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Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

(arstechnica.com)
431 points dangle1 | 16 comments | 16 Oct 24 16:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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VonGuard ◴[16 Oct 24 17:07 UTC] No.41861368[source]▶
This is a cautionary tale for preservationists. My current preservation project is still not open because we are very slowly reviewing the code to make sure we don't accidentally include any IP when we open the source code. The real things that get you are similar to what happened here: codecs, graphics libraries, and a really big one to look out for is fonts. It'd be great if there was a scanner that could detect this stuff, but unfortunately, the scanning tools out there tend to go the other way like Black Duck: they detect open source code, not closed source.
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1. londons_explore ◴[16 Oct 24 17:25 UTC] No.41861524[source]▶
The thing is, the vast majority of graphics libraries from 1992 the IP owner no longer cares about, and the code usually has nearly zero commercial value.

I wish more were brave enough to just publish it with an open license, and then if the owner complains you take it down and rewrite.

Any damages for distributing 30 year old source code are hopefully in the single-digit-dollars range anyway.

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2. Loudergood ◴[16 Oct 24 17:32 UTC] No.41861596[source]▶
The problem is you'll get crushed by legal fees in the meantime.
replies(1): >>41861620 #
3. VonGuard ◴[16 Oct 24 17:34 UTC] No.41861615[source]▶
Completely incorrect. This work is being done under a non-profit, and whether or not the original owners care is irrelevant. Doing this would immediately open the non-profit to litigation and endanger the entire project. Just because we don't think anyone cares doesn't mean we won't get sued.

This project is preserving the source code around a distributed chat system from the year 2000, the E programming language, and the first real usage of JSON. Outside of those aspects, it's not about preserving fonts and proprietary code.

You are literally suggesting that we take proprietary, copyrighted code and release it under an open source license with no standing, rights, or ownership. It's insane to even suggest this. If you put the source code for Windows 95 online, you'd be sued into a pile of ashes by MS within 10 minutes.

When we want to open source proprietary code, we work with the rights holders. This code was all given to us under such an agreement, and the agreement ONLY covers the code owned by the people who built this thing. The deal was contingent on us not opening any of the code the original owners didn't own, as that would ALSO incur risk for them.

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4. londons_explore ◴[16 Oct 24 17:35 UTC] No.41861620[source]▶
but if courts gave out damages of $10 for this sort of offence (taking into account the very low commercial value of the IP stolen), then very few people would even bother pursuing it in court.
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5. VonGuard ◴[16 Oct 24 17:37 UTC] No.41861650{3}[source]▶
Courts do not do that. The people suing would offer up a big old list of damages into the millions and then negotiate down from there to something like 6 figures AND the loser covering the court costs. The American legal system is completely broken, and amounts to two people piling up money, then the one with the bigger stack wins both stacks of money. This is completely untenable for a non-profit to even think about, let alone to incur the risk.
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6. burningChrome ◴[16 Oct 24 18:10 UTC] No.41861948{4}[source]▶
>> The people suing would offer up a big old list of damages into the millions and then negotiate down from there

You're assuming an awful lot with this.

- No defendant is going to negotiate a settlement out of court. They would force you to hire an attorney and force this to a trial because of how absurd it is.

Then you would be left with other major issues:

- One that any IP law firm would take a case like this on to begin with.

- The little upside for any firm litigating a case where the software is 30+ years old, effectively abandoned and has little if any resell value.

- Then even if some firm did want to take a swing at it, getting this in front of a judge who would even consider the case would be a huge hurdle as well. We're not even considering having to deal with a jury trial either which would also be even harder to win.

- Even if the defendant refused to negotiate pre-trial, and you somehow managed to finagle yourself into a civil bench or jury trial, trying to convince anybody that the plaintiff has somehow sustained financial damages on 30+ year old software that is no longer being used and has no resale value is almost impossible.

The US courts are not perfect, but these kinds of cases rarely see the inside of a court room and for good reason.

