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NOTE: You may want to stay far away from this project. The author is trying to do an end-run around Open Source licensing, as can be seen in the last section o

NOTE: You may want to stay far away from this project. The author is trying to do an end-run around Open Source licensing, as can be seen in the last section of this weird and rambling rant: https://web.archive.org/web/20180130105751/https://wonderunit.com/thoughts-on-free-and-open-source/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180130105751/https://wonderuni... There have been several issues and PRs raised trying to add a license to the project. These were never acknowledged by the author, and silently closed after a while.

danso 9y ago
It's a strange position that the author takes. It seems that a good part of his reluctance/cautiousness comes from a run-in with some educator who forked the repo and made some aesthetic changes ("removed all the swears") and then scrubbed the fork of any mention of "Wonder Unit": > The readme, the software, and even the images. Because of the way GitHub works, it now looks like we are contributors on his project. IANAL, but if Storyboarder was MIT License, this forker couldn't just scrub the license of all mention of Wonder Unit (or whoever was listed as copyright holders), right? But as far as making a fork look like his own project...Sure, that's the risk with any open source venture, but by and large, forks (especially by individual people) don't seem to go anywhere. This forker isn't likely to end up with anything but an outdated buggy copy of a ostensibly popular and evolving product. It does seems like the creator and his collaborators have put in a non-trivial amount of thought and desire into going OSS, but are also wary of running into any unseen pitfalls. It just seems strange that they've come this far developing the product and putting it in the open; why be hung up about some educator doofus who wants to clean up cuss words in the code/docs, as if he and his ilk present a real threat to what Wonder Unit have made? edit: grammer, wording
- IAmEveryone 9y ago
  I admire your optimism, but I just can't share it. That licensing rant ends with the line "And it will only cost $30 per seat." (for and education-specific version) while also specifying a plan that would prohibit distribution either by or to education institutions. I really don't have a problem with commercial software. But schemes like this, trying to get the best of both worlds and in the process undermining the meaning of Free Software always strike me as both destructive and pathetic. It's not even that hard to properly execute a dual-licensing scheme: they could license the code under GPL, which would make it hard to impossible for others to commercialise. Then, they could offer a commercial license to educational institutions, and would be the only ones allowed to charge for such a version. But the tone of that blog post makes me think there's more that's wrong with this project than just their licensing.
  - daveFNbuck 9y ago
    It looks very much like there's just a vendetta against the teacher that forked it.
    - detritus 9y ago
      Whereas to me it looks like he was rightfully pissed at the 'vendetta' against his efforts that the teacher had embarked upon.
      - daveFNbuck 9y ago
        I didn't say the vendetta was unwarranted. It just reads more like he's getting back at one particular guy than that he's trying to build a business model in the education market.
- fapjacks 9y ago
  Right, and even a cursory search would reveal that for license violations, you can file a DMCA takedown request with Github against the offending repository [0]. It literally takes ten minutes and Github is required by law to act immediately and ask questions later. And then at that point, the ball's in the other guy's court. He could file a DMCA Counter Notice with Github to get the repository reinstated, but in doing so, he is swearing under penalty of perjury that he is telling the truth claiming that he didn't violate the original code's license. If the forker didn't credit Wonder Unit as required by their original license [1], well, then clearly Wonder Unit has a case to have the code removed. This isn't Vietnam. There are rules. [0] https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown-policy/ https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown-policy/ [1] https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/ https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/
  - IAmEveryone 9y ago
    The Github ToC require you to allow forks for public repositories. So a fork on Github is almost literally the only use of this software that they couldn't stop. I'm reasonably certain that Github would check this when served with a DMCA notice, as well. The ToC read as if they are a reaction to exactly such a case. They don't want it to be possible to infringe copyright with the single click of a button.
    - fapjacks 9y ago
      But the fork wasn't the problem. The problem was the forker scrubbing attribution, which is against the license it supposedly had at the time. Or, at least, that seemed to have been the problem at the time?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > It literally takes ten minutes and Github is required by law to act immediately and ask questions later. Technically, no. They get the benefit of the DMCA Safe Harbor if they do so, but it is not a legal requirement. If they would be liable for infringement without the safe harbor, staying in it eliminates that liability, but that only matters if GitHub would have been liable (which isn't necessarily the case if the other user would have been.) The DMCA safe harbor rules aren't mandates, which is why the counternotice side has less compliance (because hosts would rarely be liable to their own users for a erroneous take-down, so the safe harbor on that side doesn't protect them from anything.)
fapjacks 9y ago
Honestly, I thought this must be some kind of parody, perhaps a lead-in to April Fool's? I mean if you ever wanted to know what a brogrammer is like, folks, here it is! Even including (in his weird and selfish licensing rant) the part about rms not exercising or showering. And not giving a shit about the code, only caring about the games. It's like a caricature or something. Not to mention the astroturfing happening here in this thread. This whole thing is wonky as shit, and after today I won't be going anywhere near projects created by or associated with this person. He's in the same bucket as Oracle. I mean, if this is even a real person at a real company and not some elaborate prank. What is going on here?!
kristiandupont 9y ago
Don't you think that's a bit over the top? So the license is unclear, which maybe means you want to be careful forking it and releasing an alternative version of some sort. But how many people do that? Using the software doesn't pose any risk that I can tell.
IAmEveryone 9y ago
This is fun... After opening an issue on the license confusion, I finally got my first ever death threat (Yeah me?): "[...] I hope you get through life peacefully. Stay away from AR-15s and don't be following any short Austrians!" https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/issues/1067#issuecomment-376917548 https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/issues/1067#issue...
beckler 9y ago
For what he wants, a GPL license might be a better fit than an MIT license with caveats. Because any unaddressed obscurity within those caveats could be a foothold for a lawsuit.

