License Transition — Relicensing from GPL 3.0

[frysee]

License Transition — Relicensing from GPL 3.0

Background

This project is a fork of MinUI by @shauninman. At the time of forking, the upstream repository carried no formal license. The original README included this statement:

"Developers — I am not soliciting source contributions. Please feel free to fork or learn from any of my repos but I don't have time to manage a community or be managed by one."

This fork was initially licensed under GPL 3.0, which in hindsight did not accurately reflect the original author's intent — particularly around commercial use of the software. Shaun has stated on multiple occasions that he opposes commercial use of his MinUI work.

With the recent news that Magicx is considering to ship NextUI with their handhelds, I want to act in good faith and bring our licensing in line with his actual intentions - I also have no intentions of commercialising this at any point in the future.

What We're Changing and Why

I am currently looking into various open source licenses focusing on noncommercial use, and Polyform seems to check all the boxes. As a result, we will prepare a transiution from GPL 3.0 to the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.

PolyForm Noncommercial was chosen because it:

• Is purpose-built for software (unlike Creative Commons)
• Explicitly permits personal, educational, and open source use
• Prohibits commercial use, aligning with upstream's original spirit
• Is concise and written in plain language

Please chime in with any feedback you might have, thats what this issue is for.

What This Means for Contributors

If you have contributed code to this repository, your contributions were made under GPL 3.0, and we cannot relicense them without your consent.

We will be reaching out to all contributors individually via GitHub and email where possible. We are asking each contributor to confirm one of the following:

• I consent to my contributions being relicensed under PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0
• I do not consent — in which case we will work to identify and rewrite the affected contributions before completing the transition

If you are a past contributor and want to get ahead of this, please comment below or reach out directly.

What This Means for Downstream Forks

If you maintain a fork of this repository, your situation depends on when and how you forked.

If you forked before the transition date:
Your fork was made under GPL 3.0, and that license remains valid for the code you received at that point. You are not required to adopt PolyForm Noncommercial, and your existing fork is unaffected. You may continue under GPL 3.0 terms for that codebase. Please keep in mind that any upstream code, be it from MinUI or any other source, will always be under their respective licenses.

Pulling in post-transition changes:
Any commits merged into this repository after the transition date will be published under PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0. If you pull those changes into your fork, you are accepting that license for those contributions. You cannot re-license post-transition code from this repo back to GPL 3.0 or any other license.

If you are currently mid-fork or planning to fork:
We'd encourage you to wait until the transition is complete and the new LICENSE file is in place, so you have a clean and unambiguous starting point.

If you have concerns about your downstream fork's status:
Please open a comment below or reach out directly.

What This Means for Users

If you are currently using this project:

• Code released under GPL 3.0 prior to the transition date remains under GPL 3.0 for those versions. You are not retroactively affected.
• Code in releases after the transition date will be governed by PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.
• Non-commercial use continues to be free and explicitly permitted.
• Commercial use of post-transition releases is not permitted.

Progress Checklist

• Obtain explicit written permission from upstream author (@shauninman)
• Send consent requests to all contributors
• Resolve any non-consenting contributions (rewrite or remove)
• Update LICENSE
• Update README with transition notice and effective date
• Update CONTRIBUTING.md to clarify license terms for future contributors
• Close this issue with a summary comment confirming completion

Questions and Concerns

This is the right place to raise them. We'd rather work through objections openly than have unresolved ambiguity linger. If you have a concern about this transition — as a contributor, a user, or otherwise — please comment below.

I'll keep this issue updated during the process.

[frysee]

Here's a gentle ping for everyone directly affected by this due to their contributions. I'll follow up via mail as a fallback (where possible) and finally assume a rewrite is needed if I don't hear from you.

• @ro8inmorgan
• @DrFlarp
• @josegonzalez
• @zhaofengli
• @pvaibhav
• @clintonium-119
• @cobaltgit
• @Helaas
• @radther
• @bSr43
• @RJNY
• @Turro75
• @mozzarellathicc
• @BrandonKowalski
• @ExonakiDev
• @carroarmato0
• @KrutzOtrem
• @nborodikhin
• @ericreinsmidt
• @mohammadsyuhada
• @pawndev
• @Pobega
• @jerryjappinen
• @czpta
• @aaronhoogstraten
• @big-due
• @ben16w

To avoid any unnecessary ambiguity, a quick "I consent" or "I do not consent" below would be ideal.

[pvaibhav]

My 2¢:

Personally I dislike restrictive licenses including GPL and now this Polyform. I'm firmly in the BSD/MIT camp. What is the objection to commercial use, when neither the original MinUI author nor GPL prohibit it? I'd like to know more about the motivation.

