CCS18 wrote: > The innuOS linux distribution which is shipped with every innuOS music > server, traditionally has used bundled LMS + squeezelite, and some > custom proprietary glue to make it more user friendly, e.g. users don't > need to fiddle with LMS settings such as creating a mysqueezebox.com > account for Tidal integration. > > Now they have announced to completely change / replace the LMS database > backend by something they developed in house - while keeping other parts > of LMS for the audio engine, and to allow custom unified search, custom > playlists, custom Tidal & Qobuz plugins, and put it all behind their own > app: > > > > Then in a more recent post, they are stating they will still support > squeezebox devices, but break compatibility with existing squeezebox > apps & LMS plugins: > > > > These modifications raise the following GPL related question: > > Is Innuos allowed to embrace and extend LMS in such way it is no longer > compatible with existing control apps & plugins, while not sharing any > source code of their modifications? > > innuOS has not shared any source code, and analyzing their current OS > (not the 2.0 versions which they are soon releasing), they have: > > - a custom compiled linux kernel for which no GPL source code was > released or bundled with the product, and not made available via a GPL > written offer > - a custom squeezelite for which no GPL source code was released or > bundled with the product, and not made available via a GPL written > offer > - an automatically provisioned mysqueezebox.com account on every product > sold, without giving the customer access to the password (rooting the > server e.g. via a linux rescue USB stick easily reveals the > mysqueezebox.com password stored in a config file) > > It feels a bit like innuOS is massaging LMS to become more like a Roon > alternative (e.g. by having a unified search system, by having better > Qobuz & Tidal plugins which intgrate more metadata compared to the stock > plugins) > > In a way, they are making proprietary changes to the LMS ecosystem > > Are the innuOS modifications to the LMS ecosystem allowed by the GPL?
Hi, My name is Nuno Vitorino and I'm the R&D Director at Innuos. Let me start by saying that we take Open Source and the Open Source Community very seriously and in no way do we want to do any changes that violates any terms and conditions on GPL or otherwise. You can see the licenses for all open source software we use on our app on Server > Settings > About Innuos Sense. Having said this, we are not changing LMS at all. Zero. Nada. We are simply not using LMS as the Music Library database anymore for browsing and selecting music and replaced this with our own Music Library database, built from scratch. As such, we have automatically remove the paths from the configuration to prevent LMS automatically rescanning the library, which is not used at all if the user is using our UI for playback. So innuOS is just sending the files for LMS to playback. If anyone wants to go back to iPeng/OrangeSqueeze/Material Skin, all they need to do is set the path again on LMS and scan the music manually. We are not actively blocking any app and we do not block access to LMS or its settings. People are free to do what they want with the LMS in the server. We just can't guarantee it will work or break something. I personally love LMS and the Squeezebox ecosystem and have been using for many years with my faithful Squeezebox Radio and Touch. Before we started to develop innuOS 2.0, I did consider how we could change LMS to become more user friendly. Material Skin did actually help this considerably (and kudos to all that have participated in the development) but what we wanted to do was so far away from what LMS still is that we thought it would be impossible without ravishing it to the ground. Just the prospect of updating the database automatically based on inodes, something we did attempt when we were using LMS as a music library, was just too much of a fundamental change. It didn't help the fact our software team is not skilled in Perl but rather skilled in Python - languages almost diametrically opposed in their concepts. We also didn't feel (rightly or wrongly) there was appetite in the community for a major change in LMS as there are some quite fundamental changes. You can believe or not but if we did embrace in changing LMS, we would be most happy to share with all the community, even if competitors would use that in their systems. That is the spirit of Open Source. There are paid services we use on our platform at those could not become Open Source. We have an official Qobuz integration that is certified for our servers, we could not provide that on an Open Source version. TIDAL will be next as well as a number of other platforms. Having said all this, and against most of my devs, I would like to continue using and even contributing to the LMS community. Finding people with the right skills to improve LMS is far from easy. Do excuse me for the shameless plug but if any developers here are interested to work for us to improve areas of LMS, please contact me privately as I'd be very interested. Any developments made on the LMS platform by Innuos would be submitted as pull requests for those who maintain the platform to decide whether they'd be useful for the community as a whole. As for squeezelite, we are not changing its code per se, we are configuring the environment and parameters in which it runs. Again, we are more than happy to get in touch with squeezelite software development and sponsor improvements to the application that would be made public for everyone. Contact me privately for this. Hope this clarifies our view and intent. Best, Nuno ------------------------------------------------------------------------ nunovi's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=18347 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=114686 _______________________________________________ Squeezecenter mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/squeezecenter
