From: Eleanor McHugh <eleanor@...>
Date: 2009-08-22T04:20:34+09:00
Subject: Re: Github and _why

On 21 Aug 2009, at 18:45, Robert Klemme wrote:
> On 21.08.2009 19:05, Tony Arcieri wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 10:38 AM, John W Higgins  
>> <wishdev@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Github nor anyone else has no business whatsoever touching one  
>>> single byte
>>> of data that _why deleted from his account. This would be an  
>>> absolutely
>>> ridiculous precedent to set and in complete violation of their  
>>> privacy
>>> policy which clearly says Github has no rights to any data stored  
>>> on their
>>> servers.
>> Do concepts like open source and distributed source control escape  
>> you?  It
>> may be that _why has moved on, but his source code will live on  
>> without him.
>
> That's not the point.  John's point is - and I fully subscribe to it  
> - that convenience arguments are not allowed to break contracts: / 
> if/ the terms of operation of github (that everybody subscribes to)  
> prohibit access to account data after it has been willfully deleted  
> by the account owner then nobody must try to recover them only to  
> prevent the inconvenience that the community needs to resort to  
> forks or other copies of the material.
>
> If people fight for their freedom of information and mistrust Google  
> for actually or allegedly abusing user data then it is a bad idea to  
> call for violation of rules if it serves their convenience.

Indeed the right to use and redistribute code as enshrined in Open  
Source licenses has no bearing on the author's right to dispose of the  
original sources how they like. That's the whole point of licensing  
certain rights - it's no limitation on the rights you don't license.


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
----
raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason