Half of GitHub Code Unsafe To Use (If You Want Open Source)

Posted by timothy on Saturday December 1, 2012 @05:39AM from the but-they-said-to-download dept.

WebMink writes "GitHub is a great open source hosting site, right? Wrong. There's no requirement that projects on GitHub provide any copyright license, let alone an open source one, so roughly half the projects on GitHub are "all rights reserved" — meaning you could well be violating copyright if you make any use of the code in them. And GitHub management seem just fine with this state of affairs, saying picking a license is too hard for ordinary developers. But if you're not going to give anyone permission to use your code, why post it on GitHub in the first place?"

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Re:Bitbucket by debrain · 2012-12-01 07:42 · Score: 0, Troll

If the rumours are true, BitBucket was a blatant screen-for-screen imitation of GitHub's design:

I understand that imitation is flattering to some point and copying one or two things is cool, but BitBucket copied our website screen for screen in nearly every major aspect without asking for permission or acknowledging the theft.
If the owners of Bitbucket have no qualms about stealing GitHub's creation ... should you really trust them with yours?
I thought it was worth $7 per month to go with GitHub for this reason.
YMMV.