[superalloy]

> Don’t you just hate it when you find some great piece of code on GitHub and then you realize that somewhere at the end of the README the frightful acronym GPL is ruining your good mood?

Yes. But what I ‘hate’ even more is not finding any license info. Adding this would probably help in that area as well.

[orta]

This happened to me yesterday, and it was the only type of code of it's ilk I could find. Real shame, probably going to have to write my own version.

[metamattl]

Generally speaking, GitHub public repos are only for free software projects.

A lot of people just forget to put up a license. I file a polite bug with the project, and they generally fix it within a day or so.

[superalloy]

That’s what makes it so annoying, though, the fact that we _know_ they probably meant to share it as free software.

My point goes further than people forgetting to add a license, though. Some people think that just adding it as an open repo to GitHub is enough, which, depending on the country, it clearly isn’t.

In my opinion, GitHub should educate people a bit more about this. A simple feature like this could just be enough.

[bmelton]

Have you considered emailing the author?

I know that personally, I've relicensed code to be more permissive on request. Of course, you have to ask, but sending an email might be less work than writing your own version.

[jnbiche]

I've done this twice with GPL code, when I was writing a library and/or library bindings that I specifically wanted to be available for use by all developers, including those working on proprietary products. Both times I've been turned down. One of them was a abandonware. Great C code that the author explicitly disowned. Now it will bitrot.

On the other hand, I have asked several developers who released code without a license if they would mind licensing their code under a permissive license, and each time they have been glad to do so.

Just some anecdotal data...

[superalloy]

Yeah that’s definitely the right course.

The downside is, of course, that you probably need it at the time you come across it, so time wise I often have to roll my own in these cases. That’s why I hope this would make that more clear.

On that note, we need this for gists as well (maybe even more). Could be on an account-wide basis in my case.

[tommi]

Does it make you more vulnerable to law suits if the author says no and you decide to code/acquire something similar?

[bmelton]

Honestly, I don't know. I'd suppose it depends more on the sort of thing we're talking about than anything. If it's something like "Obtvse", or a fully formed system and you're copying it outwardly, then probably yes.

If it's a ilbrary that fetches RSS feeds as part of a larger system, I'm guessing no.

Of course, it also depends significantly on the author. If it's a public git repository, one assumes that it's something people wish to be forked.

Though I suppose an interesting experiment would be to publicly post closed source code with a closed source license attached as honeypots and sue everyone that forks / modifies your code base.

[benmanns]

Yes, however, GitHub's Terms of Service section F.1. (http://help.github.com/terms-of-service/#f_copyright_and_con...) specifies "By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories."

I suppose you could write a license that allows others to view and copy your code, but not make any modifications, as fork doesn't seem to be defined to include modification.