So, distributed git has become sort of centralised. Maybe people depend too much on github? I wonder, what would happen to IT over the world if github will be down for a week or a month?
GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
61–70 of 194 posts
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#62So, distributed git has become sort of centralised. Maybe people depend too much on github? I wonder, what would happen to IT over the world if github will be down for a week or a month?
There is literally nothing preventing someone to host they code on gitlab/sourcehut/their own gitea server. Most people use github because it is free, but the git protocol is far from centralized.
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#63That seems odd, given that Kevin Wayne is co-author of the 4th edition of "Algorithms".
Kevin Wayne is one of the co-authors of the book, but the copyright listing is "Copyright 2011 Pearson Education, Inc." and there does not appear to be anything in the book that says that the code is GPL licensed. Presumably Kevin Wayne was given the right to license the code as GPL, but that fact didn't get included in the text of the book, and the f*cking, stupid copyright bot Pearson uses didn't get the memo.
There is a counter notice from him (I think) here: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2...
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#64So, distributed git has become sort of centralised. Maybe people depend too much on github? I wonder, what would happen to IT over the world if github will be down for a week or a month?
Utter chaos for a week, then a week or two of swearing at gitlab then the world would continue - since while we use github we don't really use github - it's just a shared git repository with a reasonably nice interface for reviewing code.
That's for my company, for many open source projects the damage would be more severe since they often heavily use issues and GH project management features.
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#65Not totally unrelated: Pearson is a piece of trash company. They sell very overpriced textbooks and always use DRM in online copies. They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. And guess who provides the certificate required by teachers to evaluate those exam copies? Yes, Pearson. And they make a ton of money. Please watch this talk for more context (even if you d…
In college we had to use them. It was a financial burden on myself. $100/course essentially. Our school mandated that we take homeworks using Pearson's online system. This means if you found a used copy of the book it was essentially waste. You needed to have a one-time-use code (printed on the book) to do your homework. If you didn't, you'd essentially fail the class. Also, the system was buggy.
The entire thing is a racket.
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
What seems odd is that the code is freely licenced to the public, no matter who wrote it. These DMCA requests are created and acted upon without the slightest checking, with no penalty. There should be some sort of modest cost somewhere to stop this nonsense.
There should be a 3-strikes and you're out when it comes to DMCA abuse. After 3 false DMCA notices you lose all copyrights. That will stop this abuse once and for all. Running automated systems that do nothing but harass people over things that they are legally able to do should be illegal.
Read up on “copyright misuse”. The law says a single infraction can invalidate all related copyrights.
It has never been used in response to a DMCA takedown notice. It is far past time for that to happen. The precedent alone would end this crap.
With such a precedent, Pearson would be at risk of losing the copyright on the entire textbook (and probably related course materials, tests, etc.)
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yours sincerely, [private] Internet Investigator On behalf of: Pearson Education, Inc. ------------------------------------ Seems like another glorious victory of the overzealous online copyright strikers. Nothing out of the ordinary, will likely get sorted out in a day or two.
> Internet Investigator Haha... that's a brilliant euphemism for "profession Google user". Or maybe we could call it "serial scrapist"? Of all the silly titles I tried to come up with, this sure hadn't crossed my mind yet. And it has a catchy ring to it too. "Internet Investigator" got to be somewhere up there between "Adult Software Engineer" (middle ground between "Junior" and "Senior") and "Server Captain/Commodor…
It literally is the name of the company, haha.
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
TEDx talks (like the linked one is) are not proper TED talks, there are affiliated events all over hosting them. While there are many good TEDx talks, many of them aren't what you would expect when hearing the TED name. Especially bad is it that some TEDx events let quacks talk, which gives them a kind of legitimacy based on TED's reputation even though they're saying bullshit. Of course, this commingling has also ta…
Indeed: https://youtu.be/X9advgMBbdo
TED Talk or a pitch for VC money, "Just two Ivy League grads working 6 figure tech jobs with a little too much time on our hands."
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#69So, distributed git has become sort of centralised. Maybe people depend too much on github? I wonder, what would happen to IT over the world if github will be down for a week or a month?
There is literally nothing preventing someone to host they code on gitlab/sourcehut/their own gitea server. Most people use github because it is free, but the git protocol is far from centralized.
Thankfully `git clone kevin-wayne/algs4` doesn't default to asking github.com like some package managers [[docker]].
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#70If this was a youtube channel takedown people would be mad at Google, but good to see at least here HN is blaming the bad actors like they should - ie. the copyright laws and its abusers.
People are mad at google for _automatic_ takedowns, as they enable bad actors and are arguably not in the spirit of the law. In this case here, github does not employ an overzealous automated system. This is a manual DMCA claim and the issuer is the single actor here, who could be to blame.
People got mad at Google for automatically honoring DMCA takedowns, which is what GitHub is doing, as they both have to if they want to maintain not being legally liable. Content ID is also a system people are mad with but has nothing to do with DMCA besides Google saying 'pretty please only enroll content you own into Content ID'.