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Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

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Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#101

Post by ro_ro »

byroot wrote: post #98
ro_ro wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's even more silly is implying that caching your dependencies is some kind of a fix here. So you'll be able to deploy for a few more days, then what?

Then the 0.3.6 version was released, and we could update because the license isn't much of a problem in this case. Alternatively we could have continuee to deploy for a few more days until Rails core shipped a new version of Active Storage without that dependency. It's effectively the same as vendoring, except we're not blowing up our repositories with 10 years of dependencies.

I should clarify... Vendoring is a terrible solution. Caching is a general good practice but not a solution.

All in all, this kind of thing happens once in a blue moon...

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#102

Post by thedanbob »

cstrahan wrote: post #94

This was handled quite poorly -- a different course of action could have avoided all the chaos while also resolving the GPL violation. As the GPL FAQ states: > If a programming language interpreter has a license that is incompatible with the GPL, can I run GPL-covered programs on it? (#InterpreterIncompat) > When the interpreter just interprets a language, the answer is yes. The interpreted program, to the interprete…

That approach is roughly being taken in this fork: https://github.com/jellybob/mimemagic/issues/1

With the difference that the gem will by default download the XML file at runtime, with the option of using a local copy specified by an environment variable. I guess they are operating under the belief that including any GPL file taints the library, or perhaps they're just playing it safe.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#103

Post by byroot »

ro_ro wrote: post #101
byroot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the 0.3.6 version was released, and we could update because the license isn't much of a problem in this case. Alternatively we could have continuee to deploy for a few more days until Rails core shipped a new version of Active Storage without that dependency. It's effectively the same as vendoring, except we're not blowing up our repositories with 10 years of dependencies.

I should clarify... Vendoring is a terrible solution. Caching is a general good practice but not a solution. All in all, this kind of thing happens once in a blue moon...

I don't claim it's a long term solution, and that you should run of your cache for years.

But having that cache means you have the time to get a clean solution rather than having to rush something because nobody can work anymore can you can't deploy fixes to production either.

These yanking issues are really problematic, but if they interrupted your workflow, then there's something wrong with your build pipeline.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#104

Post by jahewson »

[deleted] wrote: post #88

[deleted]

> could a library author claim their old code infringed on copyright to force users to upgrade to a paid version?

Anybody can claim anything. Only the holder of the infringed copyright has standing to sue, so the library author in your example has no power to force anything. They may also be civilly liable for damages to the library users and, if unlicensed code was planted deliberately, then also criminally (extortion).

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#105

Post by tinus_hn »

spijdar wrote: post #14

This is the sort of thing that makes some people really wary of the GPL and other "viral" licenses, and I don't think you can blame them. The "blame" for this falls on someone for throwing in GPL'd code into an MIT project, but the headache drops onto a whole bunch more people down the line. It seems other commenters think this will probably be alright, but I bet this is a lot of corporate type's worst nightmare, tha…

Exactly the same thing happens with non open source, proprietary code which leaks into open projects.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#106

Post by dspillett »

spijdar wrote: post #14

This is the sort of thing that makes some people really wary of the GPL and other "viral" licenses, and I don't think you can blame them. The "blame" for this falls on someone for throwing in GPL'd code into an MIT project, but the headache drops onto a whole bunch more people down the line. It seems other commenters think this will probably be alright, but I bet this is a lot of corporate type's worst nightmare, tha…

> This is the sort of thing that makes some people really wary of the GPL and other "viral" licenses

True, though the people most concerned about GPL & related licenses are usually commercial users and commercial licenses that include code access are no less "viral" then the GPL.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#107

Post by michaelt »

ivanbakel wrote: post #3

It's interesting how many commenters on the various issues around the license change seem to think that software licensing is an inconvenience, rather than a serious legal question.

Well, when viewed from the perspective of legal realism, a lot of software licensing is a joke.

I'm an open source developer - but even if Oracle had violated my license terms and I had indisputable proof of it, I wouldn't take them to court.

Arguing about the differences between GPL3 and WTFPL in a hypothetical court case is about as meaningful and productive as arguing about the differences between a chainsaw and a katana in a hypothetical zombie apocalypse.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#108

Post by smarx007 »

wokwokwok wrote: post #7

The reason this is happening is not obvious without reading https://github.com/minad/mimemagic/issues/97 > I've historically been the maintainer of shared-mime-info for around 15 years, and script/freedesktop.org.xml looks like it's a copy of the database shipped with shared-mime-info, which is released under the GPL, with shared-mime-info's translators work merged in, and the GPL header removed. > The license that y…

One thing I am not sure is why such a radical action was taken so quickly without thinking carefully first? It's not like a lawsuit was threatened or something. The original request in https://github.com/minad/mimemagic/issues/97 that you linked to was very polite and professional.

1) A time extension to remove the GPLed code could be politely requested. I know that the copyright belongs to all contributors but getting on good terms with the maintainer could be a solid first step. I think just opening a PR with that file deleted (and tests failing) could have been interpreted as a willingness to comply with the request in good faith.

2) A request to relicense the XML file in question under LGPL could have been sent to the original project (could be problem without CLAs, but still worth a try). Then the library could have been relicensed under LGPL.

3) Gem users could have been notified. Some prominent people from those projects could have helped with (1) and joined a kind request (2) to the original project.

At least that's how we'd (try to) handle it on our project under Eclipse Foundation (though we used to have a GPL code scanning for releases in the first place until very recently) if such situation arose. Anyway, talking to people first before doing something quickly is often a good idea.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#109

Post by qotgalaxy »

misnome wrote: post #23
spijdar wrote: post #14

This is the sort of thing that makes some people really wary of the GPL and other "viral" licenses, and I don't think you can blame them. The "blame" for this falls on someone for throwing in GPL'd code into an MIT project, but the headache drops onto a whole bunch more people down the line. It seems other commenters think this will probably be alright, but I bet this is a lot of corporate type's worst nightmare, tha…

> makes some people really wary of the GPL and other "viral" licenses It's worse than that surely - as in this case avoiding GPL doesn't prevent the problem. This sounds like for a medium-paranoid-legal perspective, that it would "prove" that even non-GPL code isn't safe, thus discouraging from usage of any open source software [edit: dependencies] > One can only imagine if it was AGPL instead of GPL Right, that seem…

Why would closed source software be safe? Say I copy shared-mime-info completely, compile it, sell it to you as MimeWizardPRO2000, you include it as part of your closed source web framework and sell that. You're still distributing GPL code without making your source available.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#110

Post by rst »

whimsicalism wrote: post #99
murderfs wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data in and of itself cannot be copyrighted under U.S. copyright law: "creative arrangement" of it can be, but given that the data in question was generated from XML file, I don't think you could make a claim that the arrangement was copied.

? I don't follow - it seems pretty clear that this falls under the GPL from my reading of what is copyrightable, ie. they can't copy your compilation of the data.

Your reading of what is copyrightable may not be entirely in accord with the US Supreme Court's, which has ruled that mere compilations of factual data (a telephone directory in the case that set the precedent) are not copyrightable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....

If someone is trying to apply the GPL to stuff which isn't legally copyrightable in the first place (as may be the case here), then their copyright isn't enforceable, and neither is the GPL.

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