from Hacker News

MetaMask replaces MIT License, claims ownership of all forks

by kauffj on 8/21/20, 3:40 PM with 17 comments

  • by floatingatoll on 8/21/20, 9:30 PM

    Note that MetaMask, by operating a public repository on GitHub, has agreed to grant all GitHub users worldwide the right to fork their public repository on GitHub, regardless of the terms otherwise stated in their new license.

    > If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed publicly, you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (for example, through forking).

    (Disclaimer, I am not your lawyer.)

  • by joey_loey89 on 8/21/20, 6:01 PM

    Anyone could just fork from the commit before this and then their fork can legally stay MIT right? This license change only applies to future updates?

  • by carlosdp on 8/21/20, 7:13 PM

    Wow, knowing the Ethereum community, this is a very quick way to start developing bad blood between the very open-source liberal community and this pretty important piece of Web3 infrastructure...

  • by bergstromm466 on 8/21/20, 4:00 PM

    This isn't legal right? What does this mean and are there other examples?

    Is it similar to this? https://www.cnet.com/news/pulling-back-from-open-source-hard...

  • by hirundo on 8/21/20, 7:22 PM

    > To ensure the longevity of the services we have been providing to the world, we feel that it is time that we establish some defensibility for our work from large commercial forks.

    If you read that as "for our future work" it's just an ordinary license change. I suggest they add that clarification.

  • by detaro on 8/21/20, 3:41 PM

  • by slaymaker1907 on 8/21/20, 9:33 PM

    There is some interesting discussion in an open PR reverting this “https://github.com/MetaMask/metamask-extension/pull/9286“. It sounds like they may have broken the copyright on code by outside contributors.

  • by pwinnski on 8/21/20, 5:35 PM

    Good luck with that.

  • by jameshilliard on 8/24/20, 1:35 AM

    There's still issues preventing this re-licensing from being valid. https://github.com/MetaMask/metamask-extension/issues/9292

  • by goldenkey on 8/22/20, 1:39 AM

    Stallman goes brrrrrrr.....