Grayjay - Follow Creators, Not Platforms
grayjay.app
Grayjay is a unique media application that revolutionizes the relationship between content creators and their audience. Our app democratizes the content delivery process, shifting the focus from platforms to creators themselves.

Quick shout-out to Grayjay: An app to watch videos on any platform - reducing the power of individual services. The Software is open-source and can be found here: https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/grayjay

I will test this out for myself and hope someone here finds this useful.

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    56·
    2 years ago

    It’s viewable source, the license does not allow modification and distribution of the modifications. The license also reserves the right to be revoked at any time.

    It’s source available, but it is not what most people would consider open source in the common usage.

    • pontata@lemmy.world
      9·
      2 years ago

      He says in the video on yt that you can fork it and modify it however you want for personal use no problem. You just can’t make money distributing it I think.

      • Coasting0942@reddthat.com
        103·
        2 years ago

        So basically no chance of it coming to iOS. Given that even open source apps have options to purchase donations in the iOS app, cause developers can’t eat gratitude

        • pontata@lemmy.world
          7·
          2 years ago

          He also says somewhere in the comments that apple simply wouldn’t allow this app on the app store. But there’s also the option of sideloading, I think that’s free no?

        • silicon_reverie@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 years ago

          Sounds like a pretty good excuse to me. The code is viewable, which speaks to the privacy and accountability crowd. He allows personal modification, which appeases the tinkerers. The only group it doesn’t benefit are the ones trying to make money off of his work by degrading the user experience with ads. Are there better licenses he could have picked to accomplish his goal? Yes. Am I going to go on a Lemmy rant over a solo dev’s choice of license when he’s already done so much right? Hell no. It’s a win. Take the W and uninstall later if he changes his tune, just like with any other app whether open or closed.

          I do agree that true open source is better for everyone as it allows the community to truly own, improve, and evolve the app into the best version of itself. But this is the Privacy group, not the FOSS one. As far as my money is concerned, it ticks the boxes and earned my install. We’ll see where it goes from here.

    • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      72·
      2 years ago

      Exactly. Beware of the inevitable enshittification down the line. Once they have the market share, they have no reason not to close their source

      • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
        71·
        2 years ago

        I trust Louis Rossman not to do that. He explained the only reason for the current license is to prevent people forking the app and putting it on the Play store with ads

    • ToxicWaste@lemm.eeOP
      814·
      2 years ago

      I see where you are coming from. Still i would argue that it is open source, since it is open for everyone to see.

      The explanation for this more restrictive license was that they want to prevent what happened to newpipe. Some ppl repackaged newpipe with additional crap, put ads on it etc. They want to have the legal geounds to combat these things.

      While I don’t think, they would go against me for forking it and tweaking things here and there - they have the legal ground to do so…

      • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
        11·
        2 years ago

        Their license allows you to modify it, just not to distribute your modifications. For now.

        By the strictest technical definition of the term open source I agree with you.

        But in the cultural zeitgeist it is not open source and that it can’t be used by other projects, people can’t tinker with it and improve it downstream, if this company goes out of business the source code dies with it. At least legally.

        The Microsoft Windows source code is available, if you sign an NDA, and it’s been leaked a couple times online. So if you really want to, Microsoft Windows is source available with some hurdles. But I wouldn’t consider it open source - mostly because it cannot contribute to the ecosystem evolving.

  • Nia [she/her]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    16·
    2 years ago

    Important to note that this is a custom temporary license. Doesn’t mean it’s not good, but still something to keep in mind.

    https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/grayjay/-/blob/master/LICENSE

    https://ghostarchive.org/archive/dD09d (click “Archived page not showing up? Click here.” on the left side)

    edit: removed archive.org link because it wasn’t loading properly

    edit 2: corrected some mistakes about the source

    • MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works
      61·
      2 years ago

      They said they’ve been working on it for at least a year so not having a proper license can only mean the license will get more restrictive.

      • Nia [she/her]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        5·
        2 years ago

        The main right missing is for others to use the code for any commercial reasons, while checking I re-read the license again and realized I made some mistakes, so I fixed those in my comment.

