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> I'm not sure how I feel about adding deliberate boobytraps to repos that seems to be purely punitive. It also feels like it would violate the license of the

by d3nj4l 6y ago

> I'm not sure how I feel about adding deliberate boobytraps to repos that seems to be purely punitive. It also feels like it would violate the license of the repository. I see that one of the author's repos is LGPL [1], which allows redistribution of the source. Restricting how that source is distributed seems to me like a violation of that license, if not in letter at least in spirit. (Of course, it goes without saying that I'm not a lawyer, which is why I said it feels like a violation.) 1: https://git.joeyh.name/index.cgi/haskell-mountpoints.git/tree/LICENSE https://git.joeyh.name/index.cgi/haskell-mountpoints.git/tre...

NullPrefix 6y ago
Would you please kindly delete your comment before corporate lawyers get any funny ideas.
- judge2020 6y ago
  Can’t delete a HN comment if there is a reply to it :)
tedunangst 6y ago
You can't force somebody else to host your GPL code if they are not a party to the license.
geofft 6y ago
He's not restricting GitHub from hosting it, he's just using an artifact of GitHub's implementation (or, well, a hypothetical GitHub implementation - I'm not sure GitHub actually blocks submodules that reference the relevant commit hash?) that happens to make GitHub refuse to host it. GitHub is free to change their minds about the implementation and start accepting those commits again. That is, you, as a recipient of the code, are free to ask GitHub to host it, and to offer them a license under the terms of the GPL; GitHub is free to accept or to decline, same as if you sent me the code, I am free to host it on my personal website but I'm also free to not host it. (It would feel more like violating the spirit if it, say, prevented you from uploading it to a GitLab instance you self-host... but since you self-host it, you could just patch out any suppression code, so that case can't come up.)
sokoloff 6y ago
I don’t even think it’s an in-spirit violation. You have to offer to distribute the source. That doesn’t have to be from any particular hosting provider; it just has to be reasonable. (The license is ~14 years older than git itself. There’s no way distribution using a specific git hosting service is required under the license.)
slang800 6y ago
Making a repo that is incompatible with another hosting system is not a GPL violation. There are all sorts of compatibility issues that can arise from platforms doing dumb things. For example, a repo with the files README.md and readme.md in the same directory would break on certain Windows machines due to case sensitivity problems.
dx034 6y ago
If a country now decided that the Linux kernel violates law and bans it I don't think the kernel would violate their license just because it's now illegal to distribute it in that country.
GoblinSlayer 6y ago
GPL doesn't require you to provide a git repository, a tarball is good enough.

by d3nj4l 6y ago

NullPrefix 6y ago

Would you please kindly delete your comment before corporate lawyers get any funny ideas.

judge2020 6y ago
Can’t delete a HN comment if there is a reply to it :)

tedunangst 6y ago

You can't force somebody else to host your GPL code if they are not a party to the license.

geofft 6y ago

He's not restricting GitHub from hosting it, he's just using an artifact of GitHub's implementation (or, well, a hypothetical GitHub implementation - I'm not sure GitHub actually blocks submodules that reference the relevant commit hash?) that happens to make GitHub refuse to host it. GitHub is free to change their minds about the implementation and start accepting those commits again. That is, you, as a recipient of the code, are free to ask GitHub to host it, and to offer them a license under the terms of the GPL; GitHub is free to accept or to decline, same as if you sent me the code, I am free to host it on my personal website but I'm also free to not host it. (It would feel more like violating the spirit if it, say, prevented you from uploading it to a GitLab instance you self-host... but since you self-host it, you could just patch out any suppression code, so that case can't come up.)

sokoloff 6y ago

I don’t even think it’s an in-spirit violation. You have to offer to distribute the source. That doesn’t have to be from any particular hosting provider; it just has to be reasonable. (The license is ~14 years older than git itself. There’s no way distribution using a specific git hosting service is required under the license.)

slang800 6y ago

Making a repo that is incompatible with another hosting system is not a GPL violation. There are all sorts of compatibility issues that can arise from platforms doing dumb things. For example, a repo with the files README.md and readme.md in the same directory would break on certain Windows machines due to case sensitivity problems.

dx034 6y ago

If a country now decided that the Linux kernel violates law and bans it I don't think the kernel would violate their license just because it's now illegal to distribute it in that country.

GoblinSlayer 6y ago

GPL doesn't require you to provide a git repository, a tarball is good enough.