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gelstudios / gitfiti

abusing github commit history for the lulz
MIT License
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Copyright vs License #62

Open the-xentropy opened 6 years ago

the-xentropy commented 6 years ago

Not a huge deal, but the code says:

# Copyright (c) 2013 Eric Romano (@gelstudios)
# released under The MIT license (MIT) http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

But it can't be both copyright to Eric Romano and then released under the MIT license, since the MIT license specifically mentions that you can copy and modify it however you want as long as you keep the license intact and credit Eric.

Changing it to "Originally developed by Eric Romano" or something is more in line with the spirit and legality of the MIT license, imo.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention it.

gelstudios commented 6 years ago

You know what, I thought that might be the case but I was swayed by stuff like https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT and didnt look much further... either way I probably did it wrong

I'll ask my company's open source expert for their opinion 🍜

the-xentropy commented 6 years ago

Let me know what he says! Law is weird, so it could go either which way depending on any number of factors.

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 10:00 PM, Eric Romano notifications@github.com wrote:

You know what, I thought that might be the case but I was swayed by stuff like https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT and didnt look much further... either way I probably did it wrong

I'll ask my company's open source expert for their opinion 🍜

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti/issues/62#issuecomment-422131580, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AMNFk143Q3ocdYjxapa33cIsccY3FfTJks5ub_FfgaJpZM4WrpTv .

homeworkprod commented 6 years ago

Well, the aforementioned OSI page on specifically the MIT license as well as many (most) other open source licenses – including the GPL, a "copyleft" license – include the Copyright (c) <year> <author> line. "How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs" sections also explicitly include that statement.

Thus, I'm pretty sure this is how it should be done. Permissions granted by the author through a license are something different than the rights of the original author, and authorship itself. Depending on your local law, the latter is something you can't even give away. Then again, law is complicated.