Should Fedora Legal issue an opinion on this? This affects a lot of
upstream projects used by Fedora.
A number of people (not lawyers) have seen the new github Terms of
Service as incompatible with GPL, CC-BY and other free/libre
licenses - and therefore recommend removing all affected content
immediately.
Examples:
Recommend removing content:
https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10_e20170301-tg.htm#e20170301-tg_wlog-10
http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/removing_everything_from_github/
New TOS are innocuous:
https://www.earth.li/~noodles/blog/2017/03/github-tos-change.html
My (IANAL) opinion so far (from #spf@irc.perl.org) :
(01:48:09 PM) SDGathman: ScottK:
My reading of the new TOS is that *IF* you don't bother to include
an explicit LICENSE in a repo, it has an implicit BSD license.
(01:48:53 PM) SDGathman: Maybe
he is worried he might accidentally upload a repo with no LICENSE ?
(01:50:57 PM) julian: I
doubt that a git hoster's TOS can legally force any license on your
code without you explicitly declaring it.
(01:51:27 PM) julian: unless
they, say, explicitly create a `LICENSE` file for you stating that
license.
(01:51:35 PM) julian: and
you don't remove/replace it.
(01:55:01 PM) SDGathman: Mainly,
the TOS explicitly says that by uploading, you grant github the
right to reproduce your content to provide their service, *and*
grant other github users the right to "fork" the content.
(01:55:33 PM) SDGathman: There
is no implicit license to distribute beyond github.
(01:56:11 PM) SDGathman: If
you don't want people to fork your repo, maybe it shouldn't be on
github? (Or you can buy their private commercial service.)
(02:16:32 PM) lennyvaknine: or
bitbucket :)
(03:03:48 PM) ScottK: One of
those posts (or one referenced) says bitbucket is similar.
(03:04:25 PM) ScottK: sdgathman:
OK. I didn't have a strong opinion, but wanted to make sure you were
aware.
(03:07:10 PM) SDGathman: The
main takeaway is, just like github warns you, make sure your repo
has a license before uploading. When you create a new repo on
github, they have a menu of standard free/libre licenses to put in
your empty project from the getgo.
(03:07:52 PM) ScottK: And
yet, so many don't have it.
(03:09:15 PM) SDGathman: And
in that case, the github TOS says it has an implicit BSD like
license.
(03:10:53 PM) SDGathman: Which
isn't so bad - unless you are a commercial company and don't want a
competitor grabbing your code just before the commit that added the
LICENSE.
(03:12:35 PM) SDGathman: I
always start with GPL, and add PSF or other looser license later if
needed.
(03:13:13 PM) SDGathman: It
took a while to cultivate that habit...