Ok, I might be misunderstanding here, but since committing changes is allowed for everyone, doesn't this mean fixing bugs is something you could do? You'd just be stuck with all the other rights as well until someone else makes a change.
The main dev made the last commit, so they dont have the right to make another commit, until they arent the last person to make a commit anymore (until someone else has made a commit). This makes sure that there are at least 2 people making commits but hopefully much more.
In other words, making a commit revokes your right to do so until someone else makes a commit.
Am I just bad at reading? It says the right to make changes is granted to everyone one Earth. That would include the last person to make a commit as well, assuming they're a citizen of Earth. I'm sure what you're saying is what it's supposed to say, but it isn't actually what it says.
All rights reserved by......, except the right to commit to this repository.
Being a legal license it requires much more rigorous and clear statement
You can't just ignore the second part of that sentence which gives the right to make commits to all citizens of earth. That would include the person who wrote the last commit.
I'm pretty sure it means exactly what it says, but you lot are all misreading it.
I interpret it as "all rights, except the right to commit, are reserved" (which doesn't mean you surrender the right to commit, but rather that it's the only right you aren't depriving everyone else of)
•
And I'm pretty sure that the name "hot potato license" and the comment above the license are very strong indicators for this not being the case. The license is meant to mimic a game of hot potato where you get the code for a short moment (one commit) and have to throw it to someone else. Sure, the analogy doesn't quite work because you can't decide who has to make the next commit but it would make even less sense if you were able to keep control over the code and add more and more commits. That would defeat the whole point of naming it "hot potato license".
Thats why I said it needs to be more rigorous. The license probably meant Everyone in the earth except the last person who commited to it
All rights reserved by......, except the right to commit to this repository.
Being a legal license it requires much more rigorous and clear statement
•
The fact that you have 38 upvotes with such an incorrect statement is mind boggling.
This is how politics works I supposed. Write something that sounds plausible but is completely incorrect, inaccurate or completely fabricated and stupid people applaud and follow.
Its ok to be unable to read, but dont make that other peoples problem.
https://github.com/ErikMcClure/bad-licenses/blob/master/hot-potato-license
This is copied from V2 but same thing:
All rights reserved by the last person to commit a change to this repository,
No explanation needed
except for the right to commit changes to this repository,
Also no explanation needed
which is hereby granted to all inhabitants of the Milky Way Galaxy for the purpose of committing changes to this repository.
This refers to the previous section meaning everyone can make commits to the repository except for the person excluded by that same section
the fact that there are this many people having different interpretations shows that the license would need waaaaaay clearer wording to hold any sort of water.
this is why i hate licenses like WTFPL and its ilk, just saying "do whatever" cannot possibly be legally viable and thus using anything with such a license is impossible by anyone who cares about copyright law (such as say, companies).
If you want your creations to be free for all to use, just slap a fat CC0 on it.
Yeah, the problem with the proposition is that you have all rights and access to the code regardless of who made the last commit, unless the last person to commit revoked the HPL.
The last person cannot revoke the right to make commits.
I have no idea what that implies about the right to change the license.
But in a moment of legal discovery, it was found that "GitLab Support Bot" always owns the repository since it creates the merge commit after CI runs.
- The bot is not a person and this cannot have the rights
- Just don't use something as fancy as that. CI for a HLP project? Wth are you doing, there aren't even tests
You don't have to be a person to have the rights of a person. That's what a corporation is.
But the license mentions all of earths citizens. Corpos can't be citizens, right? Legal terms are confusing.
This is how I handle code at work, almost. Program not working? Who has the last commit on the code? You get the question!
There are a few flaws.
There should be a clause forcing it to remain open source. Another clause should be that the license must not be changed. A warrenty and liability disclaimer would be also good. Otherwise a splendid license.
•
I would 100% use this HPL-v2 for all of my (temporary) foss projects. It's just genius. I mean, good luck keeping track of the current owner, Nintendo lawyers.
Nah, we're alright. I don't think anyone has clearly defined the requirements of earth citizenship, we can assume it's like Ireland who hand it out like candy
The secret license everyone gets while working for an enterprise. If the previous dude left, good luck changing anything.
What happen when the repository is getting forked? Goofing with the license is all haha fun till nasty lawyers get into the picture and you get all sort of liability claims
Just writing words doesn't make it legally binding. Anyone who reads this comment owes me $1,000,000 USD.
Ofcourse its legally binding. If you include a license text with your own code on a platform that doesnt have a clause to license your code under different terms, then that license is legally valid.
But writing the license yourself without making sure that it doesnt allow for any legal loopholes is a bad idea.
You declaring a debt isn't meaningful because you don't have legal authority to do so.
A licence statement is describing in what way you're granting permission for something you do have the right to control, which makes it meaningful
What the fuck are you talking about? Do you think the license being used is not legally binding? What constitutes as legally binding to you?
If you want to fork the repo then you make a commit to the original repo giving yourself rights then you make the fork and you’re golden.
I think this is a sort of anti-license, so I think the sort of people who use it reject copyright law.
What happen when the repository is getting forked?
You get two code bases with different ownership.
That's a very practical license, that reflects the concept as it is practiced. It's probably the only one that doesn't come from an ivory tower.
So that's the legal equivalent of the guy committing 10k changes the day before leaving the company...
A self revoking license. You can only use or distribute this software if you've made the last commit.