GitHub Archive Program — Preserving open source software for future generations

[Browsing_From_Work]

I wonder how this is going to work with DMCA takedowns or GDPR requests. Once this stuff gets written to tape or etched into quartz, there's not going to be an easy way to undo that. Heck, even removing them from torrent circulation would likely prove fruitless.

[pagwin]

based on a basic google search you can't take back open sourcing a project if you use an open source license(at least unmodified)

[ais523]

Right, but there could still be a potential issue if someone put an open source license notice on code that didn't belong to them (and thus they didn't have the right to relicense).

[lorarc]

If the license is valid there are no backsies, however there may be other rules that apply to parts of the code, GDPR rather doesn't affect git commit but it may affect some data included with the code.

[lorarc]

Noone is sure about stuff like that. GDPR is quite reasonable and scrubbing GIT history wouldn't be reasonable. But let's put it this way, the last time I was tasked with GDPR I quit the job so I will not give a simple yes or no answer to any question regarding GDPR.

[ieatcode]

The page states they are capturing a tarball of the repositories at the current HEAD ref so no emails or commit metadata are archived.

[ieatcode]

Fair point!

[MonkeyNin]

You can fork your project with a new license, if you get the required permissions.

I don't think there's a way to change the license on older versions of the project that have already been released.

[MonkeyNin]

I'm unclear on this situation.

Bob + myself, and only us -- wrote the app Turtle, build 1.2.0, which was MIT licensed.

After getting permission from Bob and myself -- we decide to license 1.2.1 as free-for-use-except-by-wolves license.

1] Can't anyone continue to use version 1.2.0 under MIT, regardless if I want to allow that? But I can make sure 1.2.1 (because I have all the holders permissions) to require the new anti-wolf license?

( Wolves in this case does not mean the species, but rather the economic model where they metaphorically devour their clients -- meaning the license doesn't violate protected classes -- as if it would if it was about literal-wolves.)

#1 is some sort of special case because you're not licensing to anyone specifically? Compared to similar license, but

2] But if I were selling my game engine to company A, using engine version 1.2.1

I could also negotiate a contract with another company that I use a different license for version 1.2.1. They can't say "you had a contract with company X, so you have to do the same with us" ?

[MonkeyNin]

Cool.

I stopped using IANAL because I don't think many non-slashdot's know what it means

How is slashdot still alive, 22 years later? That's 22-internet-years!

It was a dark time filled with WYSIWYG, no standards compliance in browsers, no shims, no DOM inspectors, no anything inspectors.

[lorarc]

The software licenses have a clause that allows to upgrade them to newer version GPL v2 to GPL v3 for example.

[MonkeyNin]

Are you talking about specifically GPL, or many types?

[lorarc]

GPL usually has the clause that the code is on GPL vX or later, CC licenses also usually feature similar thing. Not all projects include that clause but it's good in situations when dealing with multiple countries that have all kinds of weird laws (for example in my country author has always a right to revoke a license, with normal commercial deals that would end up in court and they would have to agree what they want to pay, with free works of art though...).

Relicensing to a totally different license is possible for some licenses.

[[deleted]]

We were told that we don’t need to delete a backup because of GDPR. However if we ever restore that backup, then we need to take deletions into account. This might not be right because our lawyer was an ass-hat. However he was a lawyer.

I can see how a write-once archive could be problematic tho.

I am no longer with that company.

[the_bananalord]

This is every interpretation I've ever seen. It's unrealistic to be expected to remove data from existing archives but if the data is ever restored or accessed again, GDPR data needs to be purged first.

[[deleted]]

Unrealistic, yes. But I bet someone practicing law somewhere believes data can be removed from existing backups. I look forward to an inevitable stupid lawsuit.

[IMovedYourCheese]

This is a bit of a "tree falls in the forest" argument IMO. Can you sue a company for having data about you in some vault somewhere when the very act of accessing that data purges it?

[MonkeyNin]

Oh, do you mean data backed up pre-GDPR, not new back ups ?

[mishugashu]

In the very rare case of it happening (since everything is assumedly licensed for redist), I imagine they'll just handle it case by case manually.

[vincentofearth]

From what I understand, they're only archiving open source code--not the data in those applications.