GrayJay App (Ytb) privacy

Grayjay is non-free because its license does not grant the four freedoms to its users. For example, this is a substantial restriction on “freedom zero” which is the freedom to use the software for any purpose:

You may use or modify the software only for non-commercial purposes such as personal use for research, experiment, and testing for the benefit of public knowledge, personal study, private entertainment, hobby projects, amateur pursuits, or religious observance, all without any anticipated commercial application.

This alone is enough to make it qualify as proprietary but there are also substantial restrictions on the other three freedoms:

You may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes.

Notwithstanding the above, you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software related to payment to the Licensor in any copy you distribute to others.

It is “source available” because you can see its source code but that does not make it free software. Its license is a proprietary license. Freeness is about what you’re allowed to do with the software.

In other words, “source availability” is necessary but not sufficient to make something free software. All free software is source-available but not all source-available software is free. Grayjay and FUTO keyboard are instances of the latter.

ArceusI:

So, what is GrayJay anyway? Proprietary, or pseudo-FOSS (Due to very limited interaction with Google Play Services, something F-Droid always tries to limit interaction with)?

“Interaction with Google” is not relevant to whether something is free software, nor is whether something is “private” or has internet permissions or trackers or whatever else privacy people/degooglers care about. Only the four freedoms matter.

ArceusI:

Explain this then. If GrayJay isn’t FLOSS, why does LibreFind state it as FOSS? Doesn’t that contradict your statement?

Unfortunately whomever submitted is mistaken, and so is the maintainer of LibreFind. This is why it’s important that people who maintain these lists of “FOSS alternatives” actually understand what FOSS means. I assume the LibreFind maintainer did not really do his due diligence and simply trusted whomever submitted it, which is unfortunate.

Unfortunately I think in order to flag it for review one has to have a LibreFind account which I find to be an unnecessary hurdle. I am assuming at least one other person flagged this for review though.