Their plugin system is interesting, they embedded a V8 engine to run JavaScript to then make some api calls to the various platforms. I am 99% sure this is against each platform ToS and that they will get sued by Twitch, YouTube, etc. Especially since they are asking people to pay. But I wish they good luck!
I’m not sure about these specific platforms, but we consume a lot of APIs at work for which we must agree to specific conditions of these APIs. That seems reasonable, otherwise the TOS cannot be enforced (because they can be ignored).
Been using it today, if they want mass adoption theyll need to gind a way to import subscriptions from youtube and find some slightly better way to recommend videos.
They arent going for mass adoption right now so ill say that it works just as expected and is a very smooth experiance. Maybe a few ui tweeks(let me sub from search results please) and some fixes to the loading screens but i can see myself using this on and off for the forseeable future.
Looks like there's a bug when importing subs where only a whole page worth amount of subs will load only allowing you to import a small amount. This also applies to Playlist imports.
At the end of the day that is why I decided to not be open for my business. Even if you try to be on the good side its hard and you have the eternal source available vs open source debate.
I wish they would develop a license friendly to both businesses that want to ship software that is source available and users of that software. One could strike a balance between full OSS and legitimate needs of the producer to live off their creation.
They can use whatever licence they want. It's their software. They should only call it open source if they use an OSI-approved licence. Doing otherwise is openwashing and is frowned upon.
I wonder if one reason particular groups of people have a hard time getting others to care about some issues is this tendency to make up words in order to make things sound more malicious than they are. Usually it just ends up sounding silly.
A judge saying something once in the history of the world doesn't make it so that you can force language on others. Most people that I've interacted that work in software refer to "source available" as open source in every day speech, and unless they were preparing legal documents that's what they'd say. If you include normal people that don't work in software, then even more likely the usage is the one you're complaining about. You sound like this: https://stallman-copypasta.github.io/
Normal people don't even know what to do with the code. If a project is source open or not is completely irrelevant to them. To them usually it's way more relevant that open source software can be picked up and further developed by any other software developer and that it's free.
In this case, the licence they have chosen explicitly:
- only grants the right "to access and use the code solely for the purposes of review, compilation and non-commercial distribution."
- only grants the right "provide the code to anyone else and publish excerpts of it for the purposes of review, compilation and non-commercial distribution"
- "you are not entitled to use or do anything with the code for any commercial or other purpose, other than review, compilation and non-commercial distribution"
This breaks all 4 freedoms the free software definition and at least aspects 1,3,4 and 6 of the OSD.
From a legal POV, this project is unforkable. You are not allowed to modify this in any way (even just for your own use).
Furthermore, you are not even allowed to use this internally (unmodified and without ever distributing it). I am not even sure it is possible to legally be a user of the software for its intended purpose. The license states clearly that "other than review, compilation and non-commercial distribution" you "are not entitled to use or do anything" and that includes using the compiled result to watch videos. This is about as restrictive as the MS-RSL.
Basically, the only thing you can do with it is archive it and look at it. (and wait lifetime + 70 years until it becomes public domain)
Luckily I didn't mention either "closed source" or "proprietary software" in my comment. I mentioned that people colloquially use "open source" to refer to any code base that has source available to read.
Maybe there's some hidden point you're trying to make by associating these concepts but it'd be easier if you said it plainly.
Other than that I think you find that people in real life don't tend to be exact in their use of language all the time, and calling understandable imprecisions "wrong" tends to decrease the number of friends you get.
People distort words to the point of meaningless unless the use of those words are defended. "Open Source" is a term that is actively being defended.
The history of the term is very clear. The term was coined by Christine Peterson in a group session in 1998 with Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman, Michael Tiemann, and Eric S. Raymond. Months later the OSI was created by the same people in order to manage that definition. There is nothing unclear here. "Open source" is defined by OSI and it has been defined by them from the very start.
If communities let others distort words, those words loose their meaning. As a well known example, the word "woke" which has long been abandoned by the community that coined it.
"Open source" is an actively defended term by the organisation that originally defined it and the community around them.
