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Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

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Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#51

Post by ericb »

boleary-gl wrote: post #35
CodesInChaos wrote: post #21

1. Is a database like that even copyrightable, especially in the US? > United States: Uncreative collections of facts are outside of Congressional authority under the Copyright Clause (Article I, § 8, cl. 8) of the United States Constitution, therefore no database right exists in the United States. Originality is the sine qua non of copyright in the United States (see Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service). h…

Anytime you publish something, it is copyrighted. The data within may not be, but my presentation of it in a certain database certainly is.

When is my work protected?

Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

Source: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#52

Post by alberth »

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…

> "You don’t magically get your MIT license back by forking before the license change"

Am I understanding this correctly. If for example, 15 years you have an MIT code base with only MIT code. Then yesterday, you add a few lines of GPL code. Then today, you remove 100% of the GPL code you just previously added in order to revert back your codebase to be only MIT code ... it's no longer "MIT"? The GPL has now tainted their entire existing codebase?

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#53

Post by ivanbakel »

5560675260 wrote: post #48
judofyr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I bet this is a lot of corporate type's worst nightmare, that some underling added some segment of GPL code to their product, and now the entire thing is "technically" GPL. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure this is _not_ how it works. Your code doesn't magically "become" licensed under GPL if you use GPL code. Your code is now in _violation_ of the GPL and one way of fixing it is to re-license your code. Another way i…

> you may still have to pay damages This is probably a first time I've seen damages mentioned in relation to GPL violations. Did anyone try enforce this?

There is at least one case[0] I can find. Probably it is exceedingly rare simply because companies are much more likely to settle, especially in the cheapest way possible i.e. stop distributing the tainted software.

[0]:https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases#Bus...

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#54

Post by eek04_ »

crazypython wrote: post #26
TomOwens wrote: post #10

This just bit me. The first thing that I noticed was that some people are not understanding the GPL. It's far more impactful to Rails than the vast majority of web applications built using Rails. The use of GPL'd files means that the gem itself has to be released under the GPL. Since the gem is now under the GPL, dependencies are also under the GPL. That would include Rails. However, even if Rails was under the GPL,…

> The use of GPL'd files means that the gem itself has to be released under the GPL. Since the gem is now under the GPL, dependencies are also under the GPL. No, that's not true. You can dual-license dependent software under GPL and MIT. The GPL merely requires a license at least as permissive as it.

You can dual-license if you own the full copyright ownership but if you include GPLed stuff (and don't have the full copyright ownership) you'll have to GPL the result.

As for "at least as permissive" - it requires no further restrictions, but it adds a bunch of restrictions itself. And there's no other license that doesn't add restrictions - MIT adds restrictions to reproduce the MIT license, which is an extra restriction. The restrictions are attempted excused by the FSF under the "attribution" clause of the GPL, but it is not clear to me that is valid and it has not tested by any court.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#56

Post by toast0 »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #22
gedy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this is subjective (though maybe not legally), but this lookup table of extensions to mimetypes doesn't feel like GPL "software". It's just a description of other software's conventions using the GPLed source as a reference: https://github.com/minad/mimemagic/blob/master/lib/mimemagic... To create a non-GPL version, you would have to do what? Research extensions without letting your eyes see this GPLed list?

> this lookup table of extensions to mimetypes doesn't feel like GPL "software". Copyright nor the GPL are limited to software, collections of data are copyrightable as well; and thus they can fall under the GPL as well. > To create a non-GPL version, you would have to do what? Research extensions without letting your eyes see this GPLed list? Yes.

> collections of data are copyrightable as well

Collections of data are sometimes copyrightable. Depending on the jurisdiction, it may depend on the details of the collection.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#57

Post by psanford »

alberth wrote: post #52
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…

> "You don’t magically get your MIT license back by forking before the license change" Am I understanding this correctly. If for example, 15 years you have an MIT code base with only MIT code. Then yesterday, you add a few lines of GPL code. Then today, you remove 100% of the GPL code you just previously added in order to revert back your codebase to be only MIT code ... it's no longer "MIT"? The GPL has now tainted…

No.

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#59

Post by CodesInChaos »

How does yanking work for rubygems?

In Rust a yanked version can still be downloaded when compiling (you have a lock-file referencing it), but isn't chosen when adding it as a new (transitive) dependency to your application. So yanking shouldn't break any existing applications.

(Though since is about a copyright violation, a DMCA notice against the package registry could result in a hard removal, and not just a yanked package)

Re: Removed gem breaks Rails ActiveStorage

#60

Post by dathinab »

Tomte wrote: post #36
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…

> and now the entire thing is "technically" GPL. The "thing" doesn't become GPL, though. They are in breach of the license, it's a major headache, and re-licensing the thing as GPL may be one way forward. That's not an automatism, though, and no court would declare the thing GPL. You may pay hefty "fictitious" licensing fees and (punitive) damages, you may have to stop distributing your thing, but you're not losing c…

> You may pay hefty "fictitious" licensing fees and (punitive) damages,

Except in cases like this you likely won't.

As it's clearly a mistake you clearly fixed asap its unlikely you have to pay more than small punitive damages.

Wrt. license fees and (non punitive damages) it's a bit more tricky but it boils down to the damage done. But as this libraries are only distributed GPL licensed and non essential (can easily be replaced) you will have a hard time to show that any damage was done and that the software can be sold for any non negligent amount of money. And if no damage was done and there is no reasonable case for selling the software i.e. non negligible fictious license cost you can guess how the ruling will end.

If you would have intentionally/knowingly done the violation and/or it being essential non easily replaceable software which saved you a lot of money and/or gave you other benefits things are different.

But this isn't really the case in this case as far as I can tell.

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