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Half of GitHub Code Unsafe To Use (If You Want Open Source)
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?"
Because it's a free place to store a git repo as a backup.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Is only a problem in places where computer algorithms can be patented. and beside, anyone just grabbing code and pasting direct onto a product without audit or modification is asking for a nice backdoor.
This certainly isn't a new problem. If you work for a corporation, you aren't going to use code without a clear license. At least, I hope you aren't. If you need clarification about a license, you can often just contact the author. Just because the website is called "Github" doesn't mean you should treat the code any differently than code you find laying around anywhere else.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Code having a license term, you use it under that license. Whats the problem. So you can't cut an paste it. Good. But as a example of an implementation its still very useful/educational.
The license chosen isup to the author, get over it. This militant 'I want it all for free and without me having to do anything' is your problem, not the authors.
As is Bitbucket (bitbucket.org), with the added bonus that the private repos that you create there are free too.
The man who dies rich dies disgraced. -- Andrew Carnegie
"All rights reserved" doesn't mean that you aren't going to give permission to use your code. It just means that you haven't done so yet, or you haven't made up your mind.
It is silly to use such code, even if accompanied by a license, because the right to use it can be revoked if it is reserved.
I've found modules I wanted to use on github and gone through the exercise of tracking down the authors and talking them into putting their code under some sort of license (hopefully one that's compatible with what I need, but of course it's up to them). It's surprising how many people don't understand of copyright law and licensing.
To "old" hands like me, GitHub is one of the last places reminiscent of the great liberties we had up to the end of the '90s. So what do we care ? Take code from GitHub, copy/paste, re-implement ideas you find there, possibly implemented badly.... C'mon, who gives a damn about copyright on GitHub ????
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Lets say I stumble across a fantastic utility, and the source is open for me to view. I'll dive through the code and make sure I'm comfortable with its functionality (i.e. it's not doing anything I don't want it to do) before grabbing the tool.
I'm not using the code for my own projects. I'm just vetting the code. Plenty of developers throw code for small utilities up for exactly this reason, and the vast majority of the world is totally cool with it.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Who does that? Piracy requires an ocean, ships, and lots of brutal, hand-to-hand combat effort.
Modern theft has been reduced to legislation.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
C'mon, it ain't that hard.
1. Post it on Github
2. Make everyone think it's free to use.
3. Sue everyone you can get your hands on who do.
4. Profit
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Daily reminder that "open source" doesn't necessarily automatically equal "free" (beer or freedom).
I'm OK with this.
The author seems to confuse open source with copyleft. Open source is not a legal thing. And a ban on redistribution of derivative works doesn't mean that it's useless. Knowing the source code of a piece of software is important if you want to use it for any security-sensitive work or if you want to implement some modifications of your own (which you don't intend to distribute). It's not unheard of even that a developer company only gives the source code to their paying costumers.
Whether you are working on proprietary code or open source code, you can't just paste code from the net into your project without a license, regardless of whether it's GPL, BSD, or some royalty-free use grant. Unless the code has an explicit license, or states explicitly that it is in the public domain, you simply cannot use it without express permission from the copyright holder, because no law grants you that right. Plain and simple. So if code in a git repo is "all rights reserved," the you can look, and even download it, but you cannot put it into your own code. So I don't see what the problem is here. License always matters, whether you're a FLOSS person or developing commercial software.
So of course half of all git repos are unsafe to use. Why does this warrant some big sensationalist article? Kind of along the lines of articles claiming the GPL is a threat to proprietary software companies because it will "infect" them somehow magically. Folks, a little bit of understanding of copyright law will go a long ways I think. Open source, even copyleft, depends on copyright to keep it as such. We should all have a basic understanding of it.
Gitorious is both free software (AGPL) and a hosted git service. Creating a project, you get to pick between 22 licences, proprietary or none. I haven't checked their stats to see what percentage of projects it hosts are open source or not.
Github is a great place to store your repository. It is ALSO a great place to share code with people you want to work with who may or may not be really conversant with git.
Github doesn't claim to provide a repository for open source software...just a place to store repositories which you (as an author) may or may not choose to attach a license to. But that doesn't remove the responsibility of the copier to determine what the license on that software may be. If I copy anything, I need to know if I have the right (copy right) to do that. The onus is and always has been on the copier. That said, the copyright owner is the one who will follow up with violations.
