Licenses Over Data: A Case Study with Github v BitBucket
techlawyer.com.au
techlawyer.com.au
End User hereby grants Atlassian a non-exclusive license to copy, distribute, perform, display, store, modify, and otherwise use End User Data in connection with operating the Hosted Services.
For me, the key is "in connection with operating the Hosting Service". They will need to do things with your data as they move it between servers and storage and make it available to you. If you want it displayed publicly then you need to have given them a license to do so.
So I want to give them those rights if I want the service to work as desired, otherwise, it would not be bitbucket.
How could an attorney parsing the documents not notice the "in connection with operating the Hosting Service" stipulation?
Further, Bitbucket and Github are opposite in terms of the freedom you have to control your FREE repositories. Github forces your free repositories to be open to the public. Bitbucket allows you to keep some free repositories private.
1.2 What's Included in "Hosted Services". "Hosted Services" include any Atlassian online services products that End User orders, which can include "OnDemand" versions of many Atlassian Software products, the Bitbucket hosting service ("Bitbucket"), and other online services provided by Atlassian. "Hosted Services" always means the version of the Hosted Services as described in Atlassian's then-current product descriptions. End User's detailed rights to use Hosted Services are in Section 3 below.
I'm not sure where you got that quote from, but it's used exactly here: http://www.atlassian.com/end-user-agreement/ So yes, it's used across their suite, and doesn't seem overly broad in that case.
Maybe they want to store it in a compressed form
> distribute it
Making the code available for you or your collaborators is distributing it. How else would they do this?
Why not just email them with your concerns, if you actually really have some, and aren't just playing to the peanut gallery for karma.
Ascribing motivations to my post is illogical, not to mention unfair. I have some genuine concerns, I posted them above.
Luckily, my account is with GitHub, not with BitBucket.
P.S. see my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888670
They do not need to distribute your code, i.e. making your repo public - this is part of their service and you grant them the right to do so when you make it public.
Do they need to use your source code - well not explicitly as such, but they do modify it when displaying it back to you - look at any source code page, it is modified source code.
This is all in the auspices of giving you a good service.
Furthermore, any fork network modifies your repo - it is all one repository. So in essence, you are modifying people's repos without them knowing.
Use it: I'm not sure, maybe to do syntax highlighting, they need to use the source code with a syntax highlighting software.
This makes me wonder if altering a sequence of bytes (for example, after conversion to a different format) is really a ‘modification’ if it still represents the same work.
The common excuse is that the intent by publishing source code online is that you clearly are allowing everybody to use it freely as they wish. I have no doubt the licenses on Bitbucket are not followed correctly more often than not.
Atlassian, if you've followed them, have always been a very transparent, developer-centric company, the behaviour of neither the founders, nor the company has ever suggested they are in the slightest bit interested in being arseholes in the manner being suggested here.
Yet somehow there's a switch from 'intent' to being licensing experts when it suits.
It's not that I disagree with you, I'm just calling out what I view as "selective license goggles", which I find particularly ironic given the nature of the service in question.
In other words, the end user grants github a license to copy, distribute, store, modify End User Data (without encryption even if the user marked this data private).
The title of this post needs to be changed to reflect the title of the post. Right now it's disingenuous link bait.
"1. Assembla claims no copyright or other ownership rights in the Content you upload to the Service. 2. By uploading or otherwise providing Content to Assembla.com, You grant to Assembla a non-exclusive, royalty-free, paid-up right and license to use, reproduce, display and distribute such Content on Assembla.com in connection Assembla's provision of the Services to such persons as you may authorize. 3. You hereby represent and warrant that you have all intellectual property and other rights necessary concerning any Content posted by You on Assembla.com." https://www.assembla.com/terms_of_service
We do not want your data for our personal or corporate uses, we only want to display/reproduce/use your data with your expressed permission, i.e. you make your data public - the same as github.
The theory we have at Assembla is that the data is yours, always yours. We will never keep your data from you and we will never claim ownership over it.
We explicitly state that we do not own your IP because in today's world so many services are taking ownership over what you create. We feel it important to tell you right out that we do not claim ownership because if we do not, you will not know our stance.
Our stance is that we want you to feel comfortable using our service for both private and public projects for your data. We want you to be successful with a nice tool, we do not want to own your data.
"You grant to Assembla a non-exclusive, royalty-free, paid-up right and license to use, reproduce, display and distribute such Content on Assembla.com in connection Assembla's provision of the Services to such persons as you may authorize"
sounds much more like Atlassian,
"End User hereby grants Atlassian a non-exclusive license to copy, distribute, perform, display, store, modify, and otherwise use End User Data in connection with operating the Hosted Services."
not at all like the Github TOS.
