Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks • Hacker News Board

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#81

Post by Jenk » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

bscphil wrote: post #54

fsflover wrote: post #17

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 Winamp contained modified GPL code, violating the GPL (github.com/winampdesktop) 18 points by mepian 19 days ago | 6 comments

I can't see the original issue, but it's interesting that the title chooses to highlight the fact that the GPL code was modified . Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license.

> Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license.

That's just not true, surely? Lest everyone using any flavour of Linux is liable to the same problem?

How many apps out there are using GPL code? Android, for example.

Making a derivative in the sense of adding functionality to it, I get, but using it as-is as a component or library surely doesn't - and cannot - fall foul of the license else the entire technosphere is liable.

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#82

Post by AlienRobot » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

armada651 wrote: post #33

delfinom wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The troll issues are exactly why my OSS group does not use GitHub at all. It's become a toxic platform for quite awhile.

That's just the reality of any platform that doesn't gatekeep who gets to participate. Eventually assholes are going to join, that's simply unavoidable.

I think it's partly developers fault for hosting their applications on Github and sending end users a link to Github instead of a link to an exe.

At least sourceforge has a download button in the front page.

They turned Github into a social media.

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#83

Post by arp242 » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #65

arp242 wrote: post #51

The trolling was ridiculous. I don't blame them. It was pretty clear that with "fork" they meant "don't create a WinAmp-ng fork" and not a "fork" in the "send a patch" GitHub sense. It's fine to point out "hey, I think your custom written license may need a bit of work!", but the amount of vitriol and hate over it (including on HN) was just ridiculous. It was one of those moments I was embarrassed to be posting here.…

The forking was bizarre and I agree with your take on it ("forking" with no other changes is not "distribution" except in the most obtuse way). But the licensing issues with what 3rd party software they threw in there was a pretty serious issue. It was probably inevitable they'd take it down and redo it even without the drama.

To be honest I didn't see the license issues until this thread, because I had already checked out of the discussion by the time that was brought up.

And it would have been fine to say "hey, I think there may be a problem here, let's work together to see if we can solve it" wrt. to either their custom license or the GPL. That is not what happened. The sad thing is there would be many knowledgable patient people who would be willing to work with the WinAmp people on resolving all of this free-of-charge, but who is going to notice them in a sea of assholes?

I'll also argue it's not "serious", at least in the sense of "needs to be fixed ASAP". It's been like this for how long? 20 years? 25 years? It's just that no one noticed before. And it's basically a "dead" legacy project. Don't really need to rush to correct mistakes of the past here IMHO.

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#84

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:46 PM UTC

Jenk wrote: post #81

bscphil wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see the original issue, but it's interesting that the title chooses to highlight the fact that the GPL code was modified . Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license.

> Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license. That's just not true, surely? Lest everyone using any flavour of Linux is liable to the same problem? How many apps out there are…

[deleted]

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#85

Post by AlienRobot » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:46 PM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #51

The trolling was ridiculous. I don't blame them. It was pretty clear that with "fork" they meant "don't create a WinAmp-ng fork" and not a "fork" in the "send a patch" GitHub sense. It's fine to point out "hey, I think your custom written license may need a bit of work!", but the amount of vitriol and hate over it (including on HN) was just ridiculous. It was one of those moments I was embarrassed to be posting here.…

I saw a guy on youtube complaining about it. He seemed to talk about FLOSS a lot and focus on the strict definition of "open source."

I checked his github profile and he barely published anything.

So here we have a company that made all of the code of a complete application source available being dunked by a guy who barely published any source code at all.

Really put things in perspective for me.

