[Dev] Is Iridium safe to use?

Adonay Felipe Nogueira adfeno at hyperbola.info
Wed Nov 15 20:00:52 GMT 2017


See the response I gave ([1]) to the new thread in the directory-discuss
mailing list ([2]).

Apparently it didn't change much, also considering the ambiguities I
noted on [1]..

I'll try doing the same steps for Iridium and QtWebEngine.

[1] <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-11/msg00014.html>.

[2] <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-11/msg00001.html>.

Josh Branning <lovell.joshyyy at gmail.com> writes:

> I think the main problem with chromium was that the licenses were/are
> not clear enough for some of the files - in that it didn't pass the
> ubuntu license checker [1]. What's also concerning, is that it's
> suggested on the linked thread, that they are mixing GPL code with
> other licenses. I don't think the GPL permits that (even if the code
> is only distributed in source form). This may have changed since
> ... and I am not a lawyer.
>
> Licenses aside, chromium apparently links with non-free plugins (not
> sure if this is fixed in Iridium).
>
> But long and short is it may be worth attempting to run the license
> checker on Iridium and QTWebengine. I'm speculating that QTWebengine
> probably has a higher chance of passing (if either of them actually
> do), as there is some confusion over whether the whole engine is
> included in the software [or not] ... it has been stated both ways.
>
> I can see why it's difficult, because if code with unknown licenses
> were accepted and then found to be non-free, it may subsequently
> effect lots of derivative projects and code (inc. QTWebengine). I
> guess this is why some people are nervous about giving chromium the
> benefit over the doubt and including it on the basis of good faith.
>
> Finally the bug in the link below has been closed, if it's a problem
> that can be fixed I suggest someone attempts to "re-triage the issue"
> if at-all possible.
>
> [1] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=28291



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