Atlassian is just ensuring with lawyer speak that they are able to do as they need to offer you the service that you signed up for.
github is just not using lawyer speak, which is definitely cooler.
You are granting permission of ownership through forking to anyone - including github.
That said, it would be comforting if Atlassian clarified this to make it clear they have zero claims on anybody's IP.
Which courts?
The question matters because while Github is located in San Francisco, Atlassian is an Australian company.
You are admit you are ignorant of the needs, but you go around commenting as if you have a clue.
Github needs the same rights as bitbucket to do what it does.
If you want to give me an actual reason, rather than making your argument about my person, feel free. You have only asserted that they need the rights, but you fail to say why. Please feel free to chime in with facts and reasoning at some point, I am interested in what you have to say.
You are admit you are ignorant of the needs, but you go around commenting as if you have a clue.
You'll notice I said "seems". That's an English word with connotations of uncertainty and doubt, do try to look it up in a dictionary some time.
Have you read this reply to your previous post yet? I think that's what was being referred to, and it clearly answers the issue bought up there and again here.
Sure, probably won't happen, but what if they get taken over by another company. How do I know they won't do that?
He then mentions distribution in order to distribute to others specifically if you elect to do so. But if I choose not to, the wording currently allows them to distribute no matter what my wishes are.
Again, not something they are likely to do. But with legal documents, surely it's a good idea not to give overarching rights that you never intended in the legal document?
Seriously though, I said that my concern is that the terms seem overly broad. I gave some specific examples. Are you saying they are invalid? What is twisty about expressing my genuine concerns?
Frankly, if you believe the terms aren't overly broad, more power to you. I'm not sure I like the terms, luckily for me IMO I chose GitHub for unrelated reasons. Seems to me their license is a better fit for my comfort level.
Anyways, it's the type of commentary that isn't welcome here.
The commenter didn't feel any need to address this actual point, not sure how it contributed to the discussion in any way. I was quite annoyed I got downvoted, because I am genuinely interested in seeing an actual response to this particular concern. Also, it felt like bullying and groupthink.
Good day to you all :-)
However long people have been on here, it's always good to be reminded that even if we know the rules, we sometimes break them.
Just because someone else is breaking the rules shouldn't mean we let ourselves do the same.
I did. Before I made this comment.
> You have only asserted that they need the rights, but you fail to say why.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888581
This was in reply to your "questions."
> You'll notice I said "seems". That's an English word with connotations of uncertainty and doubt, do try to look it up in a dictionary some time.
You also said: "Rights they shouldn't have." without any qualification.
And you'll note that "seems" has multiple definitions, as well as multiple meanings when placed in context.
Regardless, even if we take "seem" at face value, it's not the issue. The issue is that they are asking for those rights, but you don't understand why they are asking for those rights. And your conclusion is that they shouldn't be asking for those rights. That's the problem. Your use of the word "seems" is meaningless. It doesn't matter.
Like I say, if you are fine with sweeping rights to your material in legally binding contracts, more power to you I guess. I'm a little uncomfortable with them, I'm not a lawyer, though. Indeed, I don't know why they need those rights, neither do you. They are so broad, they could allow for a lot of undesirable things. I saw a lot of responses from others along the lines of "perhaps they need those rights for x and y", but actually nobody clearly knows the limits of the rights Atlassian grant themselves. If they chose to rewrite your source code or your history (hypothetical here...) then they could do that with legal impunity. Of course, it would be a PR disaster, and unlikely to happen, but I don't see how the points I raise aren't valid in any way.
If you can tell me, that's fine. If you don't have a counter argument, then I'm not going to engage any more. I don't feel like listening to your assumptions against my character - I don't know who you are, you don't know who I am, you don't know my motivations, and I don't know yours. I'm not sure I even really care, to be somewhat blunt.
Incidentally, I probably could have made myself more clear, what I was saying was that I felt that perhaps they were overreaching to grant themselves rights they probably never intended to have, but through their agreement they are so granted.
There was probably no need for you to use insulting language though. But if that's the way you want to conduct yourself, I suppose that's your prerogative.
The lawyers also use it for covering all their bases. By uploading, do you automatically give them the right to feature your repo on their homepage? Or is that advertising?
I think that end-user agreements must be prohibited altogether, because it is a mean of discrimination. Either you provide a public service and then your relationships with users are guided by the state law, or you sign an exclusive contract out of public service. The main obstacle to that is the retarded US law system.