I see your points, and I agree this merits further careful consideration. The status quo is pretty absurd.
I'm still hesitant to agree that it's a C-level concern. The irresponsibility of a host and of the various repositories doesn't directly undermine the freedoms around any GNU software at that host. Nevertheless, I can see the argument that this situation is so troubling that GNU could take a hard stance rejecting hosts that engage with this recklessness. On 2021-03-12 4:33 p.m., bill-auger wrote: > i cant claim to know the answer; but i have done some research - > the implications of this are rather significant, and people > should want to know > > for the purpose of this list though, whether or not the TOS > allows downloading unlicensed works, is irrelevant - the fact > is, that people are downloading tarballs, and making VCS clones > which they have no formal license to - either way, it is > unethical, unless the full implications are clearly explained to > users; and either way, the service operators are responsible for > the confusion (or trick, as the case may be) - it would probably > take a lawyer to fully de-tangle those TOS; but i figured that > this list would be the most appropriate to discuss and > investigate it - if my suspicions are accurate, i think it > should become an essential criteria > > what i do know, it goes back some years, from when i was trying > to convince github to add something to their licensing guide, > which would mention that people must not choose the 'no-license' > option, if they want their code to be used and shared legally - > at the time, it mentioned nothing about the 'no-license' option > - it gave absolutely no suggestion of why anyone should choose a > license - they rejected most of my changes; but they kept the > one sentence which made that point clear - something like: "if > you want people to be able to use and share your software, you > must choose a license" - if they believed that the TOS already > allowed for that, then they could have rejected that sentence > also, with an excuse lie: "a license is not needed for that - > our TOS grants everyone an implicit license to use and share" - > i did not get any such response; and im quite certain that their > TOS does not grant anyone a license to use, copy, or distribute > - users always get the license from the author (or none) > > i read the github TOS quite thoroughly at the time - what it > says, is something like: "you grant us permission to present the > code to other users, for viewing and forking" - and thats all - > there is no further elaboration on what that implies > > i think "viewing" is obvious - that means the public can read > the code in a web browser (look but dont touch) - the copy in > your local browser cache, is probably permitted according to the > legal exception, which considers the temporary copy in a CD > player buffer to be exempt, just as with streaming media services > > im quite sure that "forking" has a similar semantics (nothing > leaves the server in a practically usable form) - "forking" > means "pressing the fork-me button on the website", which merely > creates another copy on the server (for similar "viewing" and > "forking") - i assume that it does not suggest downloading a > proper VCS clone locally > > it does not mention anything about the downloading a tarball; > but that is neither viewing nor forking, in any sense - that is > very plainly "copying", and per the plain english > interpretation, the TOS does not permit it - if it were > permissible at all, i would expect some terms to mention it > (something like: "users may download one copy for local > viewing" (a weak license grant); but there is nothing that > resembles a license grant > > that was a few years ago; but i doubt that their TOS has changed > WRT that topic - i have not read the TOS of any other forge, but > as most of them are github copy-cats; i expect that they have > similarly vague TOS >