Well if you're actively consciously defending it like that I can only wish you good luck. I guess if that's the goal comparing you to Stallman with GNU is more of a compliment than anything.
I’m not a fan of Stallman by any measure — his posture has often put people off some licenses and made GPL a bit problematic —, but even I think you’re engaging in unreasonable doublespeak.
The web is full of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript you can see the source for; and for which you can be sued by copying for your own commercial gain. By your definition, websites are open source; and yet, they are proprietary work. Something having its source open doesn’t make it Open Source.
This kind of doublespeak reeks of Reddit-grade corporate astroturfing.
The Open Source licenses are defined and protected in a certain way. You can’t just say “oh, me and my friends don’t think of it like that” and expect to be correct. I can’t build an app scamming people out of currency by abusing ISO 4217, and then excuse myself under “me and the people I know disagree with ISO”. OSI protects the licenses, the Vegan Society certifies what ‘vegan’ means, ISO does ISO things, and so on.
It’s okay to admit we’re wrong or ignorant, so I won’t pretend I’m an expert in this area. I also wouldn’t call anyone Stallman just because they are defending a term that deserves protection. “Source available” but not under the terms of an OSI license is NOT compliant with the term.
> Maybe there's some hidden point you're trying to make by associating these concepts but it'd be easier if you said it plainly.
I'm sorry, I thought it was obvious.
As "proprietary software" and "closed source" refer to the same it wouldn't be logical to use the opposite "open source" to refer to "proprietary software".
People don't have to be exact in their language, the point is for the other to understand what you mean.
I consider it the most polite and the most constructive to use the definition from the believers themselves.
Academic, as in relating to education and scholarship. Anarchy, as in without Archons. Archons, as in leaders of ancient Greek city-states. Let the communist define what it is, let the socialist, let the Jew, let the ufologist etc
There is the Open Source Initiative, the page starts with what they consider Open Source. https://opensource.org/osd/
Besides practicality the website also states: Never use or register any trademarks that are confusingly similar to, or a play on, the OSI or OSI Logo. An example of unacceptable is given: "Open Source Project"
That is not a settled debate IMO, even Stallman said as much. Sure its not FOSS / FLOSS, but trying to push for a position where open source doesn't mean I can see the code is very much not agreed by everybody.
Just like Microsofts opinion didn't matter whenever they tried to dilute the meaning of open source, and just like MongoDB's and others opinion didn't matter, your opinion doesn't matter. Microsoft is far more convincing than you and they did not win this argument.
Microsoft gave up and now only calls OSI-approved licenses open source.
Open Source means OSI-approved.
If you can read the source code but it's not OSI-approved, than it's source-available or shared source or something else.
Malicious is the attempt to restrict open source to floss and start a shitstorm about open source but not floss software, because it prevents transparency for software where floss isn't an option.
If I define climate neutral as climate positive, climate neutral doesn't become climate positive nor do I get authority of the term climate neutral.
And yet that is absolutely the kind of bullshit you are pulling. Thank you for denouncing yourself.
Some terms were defined by a community and their use defended.
Others were defined by a community, appropriated by others, distorted by others and subsequently abandoned by the original community.
And yet others, were abandoned and then reclaimed by the original community.
"Open Source" is in the first category, defined by OSI and defended by the FLOSS community. It is actively being defended, and fish much bigger than you have failed to topple the community.
I honestly don’t care if it is or not, but this has been discussed to death with regard to unreal and the consensus has been (from epic) to consistently refer to the source as “available on GitHub” not as “open source”, because that gives people an incorrect impression of the permissiveness of the license.
Is this a hill you really want to die on?
It doesn’t matter at all.
The “can see code” = “must be open source” argument is stupid because it’s entirely opinion based. You cannot be right about it.
It depends what you choose to define “open source” as. If you define it as some arbitrary thing (eg. I can read the source code) then of course you’re right. …but you can’t force other people to accept your arbitrary definition.
You can only have an opinion about it.
Same as anyone else.
Is it really worth the argument?
Source available is unambiguous, being explicit (“source can be download from GitHub”) I means you don’t have to waste your time on arguments like this for, what seems, truely trivial reasons.
