7 ms·

Tell HN: Discord is violating open source licenses

91 points by alexhultman 9y ago

As you might understand, having your own private open source library used by Discord is something big. Something that makes your effort worth while. So you download the distribution and look for your own, hard earned, copyright notice. Well it's not there because fuck you. What I found by downloading the (Linux) Discord client from discordapp.com was that they clearly were distributing source copies of my project, but it had no license or copyright mentioning me (which is required). I also found that they are distributing ffmpeg binaries but I couldn't find any matching LGPL license or source code in the distribution. So of course I contacted them. First via GitHub where I have reached them before, and then two times via their support people on their home page. I get about the same response as any one else: "I'm sorry but we cannot help you. Were you satisfied with the support response?". It's not okay for companies to pull their pants down and take a big dump on your personal work. Not when they clearly do not even bother with complying with basic open source exchanges. If I write something I want to be properly mentioned as is required in my very license. Discord, is this so fucking hard to understand?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
vecplane 9y ago
The library in question would be uWebSockets? https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets
- TheDong 9y ago
  If so, that's the zlib license, which requires no acknowledgement for binary distributions. If they distributed the sourcecode, they'd have to include the license, but the zlib license has nothing to say about compiling it in.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - alexhultman 9y ago
    They are distributing both binary (no problem here) and source (problem).
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      Maybe I'm an idiot, but I don't see any problems? —————————— Copyright (c) 2016 Alex Hultman and contributors This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software. Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions: 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgement in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required. 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software. 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution. —————————— a) This software is provided ‘as-is’, and as the author, you are not liable for damages if someone uses your library for something crazy. b) Anyone can freely use it, for any purpose, with following restrictions: 1. “If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgement in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.”. They decided not to acknowledge the use of your library. You explicitly said this is OK. 2. Altered source code -> probably not.. it’s a web socket handling library. 3. This notice may not be removed. They have probably not removed it from their source code, given they distribute a binary.
      - alexhultman 9y ago
        Can you find this notice in their distribution? I have looked in their client UI and in their client tar.gz but I cannot find anything. I can however easily find my project in there (I would think the license would be nicely placed where the sources are).
        packetized 9y ago
        Can you share where you found the project files in the client tar.gz? edit: Found it, uws.js in resources/bootstrap/discord_rpc.zip edit2: This is arguably worse, but the argument may be "it's a compiled binary": -bash-4.1$ strings discord_rpc.node | grep uws.*cpp$ ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/nodejs/addon.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/nodejs/addon.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/EventSystem.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Extensions.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/HTTPSocket.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Network.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Server.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/UTF8.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/WebSocket.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/nodejs/addon.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/HTTPSocket.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/WebSocket.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/EventSystem.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Extensions.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Network.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Server.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/UTF8.cpp -bash-4.1$
nemothekid 9y ago
> First via GitHub where I have reached them before, and then two times via their support people on their home page. I don't know why you thought dev/tech support would be the path you go down. This is a legal issue, so if this matters to you, send them a legal notice. I've done the work of exporting their contact for you abuse@discordapp.com (from https://discordapp.com/tos https://discordapp.com/tos)
- zelon88 9y ago
  Lawyers didn't write the Discord source, and they probably wouldn't even know where to look on a repo for the license of an included package. If it was a mistake, an oversight, or just a total afterthought I'd say he started in the right place. Being that the transaction happened on Github it's likely that the exchange will be public record should litigation ever take place.
- geofft 9y ago
  Informally, sending a question via legal avenues is a good way for a company to go into "Our lawyers will be in touch, we can't say anything more on advice of counsel" mode - if you think a question can be satisfactorily resolved without lawyers (and I'd hope that "can you follow the rules" is a question that most people can answer with "yes"), everything will be more pleasant on all sides if the company doesn't go into lawyers-only mode. Formally, neither the (US) legal code nor the zlib license says that you need to contact a violating company via some particular channel. A company is a single legal entity, and if you've contacted them somehow, you've contacted them, and they're now willfully violating the license. Practically, abuse@ seems wrong; that's likely to reach an abuse department (which is just a specific support role that's empowered to do a specific subset of tasks), not a legal department.
  - dsp1234 9y ago
    More specifically, the abuse@ is clearly their DMCA department, whose response is very likely to be something along the lines of, "this isn't a valid DMCA complaint, please review the instructions at X, and submit the appropriate documentation. Once we have that, we'll remove the 3rd party content."
packetized 9y ago
Would you mind sharing with HN the data that you shared with the Discord team? I'm afraid that you didn't link what the project was, or how exactly it's a "private open-source library", which seems like a self-contradictory statement.
