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Just a friendly reminder about what it means to not have a license in your repository. You can read about it here: http://choosealicense.com/no-license/ http://

Just a friendly reminder about what it means to not have a license in your repository. You can read about it here: http://choosealicense.com/no-license/ http://choosealicense.com/no-license/ Essentially, by not including a license, you default to standard copyright protections and "you retain all rights to your source code and that nobody else may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work." However, GitHub's ToS say that "by setting your pages to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view your Content. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories."[1] If you go into the glossary you can see that the definition for fork "allow[s] you to freely make changes to a project without affecting the original."[2] Since I'm not a lawyer, I'm not going to do any deeper analysis other than direct quotation here, but I can say that I personally like to submit pull requests with the MIT license to projects I wish to use which do not include a license, as well as a link to http://choosealicense.com/ http://choosealicense.com/ before I will use them in my own project. [1] https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service/#f-copyright-and-content-ownership https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service/#f-... [2] https://help.github.com/articles/github-glossary/#fork https://help.github.com/articles/github-glossary/#fork

zanny 12y ago
I have to expect that the TOS of Github supersedes default copyright, since you are intentionally uploading your files to the service. You have to agree to that TOS to do so, and that TOS forfeits presumed copyright assumptions for public repositories.
- justincormack 12y ago
  No, it cannot legally do that.
  - zanny 12y ago
    You cannot willingly transfer information to a second party and agree to terms that make you partially forfeit copyright so they can enable others to see or modify the information you gave them? Then what the hell is every Facebook post ever that the company mines for personal information? Thats in their TOS, and you agree to it by posting to their service.
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    Do you have some support for that statement or are do we just have to trust you?
- andrewchambers 12y ago
  The right to fork is not the same as the right to sell derivatives.
dylanz 12y ago
This was actually a question I had. I'd love to know: If a company uploads a project minus a license, and I fork that project, do I have free use of that project? If so, would it be point-in-time of the fork?
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
See also djb's counterargument: http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html
- Xylakant 12y ago
  There are various issues with djb's counterargument, the most striking one is that the argument may hold water in the US, but it's certainly not applicable to the EU [1] or other parts of the world while a real license is. If you want to share your work, give it a license so that people know under which terms they can use it. [1] the EU directive cited requires you to lawfully acquire the program and does not cover redistribution.
Alupis 12y ago
I might be in the odd camp here, but I think Github/Bitbucket et al should force the user to pick a license when creating a new repo. Even if there's an option that says "proprietary", I'm OK with that... It would get rid of all the ambiguity of stumbling upon a very wonderful project but being unsure if you can use it due to no explicit license.
- rmc 12y ago
  Propriatory means you can't download it form Github, or fork it. Which would defeat the point.
  - adrusi 12y ago
    Well, no, If you publicly release the source code to your proprietary software, people can download it and tinker with it, so long as they don't distribute it whether it's modified or not. Unreal Engine, for example, has its entire source available free of charge online, but it's proprietary software and you can't make changes or use it to make a game unless you obtain a license from Epic Games (which is now free of charge in many cases, but you still have to go through the process of getting it).
- andrewguenther 12y ago
  I wrote a paper on this in grad school. A few of these services (I cannot recall which and I don't have a copy of the paper handy) actually state in their ToS that you must include an OSI approved license in your repo.
  - willnorris 12y ago
    Google Code has always been exclusively for open source projects. From https://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/FAQ#Hosting_Your_Open_Source_Project_on_Google_Code https://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/FAQ#Hosting_Your_Open... > Can I use Google Code to host projects that aren't open source? > Nope. Open source projects only.

zanny 12y ago

I have to expect that the TOS of Github supersedes default copyright, since you are intentionally uploading your files to the service. You have to agree to that TOS to do so, and that TOS forfeits presumed copyright assumptions for public repositories.

justincormack 12y ago
No, it cannot legally do that.
- zanny 12y ago
  You cannot willingly transfer information to a second party and agree to terms that make you partially forfeit copyright so they can enable others to see or modify the information you gave them? Then what the hell is every Facebook post ever that the company mines for personal information? Thats in their TOS, and you agree to it by posting to their service.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Do you have some support for that statement or are do we just have to trust you?
andrewchambers 12y ago
The right to fork is not the same as the right to sell derivatives.

dylanz 12y ago

This was actually a question I had. I'd love to know: If a company uploads a project minus a license, and I fork that project, do I have free use of that project? If so, would it be point-in-time of the fork?

vezzy-fnord 12y ago

See also djb's counterargument: http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html

Xylakant 12y ago
There are various issues with djb's counterargument, the most striking one is that the argument may hold water in the US, but it's certainly not applicable to the EU [1] or other parts of the world while a real license is. If you want to share your work, give it a license so that people know under which terms they can use it. [1] the EU directive cited requires you to lawfully acquire the program and does not cover redistribution.

Alupis 12y ago

I might be in the odd camp here, but I think Github/Bitbucket et al should force the user to pick a license when creating a new repo. Even if there's an option that says "proprietary", I'm OK with that... It would get rid of all the ambiguity of stumbling upon a very wonderful project but being unsure if you can use it due to no explicit license.

rmc 12y ago
Propriatory means you can't download it form Github, or fork it. Which would defeat the point.
- adrusi 12y ago
  Well, no, If you publicly release the source code to your proprietary software, people can download it and tinker with it, so long as they don't distribute it whether it's modified or not. Unreal Engine, for example, has its entire source available free of charge online, but it's proprietary software and you can't make changes or use it to make a game unless you obtain a license from Epic Games (which is now free of charge in many cases, but you still have to go through the process of getting it).
andrewguenther 12y ago
I wrote a paper on this in grad school. A few of these services (I cannot recall which and I don't have a copy of the paper handy) actually state in their ToS that you must include an OSI approved license in your repo.
- willnorris 12y ago
  Google Code has always been exclusively for open source projects. From https://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/FAQ#Hosting_Your_Open_Source_Project_on_Google_Code https://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/FAQ#Hosting_Your_Open... > Can I use Google Code to host projects that aren't open source? > Nope. Open source projects only.