[docs] Electron not FLOSS?

[tomassedovic]

Hi! The comparison table says that Tauri is FLOSS while Electron is not:

https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri#comparison-between-tauri-1-and-electron-5

There's no further explanation and this is really confusing to me. Electron is licensed under the MIT:

https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/master/LICENSE

MIT is both a Free Software license under the FSF as well as an Open Source license under the OSI. Indeed, it is the license Tauri uses.

Is this a typo, are you using a different definition of "FLOSS" or does Electron have additional licensing terms that do not make it free/libre/open source?

[nothingismagick]

Well, this came up as a result of my outreach to the team of PureOS. They claimed they could not accept any Electron apps into their store because of the issues with Widevine in chromium and several long-standing header issues.

[nothingismagick]

@tomassedovic - here is some background:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreplanet-discuss/2017-01/msg00056.html

[nothingismagick]

Also here specifically relevant to Electron:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-12/msg00008.html
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreplanet-discuss/2019-02/msg00001.html

[tomassedovic]

Ah, thanks I didn't know that! Really appreciate this info. Wikipedia has some details on Widevine as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widevine

This is quite unfortunate, I was under the impression that unlike Google Chrome, Chromium and Electron were 100% in the clear.

@nothingismagick I really appreciate the explanation and feel free to close the issue, but it seems like the readme could use having these links in there. I'm sure I'm far from the only one being confused by this.

[nothingismagick]

Good Idea. Thanks.

[Omar-Elrefaei]

Yes, I think there definitely should be an asterisk beside that No to explain. Especially because both Tauri and Electron repos are MIT licensed.

[nothingismagick]

The ostensible license is one thing, but the upstream licensing nightmare that is Chromium is another thing entirely. Is widevine enabled? How did ffmpeg compile (with non-gpl?)? Are all files properly marked with inline licensing notes? There is a very, very long history of problems that Chromium has and explain why it won't, for example, ship on freedom-respecting operating systems (without you opting in of course). @Omar-Elrefaei - did you read the other points I wrote above?

[nothingismagick]

But I see what you mean @Omar-Elrefaei. At one point we did have these references, but I think that they got removed. I will link people to this issue (both from the website and from the main readme).

[nothingismagick]

Something we WILL have to consider though, is that unfortunately webview2 on Windows is in fact Chromium based. So we will need to be quite clear that building for Windows is optional, but not as freedom respecting as building for Linux / MacOS.

[lucasfernog]

@nothingismagick any updates on this one?