hd4 9y ago
If you don't get a satisfactory response from contacting them as nemothekid said, contact the EFF http://www.eff.org http://www.eff.org
- geofft 9y ago
  The EFF are wonderful people but this isn't quite their usual business. I'd probably contact the Software Freedom Conservancy or the Software Freedom Law Center, who engage in free-software compliance efforts (including, if absolutely necessary, lawsuits).
jacquesm 9y ago
Then sue them.
- alexhultman 9y ago
  I like your style
packetized 9y ago
Of note, they also appear to have forked a version of uWebSockets from Sep 2016 [0] in their Github org. 0: https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets
- LennyPenny 9y ago
  Looks like they include the license now https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebba898b81ac5b36ea4d583944d5e4938ec9b https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebb...
devwastaken 9y ago
From the attitude many discord devs have shown in their channels towards other devs, this doesn't surprise me. Unless you make bots for discord, there is little respect. Especially if you're creating your own UI features that Discord just 'happens' to implement once they get popular. While simultaneously turning around and bashing said platform it was possible in in the first place. Also, dev/tech support is absolutely the correct path in many cases, because they /lead/ you to legal, if necessary. Why users are claiming otherwise does not reflect the purpose of having a support network. Infact, abuse@discordapp.com is much more for actual abuse of discord TOS, not directly legal matters. I could easily turn it around and ask why anyone would think /that/ is the correct contact.
- alexhultman 9y ago
  Right, I agree 100%. Support should be able to direct the communication to where it makes sense. I cannot be hanging out on Snapchat or follow them on Twitter or things like that, I just need support for my issue. It truly is a world for the rich - money makes money. Censor and sue everything that goes in your way. Get bigger, sue more. Get richer. Disregard everything in your path.
rodionos 9y ago
They're on the Widely Adopted list [0] for the library. I would give them extra time to respond. I don't see a valid reason or motivation on their part not to fix it. 0: https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets#widely-adopted https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets#widely-adopted
Etheryte 9y ago
For anyone else slightly confused at first: the Discord Linux release (https://discordapp.com/download https://discordapp.com/download) includes uWebSockets in ./resources/bootstrap/discord_rpc/uws.js. This is only the JS source code and there is no licensing information attached whatsoever. This directly conflicts with uWebSocket's licence (https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets/blob/master/LICEN...), which clearly states: "3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution."
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  One of the reasons the GPL is suggested to be applied to every source file is to make sure people don't miss it, which can cause issues like this (the other reason being to fully convey exclusion of warranty)
alexhultman 9y ago
So this post gets 60 upvotes in 30 minutes and is immediately censored by HN and taken off the front page. Right, thank you very much for stealing my work, giving me no credit and then censoring my appeal.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- DanBC 9y ago
  I think all self posts get penalised. You should have written a blog post and linked to that. You can try emailing the mods and asking them to lift the penalty.
- fosco 9y ago
  I have to assume it was an algorithm and not a person. I think everyone on HN could learn from this situation. I'm not sure how to contact mods but maybe reach out to them...maybe the algorithm took it out due to profanity? Best of luck!
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  Did HN steal your work?
  - alexhultman 9y ago
    Hello, troll
    - peterwwillis 9y ago
      I'm not trolling you, i'm asking you what HN has to do with this. You got all huffy at HN for not featuring your post crying about a license and then implied HN is at fault for stealing your work and then "censoring" you. Get off your high horse and try not to act like an emotional child if you want people to take you seriously.
    - dang 9y ago
      Personal attacks and uncivil comments will get your account banned here, so please stop doing that.
deleted 9y ago
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b1naryth1ef 9y ago
(Discord Dev here) Hey Alex, this definitely sounds like a miss on our part, so apologies. As you know, we're fans of uws and not including the original license was a screw-up in our automation. We're working on fixing it and immediately releasing it with the proper license. I've also asked support to follow up with you directly in case there are further issues. For the contact, either opening an issue on one of our repos or emailing our legal team (abuse@discordapp.com) would have been guaranteed to get you an accurate response. Unfortunately the verbiage you used in the email is very similar to that used in other support tickets we get for our API, and our team (as they did in your case) forwards users on to our API chat which can provide more in-depth/advanced support.
- alexhultman 9y ago
  Well what can I say, I'm passionate and I don't like it when people ignore me. Thanks for the quick resolution.
- socmag 9y ago
  It's nice to see you've reached out to Alex publicly. Any time someone or an organization brings in someone else's code and makes use of it, no matter what the license we really need to recognize that, it's just the morally responsible thing to do. As far as ourselves, we're definitely using uWS and that is not going to go without recognition. Nobody should need to "open a ticket", send an email or post on HN to get that sorted. npm install and git clone making it way too easy for people not to give a crap about the works of others. Good to see you guys are doing the right thing, uWS is a serious piece of tech and well worth recognition.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Oscaron 9y ago
They just amended it in their fork: https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebba898b81ac5b36ea4d583944d5e4938ec9b https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebb...
- Oscaron 9y ago
  NVM. I see they responded.
Oscaron 9y ago
They just amended it in their fork: https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebba898b81ac5b36ea4d583944d5e4938ec9b https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebb...
alexhultman 9y ago
Hahahahah, now this post is FLAGGED. Right, first blow is to censor it straight from the front page at its most trending moment and now it is reported. Can this fucking HN get any more cancerous?