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7. VonGuard ◴[16 Oct 24 18:38 UTC] No.41862281{5}[source]▶
OK, so my non-profit with a budget of about $200,000 a year is now expected to lawyer up and take on this risk, where some random company can just sidle up to us, sue us for X, and automatically win because we cannot possibly afford a lawyer to even respond to their litigation?

I love how utterly diconnected from reality HN comments are. Y'all seem to think that just because you can rationalize something on paper that we should all just go out and do the thing because the laws are "Stupid." If the world ran like HN thought it did, we'd have no copyright laws, no patents, and infinite free legal advice and services. Yeah, yer right, maybe we could get a sympathetic judge or get the case tossed. After we spend $100,000 on lawyers to get there. Oh, the prosecution would have to pay our legal fees you say? Great, now I'm out $100,000 waiting on the appeal, and it could take years for them to pay up. That's like giving them a $100,000 loan with 0 interest and no defined closing date.

And what's even the upside? I ruined my non-profit so I could spuriously open source some random crap I don't even want to preserve. I have the binaries already, I don't need to recompile. But hey, no one is using this stuff right? Fuck the law!

The world does not work this way. If a lawyer shows up and wants to kill a small non-profit, they can do it in a day, very easily. They don't even need the courts, they just have to sue you and then bomb you with 50,000 pages of evidence. This is a REAL tactic. How do you counter that without paying a lawyer to look at all 50,000 pages? The key is to not give them a reason to do so. You know, by not breaking the fucking law.

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8. xboxnolifes ◴[16 Oct 24 19:46 UTC] No.41863080{4}[source]▶
At least in the US, loser doesn't pay count costs for the opposing party.
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9. VonGuard ◴[16 Oct 24 19:56 UTC] No.41863162{5}[source]▶
This is entirely within the realm of the judge to do. They do it fairly frequently as punishment to people who bring bad law suits and lose.
10. smitelli ◴[16 Oct 24 23:58 UTC] No.41865119[source]▶
> If you put the source code for Windows 95 online, you'd be sued into a pile of ashes by MS within 10 minutes.

The Windows NT 4 source code exists in multiple public repos on GitHub, and the one from the first Google result has been there for at least four years.

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11. userbinator ◴[17 Oct 24 01:24 UTC] No.41865557{3}[source]▶
...and the ones for later versions are easily found on GitHub too --- GitHub, which is now owned by Microsoft.

On the one hand, great, but on the other, that's how much (little) they care about Windows as a source of revenue.

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12. ◴[17 Oct 24 04:23 UTC] No.41866407{6}[source]▶
13. martinsnow ◴[17 Oct 24 06:27 UTC] No.41866949{5}[source]▶
If you're willing to take on such an economical risk, why don't you pony up the money and start serving the content?
14. pjc50 ◴[17 Oct 24 14:50 UTC] No.41870210[source]▶
As the video games people know, piracy is preservation and preservation nearly always requires "piracy". It's very clear from the way the Internet Archive works that pre-emptively taking a copy without permission is the only way to guarantee that copies actually exist.

> You are literally suggesting that we take proprietary, copyrighted code and release it under an open source license with no standing, rights, or ownership. It's insane to even suggest this. If you put the source code for Windows 95 online, you'd be sued into a pile of ashes by MS within 10 minutes.

Yeah, legal preservation efforts will probably never get that. The torrent is still out there if you just want to look at it, though.

15. account42 ◴[21 Oct 24 09:43 UTC] No.41902346[source]▶
> You are literally suggesting that we take proprietary, copyrighted code and release it under an open source license with no standing, rights, or ownership. It's insane to even suggest this. If you put the source code for Windows 95 online, you'd be sued into a pile of ashes by MS within 10 minutes.

What's isane is that you are not legally allowed to release code that hasn't had any commercial value whatsoever for ages or where it takes a full legal team to even find out who might "own" the rights. Copyright is positively bonkers.

16. account42 ◴[21 Oct 24 09:44 UTC] No.41902362{4}[source]▶
Ancient Windows NT code being available hardly threatens Microsoft's revenue from Windows sales.