danso 9y ago

It's a strange position that the author takes. It seems that a good part of his reluctance/cautiousness comes from a run-in with some educator who forked the repo and made some aesthetic changes ("removed all the swears") and then scrubbed the fork of any mention of "Wonder Unit": > The readme, the software, and even the images. Because of the way GitHub works, it now looks like we are contributors on his project. IANAL, but if Storyboarder was MIT License, this forker couldn't just scrub the license of all mention of Wonder Unit (or whoever was listed as copyright holders), right? But as far as making a fork look like his own project...Sure, that's the risk with any open source venture, but by and large, forks (especially by individual people) don't seem to go anywhere. This forker isn't likely to end up with anything but an outdated buggy copy of a ostensibly popular and evolving product. It does seems like the creator and his collaborators have put in a non-trivial amount of thought and desire into going OSS, but are also wary of running into any unseen pitfalls. It just seems strange that they've come this far developing the product and putting it in the open; why be hung up about some educator doofus who wants to clean up cuss words in the code/docs, as if he and his ilk present a real threat to what Wonder Unit have made? edit: grammer, wording

IAmEveryone 9y ago
I admire your optimism, but I just can't share it. That licensing rant ends with the line "And it will only cost $30 per seat." (for and education-specific version) while also specifying a plan that would prohibit distribution either by or to education institutions. I really don't have a problem with commercial software. But schemes like this, trying to get the best of both worlds and in the process undermining the meaning of Free Software always strike me as both destructive and pathetic. It's not even that hard to properly execute a dual-licensing scheme: they could license the code under GPL, which would make it hard to impossible for others to commercialise. Then, they could offer a commercial license to educational institutions, and would be the only ones allowed to charge for such a version. But the tone of that blog post makes me think there's more that's wrong with this project than just their licensing.
- daveFNbuck 9y ago
  It looks very much like there's just a vendetta against the teacher that forked it.
  - detritus 9y ago
    Whereas to me it looks like he was rightfully pissed at the 'vendetta' against his efforts that the teacher had embarked upon.
    - daveFNbuck 9y ago
      I didn't say the vendetta was unwarranted. It just reads more like he's getting back at one particular guy than that he's trying to build a business model in the education market.
fapjacks 9y ago
Right, and even a cursory search would reveal that for license violations, you can file a DMCA takedown request with Github against the offending repository [0]. It literally takes ten minutes and Github is required by law to act immediately and ask questions later. And then at that point, the ball's in the other guy's court. He could file a DMCA Counter Notice with Github to get the repository reinstated, but in doing so, he is swearing under penalty of perjury that he is telling the truth claiming that he didn't violate the original code's license. If the forker didn't credit Wonder Unit as required by their original license [1], well, then clearly Wonder Unit has a case to have the code removed. This isn't Vietnam. There are rules. [0] https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown-policy/ https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown-policy/ [1] https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/ https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/
- IAmEveryone 9y ago
  The Github ToC require you to allow forks for public repositories. So a fork on Github is almost literally the only use of this software that they couldn't stop. I'm reasonably certain that Github would check this when served with a DMCA notice, as well. The ToC read as if they are a reaction to exactly such a case. They don't want it to be possible to infringe copyright with the single click of a button.
  - fapjacks 9y ago
    But the fork wasn't the problem. The problem was the forker scrubbing attribution, which is against the license it supposedly had at the time. Or, at least, that seemed to have been the problem at the time?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > It literally takes ten minutes and Github is required by law to act immediately and ask questions later. Technically, no. They get the benefit of the DMCA Safe Harbor if they do so, but it is not a legal requirement. If they would be liable for infringement without the safe harbor, staying in it eliminates that liability, but that only matters if GitHub would have been liable (which isn't necessarily the case if the other user would have been.) The DMCA safe harbor rules aren't mandates, which is why the counternotice side has less compliance (because hosts would rarely be liable to their own users for a erroneous take-down, so the safe harbor on that side doesn't protect them from anything.)

fapjacks 9y ago

Honestly, I thought this must be some kind of parody, perhaps a lead-in to April Fool's? I mean if you ever wanted to know what a brogrammer is like, folks, here it is! Even including (in his weird and selfish licensing rant) the part about rms not exercising or showering. And not giving a shit about the code, only caring about the games. It's like a caricature or something. Not to mention the astroturfing happening here in this thread. This whole thing is wonky as shit, and after today I won't be going anywhere near projects created by or associated with this person. He's in the same bucket as Oracle. I mean, if this is even a real person at a real company and not some elaborate prank. What is going on here?!

kristiandupont 9y ago

Don't you think that's a bit over the top? So the license is unclear, which maybe means you want to be careful forking it and releasing an alternative version of some sort. But how many people do that? Using the software doesn't pose any risk that I can tell.

IAmEveryone 9y ago

This is fun... After opening an issue on the license confusion, I finally got my first ever death threat (Yeah me?): "[...] I hope you get through life peacefully. Stay away from AR-15s and don't be following any short Austrians!" https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/issues/1067#issuecomment-376917548 https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/issues/1067#issue...

beckler 9y ago

For what he wants, a GPL license might be a better fit than an MIT license with caveats. Because any unaddressed obscurity within those caveats could be a foothold for a lawsuit.