91 points by alexhultman 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

vecplane 9y ago

The library in question would be uWebSockets? https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets

TheDong 9y ago
If so, that's the zlib license, which requires no acknowledgement for binary distributions. If they distributed the sourcecode, they'd have to include the license, but the zlib license has nothing to say about compiling it in.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- alexhultman 9y ago
  They are distributing both binary (no problem here) and source (problem).
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    Maybe I'm an idiot, but I don't see any problems? —————————— Copyright (c) 2016 Alex Hultman and contributors This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software. Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions: 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgement in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required. 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software. 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution. —————————— a) This software is provided ‘as-is’, and as the author, you are not liable for damages if someone uses your library for something crazy. b) Anyone can freely use it, for any purpose, with following restrictions: 1. “If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgement in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.”. They decided not to acknowledge the use of your library. You explicitly said this is OK. 2. Altered source code -> probably not.. it’s a web socket handling library. 3. This notice may not be removed. They have probably not removed it from their source code, given they distribute a binary.
    - alexhultman 9y ago
      Can you find this notice in their distribution? I have looked in their client UI and in their client tar.gz but I cannot find anything. I can however easily find my project in there (I would think the license would be nicely placed where the sources are).
      - packetized 9y ago
        Can you share where you found the project files in the client tar.gz? edit: Found it, uws.js in resources/bootstrap/discord_rpc.zip edit2: This is arguably worse, but the argument may be "it's a compiled binary": -bash-4.1$ strings discord_rpc.node | grep uws.*cpp$ ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/nodejs/addon.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/nodejs/addon.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/EventSystem.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Extensions.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/HTTPSocket.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Network.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Server.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/UTF8.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/WebSocket.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/nodejs/addon.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/HTTPSocket.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/WebSocket.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/EventSystem.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Extensions.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Network.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/Server.cpp ../../discord_common/native/third_party/uws/src/UTF8.cpp -bash-4.1$

nemothekid 9y ago

> First via GitHub where I have reached them before, and then two times via their support people on their home page. I don't know why you thought dev/tech support would be the path you go down. This is a legal issue, so if this matters to you, send them a legal notice. I've done the work of exporting their contact for you abuse@discordapp.com (from https://discordapp.com/tos https://discordapp.com/tos)

zelon88 9y ago
Lawyers didn't write the Discord source, and they probably wouldn't even know where to look on a repo for the license of an included package. If it was a mistake, an oversight, or just a total afterthought I'd say he started in the right place. Being that the transaction happened on Github it's likely that the exchange will be public record should litigation ever take place.
geofft 9y ago
Informally, sending a question via legal avenues is a good way for a company to go into "Our lawyers will be in touch, we can't say anything more on advice of counsel" mode - if you think a question can be satisfactorily resolved without lawyers (and I'd hope that "can you follow the rules" is a question that most people can answer with "yes"), everything will be more pleasant on all sides if the company doesn't go into lawyers-only mode. Formally, neither the (US) legal code nor the zlib license says that you need to contact a violating company via some particular channel. A company is a single legal entity, and if you've contacted them somehow, you've contacted them, and they're now willfully violating the license. Practically, abuse@ seems wrong; that's likely to reach an abuse department (which is just a specific support role that's empowered to do a specific subset of tasks), not a legal department.
- dsp1234 9y ago
  More specifically, the abuse@ is clearly their DMCA department, whose response is very likely to be something along the lines of, "this isn't a valid DMCA complaint, please review the instructions at X, and submit the appropriate documentation. Once we have that, we'll remove the 3rd party content."

packetized 9y ago

Would you mind sharing with HN the data that you shared with the Discord team? I'm afraid that you didn't link what the project was, or how exactly it's a "private open-source library", which seems like a self-contradictory statement.

hd4 9y ago

If you don't get a satisfactory response from contacting them as nemothekid said, contact the EFF http://www.eff.org http://www.eff.org

geofft 9y ago
The EFF are wonderful people but this isn't quite their usual business. I'd probably contact the Software Freedom Conservancy or the Software Freedom Law Center, who engage in free-software compliance efforts (including, if absolutely necessary, lawsuits).

jacquesm 9y ago

Then sue them.

alexhultman 9y ago
I like your style

packetized 9y ago

Of note, they also appear to have forked a version of uWebSockets from Sep 2016 [0] in their Github org. 0: https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets

