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

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

#351

Post by jeffalyanak »

fsflover wrote: post #349
bmacho wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing windows API is emulating windows > In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the host) to behave like another computer system (called the guest). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator

Interesting. However WINE is not in this list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computer_system_emul...

It's an OS or API emulator, not a computer system emulator. It's a different scope, but still fits the definition of an emulator.

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

#352

Post by troad »

Communitivity wrote: post #324

This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague. This whole debacle 'won' one battle for GPL licensing but set the war (and their stated ultimate goals) back by a significant amount. This event is a big topic among the devs where I work. It's reignited the 'we should make sure our policies state no use of GPL licensed code or libraries without the exception' (use of…

> This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague.

This being, in turn, a fantastic reason to use the GPL for your code.

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

#353

Post by bmacho »

account42 wrote: post #312
fsflover wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wine Is Not Emulator.

And this image does not depict a pipe: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/MagrittePipe.... Giving WINE (originally WINdows Emulator) a cute backronym does not change the definition of the word emulator or whether Wine is one. Please check your favorite dictionaries for that.

> Giving WINE (originally WINdows Emulator) a cute backronym

https://www.winehq.org/about states that it was an acronym for "Wine Is Not an Emulator", and it isn't now, the opposite of what you claim. (I don't really believe winehq, but I can't find the original discussion on newsgroup archives.)

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

#354

Post by Communitivity »

troad wrote: post #352
Communitivity wrote: post #324

This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague. This whole debacle 'won' one battle for GPL licensing but set the war (and their stated ultimate goals) back by a significant amount. This event is a big topic among the devs where I work. It's reignited the 'we should make sure our policies state no use of GPL licensed code or libraries without the exception' (use of…

> This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague. This being, in turn, a fantastic reason to use the GPL for your code.

I thought one of the goals for the FOSS movement was to increase adoption of FOSS software by corporations. How is corporations avoiding GPL code a reason to use GPL when creating new software?

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

#355

Post by troad »

Communitivity wrote: post #354
troad wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague. This being, in turn, a fantastic reason to use the GPL for your code.

I thought one of the goals for the FOSS movement was to increase adoption of FOSS software by corporations. How is corporations avoiding GPL code a reason to use GPL when creating new software?

The FOSS movement is not a monolith. There are many individuals and organisations pursuing many different goals, many of which are at odds with or even antithetical to the goals pursued by Fortune 500 companies.

The kind of company that won't touch the GPL with a ten-foot pole is not the kind of company that's looking to be a good participant in the FOSS space. The purpose or merit of appeasing them by switching to a non-copyleft license like MIT is not at all clear to me.

Some of the most powerful people in the world are not entitled to the free labour of under-employed hackers building cool things in their spare time without any expectation of reciprocating, which is the only significant thing that the GPL mandates which MIT does not.

"We'd use this, were it not for the GPL" = "we'd use this, were it not for the obligation to give our improvements back", which is a massive red flag. Fear of the GPL boils down to the simple fact that these entities don't care about FOSS, they just want to build their proprietary castles on top of public beaches.

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

#356

Post by greggyb »

account42 wrote: post #312
fsflover wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wine Is Not Emulator.

And this image does not depict a pipe: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/MagrittePipe.... Giving WINE (originally WINdows Emulator) a cute backronym does not change the definition of the word emulator or whether Wine is one. Please check your favorite dictionaries for that.

> And this image does not depict a pipe

In fact, it does. Literally, "This is not a pipe," because an image of a pipe is not a pipe.

From the artist:

> The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe", I'd have been lying!

Sourced from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

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

#357

Post by account42 »

tensor wrote: post #90
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…

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 G…

> Note that running software on Linux doesn't mean you are linking to Linux.

Technically, you do link to linux-vdso.so (or variants depending on architecture), which is part of the kernel image. There doesn't seem to be an explicit GPL exception for the sources of this library [0] but the general syscall exception [1] may or may not apply.

[0] e.g. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/arch/x86/entry...

[1] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/LICENSES/excep...

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

#358

Post by account42 »

benchloftbrunch wrote: post #252
BSDobelix wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>copyright law applies First that's not true and even if that would be only true in the US. Since the US is not THE "law" you cant say that. Also: >Under the current law, works created on or after January 1, 1978, have a copyright term of life of the author plus seventy years after the author's death. https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/ So when Gates dies and i violate Microsofts License 7 years later i can…

Under US law, for works created by companies the term is a flat 95 years from publication, so MS-DOS 6.22 will become public domain on January 1 2090. You and I will likely be dead.

Which is an atrocity. Depriving everyone of the ability to build on existing works until those works are ancient history is absurd and there is no way this is a good deal for society.

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

#359

Post by account42 »

francisofascii wrote: post #318
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Agreed. How about the "landlord" expected the kids to cut the grass and weed the gardens house for use of the field, and only allowed them access on certain days and times.

More like the landlord wanted the kids to cut the grass for free so he gave them permission to look at the grass but not touch it and explicitly forbid playing on the grass. Oh and it turns out he doesn't even own all the land.

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

#360

Post by account42 »

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…

Which makes sense because just being orphaned within git doesn't mean that there aren't any external references from PRs or just comments that people expect to be able to view.

And of course for actual secrets (as in passwords/keys/etc.) having deleting them from GitHub is not going to help you anyway as others could have made local copies that you have no control over.

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