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Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

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Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#131

Post by concordDance »

oaiey wrote: post #9
semitones wrote: post #4

License reads: > "Copyright Bouke van der Bijl I do not give anyone permissions to use this tool for any purpose. Don't use it. I’m not interested in changing this license. Please don’t ask. " Used by counter on GitHub is at 464. The way it's worded would imply that they are all violating the license? How can this be enforced for inconsequential small pet projects? Is this really something to worry about, particularl…

Yes. You take something you do not own (even down the tree). You have to check if you are allowed to. It does not matter if it is a small pet project or the Linux Kernel. Sure you can ignore him and wait for him to lawyer up and make your life miserable. Considering that IT specialists which have capacity to contribute to open source are typically not poor or have idealogical interests, I would not take the bets. Res…

> You have to check if you are allowed to. It does not matter if it is a small pet project or the Linux Kernel.

Actually it does matter and you don't have to. In practice pet projects are basically never going to be sued, it's simply not worth it. As a side note, a lot of techy people struggle to separate the law as written with the law as practiced.

The ethics question is more interesting, but for something like this which is clearly satirical? No harm, no foul.

Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#132

Post by DangitBobby »

whateveracct wrote: post #126
DangitBobby wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/bouk/monkey/blob/master/LICENSE.md Then why publish the blog post and put it into a package??

clearly satire

Which part and in what way? Clearly the blog post is not satire, since the method works, and the license cannot be satire as it seems like it would be legally sufficient to prevent people from using it, which is exactly the stated purpose of the license. It's also implied that the author has received requests to change the license so others can use the package, which have been denied. The author even went so far as to remind people in this comment thread that they don't want it to be used! The license is serious on its face and in practice. Where is the joke?

Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#133

Post by concordDance »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #43
Y_Y wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the granting of rights to redistribute is governed by the applicable copyright law, as far as I know there is no equivalent body of law governing usage. You can't give someone information but attach conditions to its use, except in specific circumstances. You can certainly make someone sign a contract before agreeing to give them the information, but that's not what's occurring here.

>You can't give someone information but attach conditions to its use, except in specific circumstances. Wouldn't that effectively bar the use of DRM? If I buy a blu-ray, I can't legally watch it unless I have a player capable of unlocking the content. That may be one of the "specific circumstances," as there is a law that specifically forbids bypassing DRM.

> If I buy a blu-ray, I can't legally watch it unless I have a player capable of unlocking the content

Depends on jurisdiction.

Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#134

Post by mrpimpunicorn »

gpm wrote: post #65
michaelt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard lawyers argue that, because to run a computer program (or play a DVD or whatever) it must be copied into memory, software that doesn't grant you the right to use it cannot legally be used.

This argument doesn't make sense to me (under US law) given that > (a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: > (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in…

(a) doesn't hold because you aren't the owner of a copyrighted work that is licensed to you. You're also not even being given a license in this context.

Read GitHub's TOS, they explicitly state you give them the right to copy your work in order to allow for forking because their lawyers KNOW they have no rights otherwise and could be sued.

Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#135

Post by still_grokking »

I'm completely baffled how people work. Something like that can't actually happen. At least if you assume people working on software can read. But it seems not even this can be safely assumed nowadays.

How can someone include some dependency without checking the license? That's actually the very first thing to do, before you can even consider using something!

Not doing this is extremely unprofessional. Additionally it's stupid and very dangerous: You can bring yourself and/or your company into serous trouble. Really serous trouble.

Do people really pull in some random stuff without even looking a little bit what it is? This would make the old write-up¹ about someone placing the ultimate backdoor everywhere a certainty by now.

Sorry for ranting but this whole thing is a real-world satire, imho. The license was a joke, OK. But that it didn't fool only some random hobby hacker but alleged professionals at big corps is truly egregious. I can't stop shaking my head…

¹ https://medium.com/hackernoon/im-harvesting-credit-card-numb...

Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#136

Post by gpm »

mrpimpunicorn wrote: post #134
gpm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument doesn't make sense to me (under US law) given that > (a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: > (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in…

(a) doesn't hold because you aren't the owner of a copyrighted work that is licensed to you. You're also not even being given a license in this context. Read GitHub's TOS, they explicitly state you give them the right to copy your work in order to allow for forking because their lawyers KNOW they have no rights otherwise and could be sued.

(a) doesn't refer to owning the copyright, it refers to owning the physical copy (the hardware which the information is saved on, the paper and ink in a book).

GitHub's TOS requires permission to copy, because github is not just executing your code.

Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#137

Post by mrpimpunicorn »

dahart wrote: post #51
teraflop wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those terms don't say anything about a right to "download and also run" code: > you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (emphasis mine)

“Display”, “Use”, and “View” are all terms that are all talking about downloading. “Perform” means to run the code. You are still using the GitHub service when you clone a GitHub repo locally, that is part of GitHub’s functionality. What it’s not saying is that the only way to view a project is via an http connection through a browser to github.com.

"Perform" means to run the code THROUGH GitHub and its services (i.e. Actions). You are NOT allowed to run the code on any hardware YOU own. Downloading is an implementation detail of performing your right to "Display", "Use", and "View" the content ON GitHub and its services. You are forbidden from downloading the content for any other purpose.

Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#138

Post by still_grokking »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #99
somehnacct3757 wrote: post #22

No problem, just start typing code like it and let Github Copilot handle the rest

Even better, Fairuseify[1] will repackage a fair-use version of the library for you automatically. [1]: https://fairuseify.ml/

Ingenious!

It only needs some build-in YouTube and Getty-Images browser to select fairuseify targets. (It should work for all kind of media, of course).

I think we've solved the copyright issue right now finally for good, didn't we?

Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#139

Post by DangitBobby »

_t4sy wrote: post #129
wejick wrote: post #107

Copyright Bouke van der Bijl I do not give anyone permissions to use this tool for any purpose. Don't use it. I’m not interested in changing this license. Please don’t ask.

You have the right to use this project via git submodules. The GitHub terms of service requires code owners to allow forking and linking to their public repositories, regardless of license.

It does not appear to grant (or attempt to grant) use of the software. So sharing and forking are fine, but not necessarily anything else.

> 5. License Grant to Other Users

> Any User-Generated Content you post publicly, including issues, comments, and contributions to other Users' repositories, may be viewed by others. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and "fork" your repositories (this means that others may make their own copies of Content from your repositories in repositories they control).

> If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed publicly, you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (for example, through forking). You may grant further rights if you adopt a license. If you are uploading Content you did not create or own, you are responsible for ensuring that the Content you upload is licensed under terms that grant these permissions to other GitHub Users

Re: Project includes a dependancy that has a license that forbids its use

#140

Post by Fuzzeh »

philipswood wrote: post #2

Quite an unusual, but effective, way to mark something as a proof of concept that's dangerous to use: From [1]: "This is as unsafe as it sounds and I don't recommend anyone do it outside of a testing environment." [1]: https://github.com/bouk/monkey#i-thought-that-monkeypatching...

You don't have the right to use it, even in a testing environment. The license denys you the right to use it.
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