistributed in any form.

 

Thanks.

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That repository was not licensed and, therefore, cannot be redistributed in any form.

 

Thanks.

Just do confirm - this means that the app at tv.emby.media is closed-source and proprietary, yes?

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Also - you should probably file a GitHub DMCA takedown for the remaining forks of emby-web-mobile. There's a few that are publically available for use.

 

https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=emby-web-mobile&type=

 

Emby cannot file any DMCA takedowns. Repository was hosted on GitHub, therefore GitHub's Terms of Service apply.

Take a look on Terms of Service section D paragraph 5:

5. License Grant to Other Users

Any User-Generated Content you post publicly, including issues, comments, and contributions to other Users' repositories, may be viewed by others. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and "fork" your repositories (this means that others may make their own copies of Content from your repositories in repositories they control).

 

If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed publicly, you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (for example, through forking). You may grant further rights if you adopt a license. If you are uploading Content you did not create or own, you are responsible for ensuring that the Content you upload is licensed under terms that grant these permissions to other GitHub Users.

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It seems like people are now considering Emby to be closed source software because of this. Does this mean the web interface that's included in the server download is not licensed under GPL?

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It seems like people are now considering Emby to be closed source software because of this. Does this mean the web interface that's included in the server download is not licensed under GPL?

 

I've downloaded latest Emby tarball from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/emby/Debian_9.0/ and found following license files:

 

z@z ~/test/emby-server-3.2.27.0 $ find . -iname "*license*"

./Emby.Server.Implementations/Security/MBLicenseFile.cs - not a license but C# source file.

./Tools/TangibleSoftware/license.txt - TangibleSoftware is some sort of source code converter. file does not contain license

./Docker/LICENSE - It's Docker MIT license

 

All license files inside of bower_components directory are licenses for javascript libraries. All of them are MIT, Apache or CC licenses.

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/requirejs/LICENSE

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/hlsjs/LICENSE

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/jstree/LICENSE-MIT

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/alameda/LICENSE

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/Swiper/LICENSE

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/libjass/LICENSE

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/query-string/license

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/fetch/LICENSE

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/resize-observer-polyfill/LICENSE

./MediaBrowser.WebDashboard/dashboard-ui/bower_components/emby-webcomponents/sharing/social-share-kit-1.0.10/LICENSE

./LICENSE.md - GNU GPL license

 

To summarize, if web interface is included in this tarball, it's licensed under GPL but javascript libraries are licensed under their own license.

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It seems like people are now considering Emby to be closed source software because of this. Does this mean the web interface that's included in the server download is not licensed under GPL?

 

The server and included interface remains open source. However, integrations like tv.emby.media and the mobile apps are closed source - even though they were all open at one point.

 

This makes me weary so I'm securing the source needed for a hard fork if this trend continues. I imagine the server will be closed at some point.

Edited by draje
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Emby cannot file any DMCA takedowns. Repository was hosted on GitHub, therefore GitHub's Terms of Service apply.

Take a look on Terms of Service section D paragraph 5:

5. License Grant to Other Users

Any User-Generated Content you post publicly, including issues, comments, and contributions to other Users' repositories, may be viewed by others. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and "fork" your repositories (this means that others may make their own copies of Content from your repositories in repositories they control).

 

If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed publicly, you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (for example, through forking). You may grant further rights if you adopt a license. If you are uploading Content you did not create or own, you are responsible for ensuring that the Content you upload is licensed under terms that grant these permissions to other GitHub Users.

 

Good to know.

Edited by draje
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  • 2 weeks later...
GigglePiggle

Hi all,

 

First post here, in fact I signed up especially to get some clarity on the state of the license being used here by Emby.

 

Can someone please let me know if Emby is still an Open Source (GPL2) product and if so which bits. Also, what is the plan moving forwards as 'the web' is full of posts saying that this is set to change.

 

Apparently something changed this August 2017 in relation the license model being used for Emby - what did it affect and can someone expand upon the changes or point me to the page where it makes this clear?

 

appreciated.

Edited by GigglePiggle
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Hi all,

 

First post here, in fact I signed up especially to get some clarity on the state of the license being used here by Emby.

 

Can someone please let me know if Emby is still an Open Source (GPL2) product and if so which bits. Also, what is the plan moving forwards as 'the web' is full of posts saying that this is set to change.

 

Apparently something changed this August 2017 in relation the license model being used for Emby - what did it affect and can someone expand upon the changes or point me to the page where it makes this clear?

 

appreciated.

 

In August 2017, a patched version of Emby with the premium features unlocked was released. This is probably one of the reasons you're seeing a scurry to close things off. You can follow the events partially in one of the Emby server issues: https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby/issues/2469

 

Numerous components have been closed this year, including the mobile apps. It also appears that a few plugins have been closed.

See https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/50540-license-of-moved-plugins/

 

As for the license changing, the Emby team is not permitted to change the license of the core server unless one of two things happens:

  • Permission is received from every contributor whose code remains in the core.
  • Code is replaced by code from someone who gives their permission to relicense.

Recently, the Emby team began making people sign a CLA (contributions license agreement) when submitting a pull request. Most likey to secure their future in the event they wish to change the license. Example of CLA here: https://cla-assistant.io/MediaBrowser/Emby?pullRequest=2782

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  • 3 months later...

I  have a major problem with this. This software was built by the community and unless they are replacing everyone's code who contributed even one line of code or they got all 120 contributors to the code on GitHub and anyone who contributed before the code was posted to GitHub then they simply can NOT change the license of the software just because they find it inconvenient and want to try and somehow make money off it. I switched from Plex specifically because this was Open Source even though it has quite a bit to do to catch up with where Plex is currently.

