4 ms·

People are misunderstanding this and claiming it's not problematic because the tweet in the HN link is idiocy. They show one URL in one installer script with a

People are misunderstanding this and claiming it's not problematic because the tweet in the HN link is idiocy. They show one URL in one installer script with an obsproject.com domain and conclude, from the presence of that URL alone, that the entire project is a whole cloth copy of OBS. That URL is nothing but a 302 redirect to the directx runtime at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Download/confirmation.aspx?id=35 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Download/confirmation.aspx?i... The linked tweet tells us nothing except that TikTok is essentially using obsproject.com's web server as a URL shortener.

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mysterydip 5y ago
Why would a company the size of tiktok want to depend on some open source project maintaining a URL? Would they be liable if it instead redirected to malware?
- Sebb767 5y ago
  Possibly. But most likely there was a bug "crashing when DirectX is not installed" and some developer hacked a silent install for DirectX in without thinking too much.
  - OmegaMetor 5y ago
    A OBS developer went into detail here [1] about how they figured this out. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592103#29595349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592103#29595349
- adolph 5y ago
  > a company the size of tiktok Is made up of smaller teams composed of individuals who may or may not take shortcuts and make good decisions on behalf of their company. If the choice is between "executive said 'hey use this open source in secret'" or "programmer took shortcut," my bet is on the latter.
  - mr_toad 5y ago
    And management never reads the code.
dodgepong 5y ago
Again, to be clear, we've decompiled the TikTok LIVE Studio binary and confirmed that it uses code derived from OBS Studio.
- addingnumbers 5y ago
  If the link took us to evidence of that it would be great. Instead the link takes us to misinformation from a rage-monger who clearly has no understanding of what they are looking at.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please make your substantive points without name-calling. The latter is against the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and also makes your comments less credible, which is particularly bad if you're correct on the issues (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
humanistbot 5y ago
> that the entire project is a whole cloth copy of OBS. That is a straw man argument. It doesn't matter what percent of the infringing product uses GPL-licensed code.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ksm1717 5y ago
  What if it’s one character?
  - mixedCase 5y ago
    I believe the parent poster implicitly meant "as long as it's copyrightable" as a caveat
    - ksm1717 5y ago
      So copyrightable is 2 char?
      - NobodyNada 5y ago
        No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality
      - seanhunter 5y ago
        One of the first tests for infringement is "substantial similarity"(see [1] for example). If you claim copyright infringement on the basis of any small number of characters your case will be tossed by the judge. There isn't a specific number of characters that need to be copied before it becomes "substantial" because the court gets to rule on that based on the context etc. [1]https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/copyright-infringement-and-substantial-similarity https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/copyright-infringement-an...
  - dralley 5y ago
stefan_ 5y ago
Yes, clearly, the TikTok employee writing that original bog-boring DirectX dependency installer script felt his best choice here was to use the OBS URL as a URL shortener. Truly this is the strongest possible interpretation of this circumstantial evidence and does not make you look like an idiot (re idiocy) at all. You would rather write this comment than simply navigate to the OBS github and find the copy of this installer script in there.
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mysterydip 5y ago

Why would a company the size of tiktok want to depend on some open source project maintaining a URL? Would they be liable if it instead redirected to malware?

Sebb767 5y ago
Possibly. But most likely there was a bug "crashing when DirectX is not installed" and some developer hacked a silent install for DirectX in without thinking too much.
- OmegaMetor 5y ago
  A OBS developer went into detail here [1] about how they figured this out. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592103#29595349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592103#29595349
adolph 5y ago
> a company the size of tiktok Is made up of smaller teams composed of individuals who may or may not take shortcuts and make good decisions on behalf of their company. If the choice is between "executive said 'hey use this open source in secret'" or "programmer took shortcut," my bet is on the latter.
- mr_toad 5y ago
  And management never reads the code.

dodgepong 5y ago

Again, to be clear, we've decompiled the TikTok LIVE Studio binary and confirmed that it uses code derived from OBS Studio.

addingnumbers 5y ago
If the link took us to evidence of that it would be great. Instead the link takes us to misinformation from a rage-monger who clearly has no understanding of what they are looking at.
- dang 5y ago
  Please make your substantive points without name-calling. The latter is against the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and also makes your comments less credible, which is particularly bad if you're correct on the issues (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).

humanistbot 5y ago

> that the entire project is a whole cloth copy of OBS. That is a straw man argument. It doesn't matter what percent of the infringing product uses GPL-licensed code.

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ksm1717 5y ago
What if it’s one character?
- mixedCase 5y ago
  I believe the parent poster implicitly meant "as long as it's copyrightable" as a caveat
  - ksm1717 5y ago
    So copyrightable is 2 char?
    - NobodyNada 5y ago
      No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality
    - seanhunter 5y ago
      One of the first tests for infringement is "substantial similarity"(see [1] for example). If you claim copyright infringement on the basis of any small number of characters your case will be tossed by the judge. There isn't a specific number of characters that need to be copied before it becomes "substantial" because the court gets to rule on that based on the context etc. [1]https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/copyright-infringement-and-substantial-similarity https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/copyright-infringement-an...
- dralley 5y ago

stefan_ 5y ago

Yes, clearly, the TikTok employee writing that original bog-boring DirectX dependency installer script felt his best choice here was to use the OBS URL as a URL shortener. Truly this is the strongest possible interpretation of this circumstantial evidence and does not make you look like an idiot (re idiocy) at all. You would rather write this comment than simply navigate to the OBS github and find the copy of this installer script in there.

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