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So this doesn't negate the license. Microsoft cannot just roll the code into windows for example, closed source and proprietary. They have to abide by the license, regardless what their ToS says.

Here's a fun way to see it, suppose someone writes code licensed GPL. I take it, fork it, modify a line in it or not, and also license it GPL because I have to by law. I put it on my github account and what, I now just gave Microsoft rights to the code I don't even have? So by putting it on github I'm violating a license? It doesn't add up. The license to the code is the license to the code, no matter what site it's on and noatter what any ToS says. Otherwise what's to stop me from putting a ToS on my personal website partaining to your use of my eyeballs that says "if your creation becomes viewable by my eyeballs in any way I can use it however I want, publishing your work in such a way that it can be viewed by my eyeballs is consent to this ToS"?

> So by putting it on github I'm violating a license?

yes. if you don't have the rights to upload code to github.com, including all of the rights required of one that uploads that code to github.com, and you do so anyway, then you are in violation of the GitHub terms of service.

fortunately for you, the GPL allows what you are describing: "1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty;..."

JoshuaRogers 1340 days ago

While that certainly covers some code on GitHub, much of the code on there is just mirrored from other locations by non-owners: you can find copies of the Linux kernel and SQLite on GitHub, for instance. The users who upload those to GitHub have the right to do so (legally) but do not have any rights that they could grant to GitHub.

again, read the document. all this talk of license violation and almost no one is reading the agreements which say what rights users have given GitHub...

by uploading code you attest that you have the rights necessary to grant that license to GitHub: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

without the right to grant those licenses to GitHub, by uploading that code to GitHub, you are in violation of the terms of service, and the responsibility of acting in compliance with the license is on the shoulders of the user which uploaded that code to github.com.

Said another way, GitHub has no way to know if the person mirroring SQLite (for example) is acting in accordance with their rights, so the terms of service require that you attest that you are acting within your rights, acknowledge that it is solely your responsibility if you are not, and that by uploading you grant license to GitHub and its users.

So I can't fork code on github legally according to the ToS?

Read the terms of use yourself. it's all there.

the right to allow forking is granted by a user who uploads their code to github.com to other users of github.com. those rights are listed here: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

Nice edit.

When you upload code to github you give other people the right to fork it... I knew that already. But you license it. You don't give anyone the right to fork it and not abide the license. So if I fork it, I'm still giving Microsoft rights I don't have, I'm giving them the right to violate the license. That makes it illegal for me to fork it.

Let's say I am on a git mailing list, following a project, and I upload that project to github one day. It's licensed GPL. Microsoft says I give them the right to violate the license, and in uploading it I implicitly attest that I have the right to do so. I've violated the license? It's illegal for me to upload the code, with the license, to github, because Microsoft demands rights I don't have to give? Then let's say someone else forks it. They've now also violated the law?

It's nonsensical. The license is the binding ToS here, period, it doesn't matter what Microsoft's lawyers argue. Everything else is secondary.

> When you upload code to github you give other people the right to fork it... I knew that already. But you license it. You don't give anyone the right to fork it and not abide the license.

you are talking multiple separate things here.

when I upload code to github.com I attest that I have the rights required to do so, and the rights required to grant GitHub the licenses I've agreed to grant it by uploading.

> You don't give anyone the right to fork it and not abide the license.

correct, you can't grant a right to violate the rights granted. users of the code hold the responsibility of acting in accordance with the license.

> So if I fork it, I'm still giving Microsoft rights I don't have, I'm giving them the right to violate the license. That makes it illegal for me to fork it.

no. you did not upload code that you forked from a GitHub.com repository. if you are talking about uploading code that you copied somewhere else, and you're calling that a fork, you have violated the terms by uploading code that you do not have rights to upload. remember, by uploading code to github.com you attest that you have the rights required to do so, according to the terms of service. if you lie, you are responsible for that lie and its consequences.

> Microsoft says I give them the right to violate the license

your premise in this part is flawed. see above.

> Microsoft demands rights I don't have [the right] to give?

by uploading to GitHub.com you attest that you have the ability to grant those rights. If you lied, and you don't have those rights, that's your responsibility and your ass if a law suit comes around because of it.

perfectly sensible to me. GitHub gets to say that they require users to grant the rights in order to upload, and that the users necessarily had the rights to give to GitHub. if a user lied, that is not GitHub's fault; the user entered into a legal agreement saying they had the rights needed.

So you've got nothing? Because I'm seriously asking that.

Read the GPL.