RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#1

Post by stargrave » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community
lists.gnu.org

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#2

Post by xwowsersx » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 6:58 AM UTC

How does GitHub encourage sloppy licensing? How is GitHub bad for free software?

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#3

Post by blihp » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:27 AM UTC

Is his comment based on outdated information? I just checked and github appears to recognize a few dozen (https://help.github.com/en/github/creating-cloning-and-archi...) license types including gpl2, gpl3 and lgpl

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#4

Post by lgierth » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:28 AM UTC

RMS has done terrible harm to our community

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#5

Post by kburman » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:30 AM UTC

Can someone explain the issue with slopy licensing and what is RMS?

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#6

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:30 AM UTC

xwowsersx wrote: post #2

How does GitHub encourage sloppy licensing? How is GitHub bad for free software?

[deleted]

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#7

Post by wichert » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:31 AM UTC

There is some awful stuff in that thread, like this gem [1]:

  After microsoft puchased Github, they encouraged "Codes of Conduct".
  So now 40k "opensource projects" hace CoC's.
  Obviously men won't be contributing to said projects, other than
  the people allready in them.

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-system-discuss/2019-1...

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#8

Post by rethab » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:31 AM UTC

kburman wrote: post #5

Can someone explain the issue with slopy licensing and what is RMS?

RMS is Richard Stallman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#9

Post by psv1 » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:32 AM UTC

There is being direct and then there is speaking like an edgy teenager for entirety of your adult life. It's so difficult to take Stallman seriously when he makes these extreme generalisations.

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#10

Post by robinwassen » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:33 AM UTC

xwowsersx wrote: post #2

How does GitHub encourage sloppy licensing? How is GitHub bad for free software?

I think the reason is that GitHub lowers the barrier of entry to distribution of OSS.

This makes more people distribute OSS, and most devs do probably not care as much about OSS licensing as RMS would like and therefore do "mistakes".

RMS has a high horse stance, I think that easier access to OSS is better even though it might come with some side effects.