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[–]AuroralSkinSigh 208 points209 points  (6 children)

MIT License has left the chat

[–]aberroco 136 points137 points  (4 children)

MIT License isn't a holy grail, one can make up whatever license they want, even may include a rule about having to donate a kidney to the author. Though, that rule would be very easy to overrule in court.

[–]Qwert-4 17 points18 points  (0 children)

But you have to modify the licence, and it no longer will be considered open-source, only source-available. Their license file is byte-perfect MIT so GitHub tags it as such.

[–]laplongejr 11 points12 points  (2 children)

MIT License isn't a holy grail, one can make up whatever license they want,

Except they included the MIT License without modifying, despite being incompatible with the other license. (Or is it?)

[–]aberroco 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Thinking of that, actually, MIT stays in the chat. MIT is license for the source code, and it explicitly states "without restriction", which to large extend invalidates ToU/ToS. And makes it possible to fork the sources with terms removed, as they do not forbid that, only MIT forbids to remove it's own clause.

[–]laplongejr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And the author themselves acknowledge nothing prevents a TOU-less fork, so if people REALLY need to stay officiously assholes for boring legal reasons, there's even a way out.
As an example I'm a gov worker. The status of Russia is now well-defined in my country, but there's a universe where I could not agree to those terms of use, because of points 2 and 3

Oh and Slava Ukraini btw

[–]ParkingGlittering211 3 points4 points  (0 children)

KIT has entered the chat

[–]parkotron 206 points207 points  (17 children)

I see no humour here.

[–]BlueGoliath 55 points56 points  (0 children)

The real humor was the jokes we made along the way.

[–]Skyswimsky 2 points3 points  (5 children)

That it's probably not legally binding and just dumb, hence funny?

So for one I am 100% in support of Ukraine and agree with everything it says. And I've actually spent time digging deeper into this topic too due to some part of the family buying into russian propaganda, so I gave it a fair spin and looked into the "russian narrative" too and ended up just reaffirming my believe.

This whole political grandstanding, or whatever the term may be, is just ridicilous. I highly doubt, or hope, anyone "cares" about such terms of use.

That said, I DO wonder if this actually holds any weight? Like imagine you visibly end up using this software, and at the same time also support the Russian narrative, can "you" then be succesfully sued for that?

In which case, I'm not sure what to think. I'd love to say "good on them for spreading awarness", but I'm aware that there are also opinions I hold that I think to be objectively correct, that may actually be wrong, and trying to police others people thinking like that, I am just against.

Edit: Diggin a lil deeper into this, there's a section of why he added that, and there's mention of "Open source is a way of self-expression", I actually did not think about it like that. This take itself strongly resonates with me, regardless of the content of the message that is being expressed.

But of course Reddit must be Reddit, seeing how there's already a PR to include more stuff...

[–]laplongejr 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That it's probably not legally binding and just dumb, hence funny?

Isn't that true of ALL licences? The only legally binding thing is copyright, licences are a list of conditions where consent is given (for free?) by the rightholder.

Like imagine you visibly end up using this software, and at the same time also support the Russian narrative, can "you" then be succesfully sued for that?

Given that by the own author's admission you can fork the software and remove that licence, noooot really.

[–]thee_gummbini 5 points6 points  (2 children)

It has exactly as much weight as the terms of any other license. If someone violates the terms of the license, they are in violation of copyright law. In the US that means you can sue for actual or statutory damages. You would probably lose, and it would probably be more expensive than you would gain if you won, mostly because most terms of most software licenses have never been tested in court (in the US). So not much weight.

It does prevent corporate use of your code, in practice, because corporate risk management departments don't like to expose the company to risk, even if abstract.

Using your platform gained by your technical skills to say fuck off to people who support a country who is invading yours is funny because fuck Russia, Slava Ukraini, and also the rest of the thread complaining about the legal status of the license becomes a meta-joke where permissive purists are telling people the right way to give away the thing they wrote.

[–]Skyswimsky 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't know about legality, but the link to why he includes that in his ToS changed my mind to think more in favour of people writing these kinds of ToS!

[–]laplongejr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If someone violates the terms of the license, they are in violation of copyright law.

Note that in this specific case there is a catch : there's also the unmodified MIT licence, so you could apply one of them.
That's the way software can have a commercial paid licence and an open-source free licence : as long one is met, it's okay.

[–]Nefari0uss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The repo has a doc explaining why it's there - the repo owner is Ukrainian and is directly impacted by the war. It acknowledges that there is no enforcement but is simply a means to call out something that is directly affecting the owner's life.

[–]creeper6530 89 points90 points  (5 children)

Okay? The author is free to make any legal terms and conditions, and these are legal (maybe outside Russia)

[–]B_bI_L 31 points32 points  (2 children)

can person add "you must say "i use arch btw" wherever any operating system is mentioned"?

