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Show HN: “Add a License Please” – GitHub Bot

5 points by karangoeluw 12y ago

sjs382 12y ago
> Github is full of "open source" project that carry no explicit license. Some of that is intentional, some is not. You may think that everything should include a license, but not everyone shares your sensibilities/values. There are plenty of valid reasons to not include a license, including "I don't want to think about it right now" and "I just don't want to assign a license". Please don't spam everyone who doesn't agree with you. I hope Github bans this bot.
- karangoeluw 12y ago
  > Some of that is intentional, some is not. Likewise, most of it is not intentional and users are just not aware of it. If they do not wish to include a license, they can just close the issue or put a copyright information in the README/wiki. > Please don't spam everyone who doesn't agree with you. I hope Github bans this bot. I respect those who don't agree with me. There are a lot of projects that have added licenses already [1] and none have said that they do not want to include licenses (yet). Also, this is not spam. The bot doesn't scan ALL of the repositories. It only scans repos with 1 to 5 stars. The logic being, if some people "like" it, then it could be a generic project that is reusable. If a lot of people like it then it probably already has a license. Have a great day! [1] https://github.com/karan/add-a-license-please/wiki https://github.com/karan/add-a-license-please/wiki
- mailslut 12y ago
  I agree with sjs382 - I don't think it's your place to be spamming repos telling them to add a licence.
  - karangoeluw 12y ago
    Ok. Who's is it then?
    - mathgeek 12y ago
      Let me start out by saying that I think opening an issue isn't all that spammy to me. It's certainly better than emailing directly, although it still generates an email, so it's still "kinda spammy" IMHO. From a philosophical standpoint, I'd say it's no one's place to be automated cold calling (cold issuing?) other developers to explicitly license their software. If there is no explicit license, the implicit copyright still exists. GitHub is really the only party that would have an understandable role in these kinds of warnings/requests. Here's a good SX post on the topic: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/148165 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/148165
    - sjs382 12y ago
      Nobody's. Feel free to ask individual repos that you may want to use code from, but unsolicited, automated messaging like this is spam.
      - mailslut 12y ago
        I agree - it's the automated aspect of it that I feel uncomfortable with.
      - camhenlin 12y ago
        Yeah totally. Pretty much every time I have a code idea, I create a new github repo. If someone went through and did pull requests on every single one of those to add a license, it would probably do nothing but piss me off and convince me to spend time figuring out how to report the account. That being said if an actual individual developer sent me a pull request/email/tweet/whatever asking for a license, I can promise you I'd be sitting there on my phone scrambling to get a license on there. If GitHub wanted all the repos on GitHub to have licenses, they would require it, or create a policy where all repos with no licenses automatically meet a minimum licensing requirement.
        karangoeluw 12y ago
        > did pull requests Except this bot doesn't create PR's.
deleted 12y ago
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jsnathan 12y ago
I think it's not a bad idea to remind people to add a license to their public github projects. It's probably an oversight when they publish code for others to reuse, but don't add a license. I've had to email people before to ask what the license is. But what exactly is the point of publishing this bot? Do you want multiple people to start running it? Will the bot create multiple automated issues per repo? That sounds like overkill. Maybe add a note about that.
- karangoeluw 12y ago
  > Do you want multiple people to start running it? No. That's why the looping part of the bot isn't published.

5 points by karangoeluw 12y ago

> Github is full of "open source" project that carry no explicit license. Some of that is intentional, some is not. You may think that everything should include a license, but not everyone shares your sensibilities/values. There are plenty of valid reasons to not include a license, including "I don't want to think about it right now" and "I just don't want to assign a license". Please don't spam everyone who doesn't agree with you. I hope Github bans this bot.

karangoeluw 12y ago
> Some of that is intentional, some is not. Likewise, most of it is not intentional and users are just not aware of it. If they do not wish to include a license, they can just close the issue or put a copyright information in the README/wiki. > Please don't spam everyone who doesn't agree with you. I hope Github bans this bot. I respect those who don't agree with me. There are a lot of projects that have added licenses already [1] and none have said that they do not want to include licenses (yet). Also, this is not spam. The bot doesn't scan ALL of the repositories. It only scans repos with 1 to 5 stars. The logic being, if some people "like" it, then it could be a generic project that is reusable. If a lot of people like it then it probably already has a license. Have a great day! [1] https://github.com/karan/add-a-license-please/wiki https://github.com/karan/add-a-license-please/wiki
mailslut 12y ago
I agree with sjs382 - I don't think it's your place to be spamming repos telling them to add a licence.
- karangoeluw 12y ago
  Ok. Who's is it then?
  - mathgeek 12y ago
    Let me start out by saying that I think opening an issue isn't all that spammy to me. It's certainly better than emailing directly, although it still generates an email, so it's still "kinda spammy" IMHO. From a philosophical standpoint, I'd say it's no one's place to be automated cold calling (cold issuing?) other developers to explicitly license their software. If there is no explicit license, the implicit copyright still exists. GitHub is really the only party that would have an understandable role in these kinds of warnings/requests. Here's a good SX post on the topic: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/148165 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/148165
  - sjs382 12y ago
    Nobody's. Feel free to ask individual repos that you may want to use code from, but unsolicited, automated messaging like this is spam.
    - mailslut 12y ago
      I agree - it's the automated aspect of it that I feel uncomfortable with.
    - camhenlin 12y ago
      Yeah totally. Pretty much every time I have a code idea, I create a new github repo. If someone went through and did pull requests on every single one of those to add a license, it would probably do nothing but piss me off and convince me to spend time figuring out how to report the account. That being said if an actual individual developer sent me a pull request/email/tweet/whatever asking for a license, I can promise you I'd be sitting there on my phone scrambling to get a license on there. If GitHub wanted all the repos on GitHub to have licenses, they would require it, or create a policy where all repos with no licenses automatically meet a minimum licensing requirement.
      - karangoeluw 12y ago
        > did pull requests Except this bot doesn't create PR's.

deleted 12y ago

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jsnathan 12y ago

I think it's not a bad idea to remind people to add a license to their public github projects. It's probably an oversight when they publish code for others to reuse, but don't add a license. I've had to email people before to ask what the license is. But what exactly is the point of publishing this bot? Do you want multiple people to start running it? Will the bot create multiple automated issues per repo? That sounds like overkill. Maybe add a note about that.

karangoeluw 12y ago
> Do you want multiple people to start running it? No. That's why the looping part of the bot isn't published.