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I believe he's referring to the fact that many if not most projects hosted on github have no license conditions at all. No license means no one except the orig

by bregma 7y ago

I believe he's referring to the fact that many if not most projects hosted on github have no license conditions at all. No license means no one except the original author can use the software, and anyone who even looks at the code runs the risk of being sued for copyright infringement. RMS is not saying "make everything GPL" (or at least, not in this context). He's just saying if you're going to publish source code, please make clear the condition under which it can be read or used.

phkahler 7y ago
I would say github shouldn't even allow publicly visible code without a license.
- askmike 7y ago
  Forcing coders to make legal choices is a sure way to make users happy.
  - scbrg 7y ago
    They already are making a legal choice when they choose to make the repo public. There is little point in not making that explicit.
  - phkahler 7y ago
    If you want to play in the pond, you should know how to swim.
- thekyle 7y ago
  Technically, all GitHub repos have at least one license. That is the GitHub license: > If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed publicly, you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (for example, through forking). > You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies as necessary to render the Website and provide the Service. https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service https://help.github.com/en/articles/github-terms-of-service