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   dsfgs@mastodon.sdf.org's status on Friday, 22-Dec-2023 09:01:56 JST dsfgs

   Honest question for freedom-software (#FOSS) developers who use #GitHub.

   Do you feel safe? Why or why not?

   #mSG #mSGithub #freedomSoftware

   • Embed this notice
     gnutelephony (gnutelephony@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Dec-2023 09:01:55 JST gnutelephony

     in reply to

     @dsfgs what aspect are you asking about? There are many possible contexts to this question. I think I will answer just one, for now, copyright and ai.

     Of course, if your using a very permissive license (MIT for example), copyright questions may not be that important to the author of that specific work. But otherwise a platform that slurps up all your code for training and then reuses it, whether whole or in part, is a copyright laundry-mat. It's not that different from money laundering.

   • Embed this notice
     gnutelephony (gnutelephony@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Dec-2023 09:09:39 JST gnutelephony

     in reply to

     @dsfgs personally, though, I would be even more afraid of using github if I were a proprietary entity. Code aside, think of all those developer statistics it collects. Maybe Microsoft is a competitor of yours, or may about to become one and "enter" your market. Who are your most valuable people? What are your plans? What do you talk about in your daily scrums? It could all be there, as well as the code, too...

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     gnutelephony (gnutelephony@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Dec-2023 09:13:38 JST gnutelephony

     in reply to

     @dsfgs has Microsoft ever been caught taking code from others and using it in their products? As it happens, yes, a number of times. Have they sabotaged third party products? Again yes. For a proprietary vendor, it would be like asking Al Capone and Jessie James to handle all your bank deposits...

   • Embed this notice
     gnutelephony (gnutelephony@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Dec-2023 09:17:36 JST gnutelephony

     in reply to

     @dsfgs of course the problem for a FOSS developer is bigger than whether they host code on github or not. Anyone who can copy their repo can chose to host a mirror or fork of it on github too. It's very hard to keep your code off github, and no legal processes yet in place for handling copyright laundry-mats. Personally I see it as a kind of criminal enterprise.