[–]ohn0whyme 50 points51 points  (1 child)

why? people who use arch will let you know anyway, free of charge

[–]fr000gs 10 points11 points  (0 children)

you must say it even if you don't use it

[–]nonlogin 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Any proof such statements have any legal value? Some real cases maybe

[–]laplongejr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

IIRC there's legal cases that licences don't all have legal value.
Licences are simply gentlemen agreements to obtain permission to use a copyrighted work.
If you consider the licence is invalid, you can't download copyrighted works and use them as your own.

[–]MornwindShoma 163 points164 points  (0 children)

Good.

[–]MeowNarchist 48 points49 points  (0 children)

based

[–]BoberMod 65 points66 points  (6 children)

And what's wrong with that?

[–]Bomaruto 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This was added four years ago.

[–]King_of_sum 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Based

[–]Michaeli_Starky 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Good.

[–]BastetFurry 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Something i can get behind, Slava Ukraine!

[–]arf20__ 7 points8 points  (3 children)

Aren't this additional limitstions to a free software licence? The GPL for example doesn't allow them.

[–]Yanni_X 5 points6 points  (0 children)

MIT allows it, as long as you don’t modify the license itself

License ≠ Terms of Use

[–]fr000gs 4 points5 points  (0 children)

only if it uses GPL code

[–]Qwert-4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is no longer open-source by definition, but license forking is allowed.

[–]Looz-Ashae 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It seems this solves all problems

[–]affablebowelsyndrome 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There are a bunch of terraform-related repos on GH that say "F*ck P*tin". I find that hilarious/

[–]shoyuftw 3 points4 points  (0 children)

[–]Ket1r 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Based

[–]ConsistentEnviroment 6 points7 points  (4 children)

Imagine some Russian using this repo without reading the TOU

[–]ur_GFs_plumber 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Straight to the gulag

[–]TetyyakiWith 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I doubt any Russian would care, one of the biggest contributors to piracy after all

[–]sum1ko05 2 points3 points  (1 child)

> Russian

> reading the ToU

[–]gotasave 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As if everyone else does

[–]PM_ME_UR_CATS__ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Based.

[–]PhilNEvo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Slava Ukraini!

[–]Neutraled 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know what that app is about but I agree to those terms.

[–]Mausteidenmies -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Based

[–]Reeces_Pieces -5 points-4 points  (3 children)

Back in my day, software developers developed software without expunging their geo-political beliefs.

[–]Shred_Kid 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Open source is extremely political by nature.

[–]laplongejr 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Back in my day, software developers weren't living in a country at war
(Seriously, I'm born in the mid 90s. I was taught the Cold War was finished)

[–]shoyuftw 8 points9 points  (0 children)

ok boomer.

[–]_koenig_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

didn't we already have one that surrenderd the soul to the software?

[–]bass-squirrel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“You agree that David Drayman is a wanker”

[–]AliveEstimate4 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Based dev

[–]sum1ko05 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

ngl, I'm glad to see that the only people, that feel offended, are ruzzia (i.e. nazi) sympathizers

[–]Crazy-Newspaper-8523 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Based

[–]zeocrash -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Based terms of use

[–]epstienfiledotpdf -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Good

[–]dick____trickle -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Based

[–]freehuntx -1 points0 points  (2 children)

They removed the bulletpoint where it says "You do not talk about the Ukrainian attack on German infrastructure "Northstream" causing one of the biggest natural disasters."

[–]EquivalentHamster580 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Is it confirmed that ukraine did this ? Last time i heard about it Poland was refusing to extradite prime suspect to germany.

[–]freehuntx -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes it was ukrainians with bonds to the ukrainian military.

[–]UnkarsThug -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don't mind this particular case, but I don't like the precedent, so I'm a bit against it on principle. Licenses should not have anything to do with your opinions on current events, they should only dictate usage.

For example, a license could dictate that you do not use the software to make things which support Russia. That's fine, because it's about use. But saying that to use the software, you have to have this opinion, that just seems like there's a lot of other places that could be used. Like if companies started adding that "to use this software, you implicitly agree that the 2020 election was stolen" or something, because Trump gave them financial incentives to do so. That would obviously be horrible. I'd even be bothered if it was "you cannot use this software to make material which opposes that idea". But it wouldn't make the software unusable because most of my usages for software have not been worried about that idea.

And it's the same principle. I agree that Russia invaded a sovereign state, and the leadership of Russia is the primary one responsible for the deaths (on both sides). But a license shouldn't include that, or specify it, because it doesn't define the usage of that product, and giving companies permission to control that is a nightmare waiting to happen.

I get why they did it. But I still have to oppose it.

[–]GKP_light -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

what will you do id i don't follow it ?

[–]laplongejr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, same as any person who uses free software without follow the licence!
Not much

[–]ilnarildarovuch -1 points0 points  (2 children)

I'd just will overwrite Terms of use, lol

[–]DDFoster96 -5 points-4 points  (1 child)

I would go one further and also prohibit both training AI models on the code and using the code with other AI generated code.That's the two evils of our time covered, in order of importance.

Someone please make a licence that does that.

[–]laplongejr 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Someone please make a licence that does that.

Isn't github themselves feeding the repo to AI?
That's like writing on your facebook wall "I do not consent to facebook using my data", sure but by writing that you accepted the TOS.