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I've Just Liberated My Modules

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Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#621

Post by takno »

Klathmon wrote: post #257
takno wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically 17 lines of code is total overkill for this function. In many cases you could achieve the same thing more efficiently in a single line.

Feel free to show a smaller implementation that's more efficient. I've seen several "one liners" in this thread already, and most of them either blow up when something that's not a string is passed in (regardless of how you view strict typing, js doesn't have it and this shouldn't happen), or are extremely slow comparatively (most of them creating and destroying an array every time they are called). Plus this has 100…

I wasn't planning on passing a non-string to my function. The type-checking only needs to happen because this is a needlessly generic function

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#622

Post by andrewingram »

imtringued wrote: post #493
marcuskaz wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

v0.0.3 is open source, though there is no license in the Github repo, so murky, but NPM says its WTFPL Since old code is under a very permissive license, then the new owner could create v0.0.4 add code and make the new version closed with a restrictive license. This is where a license like GPL would benefit overall, since all future code requires to be under the same license. Either way, it seems like a dangerous pol…

Now I'm seriously wondering if npm is a goldmine for GPL infringement. If someone has an insane dependency tree with 1000 entries then there is bound to be at least some GPL in there forcing everything else to be GPL too.

Sadly, there's nothing insane about 1000 entries when it comes to npm. That's the reality of pretty much any non-trivial project, especially with React and Babel.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#623

Post by ShaneCurcuru »

jahewson wrote: post #192
nordsieck wrote: post #157

One interesting thing to me, is that it is pretty clear that the kik lawyers pretty dramatically over enforced their trademark. For those who don't know, the purpose of trademarks is to prevent customer confusion; essentially we don't want people to be able to sell cheap knock-offs of someone else's thing without the general public being able to easily distinguish between them. In practical terms, trademarks are "sco…

Yep, I was going to say the same thing. As you say we can look up the US trademarks [1, 2] and see that this mark covers: Computer software for use with mobile phones and portable computing devices to: - download audio, video, digital photos and programs; - electronic payment systems, namely, a computer application software used for processing electronic payments to and from others; - computer software for use with m…

USPTO Trademark Pro Tip: search links are session specific. Use the blue TSDR button's link instead:

https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86930821&caseType=SERIAL_...

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#624

Post by andrewaylett »

mschuster91 wrote: post #55

brouhaha, this is why you should not put node_modules into .gitignore (same for PHP's composer.lock and vendor/ folder). To be honest, I have waited for something like this to happen so that people finally wake up and realize how deeply and truly compromised the JS ecosystem really is. 11 SLOC not available any more and all over the internet builds are breaking etc.?! And please, why isn't essential stuff like this i…

Better, you should run your own NPM repository, which transparently caches packages from the main repository. Unfortunately, that's not nearly as easy with NPM as with (say) maven -- the only turn-key solution I'm aware of is Artifactory, and then only in the pro version, and configuring npm to use it is a bit awkward.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#626

Post by coreyp_1 »

justaaron wrote: post #612

oh geez.... welcome to trademark law Google. (why is this getting frontpage HN coverage?) a trademark is a globally enforceable right (madrid agreement) and one has an obligation to protect ones mark from "dilution" from others in the same category: i.e. if you are selling "apple" garden shovels, you needn't worry about crossing into "apple" computer land, but I guarantee you that they already registered that mark fo…

The trademark issue is actually of minor importance here. What is being highlighted is that a publisher of a large number of npm modules removed all of his modules. This broke some people's builds, but, more importantly, drew attention to 2 HUGE security issues:

1.) NPM arbitrarily gave control of a package to a 3rd party, who can then do all manner of evil with it, if they so prefer.

2.) The namespaces of all of these somewhat widely-used packages are now up for grabs. That is, you could make your own malicious version, upload it to NPM, and now all of those builds in all of those different projects will now use your malicious code.

The issue isn't trademark, it's security. That's why it's on the front page of HN.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#627

Post by ShaneCurcuru »

delinka wrote: post #202
nordsieck wrote: post #157

One interesting thing to me, is that it is pretty clear that the kik lawyers pretty dramatically over enforced their trademark. For those who don't know, the purpose of trademarks is to prevent customer confusion; essentially we don't want people to be able to sell cheap knock-offs of someone else's thing without the general public being able to easily distinguish between them. In practical terms, trademarks are "sco…

"Providing an interactive website featuring online non-downloadable software" indicates to me that there could indeed be confusion in a repository of software code to be used by other applications. I'd suggest it's certainly not obvious over-enforcement.

Just a general comment about the whole thread: trademark law is far more complicated and particular than you know (unless you're an IP lawyer; then you might appreciate it). Not only are developers used to problems that can have provable or obvious answers, trademark law really hasn't caught up with the speed of the internet, especially the instant and global reach that a domain name has.

- The only thing you can say about a trademark dispute like this, given the information that's public, is that "it depends on the specific situation as well as the perception of a large enough user base who might get confused".

- Trademark owners can ask (or C&D demand) just about whatever they want. What they could actually force you to do in a court is far, far less than what they typically ask.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#628

Post by jzs »

zongitsrinzler wrote: post #483

Extremely dick move on behalf of the developer. Why would you remove modules that other people are using in production? Did you think a small team like NPM would go head to head with a company having full time lawyers? And for what?

Why is that a dick move? What would you do if npm or github goes down tomorrow?

Vendor your dependencies if you want to make sure your own project doesn't break.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#629

Post by nyan4 »

Grue3 wrote: post #494
stevebmark wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Javascript has an almost non-existent standard lib. Obviously Python ships with most of the kitchen sink in core. You're not grumpy, but you're misguided.

Why not create one big package that's a lib? Call it "batteries". In fact, it already exists: Jquery.

A lot of people like to think that software fragmentation comes without any drawback. Having many tiny libraries and/or multiple versions hurts in the long term.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#630

Post by cdubzzz »

biot wrote: post #523
jhall1468 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not how trademarks work. Feel free to start the Google Paper Co. Uniqueness is not a merit for trademark infringement. To infringe you have to be a competitor.

That is how some trademarks work. Google is by now a famous mark and, as such, gets additional protection beyond what mere mortal companies do: http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Famous_marks I guarantee you won't last long if you start a Coca-Cola School of Hairdressing, even though the beverage company doesn't compete for that business.

If that is the case, then it just further invalidates the argument for Kik because it is most certainly not a famous mark.
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