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This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

artemis.sh

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Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#71

Post by ormaaj »

lionkor wrote: post #64
topkai22 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same. It being published on GitHub makes it especially difficult to claim damages for reuse, as I think it’s fair to say the very act of publishing to GitHub implies a desire to share the code. The real issue would be if the author decides they want to close source it later, updates the license, and then demands everyone stop using it.

> the very act of publishing to GitHub implies a desire to share the code. No. Thats like saying the very act of sharing pictures online implies you want someone else to use them, or that printing your book and selling it somehow implies you want the world to copy it. You share on GitHub because its a source control platform, and your code may be interesting to others. This does NOT mean that you are okay with someon…

> No. Thats like saying the very act of sharing pictures online implies you want someone else to use them, or that printing your book and selling it somehow implies you want the world to copy it.

Please explain how you are viewing this unlicensed reply without downloading it.

> You share on GitHub because its a source control platform, and your code may be interesting to others. This does NOT mean that you are okay with someone taking the code and using it in their (potentially commercial) program.

Please explain how HN is not taking my unlicensed reply and using it in their commercial HTML code sent to your web browser.

Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#72

Post by nextaccountic »

hlieberman wrote: post #45

Some distributions take this more seriously than others. Debian, historically, is the largest stickler about this. I've had to delay packaging things for licensing problems[1], written 1000+ line d/copyright files[2], etc. Not all distributions will take the investigations that seriously. I'm not saying that Debian always gets it right either! Just, there's an emphasis on doing so. [1]: https://github.com/openstenopr…

On the other hand, once Debian does due diligence, people can link up the findings on discussions of other distros. Most distros don't care about investigating those issues, but most distros also don't want to distribute code with clear legal issues.

Also it's usually pretty straightforward to solve most of those problems. Cease distribution and contact the authors, and if they are unresponsive either replace the troublesome code (if it's trivial), or patch the program to not use the code (if it's not the main thing the program is about), or give up packaging the program in the official repositories.

Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#73

Post by nextaccountic »

ormaaj wrote: post #69

Funny they specifically point to Gentoo. Gentoo, organizations hosting mirrors, and users are probably least likely of all to be affected by such a situation (binhosts aside) as gentoo only distributes the verbatim source for which the uploader (assuming same as copyright holder) has granted an implied license by way of publishing their work to github. It would be very difficult to claw back their intent to offer the…

The implied license you give when uploading to Github is this https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

> 4. License Grant to Us

> We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This license includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video.

> This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell Your Content. It also does not grant GitHub the right to otherwise distribute or use Your Content outside of our provision of the Service, except that as part of the right to archive Your Content, GitHub may permit our partners to store and archive Your Content in public repositories in connection with the GitHub Arctic Code Vault and GitHub Archive Program.

Unfortunately this implied license is only granted to Github itself. Maybe this could work if Github created their own version of Gentoo though.

Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#74

Post by nextaccountic »

cyclotron3k wrote: post #2

GitHub deserves better that comic sans

LOL!!

In all seriousness, Comic Sans is actually a great font for people with dyslexia, because the unique shapes make it easier to distinguish letters.

http://omgfacts.com/comic-sans-helps-people-with-dyslexia/

(a font like Open Dyslexic is probably even better https://opendyslexic.org/ but I guess it's a matter of taste and familiarity)

Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#75

Post by ormaaj »

nextaccountic wrote: post #73
ormaaj wrote: post #69

Funny they specifically point to Gentoo. Gentoo, organizations hosting mirrors, and users are probably least likely of all to be affected by such a situation (binhosts aside) as gentoo only distributes the verbatim source for which the uploader (assuming same as copyright holder) has granted an implied license by way of publishing their work to github. It would be very difficult to claw back their intent to offer the…

The implied license you give when uploading to Github is this https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... > 4. License Grant to Us > We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including impro…

That is a contract, not a license. Or more accurately it's a contract with a copyright license embedded within its terms. This is an agreement with github to grant it an explicit license. Implied license is an implicit license. It may exist irrespective to any such agreements. Its implicit creation is an affirmative defense determined entirely by other factors and context.

The bar for this as a defense can be quite high, as it requires a clear intention to license the work as determined by a judge or jury.

Independent to the implied license doctrine there exists doctrine which governs mirroring, caching, and transferring of that content by 3rd parties and intermediaries. The combination of these is largely what makes sharing anything on the internet in lieu of licenses possible.

"user agreements" or "terms of use" are contracts that are essentially a redundant measure that gives parties like github much stronger protection, so that it doesn't have to rely upon any risky affirmative defense tactics that require meeting high legal thresholds.

Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#76

Post by londons_explore »

I often deliberately publish code with no license.

It means any hobbyist can play around with it, but no company with a legal team will touch it.

It appears as an oversight rather than a deliberate decision to restrict who can do what.

And often that's exactly what I want.

Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#77

Post by irdc »

londons_explore wrote: post #76

I often deliberately publish code with no license. It means any hobbyist can play around with it, but no company with a legal team will touch it. It appears as an oversight rather than a deliberate decision to restrict who can do what. And often that's exactly what I want.

> It means any hobbyist can play around with it

Not in legal terms it doesn't. In the absence of a licence, a copyrighted work may not be distributed in any way. So you could theoretically sue those hobbyists.

Just bite the bullet and pick any of the common licenses. Sounds like you'd want one of CC-*-NC or perhaps AGPL.

Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#78

Post by wink »

londons_explore wrote: post #76

I often deliberately publish code with no license. It means any hobbyist can play around with it, but no company with a legal team will touch it. It appears as an oversight rather than a deliberate decision to restrict who can do what. And often that's exactly what I want.

I don't think that's helpful, because that's just not how licenses work. Please at least add that sentence to the repo then.

Unless your definition of "hobbyist playing around with it" also includes "oh, I accidentally made something useful which uses your code, but now I have to rewrite it because I can't in turn use a useful license".

Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#79

Post by [deleted] »

torstenvl wrote: post #67
3np wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6/7/8: brokep, anakata, tiamo. It's still early to tell but we may have to add Aleksey Pertsev to this list :/ > 3. Edward Snowden U.S. citizen being hunted for acts committed on US soil so as terrible as prosecuting them is, I don't see how it's relevant here. Other than that, yes, my point is we should not be normalizing and shrugging this off as "the way things are". Individuals and businesses are doing right in t…

Giving one counterexample is sufficient to refute a categorical rule. Additionally, the fact that the code in question is hosted on GitHub (U.S.), a site owned by Microsoft (U.S.), and specifically how it came to be in Debian (U.S.) (started by Ian Murdock (U.S.) and assets held by Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (U.S.)) makes the U.S. an appropriate counterexample. Russia (home of the author of the software in…

[deleted]

Re: This Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

#80

Post by londons_explore »

irdc wrote: post #77
londons_explore wrote: post #76

I often deliberately publish code with no license. It means any hobbyist can play around with it, but no company with a legal team will touch it. It appears as an oversight rather than a deliberate decision to restrict who can do what. And often that's exactly what I want.

> It means any hobbyist can play around with it Not in legal terms it doesn't. In the absence of a licence, a copyrighted work may not be distributed in any way. So you could theoretically sue those hobbyists. Just bite the bullet and pick any of the common licenses. Sounds like you'd want one of CC-*-NC or perhaps AGPL.

Except no hobbyist seems to worry about such things.

Occasionally I get messages asking me about the license, and I usually reply to them asking what they want to do/build and then I give them permission for whatever it is they want to make (for free).

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