Can't you share source?

[Bl00r]

Hi, admins,

I was wondering if you can just share the source in someway we all can have it.

[Soufian]

This is a quote of Time4popcorn's owner:

We can't accept code from our users as we believe with all the Popcorn Time circumstances, it is not safe. Before starting this project we made sure to cover our tracks completely because "not everyone likes Popcorn Time and is happy to have an app like Popcorn Time alive and kicking"... We don't know why the original project was taken down, but in order to insure that something like this won't happen to us, we are taking every possible precaution to ensure that. And the last thing we want to do is put one of our users at risk god forbid... So this is the bottom line.
We can use another 100 helping hands, but can't accept one line of code anyone not from our team suggested because that could risk him and that's just not fair.

[Jorn Johanesson]

so you are not open source any longer ?

[Soufian]

so you are not open source any longer ?

PopcornTime is an open source project.
Time4Popcorn is not an open source project.

PopcornTime is the original project which could be downloaded by everyone to customize it to their own software, like Time4Popcorn did.
And Time4Popcorn decided not to make this an Open Source project since they have put a lot of effort in this project to keep it alive and working. If their source gets leaked i'm sure Time4Popcorn will also stop existing.

[echolot-1]

So you think it was taken down because it was "open source"? It was taken down because it was hosted on github which is a company, so they obviously care about their reputation. You can't host just about anything on github, they are not an anonymous mob of leftists. If you don't open up, your project will die, eventually, your developers will loose interest, or your site will close and that's it, it will be gone in one second. It will not "stop existing" because it's open sourced, that's really broken logic.

Anyway, I just wanted to look at the sources to see if you made any significant changes. I have original sources and I want to know how different they are, if any dependencies are outdated or not, etc. I'm having the stupid black screen issue on windows and the sources don't build, looks like something is wrong with dependencies... oh well I guess no help from you, I'll have to figure out on my own.

What kind of people write desktop apps in javascript anyway? Ugh!

[Soufian]

So you think it was taken down because it was "open source"? It was taken down because it was hosted on github which is a company, so they obviously care about their reputation. You can't host just about anything on github, they are not an anonymous mob of leftists. If you don't open up, your project will die, eventually, your developers will loose interest, or your site will close and that's it, it will be gone in one second. It will not "stop existing" because it's open sourced, that's really broken logic.

Anyway, I just wanted to look at the sources to see if you made any significant changes. I have original sources and I want to know how different they are, if any dependencies are outdated or not, etc. I'm having the stupid black screen issue on windows and the sources don't build, looks like something is wrong with dependencies... oh well I guess no help from you, I'll have to figure out on my own.

What kind of people write desktop apps in javascript anyway? Ugh!

I didn't mention anything about them getting taken down by Github because they are Open source.
And about the Javascript part, the Application does what it's supposed to do, so what are you complaining about?

[kenny665]

Hello,

First I want to thank you for your awesome work! Like the others here i wanted to check a bit in your codes see changes you did. I was surprised that i could find any source code for your version.

You said :

PopcornTime is an open source project.
Time4Popcorn is not an open source project.

PopcornTime is the original project which could be downloaded by everyone to customize it to their own software, like Time4Popcorn did.
And Time4Popcorn decided not to make this an Open Source project since they have put a lot of effort in this project to keep it alive and working.

as the original popcorntime over witch you based your work was released under the GPL v3 license you don't have the choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time

As stated in the license, you have to redistribute your software and source code under the same GPL v3 license. Not doing so is illegal.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic

Notice that you absolutely don't have to accept participation of other developers but only release the code if your modifications are redistributed.

It would too be in your honor to do this, because it say to everyone you have nothing to hide.

You also said :

If their source gets leaked i'm sure Time4Popcorn will also stop existing.

I think nothing would be falser than that, see popcorntime lived after i has been take down because of the openness.

Kind regards,

Kenny

[someone000]

I too, have to agree with kenny665. The Gpl v3 does indeed require you to make the source code available to anyone who wants it. If the issue is one where you are worried about the source being taken down, then I can offer a GitLab instance, hosted on a private VPS, safe from github. The reason that popcorntime survived the mpaa takedown requests was because it was distributed on github, available for anyone to modify.

The second issue is security. If time4popcorn decided that it is closed source, then this is no longer a particularly trustworthy piece of software, as it is loading remote resources through a naitive app with full user permissions. it would be trivial for the t4p devs to add, say, a nodejs keylogger, and then it would automatically install on a users machine without them knowing.

Thirdly, what benefit is it to the t4p devs if they make it closed source? They are not making money off t4p, and the success of popcorn time has been mostly due to the huge community of devs that can add to the code. If the devs would rather not accept contributions, then fine, but they could at least allow the user to make modifications to his own copy. So post a link to a downloadable zip of the source, and problem solved.

Meanwhile, here is my modified version of the source that has fixed the black screen shit. You need to host the webapp on your own computer.

https://mega.co.nz/#!N0tmXLLL!K9L6ZR5MW ... stiZOorRuo

[kebertx]

It's been a month since all this has been brought up, and I'm pretty sure the devs are just ignoring this topic.

I'm not going to complain that violating the terms of the software license is illegal, since evidently the software itself is illegal (https://github.com/time4popcorn/popcorntime-desktop). Still, I have a harder time trusting an application like this if it refuses to share its source code. Aside from violating the GPL, not sharing the source for the fork of the application is a pretty glaring dick move, in my opinion.

[time4popcorn]

Hey all,

We see there's a lot of confusion in this discussion, and apologies for not jumping in sooner, we've been stuck on code fixing up bugs with Chromecast support and building the Apple TV support for the release of the beta 4.3.
So here's what's up:

As you all noticed, our repositories were removed from Github unfortunately.
From reasons we cannot disclose, but trust us, they are GOOD reasons, we decided not to re-publish our source code right away...
Popcorn time IS AN OPEN SOURCE and will always remain open source under GPL V3 license.
Next week, after we release the new Mac version we intend to post our source code on our website where no one will take it down again. So much to look forwards to

Cheers and let us know if you're still confused about certain things...

Team Popcorn.