25 ms·

If it doesn't have a license, then don't touch it with a ten foot pole. Run, don't walk away. He may not care about the law, but the user of that unlicensed s

by DannyB2 10y ago

If it doesn't have a license, then don't touch it with a ten foot pole. Run, don't walk away. He may not care about the law, but the user of that unlicensed software will care when they get sued for using it. "Oh, but I would never sue you for using my software" says the unlicensed GitHub author. "But I can't trust you. You're not trustworthy." "Oh, but I am. I won't sue, I promise!" "Then why don't you put that promise in writing? It's called a License."

wolfgke 10y ago
> "Then why don't you put that promise in writing? It's called a License." Because the author of this particular source code strongly prefers users who like them who are ignorant of the law? The author doesn't want to get sued for his license.
- VLM 10y ago
  Possibly its not his code. For a good time go to github and look for blowfish implementations in C and try to figure out which are original and which are cut and paste of Schneier. Schneier of course offers a blowfish written by him in C with no license or patent so if its cut and pasted into a licensed larger project you got problems. Or you can reimplement and put your reimplementation under your own choice of license, possibly not as well as Schneier. Another good reason for no license is a very nice and polite "go away". This is just to show I use social media to get a checkmark on some hiring list and get a job and has no purpose beyond that.
- green_lunch 10y ago
  What most likely will happen is that if the person likes you (IE: not some big company), they will allow you to use their code. If you are a huge corporation profiting from it, you will get sued for misuse. This is exactly why you don't use unlicensed code in any commercial application.
  - DannyB2 10y ago
    So if you are one of the people he 'likes' and will allow you to use his code, then does he give you a license? If he likes you, he would give you a license, which describes how you can use the code without getting sued. But I thought by putting it on GitHub, and claiming that he doesn't believe in licenses, because he wants EVERYONE to be able to use the code -- that he wouldn't then 'allow' a special friend to use the code.

by DannyB2 10y ago

wolfgke 10y ago

> "Then why don't you put that promise in writing? It's called a License." Because the author of this particular source code strongly prefers users who like them who are ignorant of the law? The author doesn't want to get sued for his license.

VLM 10y ago
Possibly its not his code. For a good time go to github and look for blowfish implementations in C and try to figure out which are original and which are cut and paste of Schneier. Schneier of course offers a blowfish written by him in C with no license or patent so if its cut and pasted into a licensed larger project you got problems. Or you can reimplement and put your reimplementation under your own choice of license, possibly not as well as Schneier. Another good reason for no license is a very nice and polite "go away". This is just to show I use social media to get a checkmark on some hiring list and get a job and has no purpose beyond that.
green_lunch 10y ago
What most likely will happen is that if the person likes you (IE: not some big company), they will allow you to use their code. If you are a huge corporation profiting from it, you will get sued for misuse. This is exactly why you don't use unlicensed code in any commercial application.
- DannyB2 10y ago
  So if you are one of the people he 'likes' and will allow you to use his code, then does he give you a license? If he likes you, he would give you a license, which describes how you can use the code without getting sued. But I thought by putting it on GitHub, and claiming that he doesn't believe in licenses, because he wants EVERYONE to be able to use the code -- that he wouldn't then 'allow' a special friend to use the code.