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That's completely not true. If it's a FLOSS or similar copyright license, they'd be using the same copyright to display that copy. They don't need special perm
by noasaservice 4y ago
That's completely not true.
If it's a FLOSS or similar copyright license, they'd be using the same copyright to display that copy. They don't need special permissions.
If a person uploads a non-permissive license (or sets a license that is as such), then they would be in the rights to set it to private and charge, or to remove it.
It's very suspicious that they do not force a license set, nor remove repos for no license.
- majewsky 4y agoWhen the code is under a non-permissive license, that means by definition that GitHub cannot derive any usage rights from it. However, displaying the source code on the website (even to a logged-in user! even to the original rights holder!) is a type of "usage". Therefore they would be in breach of copyright. ToS is the only place where they can derive the necessary usage rights. In certain jurisdictions, usage rights may be conferred by an implied-in-fact contract. But for a company like GitHub that operates almost globally, it's probably a very bad idea to rely on local legal interpretations of the scope of implied-in-fact contracts.