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#86

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:46 PM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #21

belthesar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source wasn't open though, it was available, and it was provided in a sense that fully showcased that they did not understand what they were doing. Everything from licenses that were fully unenforceable and non-compliant with Github's license agreement to illegally distributing proprietary code to fundamentally misunderstanding how to use git. It's one thing to provide a source available codebase. That's a choice…

Describing this as "comically awful" seems strange. In terms of building a good open source project, they did a bad job. However they did a good job making the source available. Also given all the dependencies they may have (whether intentionally or not) followed the best path to make sure that the source would be useful. They ended up looking bad and exposing themselves to legal trouble, but I'm not sure this was aw…

Do people really not understand how bad this could be from a legal perspective. Licenses are a contract and they broke several contracts.

>They ended up looking bad and exposing themselves to legal trouble, but I'm not sure this was awful

For a company, I can't think of anything less awful than purposefully choosing to expose oneself to legal trouble. I'd say that qualifies as "comically awful".

>they might even have known exactly what they were doing.

In what way? Are they going bankrupt (so nothing to sue for) and just want to send out readable source on the way out, without enough care to strip out copyright and list dependencies? That's certainly a hail Mary, but I think that move does more damage to the community than goodwill.

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#87

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:47 PM UTC

Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote: post #59

belthesar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source wasn't open though, it was available, and it was provided in a sense that fully showcased that they did not understand what they were doing. Everything from licenses that were fully unenforceable and non-compliant with Github's license agreement to illegally distributing proprietary code to fundamentally misunderstanding how to use git. It's one thing to provide a source available codebase. That's a choice…

> non-compliant with Github's license agreement Oh no! I did notice all the hallmonitors calling for teacher. I absolutely support dumping proprietary code on any platform and I'm glad I got a copy the day it was uploaded which lets me verify any fork claiming to be from it.

So basically you're glad someone broke their contract so you could hoard more code on your local end?

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#88

Post by jart » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:48 PM UTC

Jenk wrote: post #81

bscphil wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see the original issue, but it's interesting that the title chooses to highlight the fact that the GPL code was modified . Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license.

> Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license. That's just not true, surely? Lest everyone using any flavour of Linux is liable to the same problem? How many apps out there are…

It is if you link it into your address space. If your code wants to be non-GPL then it needs to have some kind of barrier between it and the GPL code that it uses. For Linux, that would be the kernel syscall abi. But normally it's the process boundary. For example, if your program spawns the GNU gperf command, then its GPL license doesn't apply to your program. Furthermore, the generated code that the gperf command prints to stdout, is not encumbered by the GPL. In other words, the output of a GPL licensed program belongs to you. But if you were to copy gperf's .c files into your codebase and use their perfect hash table algorithm, then your software would become GPL encumbered, but only if you distribute. They will sue you and spare no quarter if you don't give your users the same freedoms that they gave you. Even if the gperf dev team doesn't do it, then some other org representing someone who contributed a bug fix once will. You can't hide and there is no time to survive, because GitHub can be easily monitored using tools like BigQuery.

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#89

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:48 PM UTC

datavirtue wrote: post #49

belthesar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source wasn't open though, it was available, and it was provided in a sense that fully showcased that they did not understand what they were doing. Everything from licenses that were fully unenforceable and non-compliant with Github's license agreement to illegally distributing proprietary code to fundamentally misunderstanding how to use git. It's one thing to provide a source available codebase. That's a choice…

[flagged]

You're really not helping the argument here that LLMs aren't just stealing code.

Re: Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

#90

Post by tensor » Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 6:48 PM UTC

Jenk wrote: post #81

bscphil wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see the original issue, but it's interesting that the title chooses to highlight the fact that the GPL code was modified . Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license.

> Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license. That's just not true, surely? Lest everyone using any flavour of Linux is liable to the same problem? How many apps out there are…

If you are linking against GPL code then yes it's true. If you are linking against LGPL code then it's fine. Note that running software on Linux doesn't mean you are linking to Linux. However, if you distribute Linux, then yes, you must supply the Linux source code on request.

The "technosphere" is generally fairly compliant on these things. There is no disaster. But this is also why most commercial companies avoid GPL libraries.