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Comment by jgauth | Hacker News Reader

This update is great news. I was disappointed to see the issue that got raised last week, and I had started to consider looking for alternatives. I’m going to assume an honest mistake on their end and keep recommending their product. However, if they make a similar move again, I will assume the worst and move on.

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To be fair, Bitwarden clients are mostly GPL and can be forked, and there's Vaultwarden for self-hosting.

We just need to rally together a community that would maintain such a fork.

The iOS client can never be meaningfully forked, ironically due to the GPL. If Bitwarden goes fully hostile that's lost forever.

I don't understand; isn't the repo licensed under GPLv3?

https://github.com/bitwarden/ios?tab=GPL-3.0-1-ov-file

Is proprietary config required to build the IPA file?

I was under the impression that Apple requires apps to be distributed under terms which conflict with the GPLv3, so the copyright holders effectively need to dual-license an app for it to be suitable for the App Store. Uploading your own version of bitwarden/ios would then open you up to a takedown notice from Bitwarden Inc. since they didn't consent to this.

Looking into it again, it seems like the Apple Media Services T&C now has provisions for distributing apps under a "Custom EULA", but it still has weird clauses like the one saying you can't "scrape, copy, or perform measurement, analysis, or monitoring of, any portion of the Content", which their definition of includes apps. (Ridiculous clause since it prohibits so much as looking at an app with Activity Monitor, but whatever.) The GPLv3 has a provision saying users can ignore additional restrictions, but you as an App Store uploader aren't in a position to grant that right, so... the situation still seems legally iffy enough that I'm not sure you could win against Bitwarden if they objected to a fork.

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