5 ms·

How hard would it be to take legal action for this I wonder

retrac 6y ago
It's my understanding that software with multiple copyright holders, especially when their work is all mushed together and being derivative of each other's work, is a major headache scenario. There's a reason the FSF requires that contributions to FSF-owned projects include a transfer of copyright.
- kadoban 6y ago
  I'm not a lawyer. As far as I understand copyright though, any copyright holder, aka any of the contributors, could take action (eg sue or submit a DMCA claim).
  - uberman 6y ago
    Yes, any ONLY them. Assuming they could even find an interested prosecutor/attorney which is rather unlikely.
    - skissane 6y ago
      > Assuming they could even find an interested prosecutor/attorney which is rather unlikely It would be a civil matter, so prosecutors would not be involved. Finding an attorney isn't hard assuming you are willing to pay for one.
      - uberman 6y ago
        Absolutely true. But the cost to prosecute an IP related civil case on average with less than $1 million USD at stake is $250k USD. With out the financial / legal support of lets say the FSF are any of the 60 or so 3rd party contributors willing to put up $250k USD to protect their 1 line commits? Are they willing to risk a quarter million in legal fees on the chance that the repo owner proceeds to trial without undoing their one line commits the night before making their claims moot? Without financial/legal support from someone like the FSF, the only way this would proceed is if the aggrieved parties were independently wealthy or could find a lawyer to take the case pro bono.
Latty 6y ago
It'd presumably have to be a contributor who wrote some of the code they can show is in the new product. Of course, in a normal situation, I imagine no one would care unless they'd contributed a significant amount. Acting this way sure seems like the best way to get someone to persue it on principle though.
uberman 6y ago
I would say almost impossible. First, you have to have standing meaning the only people who have any claim or could take action would be the "other contributors". At that point, the best likely path forward would be a claim of partial ownership resulting in a DCMA takedown request. However, the vast majority of contributions to this repo are insignificant one liner commits. While a nuisance for the repo owner, those commits could likely be undone and re-implemented. That leaves it up to a handful of more active participants to take any action (likely DCMA related). I would be shocked if anyone (other than with support from the FSF) takes actual legal action other than a cease and desist letter. Even then, finding an interested prosecutor/attorney is going to be a challenge. By some estimates only 1 in 100k software crimes are ever prosecuted and some guy who stole 100 commits by changing an open source license is not one of them.
- user5994461 6y ago
  Speaking from an European perspective here. I believe any user should be able to raise a claim, the software is deceitful and violating its license which raise a number of problems. One problem though is that the software doesn't indicate a license at all. I can think of multiple angles of attack if they were reselling it or distributing it under another license (MIT/BSD/GPL/other), that'd instantly give you the right to sue them, but because it doesn't have any license and doesn't claim anything, I don't know. It could probably be considered to be defacto AGPL since the AGPL is contagious so there's nothing to complain about. It's tricky ^^ edit: The other thing is what's the purpose of attacking? You attack for a purpose, usually damages and/or shutting down the project. There's nothing to gain here. For reference the last GPL cases I've seen were self-defeating for the defendants, the user/customer/client sue the contractor/company/vendor who gave them modified GPL software, the defendant wins but loses the right to use the software they paid for, which is dumb!
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    > I believe any user should be able to raise a claim, the software is deceitful and violating its license which raise a number of problems. This isn’t true, though... they aren’t violating their license, they changed the license. You are allowed to change a license for code you wrote at any time. The only issue is if they included other code that was licensed, either via a PR written by someone else that they merged or via a dependency that was licensed. You can’t violate your own license... even if I write code and release it as GPL, I am free to use a modified version in my own proprietary code (again, as long as you don’t use code licensed by someone else)

It's my understanding that software with multiple copyright holders, especially when their work is all mushed together and being derivative of each other's work, is a major headache scenario. There's a reason the FSF requires that contributions to FSF-owned projects include a transfer of copyright.

kadoban 6y ago
I'm not a lawyer. As far as I understand copyright though, any copyright holder, aka any of the contributors, could take action (eg sue or submit a DMCA claim).
- uberman 6y ago
  Yes, any ONLY them. Assuming they could even find an interested prosecutor/attorney which is rather unlikely.
  - skissane 6y ago
    > Assuming they could even find an interested prosecutor/attorney which is rather unlikely It would be a civil matter, so prosecutors would not be involved. Finding an attorney isn't hard assuming you are willing to pay for one.
    - uberman 6y ago
      Absolutely true. But the cost to prosecute an IP related civil case on average with less than $1 million USD at stake is $250k USD. With out the financial / legal support of lets say the FSF are any of the 60 or so 3rd party contributors willing to put up $250k USD to protect their 1 line commits? Are they willing to risk a quarter million in legal fees on the chance that the repo owner proceeds to trial without undoing their one line commits the night before making their claims moot? Without financial/legal support from someone like the FSF, the only way this would proceed is if the aggrieved parties were independently wealthy or could find a lawyer to take the case pro bono.

Latty 6y ago

It'd presumably have to be a contributor who wrote some of the code they can show is in the new product. Of course, in a normal situation, I imagine no one would care unless they'd contributed a significant amount. Acting this way sure seems like the best way to get someone to persue it on principle though.

uberman 6y ago

I would say almost impossible. First, you have to have standing meaning the only people who have any claim or could take action would be the "other contributors". At that point, the best likely path forward would be a claim of partial ownership resulting in a DCMA takedown request. However, the vast majority of contributions to this repo are insignificant one liner commits. While a nuisance for the repo owner, those commits could likely be undone and re-implemented. That leaves it up to a handful of more active participants to take any action (likely DCMA related). I would be shocked if anyone (other than with support from the FSF) takes actual legal action other than a cease and desist letter. Even then, finding an interested prosecutor/attorney is going to be a challenge. By some estimates only 1 in 100k software crimes are ever prosecuted and some guy who stole 100 commits by changing an open source license is not one of them.

user5994461 6y ago
Speaking from an European perspective here. I believe any user should be able to raise a claim, the software is deceitful and violating its license which raise a number of problems. One problem though is that the software doesn't indicate a license at all. I can think of multiple angles of attack if they were reselling it or distributing it under another license (MIT/BSD/GPL/other), that'd instantly give you the right to sue them, but because it doesn't have any license and doesn't claim anything, I don't know. It could probably be considered to be defacto AGPL since the AGPL is contagious so there's nothing to complain about. It's tricky ^^ edit: The other thing is what's the purpose of attacking? You attack for a purpose, usually damages and/or shutting down the project. There's nothing to gain here. For reference the last GPL cases I've seen were self-defeating for the defendants, the user/customer/client sue the contractor/company/vendor who gave them modified GPL software, the defendant wins but loses the right to use the software they paid for, which is dumb!
- cortesoft 6y ago
  > I believe any user should be able to raise a claim, the software is deceitful and violating its license which raise a number of problems. This isn’t true, though... they aren’t violating their license, they changed the license. You are allowed to change a license for code you wrote at any time. The only issue is if they included other code that was licensed, either via a PR written by someone else that they merged or via a dependency that was licensed. You can’t violate your own license... even if I write code and release it as GPL, I am free to use a modified version in my own proprietary code (again, as long as you don’t use code licensed by someone else)