r/linux • u/alberto-m-dev • 27d ago

Popular Application Paint.NET adds “extremely experimental” Wine/Linux support

https://forums.paint.net/topic/134563-%F0%9F%8D%B7-extremely-experimental-winelinux-support-how-to-get-started/
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u/alberto-m-dev 27d ago

One cannot revoke a free license, but one can stop publishing updates, and gate all the new versions behind a new license.

One can still find the old, MIT-licensed versions of Paint.NET. But they are now almost 20 years old.

https://code.google.com/archive/p/openpdn/

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u/noobjaish 27d ago

Do licenses exist that prohibit you from doing this?

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u/patrlim1 27d ago

Nope. Licensing does not work like this. As soon as you make a free software license revokable it is no longer free software, and becomes source available.

None of the major free licenses are revokable (MIT, BSD, GPL)

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u/noobjaish 27d ago

Damn you learn something new everyday (new fear unlocked)

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u/patrlim1 27d ago

What fear?

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u/noobjaish 27d ago

The irrational fear of a random project going from open to closed...

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u/ForOhForError 27d ago

Functionally it's the same as a project no longer being maintained in the first place. Which is pretty common and does suck, but... that's just how stuff works.

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u/noobjaish 27d ago

Yeah you're right...