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Comment by Hoshea | Hacker News Reader

It may not be a bad idea to report this user via GitHub's "block or report" feature when viewing that account: https://github.com/dmcahelper

That type of behavior can only be bad for open source software. Threats like "to minimize file and repository impacts" are going to push more folks toward private repositories if they don't understand that it's not an actual authority pressing them into making changes on a given platform.

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Additionaly, this account is borderline with regards to GitHub's TOS¹: “While using GitHub, you agree that you will not under any circumstances: […] impersonate any person or entity, including any of our employees or representatives, including through false association with GitHub, or by fraudulently misrepresenting your identity or site's purpose”. They haven't explicitly impersonated GitHub, but I bet I'm not the only one to have wondered for a few seconds whether this was an official GitHub account or not and I'd hardly believe this wasn't intended.

¹ https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service/#3-...

I just filled a complaint, they have a "report this use" link. Took only a minute, whatever it takes to keep people from abusing people and collaboration, especially using the ugly DMCA hammer.

Agreed. I just reported that account (https://github.com/dmcahelper) for submitting spurious DMCA takedown requests. GitHub personnel responded promptly:

  Hi Justin,
  
  Thanks for writing in. We're looking at the account.
  
  All best,
  
  (GitHub employee name redacted)

GitHub is listening. Please consider reporting this account, which can be done via the link above. Look for Block or report user link under the user description at left.

How does that non-response (the same one they pasted to me) give you the impression they're listening? For one, they have done nothing to address the issue of flagrant DMCA abuse. For two, the account is still active. For three, the commit hasn't been reverted.

This is not the first time this has happened.[0] GitHub's response has been woefully inadequate and OSS maintainers should consider using another platform. Everyone using GitHub is vulnerable to suddenly and arbitrarily losing their repository.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5331766

The beauty of git and similar DVCS's is that you essentially can't lose the repository. You can only lose the github namespace for that repository. And using a different platform has the same effect. If you are worried about losing the Github namespace for the repository then moving to a different platform doesn't seem like a solution.

Not true. Issues, pull requests, deploy keys, access control...

issues, pull requests, deploy keys, access control. None of those the repository. They are associated with the repository and it would be annoying to lose them But with the exception of the issues all of them are replaceable with mostly minimal effort unless you did something really wrong.

And again switching to a different platform doesn't solve that problem either. You'd still lose the issues that are in github.

Reported.

edit:

Response from support: "Hi xxxxx. This account is not affiliated with GitHub and we are looking into it."

Reported. I think at one pooint GH has to make a decision if they want to kick him out or not, especially when paying members are reporting

> That type of behavior can only be bad for open source software.

Using github is bad for FLOSS.

How so?

Mismatching or contradictory incentives.

Seems kinda vague.

Probably because github is closed source.

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