7 ms·

I don't see any info about a license. Strongly recommend using some standard FOSS license before plenty of people add commits and it gets a big mess clearing u

by hannob 8y ago

I don't see any info about a license. Strongly recommend using some standard FOSS license before plenty of people add commits and it gets a big mess clearing up the licensing situation later.

littlestymaar 8y ago
> Implementing git in rust for fun and education! Also, not having a license file isn't a messy situation, that means “this project is protected under Berne Convention copyright“: the author is the only one holding every rights on the code and every use that is not explicitly allowed is a copyright infringement (unless it's fair use).
- adrianN 8y ago
  Fair Use doesn't exist in many jurisdictions.
  - littlestymaar 8y ago
    It isn't called that way and doesn't offer the same amount of protection everywhere, but the Berne convention itself includes copyright exceptions [1] that I included in the broad “fair use” phrase. [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works/Articles_1_to_21#Article_10 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection...
    - fulafel 8y ago
      Not the op, but it seems your linked bit of the BC justsays that countries are allowed to legislate exceptions. The only hardcoded exception is the short citation one.
- CamouflagedKiwi 8y ago
  The author doesn't hold copyright on code other people submitted unless they explicitly give ownership via a CLA or similar. A licence would make it clearer, or at least a lot easier for other people to consume.
  - littlestymaar 8y ago
    Exactly, but since it's a learning project it's not obvious it's supposed to receive and accept code contribution anyway (so far it didn't receive any, the only two commits are fixes to typos in the README). That being said, it would be nice from the author to put the code under a permissive license to allow other people to play with his code too (at the moment, even forking it is a copyright infringement…).
    - slavik81 8y ago
      > at the moment, even forking it is a copyright infringement Not that it changes much, but from the GitHub Terms of Service: > By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and "fork" your repositories https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#5-license-grant-to-other-users https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#...
      - littlestymaar 8y ago
        Yes you're right, github forking is allowed. Pulling the code on your computer, changing it and contributing changes on your fork is still illegal though.
        GoblinSlayer 8y ago
        Not illegal, but rather not granted (and not denied either). Only the author decides, as it's his right, not someone's else.
- fxfan 8y ago
  since you sound knowledgeable- if I go and without any contract "donate" some of my code to the repo- what becomes of the right to that code (the patch I contributed)?
  - EwanToo 8y ago
    You retain the copyright of the patch and can re-use it somewhere else under a different licence. And in turn, the project you submitted it to cannot re-licence that patched section of code (e.g. become either GPL licenced) without your permission, as it does not belong to them. (Edit for clarity)
    - masklinn 8y ago
      One issue is under the Berne baseline, even given github's license grant[0], there is no license to make adaptation, arrangement or derivative work. So it's unclear that the patch would even be legal to start with, in the sense that it's either a modification / adaptation of the work or a derivative of it. [0] https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#5-license-grant-to-other-users https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#...
      - littlestymaar 8y ago
        Yes, the patch would be illegal, but the original author still wouldn't have all the rights on it. And it could also be illegal if the original author distributed the amended code elsewhere. Edit: I edited my comment to say “could” instead of “would” because the original author could argue that the author of the patch implicitly gave him the right to redistribute his patch by contributing it to a public repository. I'm not sure it would stand in court, but I'd say it would have a non-null chance of success. But If the author, who initially claimed the project was a learning project, decided to use it commercially, he clearly wouldn't be allowed to use the patch. (and again, it could be different if the patch author willingly contributed to a commercial product).
      - GoblinSlayer 8y ago
        Git derives patches from files on disk, so the patch inherits the file's license. Logically you commit files or even the whole source tree, a patch is an optimization detail, which is used to rebuild the source tree at a given point, so it's a matter of what license the source tree has at that point.
- mnd999 8y ago
  Arguably by downloading it from github you’ve made an illegal copy.
  - louiz 8y ago
