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joeyh

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So, it's come to this: A company can demand an entire separate license for masses of free software, and even the free software community doesn't appear to give a damn.

All right then.

Stephen Michael Kellat likes this.

Stephen Michael Kellat shared this.

Hey, I still give a damn! This stuff is tricky though, I'm trying to sort my way through it.

I asked this to Aaron Williamson, and I guess it's still my main question:

BTW, would "If you use one of these licenses, you're in the clear. If not, you grant these provisions" work?

Christopher Allan Webber at 2017-03-02T19:57:36Z

I've pondered doing some free software project hosting before. git (gitano), ticketing system (distix), CI (ick2 once I write it), mailing lists (mailman), APT repositories (reprepro+httpd), wikis (ikiwiki, possible tie-in with Branchable), and maybe more. But it'd be tons and tons of work and I'm not really a sysadmin.

Lars Wirzenius at 2017-03-02T20:36:11Z

Jason Self likes this.

I care too.. But since IANAL I'm waiting for people more versed in such things to wade in, such as an official statement from the #FSF of #SFLC, etc.


That said I have never, nor will I ever host code on GitHub. Nor have I or would I ever suggest anyone do so. For many, many reasons. I have long held that having so many important software projects under one companies control is a horrible idea and doomed to problems (shuttered, blocked, hacked, or even changing TOS it seems).


I suspect that a lot of people care but are unsure of the situation. And also having no clear and easy alternative will add to the inertia that most people have in areas like this.


If the people that have posted/blogged so far are correct and if the TOS trumps and alters the GPL or other copyright licenses (in a clear and legally applicable way) then this is HUGE. Not just because it means we have a hair on fire situation WRT GitHub. but it also means that anyone hosting any software could use the same legal trick to un-copyleft software and other works. It would mean that any carriers TOS could potentially un-copyleft stuff..


That would also means that places like Google/Microsoft/Apple could claim ownership of everything in their app store by simply changing their TOS. So if we are in a "TOS alters/trumps authors license" world we have a serious problem because the system is very broken.

Freemor at 2017-03-03T13:21:46Z

James Dearing 🐲, Christopher Allan Webber likes this.