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

arstechnica.com

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

#161

Post by fooqux »

Calavar wrote: post #7

We've lost a lot with the deletion of this repo. Not the code - that's already out in the ether - but the absurdist comedy of the issues, pull requests, and commit history of trying to piecemeal delete third party non-FOSS software.

The other thing we lost is that future companies will think again before making their code public. It's already such an incredibly rare thing in the wild, but now companies and their lawyers will see that Winamp was exposed to potentially lawsuitable behavior that wouldn't have come to light had they never opened the code.

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

#162

Post by Calavar »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #124
Calavar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't meet your definition of the word open. That's a disingenuous argument. It doesn't meet the OSI's definition of open. > the community piled on them until they said it was so not worth it that just pulled the whole thing. Yes, but let's be honest: If it wasn't the community, it would have been DMCA takedown requests from the companies whose software was published in the repo. At best, the community hastene…

OK why do I care about how the OSI defines a word which predates the existence of the OSI by over 1000 years?

Not all definitions are created equal (you seemed to imply that yourself when you said "It doesn't meet your definition of the word open") and the OSI definition is widely considered the de facto standard. Of course no definition is perfect, so if you have specific issues with the OSI definition of open source, go ahead and explain them and your suggested alternative. Otherwise you are making an argument that's impossible to engage with because it's amorphous by design.

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

#163

Post by jen729w »

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.

# Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism

> Good online communities die primarily by refusing to defend themselves.

> Somewhere in the vastness of the Internet, it is happening even now. It was once a well-kept garden of intelligent discussion, where knowledgeable and interested folk came, attracted by the high quality of speech they saw ongoing. But into this garden comes a fool, and the level of discussion drops a little—or more than a little, if the fool is very prolific in their posting. (It is worse if the fool is just articulate enough that the former inhabitants of the garden feel obliged to respond, and correct misapprehensions—for then the fool dominates conversations.)

Read the whole thing:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-...

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

#165

Post by EasyMark »

flamt wrote: post #12

Here is a mirror of the repo, as of the last commit before it was deleted: https://git.cbraaten.dev/AtRiskRepos/winamp Also here is a git bundle file which can be cloned from: https://litter.catbox.moe/dwhadv.bundle

Thank you for doing the lord’s work.

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

#166

Post by bena »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #107
seattle_spring wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GitHub doesn't provide nearly enough tools for moderation though Which in itself would summon the vitriol of the super-trolls. "Moderation is censorship" is the most absolutely ridiculous mantra to gain traction in the last decade.

Gotta remind them that censorship is what governments do. Nobody is forced to associate with them.

That is not true. Censorship is the suppression of expression. Full stop. Anyone who controls a medium can do it. Only the U.S. government can violate the First Amendment to the Constitution.

People often conflate the two. That censorship and First Amendment violations are one and the same. They are not.

And the reason the U.S. government saw fit to restrict its ability to censor its public is because they recognized that that ability could be used to censor legitimate criticism of the government.

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

#167

Post by leni536 »

kccqzy wrote: post #72
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.

The original issue was complaining about libdiscid which is under the LGPL license not GPL. With that license, linking to an unmodified library in proprietary software is fine. What's not fine is to link to a modified library without releasing the source code for that modification. (Of course here the modification is extremely simple so some concludes this is a nothing burger.) The original poster likely knew the LGP…

> With that license, linking to an unmodified library in proprietary software is fine.

Was it linked dynamically? Static linking to an LGPL library from a proprietary application is also possible, but way trickier.

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

#168

Post by thomastjeffery »

moomin wrote: post #111

This, btw, is why open sourcing proprietary software rarely happens: you actually have to go to a fair amount of careful effort to get it right. If you don’t, you end up with this debacle.

Not really. The reason in this case is that they wanted to share the source code exclusively for direct collaboration under their own direction; so they wrote an incomprehensible and incoherent license, and gave up after everyone called them out on their bullshit.

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

#170

Post by zizee »

jraph wrote: post #164
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #136

Good job, team. Companies are sure to open source their legacy proprietary applications now after that warm reception.

They didn't open source anything though. They shared some code under some restrictive license.

The "chilling" effect is still the same.
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