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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

#261

Post by leni536 »

speedyjay wrote: post #260
lolinder wrote: post #255

> In seeking to remove offending files with a simple deletion instead of a rebase, Winamp kept it available to those who know Git mechanics "Those who know Git mechanics" in this case is talking about extremely simple Git mechanics. Those who know more advanced Git mechanics would know that even a rebase is not sufficient to solve the problem of having pushed up secrets. Aside from the obvious problem of all the fork…

> offending commits will still also be available on GitHub (at least until the next garbage collection), No. Forever. Literally forever. GitHub does not run garbage collection, like, ever. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4367977/how-to-remove-a-... Dangling commit from 14 years ago : https://github.com/nylen/connectbot/commit/1cd775d There is only one way to delete data on github permanently and that's to request…

Hmm, do they count dangling commits towards your quota?

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

#262

Post by solidsnack9000 »

francisofascii wrote: post #116

This story is analogous to a landowner and a group of neighborhood kids. The landowner allows the kids to play baseball in his field, but then the kids complain the grass is not cut, they are playing late into the evening, a few kids vandalize damage his flower bed, and his lawyers tell him he will be sued if he doesn't make all these safety changes, and so the landowner says screw it and puts up a fence.

Sort of. In this case, as other posters have mentioned, the "landlord" did some questionable things.

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

#263

Post by ryandrake »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #254
armada651 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 run an app that Serves a small, specific demographic. We get about 50% [obvious] spam/scam signups (only 5 or 6 a day). That’s pretty sobering, when you consider that it’s a very low-profile, unpromoted, region-locked (US, Canada, Ireland, and India), iOS-only native app. We vet each signup manually.

Same here. I run a tiny Wordpress site that organizes private poker games for a local ~40 person league. We get maybe 5 signups a year from actual new members. We have it so that only admins can create new user accounts.

Once, that option got turned off accidentally and anyone could sign up. We got about 10 signups a day until I reverted the change, all spammers and bots.

The server logs also show that we get hit by script kiddies dozens of times an hour. This is such a tiny scale operation, with no meaningful commercial activity going on, but anything exposed to the public internet should be considered under attack 24/7.

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

#264

Post by mise_en_place »

ezekg wrote: post #226
ndiddy wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Llama Group laid off the team who had been working on Winamp and then released the source code under a license that bans users from distributing modified versions of the code themselves and assigns copyright on any contributions to Llama Group. IMO this absolutely points to them hoping that releasing the source code would let them offload Winamp maintenance onto the community.

That's entirely speculation. They could just as well be winding down the project entirely, which has happened before.

If they're winding it down, then they may as well make it fully OSS, and ditch the components that are proprietary that they can't release. Attribution can get complex with old software IP, especially when using such proprietary components.

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

#265

Post by jazzyjackson »

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?

Because if you disregard it you will constantly be getting in online arguments with license nerds

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

#266

Post by notpushkin »

ezekg wrote: post #198
fluoridation wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this happened because the company didn't want to open source the code, they wanted to openwash it and get free labor from the open source community. If another company wants to do the same and they decide not to because of this, nothing of value is lost.

> they wanted to openwash it and get free labor from the open source community. This is such a ridiculous accusation. Why do discussions about source-available models often turn into accusations of soliciting free labor? Why can't authors just provide access to source code, but reserve some or all of the distribution rights? It's their code, after all. Nobody is forcing 'the open source community' to contribute under…

I agree that as an author, you’re free to pick any license you want. If you want to release source code just to allow PRs, and don’t market it as open source – go for it.

Fair Source is a better model in that regard, kudos for using that! And I personally have no problem with using the term “open source” for that, although just using the distinct term is better.

In case of Winamp though, they:

1. Used a crayon license that prohibited pretty much everything and was indeed focused on collaboration

2. Made a press release about “opening up” the source – not using the exact phrase “open source” (except in the URL: https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-co...), but misleading nonetheless

3. Weren’t even the original authors

This is openwashing, and it is ridiculous, and they were rightfully shamed.

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

#267

Post by skissane »

leni536 wrote: post #167
kccqzy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

For a "shared source" app (i.e. source available but under restrictive non-open source terms), static linking is generally a non-issue, provided you give people permission to recompile the app from source with a modified library version, and you actually built the binaries you ship from the source you provide them (as opposed to some separate internal repo containing changes missing in the source you provide to your customers or the public). So, WinAmp currently would not be infringing even if it were statically linking modified LGPL libraries (assuming their source repo includes the source to the modifications) – although this may be evidence of past non-compliance.

Static linking is really only a big problem for proprietary apps where you don't give people the source code. Even there, so long as you ship them object files so they can relink it with an updated LGPL library version, you are fine. Once upon a time, linking at the customer site was not an uncommon strategy for enterprise software, in fact last time I worked with Oracle RDBMS (7+ years ago) it was still using that strategy for a standard install.

For LGPL 2.1, you don't even need to ship the object files or offer them for download – you just need to make an offer, valid for at least 3 years, [0] to supply them on request. LGPL 3.0 removed that provision, with LGPL 3.0 you have to either ship them or offer them as a separate download.

[0] I believe the "3 years" is from the date you ship each individual copy of the software. So if you released version 1.0 in 2001, and it contained a "valid for 3 years offer", if you are still offering version 1.0 for download from your website in 2024, that offer is valid until 2027 for someone who downloads it today. But if you removed version 1.0 from your website in 2005, and since then have not given anyone a copy, then the offer would have expired in 2008.

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

#268

Post by pxc »

readyplayernull wrote: post #190
n3storm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why archive was down?

It's WWII all over again with switched roles, and hacktivits DDOSed archive.org

I don't see any credibility to the claim that 'BlackMeta' were/are in fact hacktivists. Do you have any reason to repeat that?

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

#269

Post by [deleted] »

VonGuard wrote: post #76
burningChrome wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The people suing would offer up a big old list of damages into the millions and then negotiate down from there You're assuming an awful lot with this. - No defendant is going to negotiate a settlement out of court. They would force you to hire an attorney and force this to a trial because of how absurd it is. Then you would be left with other major issues: - One that any IP law firm would take a case like this on…

OK, so my non-profit with a budget of about $200,000 a year is now expected to lawyer up and take on this risk, where some random company can just sidle up to us, sue us for X, and automatically win because we cannot possibly afford a lawyer to even respond to their litigation? I love how utterly diconnected from reality HN comments are. Y'all seem to think that just because you can rationalize something on paper tha…

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