On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Yang Tse wrote:

> Quoting "GitHub Terms of Service"...
>
>> GitHub reserves the right to update and change the Terms of Service
>> from time to time without notice.
>
> If I had to make the decision of moving a project to GitHub, that single
> sentence would put GitHub out of my list of potential candidates. It says
> everything about what we can expect about them.

I agree, but there's something different here when we've moved to git: they
don't hold anything magic there that we don't have elsewhere. We can easily
switch to another hosting provider instantly if we think github fails us. We'd
just locally change URL basically and start pusing to the new place instead.
The full history and everything would follow along.

Git hosting in this sense is just that they hold a version of the repo that
people can clone from, and we joinly update that.

Thus, it's very easy and "cheap" for us to try working with github and if we
deem it unsuitable for any purpose whatsoever we can just move it to something
else somewhere else.

> I wonder if autobuilds pulling source code from GitHub will trigger the
> abuse and suspension policy.

I find that unlikely. But we could easily just provide the repo from other
places as well if that would end up being a problem.

>> 4. GitHub, in its sole discretion, has the right to suspend or terminate
>> your account and refuse any and all current or future use of the Service,
>> or any other GitHub service, for any reason at any time.
>
> How lovely!

But which server or service we would use would not have this clause (either
express or implied)? Heck even my own server and my own commitment is subject
for removal at any time on my own discretion.

>> You may not duplicate, copy, or reuse any portion of the HTML/CSS,
>> Javascript, or visual design elements or concepts without express written
>> permission from GitHub.
>
> I very much doubt that there's no previous art, nor any patent, that have
> similar look and feel as GitHub Service. So why on earth do they want me to
> accept that for example a concept as simple as a 'colorized diff' belongs to
> them and that no one can use it without previous written permission?

I view that as a copyright claim on the actual code and images.

They really have no foundation to claim ownership to any "concepts" as that
would imply patents or similar, which only has limited international
implications.

> Once more, this can be read as, "GitHub has all the rights, you have none,
> and in case of dispute you'll have to, at least, fly to California".

Again, what service we'd use would not have something similar? We've used
services on sourceforge for over a decade and they certainly have terms of use
in the same style: we use everything on their terms and they may stop at any
time and they're an american company that takes legal issues in an American
state.

> Up to now, main development repository of libcurl, and c-ares, has been
> hosted in a country with high respect to freedom, civil, and individual
> rights, The Kingdom of Sweden.
>
> USA and ACTA countries were simply importers of a fine piece of art. But
> moving main development repository to the USA GitHub cloud changes this
> radically. Anyone outside the USA, like the swedish, spanish, german or
> french main libcurl developers using GitHub would be converted automatically
> in exporters and importers of code to the USA and subject to ACTA and who
> knows which other rights-limiting laws.
>
> BTW European Union has already rejected adoption, at least initially, of
> ACTA due to its draconian and obscure implications.
>
> For now we the European Union citizens are ACTA free. The same as USA ones
> should be.

Well, first out the primary development is done by people in various countries
so the development origins won't change. The thing that changes is in what
country the primary server is located when people checkout the source code. I
agree that this may actually cause some "fun" in terms of regulations, laws
and stupid export craziness.

The code is also still provided as downloads from curl.haxx.se both as daily
snapshots and as release downloads so you can still get fresh code from
Sweden.

I'm using github because I think they seem solid and they provide a useful
service that's easy to get to and that works fine.

If there's a similar service on European soil we can consider using that
instead. Or someone could setup a mirror for github that offers the code
read-only from a European server.

The way git works we all have the entire thing in each checkout. It's VERY
easy to move the hosting to another server. This makes me less reluctant to
jump on whatever service provider there is and try it out, as if any problems
will surface with the server or service we can switch to another with no or
only little efforts.

-- 
  / daniel.haxx.se
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