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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

by 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.)
  - littlestymaar 8y ago
    > The ToS doesn't say there's an implicit reproduction license, though; it says there's an explicit reproduction license. Then it's totally excluded from my claim which aims «every use that is not explicitly allowed». :)
littlestymaar 8y ago
Thanks for the clarification on the “implicit license” point, I glossed over a little bit quickly. I should definitely have said “every use that is not explicitly or implicitly allowed is a copyright infringement”. Your first point doesn't really bring much though, since it falls in the “explicitly allowed” part of my comment. Overall, my whole point stands still: if anyone went on GitHub, downloaded the project and did anything with it that went beyond fair use, that would be a copyright infringement because neither the author nor GitHub granted you any permission to do so.
fulafel 8y ago
Aside: "you agree to.." is not automatically enforceable in this kind of ToS.

by Zarel 8y ago

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.)
- littlestymaar 8y ago
  > The ToS doesn't say there's an implicit reproduction license, though; it says there's an explicit reproduction license. Then it's totally excluded from my claim which aims «every use that is not explicitly allowed». :)

littlestymaar 8y ago

Thanks for the clarification on the “implicit license” point, I glossed over a little bit quickly. I should definitely have said “every use that is not explicitly or implicitly allowed is a copyright infringement”. Your first point doesn't really bring much though, since it falls in the “explicitly allowed” part of my comment. Overall, my whole point stands still: if anyone went on GitHub, downloaded the project and did anything with it that went beyond fair use, that would be a copyright infringement because neither the author nor GitHub granted you any permission to do so.

fulafel 8y ago

Aside: "you agree to.." is not automatically enforceable in this kind of ToS.