Is Atom IDE proprietary?

Question

While searching most suitable IDE for coding, I've encountered on Atom. So in order to test it - downloaded .deb and opened it in software center.

But software center states it has proprietary license.

Being really averse to all proprietary I've checked atom info again. And it is in opposite states Atom is open software with code opened on GitHub. License is MIT which allows all of permissions like

• Commercial use
• Modification
• Distribution
• Private use

So why is it marked as proprietary?

Answer 1

Atom text editor is a native Ubuntu snap package in all currently supported versions of Ubuntu. Results of snap info atom:

$ snap info atom
name:      atom
summary:   A hackable text editor for the 21st Century.

Atom is a free and open source text editor that is modern, approachable,  
and hackable to the core.

The Ubuntu Atom snap package does not have a proprietary license. The Atom GitHub webpage also describes Atom as a free and open source text editor. Atom is licensed under the MIT License.

The atom-amd64.deb file has a file in it named copyright which contains a copy of the MIT License terms, yet when atom-amd64.deb is opened in the Ubuntu Software app it is mistakenly reported as having a proprietary license.

If Ubuntu Software is reporting the MIT license as a proprietary license this is a bug in Ubuntu Software, because the MIT license is a free software license. According to Wikipedia, the MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The MIT license permits reuse within proprietary software provided that all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms and the copyright notice.