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I have to assume that the original repository was private when you forked it. If it was public, and then made private, then this should not happen. If the orig

I have to assume that the original repository was private when you forked it. If it was public, and then made private, then this should not happen. If the original code was "open source", then why exactly was it in a private repository? Putting "MIT licensed open source" into a private repository is not publishing that source code for the world to use. It sounds like nothing weird happened here other than this company thinking a private repository was "publishing it as open source".

chrisfosterelli 4y ago
It would have had to be privately forked. If you change your repository from public to private, GitHub detaches the forks and leaves them public, so a repo owner can't just delete someone's public fork.
baobabKoodaa 4y ago
> If the original code was "open source", then why exactly was it in a private repository? It's been too many years to remember the exact reasons, but this was not the only repo in the project. This was the "working directory" that had all kinds of random stuff that a data science project might accrue over time. Later in the project we published 3 repos which were more "cleaned up" to be potentially useful to outsiders (I use scare quotes around "cleaned up" because the codebases are still a mess, sorry). Anyway, 3 of the 4 repos appear to still be public: https://github.com/futurice/health-visualizations https://github.com/futurice/health-visualizations https://github.com/futurice/health-visualizations-front https://github.com/futurice/health-visualizations-front https://github.com/futurice/laaketutka-prereqs https://github.com/futurice/laaketutka-prereqs
alerighi 4y ago
Open source doesn't necessary mean that the code has to be share publicly on the internet, let alone on a GitHub repo! This is a common misconception. You can of course also decide to sell an open source software, that is have other pay you to obtain the software source code with an open source license (of course this person then can share the code, or even sell it to others legally, so it's not commonly done). I can put a MIT or even a GPL license in a private repository that I have at my company. The meaning is that I don't release the source code, tough if one of my employees wants to take it and use it he can, and he can also decide to share it with other people, or put it on a public repo. Why I don't want to put the repo public? Maybe I'm just lazy, I don't see too much value in the code, I don't want to write documentation, tests, whatever, I don't consider it of enough value, whatever, still I don't have problems with people that have access to the code that they use it, and share it if they want.
- rezonant 4y ago
  I have no misconception of what open source is, if you want to put your foot near this foot gun intentionally by paying GitHub to host code you've open sourced (while telling no one outside your org that you've open sourced it) that's fine. A common misconception is that publishing a public repo comes with obligations to add tests, documentation and whatever.

chrisfosterelli 4y ago

It would have had to be privately forked. If you change your repository from public to private, GitHub detaches the forks and leaves them public, so a repo owner can't just delete someone's public fork.

baobabKoodaa 4y ago

> If the original code was "open source", then why exactly was it in a private repository? It's been too many years to remember the exact reasons, but this was not the only repo in the project. This was the "working directory" that had all kinds of random stuff that a data science project might accrue over time. Later in the project we published 3 repos which were more "cleaned up" to be potentially useful to outsiders (I use scare quotes around "cleaned up" because the codebases are still a mess, sorry). Anyway, 3 of the 4 repos appear to still be public: https://github.com/futurice/health-visualizations https://github.com/futurice/health-visualizations https://github.com/futurice/health-visualizations-front https://github.com/futurice/health-visualizations-front https://github.com/futurice/laaketutka-prereqs https://github.com/futurice/laaketutka-prereqs

alerighi 4y ago

Open source doesn't necessary mean that the code has to be share publicly on the internet, let alone on a GitHub repo! This is a common misconception. You can of course also decide to sell an open source software, that is have other pay you to obtain the software source code with an open source license (of course this person then can share the code, or even sell it to others legally, so it's not commonly done). I can put a MIT or even a GPL license in a private repository that I have at my company. The meaning is that I don't release the source code, tough if one of my employees wants to take it and use it he can, and he can also decide to share it with other people, or put it on a public repo. Why I don't want to put the repo public? Maybe I'm just lazy, I don't see too much value in the code, I don't want to write documentation, tests, whatever, I don't consider it of enough value, whatever, still I don't have problems with people that have access to the code that they use it, and share it if they want.

rezonant 4y ago
I have no misconception of what open source is, if you want to put your foot near this foot gun intentionally by paying GitHub to host code you've open sourced (while telling no one outside your org that you've open sourced it) that's fine. A common misconception is that publishing a public repo comes with obligations to add tests, documentation and whatever.