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

LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 162 posts

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#151

Post by IshKebab »

nix0n wrote: post #23

If you are looking for another self-hostable alternative to Slack, Rocket chat[0] is also worth looking at. I wasn't involved in any of the Dev Ops aspect when my former employer used them, but the search function actually worked which is better than I can say for Slack. [0] https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/blob/develop/LICEN...

Really? I have yet to use a single Slack-alike with search that actually works - including Slack, Teams and Mattermost. I mean they "work" in that the search results happen to include your terms too, but they give you the actual relevant message only about 10% of the time.

Rocket Chat does look nice! I quite liked Mattermost except for the mobile app being trash. How is the Rocket Chat mobile app?

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#152

Post by ahartmetz »

arjie wrote: post #84
jeltz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could he ever win a case in court? At least the Swedish legal system is based a lot around common sense and good faith and such a trap would likely end up with the one who sued having to pay the legal costs for both parties.

Larry Philpot actually did win a case in court. His case was first dismissed but then on appeal the Fourth Circuit granted him the win: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/21...

The US legal system is famously not very much based on common sense and good faith. The US has 3x as many lawyers per capita as other Western countries and for some reason idolizes lawyers.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#153

Post by duskdozer »

ggm wrote: post #2

> at this time we are not entertaining any changes as such. Always wonder what leads people to write like this. What does "as such" add to the sentence? At least "at this time" is temporally conditional to the future, it has purpose. Entertaining is posh "thinking about" or "interested in" so had the merit of being one word in place of two but so is "considering" Are we not entertained?

It's just a corporate-mask tone of detaching from the message; it has the air of stock phrasing like "to whom it may concern"

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#154

Post by ethin »

mappu wrote: post #150
ethin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... I don't really see how they are. Technically they are but at the same time they aren't, because the set of conditions make the loosening of the AGPL a conditional thing. Which to me sounds like a violation of the AGPL because it's a further restriction: "We will (not) hold the AGPL against you... As long as you do these things..." I... Really don't think the AGPL was written to be... Abused? That way.

You can see the spirit of what they're going for also with the MIT binaries - that's also like saying the whole project is AGPL, but a loosening for using it as-is. Given their goals seem to be - Permissive use without modification, even in combined works ("MIT binaries"); but - Copyleft with modification, including for the Affero "network hole", or commercial terms could you suggest a clearer license option? AGPL tr…

I don't know anything more reasonable, but I would argue that this (isn't) reasonable precisely because it causes so much confusion due to the ambiguity and their refusal to clarify exactly what the terms really are.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#155

Post by dcrazy »

ahartmetz wrote: post #152
arjie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Larry Philpot actually did win a case in court. His case was first dismissed but then on appeal the Fourth Circuit granted him the win: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/21...

The US legal system is famously not very much based on common sense and good faith. The US has 3x as many lawyers per capita as other Western countries and for some reason idolizes lawyers.

Is your reaction based on reading the linked case? Because it seems pretty sensible to me. Philpot licensed the photo to AXS under traditional terms, and also posted it to Wikimedia with a CC-BY license. IJR put a copy of the photo in their listicle, did not follow either license, and then tried to claim fair use. It’s clearly not fair use. The whole reason you put photos in an article is to make people want to read the article—this hasn’t changed since the early days of newspaper photography. And the whole reason for publishing the article is commercial: to sell ads against it.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#156

Post by rlpb »

codeflo wrote: post #64
paxys wrote: post #29

I dug around for ~10 minutes and it's probably not an exaggeration to say that Mattermost might have the most confusing licensing of any software product in existence. From the license page on their repo ( https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost/blob/master/LICENSE... ): > 1. You are licensed to use compiled versions of the Mattermost platform produced by Mattermost, Inc. under an MIT LICENSE So just the compiled ve…

"We promise that we will not enforce" is perhaps a funny way not to grant a license, but making it sound like they do. This seems almost purposefully designed to look open-source to laypeople, while being carefully written in a way that ensures it will be vetoed by any corporate lawyer vetting the license.

Is "we promise not to enforce" legally binding I wonder, in which case it is de-facto a license? IANAL but it's an interesting concept.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#157

Post by nix0n »

IshKebab wrote: post #151
nix0n wrote: post #23

If you are looking for another self-hostable alternative to Slack, Rocket chat[0] is also worth looking at. I wasn't involved in any of the Dev Ops aspect when my former employer used them, but the search function actually worked which is better than I can say for Slack. [0] https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/blob/develop/LICEN...

Really? I have yet to use a single Slack-alike with search that actually works - including Slack, Teams and Mattermost. I mean they "work" in that the search results happen to include your terms too, but they give you the actual relevant message only about 10% of the time. Rocket Chat does look nice! I quite liked Mattermost except for the mobile app being trash. How is the Rocket Chat mobile app?

> How is the Rocket Chat mobile app?

I thought it was fine, but I can't compare to the Mattermost app since I've never tried to use that.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#159

Post by zdragnar »

throwaway150 wrote: post #131
zdragnar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liability is capped by court (e.g. small claims court) or by specific claim type depending on the legislation of the jurisdiction (e.g. speeding tickets typically have set fines varying by state). Liability is not capped by your ability to understand the law. If that is your concern, you shouldn't be doing business anywhere, US or otherwise.

> Liability is capped by court (e.g. small claims court) or by specific claim type depending on the legislation of the jurisdiction (e.g. speeding tickets typically have set fines varying by state). What you are saying is partly true and overly simplified. Are you a lawyer? Do you have legal expertise? If not, I don't understand why you feel compelled to advise on things you understand so little yourself? Are you goi…

> I do business in Europe. By paying actual laywers.

Then why are you asking for legal advice on HN?

> How far is "very, very far"? Is it far enough that, if there were a lawsuit, my liability would truly be capped at €10,000?

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#160

Post by ahartmetz »

dcrazy wrote: post #155
ahartmetz wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US legal system is famously not very much based on common sense and good faith. The US has 3x as many lawyers per capita as other Western countries and for some reason idolizes lawyers.

Is your reaction based on reading the linked case? Because it seems pretty sensible to me. Philpot licensed the photo to AXS under traditional terms, and also posted it to Wikimedia with a CC-BY license. IJR put a copy of the photo in their listicle, did not follow either license, and then tried to claim fair use. It’s clearly not fair use. The whole reason you put photos in an article is to make people want to read…

Admittedly it's not based on the linked case.
Post reply on HN