free as a puppy
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| mbaehrlxer Jul 31, 2015 4:26 AM EDT |
yup, Free Software is free as a puppy, and if you take good care of it, it will grow into a healthy happy dog that will always be yours. just as closed source is like rent-a-dog. if the rent-a-dog business folds, your dog will be taken away as it's owned by the creditors, and you have no hope of ever getting it back. as for sourceforge, i don't agree that they did nothing wrong. sure, the GPL allows repackaging, but it does not allow misrepresenting the authors. sourceforge is a site that hosts authors products. as such it claims that the packages available for download are as they were created by the authors. at least this is what sourceforge was known for for a long time. by repackaging, sourceforge is lying about that claim and breaking users expectations. [url=http://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/Verifying downloaded files/]http://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/Verifying downl...[/url] Quoting:Project developers may also find it useful to use checksums to verify that the upload process went smoothly, and that the file on our servers after upload is in fact the same as the file on your computer.[url=http://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/Release Files for Download/]http://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/Release Files f...[/url] both pages suggest that files for download are as created by the original authors. repackaging without telling the users may not be illegal (and i am not even sure about that), but it certainly is dishonest and immoral. greetings, eMBee. |
| jdixon Jul 31, 2015 6:44 AM EDT |
> ...repackaging without telling the users may not be illegal... Unless they have an agreement with the authors, it almost certainly is. That's what copyright is all about, after all. Now, getting a court to agree to such a common sense position is always uncertain, especially in the past few years where political connections seem to trump everything else. |
| mbaehrlxer Jul 31, 2015 12:41 PM EDT |
in the terms of use i found this:
http://slashdotmedia.com/terms-of-use/
Quoting:To help ensure community access to Content, when users establish Content on our Sites but elect to instead release future Content through other external sites, Slashdot Media has the right (but not the obligation) to archive the original Content and make a new copy of the Content curated by Slashdot Media. The set of Content included in this curated copy is within the sole discretion of Slashdot Media, and may include updates and/or a subset and/or a superset of the Content posted by the user externally. sounds like a trap. the irritating part is not that they are doing that, but that there appears to be no opt-out, and no indication whether a package is updated by slashdot media. greetings, martin. |
| Koriel Jul 31, 2015 12:56 PM EDT |
The opt out is not to use them, simple really. |
| jdixon Jul 31, 2015 8:27 PM EDT |
> sounds like a trap. It does indeed. Now why exactly do you suppose they would have felt the need to add that to their terms of use? /sarcasm. It's a shame, really. Sourceforge was about all that remained of the once proud Linux company VA Linux. To see them fall this low is painful to watch. |
| mbaehrlxer Aug 01, 2015 11:51 AM EDT |
well, i meant 'opt-out' for those that did host their project on sourceforge. greetings, eMBee. |
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