        I guess it is open source depending on definitions of it, and I was just being nitpicky, but not FOSS since it does restrict the purposes that the code can be used for, giving futo more rights than forks would have as well as the control to cut others off from the code at any time

        We may suspend, terminate or vary the terms of this license and any access to the code at any time, without notice, for any reason or no reason, in respect of any licensee, group of licensees or all licensees including as may be applicable any sub-licensees.

        • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
          32·
          2 years ago

          Louis Rossman said in his video that this was so people didn’t repackage the application with ads and malware. He said it’s fair game to recompile and altar it in any other capacity though.

          • Nia [she/her]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            41·
            2 years ago

            I’ve never heard of him before Grayjay suddenly started trending on here, so I’ll only trust them after this has existed for a little while due to them being able to change the license terms so freely (not that they will or not)

            Without a fully open license I just don’t trust someone who comes in suddenly doing it differently than everyone else. Assuming they end up being trustworthy this will be a great thing though.

              • Nia [she/her]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                1·
                2 years ago

                I’ll still wait to see, repairing devices and advocating for the right to repair is not the same thing as developing a video app and open source licensing

                I wouldn’t assume by default that a person who knows how to build and repair a rocket also knows how to reach the moon in one.

                I don’t expect others to be skeptical just because I think it is, but I just prefer to wait and see on these things regardless of who’s in charge of it, I’ve been burned by things that were supposed to be trustworthy before.

        • CosmicTurtle@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          They can vary the terms of the license for future commits.

          The license seems similar in terms of effect to the MIT license while still giving them control over trademarks and images.

          I’d call this a more restrictive form of MIT but not as copyleft as GPL.

    • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.one
      22·
      2 years ago

      What’s wrong with the FUTO license?

      AFAICT, the only restrictions are you cannot make money off it, and you can’t pretend to be the official app. Very similar to the Mozilla license, although Mozilla’s has some extra bits to be compliant with releasing on the App Store, which has its own licensing requirements that is not met by any version of the GPL

      • StarsBypass@lemmy.world
        71·
        2 years ago

        If there was a Linux approach to smartphones, I’d be interested. Instead, it’s a choice between two large corporations. And one of them receives the majority of its income from advertising. So that’s why I chose what I perceived to be the lesser of the two evils.

        • Quintus@lemmy.ml
          62·
          2 years ago

          The lesser of two evils is Android as it’s like they put closed-source software on top of open source software (see AOSP) whereas on iPhone it’s all closed.

    • Substance_P@lemmy.world
      51·
      2 years ago

      I wonder, are there any decent open source apps available for IOS? Asking for a friend, an Android envious friend, (actually my wife)

    • calm.like.a.bomb@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Louis says somewhere in a comment on the presentation video that they won’t have (at least for the time being) an iOS app because Apple wouldn’t allow it in the Store, so there’s that.

      • StarsBypass@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 years ago

        Hopefully once the alternative App Stores come about (thanks to EU legislation), it might appear in the future.

        Or web app approach (like Voyager does with Lemmy).

        • notenoughbutter@lemmy.ml
          1·
          2 years ago

          alternative app stores are only supposed to be in eu

          apple is looking forward to region lock this side loading facility

    • Xiaz@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 years ago

      I don’t see the option either. Need more options like this and Piped (Piped has Yattee on iOS).

  • navi@lemmy.tespia.org
    91·
    2 years ago

    I wish somewhere on their site or anywhere in that description they’d say “Android App”.

    I was a little disappointed as an iOS user browsing their site trying to find the iOS App Store link 😬.

  • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
    7·
    2 years ago

    Downloaded it and tried it. It’s awesome. It blows invidious and newpipe out of the water. Plus it includes my nebula subscriptions in with my YouTube subscriptions.

  • RandomStickman@kbin.social
    3·
    2 years ago

    I tried to import my subscription from YouTube to the app but I got rate limited due to the large amount of channels. Is there a way around it?

      • Luke@lemmy.ml
        5·
        2 years ago

        Isn’t that kind of the nature of open source though? Waiting until something is “finished” before making it open source would cut off a lot of innovation and contribution possibilities. Some software would never be seen because the original author didn’t get to “finish” it and nobody else could pick it up.

        Unfinished open source software releases are a good thing.

  • Destraight@lemm.ee
    1·
    2 years ago

    The content creators I watch, none of them are on this app. What a garbage YouTube knockoff. UNINSTALLED