The open-source generation gap

Posted May 19, 2016 12:22 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97)
Parent article: The open-source generation gap

I have been wondering how long before the "Oracle vs Google" lawsuits start percolating into GitHub. I have met too many people over the years who would look at this as the perfect opportunity to lay submarine code into something like GitHub, let other people start using it in various places and then 3-4 years later start asking for money for copyright infringement in the style of patent infringement lawsuits are done these days. "Oh I see you are using left-space in your project space.. would be a shame if something were to happen to your project.. wouldn't it."

I expect that the easiest forms of ass-hole-ary are taken care with the GitHub usage license.. but the API's are copyrighted is going to be a chum call for various sorts of sharks out there.

The open-source generation gap

Posted May 19, 2016 16:14 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] (2 responses)

"let other people start using it in various places and then 3-4 years later start asking for money for copyright infringement in the style of patent infringement lawsuits are done these days"

Is the notion of protecting trademarks not applicable in such a scenario? I submit that the blowback against such a nefarious caper would be brutal; the court of public opinion would NOT be pleased.

The open-source generation gap

Posted May 19, 2016 17:14 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

Trademarks have a "use/protect it or lose it" aspect to them. Copyright does not.

The open-source generation gap

Posted May 20, 2016 21:16 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

Is the notion of protecting trademarks not applicable in such a scenario? I submit that the blowback against such a nefarious caper would be brutal; the court of public opinion would NOT be pleased.
Trademarks have a "use/protect it or lose it" aspect to them. Copyright does not.

Taking the two sentences together, I believe he means protecting brands, not trademarks.

And I think it's irrelevant because the brands that practice such strategies don't stand for anything except maybe fear, so blowback just blows right by. I.e. if Acme Corporation tricks people into becoming dependent on its code and then demands royalties, Acme doesn't benefit from people having a positive impression of Acme - nobody's buying from Acme by choice.

A large company would have to be careful to separate that brand from any other business it does, but that is not hard.