Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Alupis 4401 days ago
Well... technically something with no license is the most restrictive form of a license; as-in nobody has the right to use it nor republish it nor modify it. Not being the copyright holder forbids you from assigning a license.

However, for a trivial piece of code as this... it could be argued it's not copyright-able and therefore you are OK... but just be careful in the future.
2 comments
bradleyjg 4401 days ago
If it's not copyrightable it's deceptive to add a purported copyright license. If it is, he has no right to relicense it. Either way not a good move.
link
seanewest 4401 days ago
Actually I just looked the copyright issue up: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4007674/whats-the-default....

Unpublishing!

link
Alupis 4401 days ago
Again, I dont think a snippet this trivial is subject to copyright... I just wanted to point out you should mind these matters in the future. Besides offending a developer, you could get into some trouble.

Many times I've emailed devs on Github regarding some code they have that I'd like to use part of but they've failed to assign a license. A few time's I've been turned away... but usually the dev just forgot or was not aware others couldn't freely use it.

link