To be clear, I don't want to create a roadblock. My own contributions are fairly small and I have no problem accepting to relicense them. And I will likely continue contributing under the new license.

But I wasn't aware of the situation with MagicX and want to know more about the objection and motivation to change licenses.

[frysee]

What is the objection to commercial use, when neither the original MinUI author nor GPL prohibit it?

I've clarified the first section a bit more, thanks for asking. Shaun explicitly opposed commercial use of his work on multiple occasions actually. As far as my personal opinion on the matter, the various handheld manufacturers have proven time and time again that they consider OSS to just be free lunch with no obligation of giving back.

[pvaibhav]

Okay. All the device makers are aware that these CFWs increase the value of their product, whether or not we allow them to preload it. By giving back if you mean contribute code modifications back, GPL requires it. But that doesn't seem to work, so a license change prohibiting commercial distribution is unlikely to work either. Who will enforce it legally? I would simply let them preload NextUI and not contribute anything back except credit. The full BSD philosophy. That's a net positive to the hobby imho.

Anyway, while opposing a license change in spirit, I consent to my contributions being relicensed under PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.

[carroarmato0]

The intent is honorable, but I'm not convinced PolyForm Noncommercial is the right tool. It's one thing to use a license, begs the question if it would uphold in a courtroom is it comes to it.

PolyForm is genuinely better drafted than the usual Creative Commons (which was never meant for software).
However I see some downsides to adopting this.
For starters, its not an open-source license, not by the definition of the OSI and the FSF.
The whole point of GPL 3.0 is forcing downstream to share modifications, the exact leverage you'd want against vendors consuming a free lunch. I fear you lose copyleft and make room for ambiguity. "non commercial" is very ambiguous, what about people selling pre-flashed SD cards, monetized Youtube setup videos, small shops bundling firmware. This does not actually stop vendors like Magicx, they can just ship the current version of NextUI, only future work will be covered.
The original Minui base has no license, which means, copyright law applies. "Feel free to fork" is not a license grant. This means that GPL 3.0 was arguably never validly applied to the Minui derivative code. Relicencing to PolyForm does not fix that. Only Shaun's explicit written permission does.

I would personally stay with GPL since it is a proven model and has been enforced in court rooms. Polyform and "open source friendly" does not rhyme together.

I consent with the final choice being made, even though I oppose in spirit.

Ps: disclaimer, I'm not a copyleft/right lawyer :)

[jerryjappinen]

Yes I consent (to relicensing my one-character typo fix PR).

Hell if anyone from Magicx is reading this, go ahead and fix all your typos also. It's fine by me.

[BrandonKowalski]

I'm down with this move but have reservations that this might create other issues.

MinUI not having a license makes this messy. This leaves NextUI at odds with Shaun's wishes and the licenses of the shipped cores. Whatever license is ultimately chosen needs to be compatible with the GPL as that is what the vast majority of the cores are licensed under.

I know there has been talk of a refactoring / migration to C++. I'm wondering if a rewrite that makes NextUI no longer a fork is the play.

[clintonium-119]

I consent. I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other on this.

[ben16w]

I consent as well 👍

[Helaas]

I consent to relicensing to PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.

[frysee]

For starters, its not an open-source license, not by the definition of the OSI and the FSF.

Also not copyright lawyer, but afaik there is no license that would be OSI compliant and disallows commercial use. If there's anythjing better, let me know.

But that doesn't seem to work, so a license change prohibiting commercial distribution is unlikely to work either. Who will enforce it legally?

I'm fully aware that a noncommercial license does not suddenly force everyone to conform, not do I plan to spend my time litigating. Ultimately I'm using this opportunity to do right by the original MinUI author, which GPL didn't do.

[josegonzalez]

Whats annoying is that while I'm tangentially aware of Shaun's preference, I don't have any evidence to that (don't remember if they ever had issues or if that was separately shuttered when they archived their source).

The original work has no license, but that doesn't mean it is unlicensed or whatever. Shaun should have picked a license if that was his intent, doing anything else was ill-advised.

Lets say $VENDOR decides to use NextUI on their device. What does that mean practically for this project? Would we just say "you're shit out of luck, thats not an officially supported device" and just hang users out to dry? If a $VENDOR decides to use it, who amongst us is going to spend time/money/effort to enforce licensing, especially if it is across country/continental borders? They could still decide to use the version before the relicense, fork and add their platform changes, and then we'd still be stuck with questions, except now we wouldn't have any real recourse to fix as we're not even licensed the same.

I understand the concerns here, but I don't consent to relicensing to PolyForm. I may be convinced otherwise.

[ExonakiDev]

I consent to the relicensing.