    No, you copied on your hard drive something that was offered to you for free on github. Hosting that code yourself somewhere else would be illegal though.
    - masklinn 8y ago
      > No, you copied on your hard drive something that was offered to you for free on github. It wasn't offered for free local reproduction since that right was not explicitly granted, and Github's license grant does not grant it either (as far as my reading goes). Though the country you're in may have a private copy exception, in which case you'd be in the clear I think (depending on the specifics of that exception).
  - littlestymaar 8y ago
    It might depend on the legislation though. In France at least it would fall behind the «Exception de copie privée».
  - ndnxhs 8y ago
    By making it public to view you agree others can load the page and view the code. Loading the page and viewing it is downloading it.
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      That's not how copyright law works. The particulars vary by country but the share everything internet culture doesn't automatically grant permission to make copies.
- Zarel 8y ago
  That sounds nice and all but it's wrong in two major ways. First: GitHub has a Terms of Service which was somewhat-recently amended to make this license grant explicit: https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#5-license-grant-to-other-users https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#... "Any User-Generated Content you post publicly, including issues, comments, and contributions to other Users' repositories, may be viewed by others. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and 'fork' your repositories (this means that others may make their own copies of Content from your repositories in repositories they control)." (Crucially, it doesn't require an open-source license, though.) Second: even without that, there's such a thing as an implied license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_license Like, if you write something down on a piece of paper, you can't then sue the owner of the paper for copyright infringement. Similarly, if you upload code to GitHub, and tell it to share your code, you can't then sue them for sharing your code, ToS or no ToS.
  - masklinn 8y ago
    Pretty much all the TOS says is there's an implicit reproduction license (other users can see & fork the work) and possibly broadcast (the fork itself has the visibility of the original). Not adaptation, not use, not exploitation, … And that license grant is solely through github as a service, it's unclear that a local clone is even permitted.
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      > And that license grant is solely through github as a service, it's unclear that a local clone is even permitted. That license grant has been added specifically to make GitHub itself waterproof (AIUI), so it makes sense it doesn't extend to user's rights. Look, but don't touch.
    - Zarel 8y ago
      That's... somewhat true. My main objection is to "the author is the only one holding every rights on the code and every use that is not explicitly allowed is a copyright infringement (unless it's fair use)". The ToS doesn't say there's an implicit reproduction license, though; it says there's an explicit reproduction license. The other licenses can still be argued to be implicit. For instance, you have a decent argument that local clones are an implicit license – GitHub provides a "Clone or download" button directly on the repo page, and it's one of the main use cases of GitHub. (Other arguments exist.)
- devit 8y ago
  "Use" is allowed, redistribution of the original or derivative works is essentially what is not permitted.
  - littlestymaar 8y ago
    I guess it depends on what you call «use». You can read the code, for sure, probably even save it on your disk (it may depend on your jurisdiction though). But, can you compile it ? I'm not sure… Better ask your lawyer. And what about running the compiled binary ? I don't think you're allowed to do that.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    That's how copyleft licenses work. Base copyright law is more restrictive and possessing an unlicensed copy can be infringing in certain countries. This is why public domain is sometimes problematic.
josteink 8y ago
Easiest way to fix that is often just sending a PR with whatever is the “default” license for that particular eco-system. For Rust that is (afaik) MIT. Why don’t you go try it? ;)
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  (MIT/Apache2, yes)
- aorth 8y ago
  As of a few minutes ago the project now has an MIT license. So that clears that up! https://github.com/chrisdickinson/git-rs/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/chrisdickinson/git-rs/blob/master/LICENSE...
e12e 8y ago
Fwiw license (mit) has been added in the past 7 hour: https://github.com/chrisdickinson/git-rs/commit/2be8314b9b1ce65115aeda49bf33add063a191c7 https://github.com/chrisdickinson/git-rs/commit/2be8314b9b1c...

