Any new open source software is always a net positive.
But, there are a few small caveats to the way they’ve done it (depending on how cynical/cautious you are):
Because Proton are not accepting contributions, they own all the copyright, so can make the code closed source again if they want to (that wouldn’t affect the already released versions, but future versions)
They could likely take down any derivative on iOS, since Apple will always take instruction from the copyright holder, for GPL’d code
Since the builds are not reproducible, there’s no guarantee that the binaries they distribute are built from the source code
It’s pretty much not reversible and the code is free to use, modify, and distribute forever. And if you do modify it you also must make those changes open source.
gpl v3 you can do pretty much anything but you have to put it the same license but it has like drm protections and Anti-Tivoization and also has some patent protections people find this license too strict
What does this mean practically
It means it can’t ever become proprietary closed-source software (not without a major lawsuit).
Any new open source software is always a net positive.
But, there are a few small caveats to the way they’ve done it (depending on how cynical/cautious you are):
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Any GPL violations would be reported to the Software Freedom Conservacy, who would go to court on the dev’s behalf.
There was a major lawsuit back in 2022 between the SFC and Vizio, and the SFC won.
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It’s pretty much not reversible and the code is free to use, modify, and distribute forever. And if you do modify it you also must make those changes open source.
Very good news
gpl v3 you can do pretty much anything but you have to put it the same license but it has like drm protections and Anti-Tivoization and also has some patent protections people find this license too strict
Its actually more restrictive, in a good way.
You can’t, for example, fork it, make changes, and sell that derivative software without releasing the source code
yeah but drm is too strict for some people and anti tivozation this is why linux did not do gpl 3.0 or later