GitHub unveils its Licenses API

Posted Mar 20, 2015 11:11 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
In reply to: GitHub unveils its Licenses API by donbarry
Parent article: GitHub unveils its Licenses API

FTR, Git*Lab* bought Gitorious, not GitHub. GitLab is FOSS. I will see how they are with patches next month.

GitHub unveils its Licenses API

Posted Mar 20, 2015 19:31 UTC (Fri) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (1 responses)

I apologize if the particular antecedent reference was unclear: I tried to indicate Gitlab was the purchaser of Gitorious, but I see how you could have read it as Github.

But Gitlab is one of those "freemium" offerings: what you download is not the codebase used to serve the site. Such sites rarely accept patches from others which add the missing functionality, and that ethos of excluding development which permits the free codebase to develop the features needed by all users -- including the most demanding -- is diametrically opposed to the principles of free software.

Yes, you can fork -- but it can be very difficult, particularly when the original commercial team has the money and resources to keep the free offering "just good enough" to keep the attention primarily on it.

GitHub unveils its Licenses API

Posted Mar 21, 2015 13:33 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

I'm well aware of the pitfalls around open core projects. However, I tend to offer the benefit of the doubt in most cases where development is more in the open (in contrast to "over the wall" open core projects). Can you point to patches rejected (or ignored) because they implement Enterprise's features? Even so, the code is permissively licensed (only an ICLA, no assignment), so if the patches exist, there is no reason to not grab them and apply them to your local install if you need them.