by hannob 8y ago

I don't see any info about a license. Strongly recommend using some standard FOSS license before plenty of people add commits and it gets a big mess clearing up the licensing situation later.

littlestymaar 8y ago

> Implementing git in rust for fun and education! Also, not having a license file isn't a messy situation, that means “this project is protected under Berne Convention copyright“: the author is the only one holding every rights on the code and every use that is not explicitly allowed is a copyright infringement (unless it's fair use).

adrianN 8y ago
Fair Use doesn't exist in many jurisdictions.
- littlestymaar 8y ago
  It isn't called that way and doesn't offer the same amount of protection everywhere, but the Berne convention itself includes copyright exceptions [1] that I included in the broad “fair use” phrase. [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works/Articles_1_to_21#Article_10 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection...
  - fulafel 8y ago
    Not the op, but it seems your linked bit of the BC justsays that countries are allowed to legislate exceptions. The only hardcoded exception is the short citation one.
CamouflagedKiwi 8y ago
The author doesn't hold copyright on code other people submitted unless they explicitly give ownership via a CLA or similar. A licence would make it clearer, or at least a lot easier for other people to consume.
- littlestymaar 8y ago
  Exactly, but since it's a learning project it's not obvious it's supposed to receive and accept code contribution anyway (so far it didn't receive any, the only two commits are fixes to typos in the README). That being said, it would be nice from the author to put the code under a permissive license to allow other people to play with his code too (at the moment, even forking it is a copyright infringement…).
  - slavik81 8y ago
    > at the moment, even forking it is a copyright infringement Not that it changes much, but from the GitHub Terms of Service: > By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and "fork" your repositories https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#5-license-grant-to-other-users https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#...
    - littlestymaar 8y ago
      Yes you're right, github forking is allowed. Pulling the code on your computer, changing it and contributing changes on your fork is still illegal though.
      - GoblinSlayer 8y ago
        Not illegal, but rather not granted (and not denied either). Only the author decides, as it's his right, not someone's else.
fxfan 8y ago
since you sound knowledgeable- if I go and without any contract "donate" some of my code to the repo- what becomes of the right to that code (the patch I contributed)?
- EwanToo 8y ago
  You retain the copyright of the patch and can re-use it somewhere else under a different licence. And in turn, the project you submitted it to cannot re-licence that patched section of code (e.g. become either GPL licenced) without your permission, as it does not belong to them. (Edit for clarity)
  - masklinn 8y ago
    One issue is under the Berne baseline, even given github's license grant[0], there is no license to make adaptation, arrangement or derivative work. So it's unclear that the patch would even be legal to start with, in the sense that it's either a modification / adaptation of the work or a derivative of it. [0] https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#5-license-grant-to-other-users https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#...
    - littlestymaar 8y ago
      Yes, the patch would be illegal, but the original author still wouldn't have all the rights on it. And it could also be illegal if the original author distributed the amended code elsewhere. Edit: I edited my comment to say “could” instead of “would” because the original author could argue that the author of the patch implicitly gave him the right to redistribute his patch by contributing it to a public repository. I'm not sure it would stand in court, but I'd say it would have a non-null chance of success. But If the author, who initially claimed the project was a learning project, decided to use it commercially, he clearly wouldn't be allowed to use the patch. (and again, it could be different if the patch author willingly contributed to a commercial product).
    - GoblinSlayer 8y ago
      Git derives patches from files on disk, so the patch inherits the file's license. Logically you commit files or even the whole source tree, a patch is an optimization detail, which is used to rebuild the source tree at a given point, so it's a matter of what license the source tree has at that point.
mnd999 8y ago
Arguably by downloading it from github you’ve made an illegal copy.
- louiz 8y ago
  No, you copied on your hard drive something that was offered to you for free on github. Hosting that code yourself somewhere else would be illegal though.
  - masklinn 8y ago
    > No, you copied on your hard drive something that was offered to you for free on github. It wasn't offered for free local reproduction since that right was not explicitly granted, and Github's license grant does not grant it either (as far as my reading goes). Though the country you're in may have a private copy exception, in which case you'd be in the clear I think (depending on the specifics of that exception).
- littlestymaar 8y ago
  It might depend on the legislation though. In France at least it would fall behind the «Exception de copie privée».
- ndnxhs 8y ago
  By making it public to view you agree others can load the page and view the code. Loading the page and viewing it is downloading it.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    That's not how copyright law works. The particulars vary by country but the share everything internet culture doesn't automatically grant permission to make copies.
Zarel 8y ago
That sounds nice and all but it's wrong in two major ways. First: GitHub has a Terms of Service which was somewhat-recently amended to make this license grant explicit: https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#5-license-grant-to-other-users https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service#... "Any User-Generated Content you post publicly, including issues, comments, and contributions to other Users' repositories, may be viewed by others. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and 'fork' your repositories (this means that others may make their own copies of Content from your repositories in repositories they control)." (Crucially, it doesn't require an open-source license, though.) Second: even without that, there's such a thing as an implied license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_license Like, if you write something down on a piece of paper, you can't then sue the owner of the paper for copyright infringement. Similarly, if you upload code to GitHub, and tell it to share your code, you can't then sue them for sharing your code, ToS or no ToS.
- masklinn 8y ago
  Pretty much all the TOS says is there's an implicit reproduction license (other users can see & fork the work) and possibly broadcast (the fork itself has the visibility of the original). Not adaptation, not use, not exploitation, … And that license grant is solely through github as a service, it's unclear that a local clone is even permitted.
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    > And that license grant is solely through github as a service, it's unclear that a local clone is even permitted. That license grant has been added specifically to make GitHub itself waterproof (AIUI), so it makes sense it doesn't extend to user's rights. Look, but don't touch.
  - Zarel 8y ago
    That's... somewhat true. My main objection is to "the author is the only one holding every rights on the code and every use that is not explicitly allowed is a copyright infringement (unless it's fair use)". The ToS doesn't say there's an implicit reproduction license, though; it says there's an explicit reproduction license. The other licenses can still be argued to be implicit. For instance, you have a decent argument that local clones are an implicit license – GitHub provides a "Clone or download" button directly on the repo page, and it's one of the main use cases of GitHub. (Other arguments exist.)
devit 8y ago
"Use" is allowed, redistribution of the original or derivative works is essentially what is not permitted.
- littlestymaar 8y ago
  I guess it depends on what you call «use». You can read the code, for sure, probably even save it on your disk (it may depend on your jurisdiction though). But, can you compile it ? I'm not sure… Better ask your lawyer. And what about running the compiled binary ? I don't think you're allowed to do that.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  That's how copyleft licenses work. Base copyright law is more restrictive and possessing an unlicensed copy can be infringing in certain countries. This is why public domain is sometimes problematic.

josteink 8y ago

Easiest way to fix that is often just sending a PR with whatever is the “default” license for that particular eco-system. For Rust that is (afaik) MIT. Why don’t you go try it? ;)

steveklabnik 8y ago
(MIT/Apache2, yes)
aorth 8y ago
As of a few minutes ago the project now has an MIT license. So that clears that up! https://github.com/chrisdickinson/git-rs/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/chrisdickinson/git-rs/blob/master/LICENSE...

e12e 8y ago

Fwiw license (mit) has been added in the past 7 hour: https://github.com/chrisdickinson/git-rs/commit/2be8314b9b1ce65115aeda49bf33add063a191c7 https://github.com/chrisdickinson/git-rs/commit/2be8314b9b1c...