Just because I choose to use github to store my repositories (and, in my case, I use and pay for private repositories for those things that I don't want to share) does not mean that I want everyone in the world to download and use my stuff. I'm an idiot if I am surprised when people DO use my stuff that I make publicly available, but without an explicit license allowing use of my code, it is protected in the US by copyright laws as soon as I write it...and IANAL.
Github is just a great service for those of us who don't want to set up our own repository. They are not a guarantor of free software, nor a nanny to protect me.
My brain is overly lubricated
Github is the photobucket of source code. Licensing code would be another step that people generally don't want to bother with. If someone cares enough about licensing for some particular code, they can contact the author(s) easily enough. Frankly, worrying about licensing every piece of code you write is just a time-suck. It's necessary in some situations, but not
roughly half the projects on GitHub
GitHub allows creators to determine what license to publish under. The license is disclosed to downloaders. Some of it is under an open license. Some of it isn't.
"Is this code using a license compatible to my project?" is a pretty normal thing to ask before dropping something into your work.
Personally, I like having access to look at source on closed projects - projects I wouldn't otherwise have access to. You can learn stuff even if you don't copy/paste working code.
Half of Coffee Shop Unsafe to Drink (If You Want Decaf)
We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. However, by setting your pages to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view your Content. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories.
If you use source code found on github, it's going to be hard for the author to win a copyright lawsuit. This is a non-issue. They've basically allowed you to fork the code (with the implication that you're going to modify it). I don't see them in any way being able to recover punitive or even statutory damages.
The real danger with github, as with all open source, is ensuring that the project's owner hasn't stolen proprietary code from somewhere else. Imagine if Linus had grabbed some files from Unix, then IBM would have been in a lot more difficulty during the SCO case. Fortunately the only things Linus copied were semicolons and braces.
But if you use someone's code through an open source project, you can be liable, even if you got the code under the GPL or BSD license, because the project's owner didn't have the right to give you that code.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think so!
The public repository option for uploading makes no mention that you need to supply the code with a copyleft/copyright free license, just that the code is publicly listed and browsable. Why are people assuming that everyone is supposed to?
Are people confusing open source (publicly browsable source) from Open Source (the movement)?
Lots of so called open source projects either don't provide a license or provide conflicting license information. For example, we recently looked at a project where the web site says it's MIT, but the code says it's public domain.
Every question, answer, and comment on the StackExchange websites (StackOverflow, ServerFault, et. al.) is automatically licensed on something very akin to the GPL (the Creative Commons Share Alike License); if you use code from those sites, your entire application's source will legally have to be released.
Just because no one is talking about that doesn't mean it isn't legit. Check it out: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/25956/what-is-up-with-the-source-code-license-on-stack-overflow
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We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. However, by setting your pages to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view your Content. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories.
If you use source code found on github, it's going to be hard for the author to win a copyright lawsuit. This is a non-issue. They've basically allowed you to fork the code (with the implication that you're going to modify it). I don't see them in any way being able to recover punitive or even statutory damages.
Forking doesn't remove copyright. All that seems to have been accomplished by forking is adding someone else's possibly copyrighted work to the original author's copyrighted work.
...and they are all GLP2. Thieves are gonna steal, no matter what, so my code out there is free for the taking. I use GPL, only because a couple of other FOSS repositories require it. I'd much rather use the "Take Me, You Gypsy Stallion" license, in which the code is 100% open and free for all. I don't like GPL, because it's a coercive license; every bit as shackled and enslaved as the code the FOSS folks like to dis. However, it doesn't hurt to use it, in my context.
If I don't want people to have my code, then I have a Perforce server that I run in my local network. I have a lot of stuff there, as well.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
-H. L. Mencken
You won't be able to use this competitive advantage if your company has lawyers on staff. A small startup will use the advantage because they don't have a lawyer who can forget to explain estoppel to them.
"promiscuous sharing w/out a license leads to software transmitted diseases".
...
Well, before you use the software, checkout the license
AccountKiller
Just so you know, in the terms-and-services you clicked on when you signed up for github, you actually gave permission to everyone in the world to download, view, and fork your stuff.
True. However the original copyright remains intact. Maybe you could add your copyright to code that you add. The original author doesn't seem to lose anything by forking. Well other than individuals may download and privately use, but not redistribute, the forked version rather than the original version.
...especially when there is nothing in the code to indicate what the license is.
It's like a hotel mini-bar but with no indication or understanding that you actually have to pay for the overpriced booze and peanuts. This hotel is in a hippie commune where the usual rules don't apply. So it's not obvious that crass rules apply.