 

I also was thinking of writing all the code needed to support eBooks properly and interface it with Calibre but I am highly reluctant if the project is going close source and isn't an Open Source project anymore in-spite of being on GitHub for free hosting when that is exactly what GitHub requires for free hosting of a project. I am well aware that coding isn't free but that is the whole point of an Open Source project so people will contribute their time and code freely.

 

Please don't lecture me on costs either because I have given my time, code and money to many Open Source projects over the last 15-20 years. I'm disappointed if this is just a money grab attempt off an Open Source project and may consider doing a hard fork.

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I should also mention the Emby.Web.Mobile has a GPL v2 license so once again it can be forked and there is nothing they can do about it. If they want to change the license again they are going to need to approval from everyone or replace the code from submitters who won't re-license their code.This is exactly why most people submit their code under GPL v2 or GPL v3 so someone won't come later and try and lock up the code from the community.

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The license files for several plugins was forgotten when there were moved from a combined repository to individual ones. I am looking at fixing that. thanks.

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Just as a point of fact - we do not have free hosting at Github.  Not really all that relevant but that is just an incorrect assumption.

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Difficult situation - somehow they need to make money to keep this piece of software alive. If people create forks with the premium features enabled it's gonna hurt the sustainability of the project. On the other hand i don't really like how they simply remove previously open-source (and as far as i can tell GPL licenced) code without any comments.

 

It's pretty silent regarding that issue from the maintainers :(

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josephdouce

I just started to get involved in this project and I think they need to make a page that has a list of EVERY application related to Emby along with its licence and a link to the source if its GPL. 

Edited by josephdouce
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Not to mention they are in violation of the GPL by not publishing the source for Linux packages. The core server is GPL and that makes the package a derived piece of work to which the source should be made available on request.

 

I like many liked Emby because of its mostly open source nature and am here several years down the line using packages containing binaries with no traceability; not just Emby but the countless other GPL based libraries they are bundling.

 

So far comments on this subject have just been ignored. Behaviour of late seems to strongly suggest they may go fully closed source at some point in the future.

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Not to mention they are in violation of the GPL by not publishing the source for Linux packages. The core server is GPL and that makes the package a derived piece of work to which the source should be made available on request.

 

I like many liked Emby because of its mostly open source nature and am here several years down the line using packages containing binaries with no traceability; not just Emby but the countless other GPL based libraries they are bundling.

 

So far comments on this subject have just been ignored. Behaviour of late seems to strongly suggest they may go fully closed source at some point in the future.

 

So you're just going to ignore the terms of the GPL-then?

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Difficult situation - somehow they need to make money to keep this piece of software alive. If people create forks with the premium features enabled it's gonna hurt the sustainability of the project. On the other hand i don't really like how they simply remove previously open-source (and as far as i can tell GPL licenced) code without any comments.

 

It's pretty silent regarding that issue from the maintainers :(

 

Why do they *NEED* to make money off an Open Source GPL project? The whole point of choosing a GPL license is to leverage other people's code into your project so you don't have to write everything yourself, which they have done and to involve the community to help write code. There is nothing saying you get to make money off an Open Source project. It isn't a *right*. If you want to make something totally commercial then choose to write everything yourself and keep the source closed. Yes some people do manage to figure out way to make money off Open Source, but isn't a right. There are examples of making money off Open Source like Red Hat, Ubuntu, IBM, who make the money off support and maintenance. There are people who make money off Open Source like Ryan Gordon, who does a patreon thing where he takes donations to work on specific open source things and there are other developers who do similar. There are different sites out there that let you offer to pay a bounty for an open source feature you want in an open source package as well. But again it isn't a right. No one has a *RIGHT* to make money off Open Source. If you can figure out a way to do it and honor the spirit and the license of Open Source then great but pulling back things that were once Open Source isn't the way to do it.

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Why do they *NEED* to make money off an Open Source GPL project? The whole point of choosing a GPL license is to leverage other people's code into your project so you don't have to write everything yourself, which they have done and to involve the community to help write code. There is nothing saying you get to make money off an Open Source project. It isn't a *right*. If you want to make something totally commercial then choose to write everything yourself and keep the source closed. Yes some people do manage to figure out way to make money off Open Source, but isn't a right. There are examples of making money off Open Source like Red Hat, Ubuntu, IBM, who make the money off support and maintenance. There are people who make money off Open Source like Ryan Gordon, who does a patreon thing where he takes donations to work on specific open source things and there are other developers who do similar. There are different sites out there that let you offer to pay a bounty for an open source feature you want in an open source package as well. But again it isn't a right. No one has a *RIGHT* to make money off Open Source. If you can figure out a way to do it and honor the spirit and the license of Open Source then great but pulling back things that were once Open Source isn't the way to do it.

 

The terms of the GPL permit them to sell their software in binary form and the free software foundation actually encourages people to sell their software for as much as they wish to:

Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding.

Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.

Source: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

And I agree with that, if Emby is full time job for them, then they should sell it for as much as they wish to.

 

However the terms of the GPL dictate that you still have to make the source code publicly and freely available. If part of the project has been contributed to by others whilst licensed under the GPL, then they can't make the project closed source/re license without the permission of all contributors.

 

So now I see 2 violations

  • There's the currently still GPL licensed portions, which they are refusing to provide the source tree for.
  • Then there's the previously GPL licensed portions which they appear to have just re licensed, without anyone's permission.

I came to Emby after reading articles like this https://www.linux.com/news/exclusive-interview-emby-founder-luke-pulverenti saying how great it was because everything was open source. Well look how the tables have turned - I've invested all this time collating my collection in Emby, for them to suddenly start pushing out closed packages.

 

If your annoyed as I am about this, I encourage you to write to the Free Software Foundation: license-violation<at>gnu.org.

Edited by dcrdev
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