The PolyForm Project has a suite of standardized, source available licenses for when using an OSI-approved open source license is inappropriate. They probably could have used PolyForm Noncommercial instead of drafting their own license.
> One could strike a balance between full OSS and legitimate needs of the producer to live off their creation.
That is what the BSL is for. It is not an open source license but it is a source available licence that automatically transitions to an open source license after a predetermined amount of time.
I told him directly on his channel that this is the case and that calling non-OSI licences open source is openwashing. And I recommended the Mozilla model of trademark + MPL for their purposes.
He replied to my comment but didn't seem to care about the issue.
TLDR: they used an OSI-approved version on a previous app, someone forked it, filled it with ads, and published it in the app store trying to make it look like the original one. They are ok with people modifying the app, just not doing that.
I am not saying that this is the best approach, but that is their justification at least.
To me personally, as long as I can see the source and modify it, it is open source. OSI-certified is a subset of that. OSI clains that they "define"
Open Source, and I think that is mostly true, just not 100%.
The fact that OSI doesn't have a license which prevents the malicious forking mentioned above seems like an indication that they won't (or can't) cover some cases that I believe are open source.
Note: the forked app in question is NewPipe and not done by them.
> They are ok with people modifying the app, just not doing that.
And the license is more restrictive than that I believe. If they drop the project without changing the license I'm not sure you could fork it while asking for donation (Depends on how you interpret: "directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation").
As for malicious forking as other mentioned you can use trademark to prevent it.
After looking a bit more at the license, I am not even sure it is possible to use it for the intended purpose.
It clearly states "you are not entitled to use or do anything with the code for any commercial or other purpose, other than review, compilation and non-commercial distribution".
That means that if you compile it unmodified, you are NOT entitled to use the compiled binary to watch videos. You are not entitled to install or execute the binary. You are not entitled to use it in any way other than reviewing it.
This is what happens when idiots get creative with licenses.
I'm not super technical but if someone knows, I would love to know how does it pull the video from Youtube/Twitch in the first place? Like wouldn't Youtube try and block sending data to this application somehow? Wouldn't twitch? If not today then when it pops up on their radar, and has a meaningful dataplace.
I'm curious if this reports playback to YT properly. I'm playing for premium and I'd like that money to go to the correct channels. They do mention the paid/unpaid mix, but explicitly call out only Patreon. Same for Nebula (with subscription) and Twitch (time watched, ads "viewed").
Also, I find it a bit funny that with their goals and target initial audience, they have social presence on Twitter but not mastodon/bluesky.
By default sending tracking data to YouTube is disabled, but it can be enabled in the settings for the plugin (after you login). This way your money will go to the correct channels.
1. Do you use this term as an alias for "The Open Source Definition" [0] as presented by the Open Source Initiative? In such case, the Grayjay project's license seems to not meet this definition.
2. Do you use it in a more general sense to mean any software whose source code is publicly available? In such case, the Grayjay project fully meets this definition.
I would be very cautious to assume that the term "open source" must always and in all contexts be interpreted as having the meaning described by the definition 1.
Your statement is obliviously false. People care about different things.
Some people do not care about using pirated versions of Office.
Some people care very much about whether software is or isn't open source especially when it is claimed to be but isn't.
Being open source means that if FUTO goes bankrupt or is purchased or abandons GrayJay due to unprofitability or decides to pivot and become anti-user or etc. etc., then the app can be forked.
The current licences is so stupid that not only does it not allow forking, it actually does not allow using the app for it's intended purpose. This is egregious open-washing.
This is a settled debate. You will not convince anyone to use your definitions. We had this debate when MongoDB switched, when CockroachDB switched and for many others. And nothing has changed.
Open source means OSI-approved licence and that will not change.
This is shared source or source-available, not open source.
The debate only exists in the heads of apologists for shared source. The OSI definition exists to remove the need for a debate. It's either OSS or it isn't per their definition.
Why do non programmers know about open source if it doesn't concern them? They don't have any benefit from an source open application besides maybe theoretically better security audits. I would arue is because people expect that you can pick it up and change the code, so it can be forked and continued in the future and also because it's usually free.
