Hacker News Reader

Comment by brasic | Hacker News Reader

I work at GitHub. This is not new, and I promise it’s not a dark pattern.

As a sibling comment noted, someone with sufficient permissions in this repo used the “minimize” function on these comments. This is normally intended for disruptive or off-topic messages, but ultimately it’s up to the owners of the repository how they make use of our moderation tools.

https://docs.github.com/en/communities/moderating-comments-a...

Before I worked here I had no idea how much GitHub invests in platform health. It’s nearly invisible to most users but just like every other part of the internet that draws eyeballs we are under an enormous flood of spam at all times.

IMO It’s a testament to how well the system works that many years after this functionality was introduced this is the first time you encountered it.

View on HN

2 things about this.

1. The user was led to their misconception because the ui did not provide any better conception.

Perhaps the label should add the words "... by a repo admin" or something.

2. This still does not explain why there should be any difference between an anonymous and a logged-in user for merely reading.

If the repo owner is to be given the power to hide comments, why should a logged-in but otherwise unspecial user be able to override that? If a logged-in but otherwise unspecial user should have the option to unhide, why only when they are logged in?

Sigh.

This is yet more gated content on the hopes someone or something does the right thing.

I deleted my account when GH demanded a separate license for everything I had (for that ml crap you made, no less).

My answer in dealing with GH is to create fake emails, do the register bullshit, and get what I need, and throw the acct away.

I'll save my stuff for my GL instance, or go to sourcehut.

Excuses to gatekeep can rightly die in a fire, and let the crucible sort it out.

> when GH demanded a separate license for everything I had

Can you elaborate on this? Do you mean explicitly demanded, or do you just mean the way they asserted that licenses didn't matter for Copilot?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13597340

This was written about Feb 8 2017, when Github changed their license to require ANY content to be dual-licensed to the following:

    Solely to allow us to provide the Service and to host 
    the Content you upload to the Website without violating 
    any rights you have in it, you grant GitHub and our 
    successors a nonexclusive, worldwide, transferable, 
    fully-paid and royalty-free license to use, reproduce, 
    display, modify, adapt, distribute, and perform the 
    Content in connection with rendering the Website and 
    providing the Service.

User:nsqe said they helped write it and said they would "revise it to clear up confusion". Naturally, that was never done.

Instead, I would argue that this change was what allowed them to monetize so much open source under various licenses into their own proprietary "forever license". That's what makes Copilot actually doable.

And naturally, if you migrated code to GH, then it's your 'fault' for not recognizing that any uploads to GH forever-dual license.

If they did not have this clause, they would be in breach of copyright as soon as they display any source code listing to anyone (including logged-in users). If other repository services don't have something to the same effect in their ToC, it's a sign that they don't have a competent legal department.

That's completely not true.

If it's a FLOSS or similar copyright license, they'd be using the same copyright to display that copy. They don't need special permissions.

If a person uploads a non-permissive license (or sets a license that is as such), then they would be in the rights to set it to private and charge, or to remove it.

It's very suspicious that they do not force a license set, nor remove repos for no license.

When the code is under a non-permissive license, that means by definition that GitHub cannot derive any usage rights from it. However, displaying the source code on the website (even to a logged-in user! even to the original rights holder!) is a type of "usage". Therefore they would be in breach of copyright. ToS is the only place where they can derive the necessary usage rights.

In certain jurisdictions, usage rights may be conferred by an implied-in-fact contract. But for a company like GitHub that operates almost globally, it's probably a very bad idea to rely on local legal interpretations of the scope of implied-in-fact contracts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com