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Well, it's at least slightly more open than e.g. Microsoft's source-available repositories, let alone leaked proprietary source; as you do have the freedom to e
by derefr 2y ago
Well, it's at least slightly more open than e.g. Microsoft's source-available repositories, let alone leaked proprietary source; as you do have the freedom to e.g. read the Winamp source code and then ground-up reimplement a Winamp-alike program, without their lawyers coming after you. (Orgs like ReactOS don't let people contribute if they've ever read code from a Microsoft source-available repos, lest ideas inspired by that code end up in the ReactOS codebase, and Microsoft sue them for that.)
I'm not sure what to call a codebase that only grants you the (implicit) right to not be sued for reading the source and then getting inspired by it, though.
- nick238 2y agoI thought reading closed-source code is a very bad idea, as if you wind up writing something similar, then you're possibly guilty of copyright infringement. If you have one team look at the design, catalog the features, and describe how it works in detail, then you can have another team implement it, and you're on legally much better ground (unless patents): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design
- badsectoracula 2y ago> I thought reading closed-source code is a very bad idea, as if you wind up writing something similar, then you're possibly guilty of copyright infringement. The idea is to avoid accidentally copying code, though TBH i think this is some sort of legend that comes from decades ago and not really practical (nor, as the article mentions, required by law). Writing something similar alone won't make you guilty of anything, otherwise people who worked as programmers wouldn't be able to work at a different company on the same or similar field again ever.