LennyPenny 9y ago
Looks like they include the license now https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebba898b81ac5b36ea4d583944d5e4938ec9b https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebb...

devwastaken 9y ago

From the attitude many discord devs have shown in their channels towards other devs, this doesn't surprise me. Unless you make bots for discord, there is little respect. Especially if you're creating your own UI features that Discord just 'happens' to implement once they get popular. While simultaneously turning around and bashing said platform it was possible in in the first place. Also, dev/tech support is absolutely the correct path in many cases, because they /lead/ you to legal, if necessary. Why users are claiming otherwise does not reflect the purpose of having a support network. Infact, abuse@discordapp.com is much more for actual abuse of discord TOS, not directly legal matters. I could easily turn it around and ask why anyone would think /that/ is the correct contact.

alexhultman 9y ago
Right, I agree 100%. Support should be able to direct the communication to where it makes sense. I cannot be hanging out on Snapchat or follow them on Twitter or things like that, I just need support for my issue. It truly is a world for the rich - money makes money. Censor and sue everything that goes in your way. Get bigger, sue more. Get richer. Disregard everything in your path.

rodionos 9y ago

They're on the Widely Adopted list [0] for the library. I would give them extra time to respond. I don't see a valid reason or motivation on their part not to fix it. 0: https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets#widely-adopted https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets#widely-adopted

Etheryte 9y ago

For anyone else slightly confused at first: the Discord Linux release (https://discordapp.com/download https://discordapp.com/download) includes uWebSockets in ./resources/bootstrap/discord_rpc/uws.js. This is only the JS source code and there is no licensing information attached whatsoever. This directly conflicts with uWebSocket's licence (https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets/blob/master/LICEN...), which clearly states: "3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution."

peterwwillis 9y ago
One of the reasons the GPL is suggested to be applied to every source file is to make sure people don't miss it, which can cause issues like this (the other reason being to fully convey exclusion of warranty)

alexhultman 9y ago

So this post gets 60 upvotes in 30 minutes and is immediately censored by HN and taken off the front page. Right, thank you very much for stealing my work, giving me no credit and then censoring my appeal.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
DanBC 9y ago
I think all self posts get penalised. You should have written a blog post and linked to that. You can try emailing the mods and asking them to lift the penalty.
fosco 9y ago
I have to assume it was an algorithm and not a person. I think everyone on HN could learn from this situation. I'm not sure how to contact mods but maybe reach out to them...maybe the algorithm took it out due to profanity? Best of luck!
peterwwillis 9y ago
Did HN steal your work?
- alexhultman 9y ago
  Hello, troll
  - peterwwillis 9y ago
    I'm not trolling you, i'm asking you what HN has to do with this. You got all huffy at HN for not featuring your post crying about a license and then implied HN is at fault for stealing your work and then "censoring" you. Get off your high horse and try not to act like an emotional child if you want people to take you seriously.
  - dang 9y ago
    Personal attacks and uncivil comments will get your account banned here, so please stop doing that.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

b1naryth1ef 9y ago

(Discord Dev here) Hey Alex, this definitely sounds like a miss on our part, so apologies. As you know, we're fans of uws and not including the original license was a screw-up in our automation. We're working on fixing it and immediately releasing it with the proper license. I've also asked support to follow up with you directly in case there are further issues. For the contact, either opening an issue on one of our repos or emailing our legal team (abuse@discordapp.com) would have been guaranteed to get you an accurate response. Unfortunately the verbiage you used in the email is very similar to that used in other support tickets we get for our API, and our team (as they did in your case) forwards users on to our API chat which can provide more in-depth/advanced support.

alexhultman 9y ago
Well what can I say, I'm passionate and I don't like it when people ignore me. Thanks for the quick resolution.
socmag 9y ago
It's nice to see you've reached out to Alex publicly. Any time someone or an organization brings in someone else's code and makes use of it, no matter what the license we really need to recognize that, it's just the morally responsible thing to do. As far as ourselves, we're definitely using uWS and that is not going to go without recognition. Nobody should need to "open a ticket", send an email or post on HN to get that sorted. npm install and git clone making it way too easy for people not to give a crap about the works of others. Good to see you guys are doing the right thing, uWS is a serious piece of tech and well worth recognition.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Oscaron 9y ago

They just amended it in their fork: https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebba898b81ac5b36ea4d583944d5e4938ec9b https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebb...

Oscaron 9y ago
NVM. I see they responded.

Oscaron 9y ago

They just amended it in their fork: https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebba898b81ac5b36ea4d583944d5e4938ec9b https://github.com/hammerandchisel/uWebSockets/commit/cf2ebb...

alexhultman 9y ago

Hahahahah, now this post is FLAGGED. Right, first blow is to censor it straight from the front page at its most trending moment and now it is reported. Can this fucking HN get any more cancerous?