It's also not the only deceptive Adventisten. He also claimed that you can use it how you want the only use case they want prevent is injecting ads into their app. But that could be better solved with a trademark.
For the plugin I would add an API to let the developer define user settings. For example look at what Xtra (https://github.com/crackededed/Xtra) offers for twitch. The most important is to be able to set a proxy to retrieve the feed in countries without ads and even bypass country geo-locks for content. Now I would probably not ship this in the official plugin, but my point is that you need to be able to expose those settings in the plugin.
Some creators have already branched out and are posting some of their content to multiple platforms (maybe with different titles/thumbnails targeted for the specific platform). That would show up in my feed multiple times and I would have to click on each to find out I've already watched it. Do you try to deal with that in any way?
Creators can create a polycentric identity and link their platforms together using the Harbor app.
If you are then subscribed to their YouTube channel, you will also see content they post on any other platform like Patreon, etc.
You subscribe to the creator, not the platform identity.
There are also very simple dedup algorithms to try and deduplicate your feed. However, they can probably still be improved.
on occasion I like to watch the creator's simulcast, but different angles
like, the Youtube/Twitch feed be their main content with a camera directly on the creator with them superimposed on a screen recording, and the TikTok feed might be a different angle. But the comments and interactions are wildly different. The main purpose is to funnel towards either one, or yet another platform for payment, but this can be entertaining on its own to watch both.
does your app solve anything for that use case, or have any aspirations to? I think its useful to just be able to follow someone around, I have always contended that social graphs are easily exportable and the platform doesn't matter and I'd like to see social graphs as a first class citizen as opposed to being happenstance behind social media company's newfangled platforms.
The first step (which is now already working) is that creators can create a polycentric identity and link their platforms together using the Harbor app.
If you are then subscribed to their YouTube channel, you will also see content they post on any other platform like Patreon, etc.
You subscribe to the creator, not the platform identity.
We cannot easily provide social graphs for platforms we cannot control. However, we also offer the option to make Polycentric comments where you as the commenter own your comment, rather than the platform owning the comment.
How does the app get the youtube videos, and their info. Is it scraping, like newpipe. Using official api's, maybe something closer to what youtube vanced did?
Would it just stop working when WEI is implemented?
Can't install, only ever get "Problem parsing the package" with the universal and the specific apk. What is the minimum required Android version? I'm still on 9
Thank you. Not really surprising to see a lot of those request. A lot of the audience is coming from Louis at the moment. Seeing his ongoing fight for right to repair, I'd expect there to be a lot of people with older phones with older android versions
I have some doubts whether this would be permitted on the App Store.
YouTube could argue that this is piracy and Apple might side with them.
Still, they could distribute the package (and let people side load it on jailbroken devices or through XCode if they are developers). Grayjay is not on the Play Store either, afterall. But the audience is probably too small to bother.
It would be very nice if once all those sources are aggregated with this tool, including hopefully all YouTube, X, and FB lists, saved items, histories, and browser histories, that all of this can be downloaded as a .CSV we can use to train our own local LLMs.
Getting our data out of these platforms is a feat!
In case people are wondering which architecture their Android is (to avoid downloading the bulky universal APK), I found mine is aarch64 with `lscpu` on Termux. Not sure if there's a more straightforward & universal way of finding that out!
Even if you download the universal APK, the app will detect which architecture you have, and the next update it will install the architecture specific one, reducing the bundle size.
To answer another common question, you can import your subscriptions from NewPipe by exporting the subscriptions as a JSON and opening the file in the Grayjay app. This flow will be improved in the future.
The idea behind this whole enterprise is great. And, generally speaking, this is what software and service developers should do: sell products, not people.
Feels like it would be a big risk developing this for iOS when it seems likely Apple would not be keen on allowing something like this on their store, regardless of how payments work.
There's no paywall, it just asks you to pay for the software. You can use it without paying for as long as you like, but it's paid software. See: WinRAR
It's not a donation, you're expected to pay for it. Donations can be of any size, this is a $10 one time payment for the use of the software. There's a license key and everything.