So you don't make the usual default assumption that everything has dire restrictions by default, that everything has a price, and that they will try to charge you for those booze and peanuts later.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Since the original author is essentially publishing the code it would seem that an individual downloader would have the right to use the code on a personal basis. This individual would merely not be allowed to redistribute or otherwise share the code.
Of course if the individual wants to share the work with someone else they merely have to refer that person to the original author's github repository.
So if someone creates a useful a utility program, decides to license it in a non-FOSS manner, the author can still share it with any interested parties. If so that seems a pretty legit role for github.
For one, [the German counterpart to copyright is] an author's right. Not a publisher's right. The fundamental difference in philosophy that that entails, should be obvious.
The U.S. Constitution in theory espouses the same philosophy, as exclusive rights are secured "to authors and inventors".
And you can never ever sell your rights away. Ever.
How does Germany handle works made in the scope of employment?
You can act as if, but you can always go "Fuck you, cooww and shee-keeenn! Now you can't use it anymore!" if they are stupid enough to fall for it.
If an author signs a contract with another party granting an exclusive license to publish a given work, is that unenforceable?
And so you do not need to write *anything* below your works.
The U.S. hasn't required a notice since 1989 when the U.S implemented the Berne Convention, but it provides evidence that strengthens a copyright owner's case in court.
A lot of stuff on github is experimental, "quick and dirty" code. The amount of effort to, say, put GPL boilerplate in every file isn't large, but it isn't zero, either. So, *ask*. You send mail to me, volunteer to do this small job, I'll probably give you commit access to the repo.
I have a bunch of projects on github and I'm too lazy to license many of them. If anyone ever emailed me wanting to use them I'd throw up a BSD3 license. I bet a lot of projects on github are lazy or simply don't know how to license a project, but would be happy to give permission to use the code.
No, using GitHub is not dangerous. But reusing code from the Internet without investigating its licensing status is. Then again, the same goes for anything that you find online, and they teach kids at school these days what you can and can't re-use. Your ignorance will not protect you.
I guess that means that anyone can create a fork, but isn't necessarily allowed to modify and redistribute that fork.
A private repo costs money. Hosting elsewhere costs more.
Maybe saving on hosting outweighs the downside of their code being public.
so just make it default copyrighted or default bsd and have done with it.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
Ohhh NooooEeeesses!! This is exactly like getting a tar.gz of the source!!!!! $DEITY save us all!!!
I'm pretty sure the majority of JavaScript are posted without a license.
If a project on Github doesn't mention its license, and you'd want to use that code, just ask the developer!
The phrase "All Rights Reserved" is a totally meaningless phrase. It used to be required to retain certain rights in central american countries. It was created by the Buenos Ares convention, and once everybody in central and south america adopted the Berne convention, the phrase no longer had any recognized legal meaning.
It has falsely been asserted that the phrase "All Rights Reserved" makes the Berkeley Copyright statement non-free. This is false because the copyright notices from the Berkeley Unix code base date to a time when the phrase had meaning.
It's only use today is due to inertia.
In short, this article is quite sensational in its ignorance.
Makes sense, supposed your coding style is rather... /** BUY CHEAP PENIS REPLICA */ ...marketing-oriented.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
Sigh. I'm not talking about it being illegal to compile the program. I'm talking about it being illegal to download it. And it's kinda hard to compile sources without first copying them to your machine.
To use your analogy, I'm not saying that baking cookies is illegal; I'm saying that if the cookbook is on this library called "Github", it's illegal for you to photocopy it in order to bake cookies in your home.
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If you're going to use a BSD-like licence, it isn't a long step to go public domain instead. Many people (including me in the past) probably don't want to deal with the legal stuff at all, and just want to share the code. It's more difficult for the users of the code, but that's not my problem. Amateurs can use the code privately (there's an implied licence, not in the law but by convention, that when you click some link you have the right to view it).
"But if you're not going to give anyone permission to use your code, why post it on GitHub in the first place?"
You can use someone else's code in two perfectly legal ways in this scenario. First, you could copy it and alter it to the point it no longer bears enough resemblance to the original to cause any trouble, even though it still works great. Second, you could simply study it and learn how it works and then start from scratch yourself.
By analogy, this would be like like Green Day copying Chicago copying Led Zeppelin.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Maybe; it's not clear whether you agree to allow forks to other machines or just "Github forks". I wouldn't depend on that ToS as a license.
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