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Bitwarden Desktop version 2024.10.0 is no longer free software (github.com)

submitted 2 months ago by pnutzh4x0r@lemmy.ndlug.org to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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Pull request #10974 introduces the @bitwarden/sdk-internal dependency which is needed to build the desktop client. The dependency contains a licence statement which contains the following clause:

You may not use this SDK to develop applications for use with software other than Bitwarden (including non-compatible implementations of Bitwarden) or to develop another SDK.

This violates freedom 0.

It is not possible to build desktop-v2024.10.0 (or, likely, current master) without removing this dependency.

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[-] Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 months ago

It means previous versions remain open, but ownership trumps any license restrictions.
They don't license the code to themselves, they just have it. And if they want to close source it they can.

GPLv3 and copyleft only work to protect against non-owners doing that. CLA means a project is not strongly open source, the company doing that CLA can rugpull at any time.

The fact a project even has a CLA should be extremely suspect, because this is exactly what you would use that for. To ensure you can harvest contributions and none of those contributers will stand in your way when you later burn the bridges and enshittify.