Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 371 posts

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

#281

Post by pxc »

jart wrote: post #112
VonGuard wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great idea except it won't make anyone money. Therefore it will never happen. Copyright law in America is not based on good ideas, reasonability, or even preservation. They are based on profit. Your idea is great, but we do not live in a world where good ideas matter at all. Only money matters here, and this idea will not make anyone money.

It's not a great idea, because law and policy are designed to privilege makers rather than takers. It's a subversive degenerate kind of morality to argue that things belong to the people who desire to consume them.

The copyright clause of the US constitution, at least, is explicit that the artifice of temporary monopoly for copyright holders exists for the benefit of society as a whole, not (supposedly) for the rightsholders themselves. The benefit for rightsholders (who are only sometimes the 'makers' anyway) is merely instrumental.

It's the notion that IP is about protecting some kind of natural right that is a perversion, both historically (evinced in such language as the copyright clause) and ethically (I assert).

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

#282

Post by pxc »

jart wrote: post #88
Jenk wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

> spare no quarter if you don't give your users the same freedoms that they gave you.

What? The actual history of GPL enforcement is restrained when it comes to remediation. Are you aware of some routinely punitive GPL enforcer that I am not? Or is this FUD or a joke?

I hope I've not missed some news about your own projects and that you've not been subject to anxiety or meanness on account of the GPL, either. :(

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

#283

Post by llm_trw »

Phrodo_00 wrote: post #128
dyauspitr wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's not clear their license was open source, actually. OSI Makes free distribution the first part of the definition of open source, as well the ability to create derived works[1]. Their rule against forking might clash against that. [1] https://opensource.org/osd

> It’s all downsides with entitled shutins getting their rare drama fix

>> It's not clear their license was open source, actually. OSI Makes free distribution the first part of the definition of open source, as well the ability to create derived works[1]. Their rule against forking might clash against that.

Thank you for your satirical post to highlight the type of person OP was mocking.

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

#284

Post by throwaway2037 »

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.

    > his lawyers tell him
Is this common in the US? I cannot imagine someone from Italy or France writing a post like this.

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

#285

Post by pxc »

FactKnower69 wrote: post #249
jart wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a great idea, because law and policy are designed to privilege makers rather than takers. It's a subversive degenerate kind of morality to argue that things belong to the people who desire to consume them.

Damn, I wonder what book you read to make you so smart?

Justine is an impressive hacker, several of whose projects have made their way to the front page of this site before. She's plenty smart and that's plain to see.

Calling her stupid isn't a good way to show her (or anyone) that she's wrong about this.

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

#286

Post by pxc »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #235
mort96 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the hell do you combine "open source" and "all distribution rights are reserved for the original developer"? That's a nonsensical combination, the whole point of open source is that you can make your own copy with your own changes and distribute it to people

You are confusing Open Source with Free Software . GPL family of licenses are the ones propely securing everyone's right to distribute modifications.

This is wrong. Permissively licensed (MIT, BSD, WTFPL, Apache, etc.) free software is still free software. Open-source requires the provision of the same right to distribute modified copies as free software does.

Copyleft licenses like the GPL assert the same right recursively for downstream users, more or less (details vary between copyleft licenses). But granting the right (to distribute modified copies) to first-order recipients of the source code is common to all free and open-source licenses. That's great! I imagine it's what you're getting at with the phrase 'properly secured'.

But to qualify as open-source, a license must allow redistribution of modified copies, and copyleft is not the only kind of free software license

See (for instance) the Free Software Foundation Europe's FAQ entry 'what is open-source software?':

https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/legal/faq.en.html#opensource

as well as the Criterion 3 of the Open Source Initiative's open-source definition: https://opensource.org/osd

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

#287

Post by martinsnow »

burningChrome wrote: post #52
VonGuard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Courts do not do that. The people suing would offer up a big old list of damages into the millions and then negotiate down from there to something like 6 figures AND the loser covering the court costs. The American legal system is completely broken, and amounts to two people piling up money, then the one with the bigger stack wins both stacks of money. This is completely untenable for a non-profit to even think about…

>> 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…

If you're willing to take on such an economical risk, why don't you pony up the money and start serving the content?

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

#288

Post by rat9988 »

benatkin wrote: post #121
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.

We never had the code actually. That code is of no use to me without a proper license.

Being able to read it was better than not.

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

#289

Post by krisoft »

ezekg wrote: post #243
krisoft wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do discussions about source-available models often turn into accusations of soliciting free labor? Simple. Because the company literally wrote this in their press release[1] at the time they were releasing it. Direct quote “This is an invitation to global collaboration, where developers worldwide can contribute their expertise, ideas, and passion to help this iconic software evolve.” Further direct quote: “With…

My point is simple: if someone contributes, they accept the terms. Complaining about ‘free labor’ is irrelevant. The contributor chose to contribute; if they didn’t agree with the terms, they wouldn’t have. Nobody is asking for an uninvolved third-party to police the collaboration. I'd also be careful attributing these actions to malice without further motive, when it very well could also be attributed to excitement…

> if someone contributes, they accept the terms

That assumes that everyone has full information of course. Discussing the terms publicly is helping everyone reach that state.

> Nobody is asking for an uninvolved third-party to police the collaboration.

And someone is asking you to police what people are chatting about here? Doesn’t feel to be an entirely thought through argument.

> I'd also be careful attributing these actions to malice without further motive

I don’t actually care if they are “malicious” or “inept” or “ill informed” or anything else. In fact I think someone was excited about the open collaboration, and someone else at the company was worried about losing business opportunities and that is how we ended up with this situation. Maybe it was even the same person at different times.

Maybe they heard about open source but never really understood the concept, and the motivations of people participating in it.

Or maybe they are just as greedy as they appear to be.

Who knows and who cares. What matters is that this is a rough deal and people should not play within their rules.

Post reply on HN