Comment on Skyblivion team says former volunteer is threatening to sue over code dispute
riskable@programming.dev 8 hours ago
What a douche. When you submit code to a project, you agree that your code will fall under that project’s license. If it’s under an open source license, there’s no “backsies.”
Relevant metaphors:
- Putting the cat back in the bag
- Forcing the genie back into the bottle
- Bitching with lawyers like Larry Ellison
urushitan@kakera.kintsugi.moe 8 hours ago
As far as I can tell there is no public source code beyond a few tools they use, and many those repos have no license. So while his actions are shitty, he didn’t legally give them code. From what it sounds like, he gave them a compiled asset with access to his source code, then revoked access to his source code repository, so they decompiled the asset and he’s suing them for that. Which he may have legal grounds to do,because I’m guessing this was occurring in the “let’s all make a mod together!” and there likely isn’t a formal contract signed that says “anything you contribute to the project is ours.”
disorderly@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I’ve worked on a few projects like this and there is a general expectation that if you contribute code built against a system you maintain separately from the shared project, you grant permission for the project to continue using it when you leave.
I’ve also seen people threaten to sue on every one of them, and the one person who actually did got fucking rinsed.
spankysalmon@fedinsfw.app 7 hours ago
General expectation and legally bound are two different things, though. If they have no copyright, no licenses applied, and no contract, they might not have much chance to win. I think we all know how the law frequently gets used to reinforce shitty behavior, so it’s not exactly far fetched.
Of course, if the butthead also doesn’t have a copyright or license applied on the asset, they might also be pissing in the wind.
Katana314@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I hate that I’ve worked at companies where some employees, searching the web for code, think that “no license” means anyone can use it copy-pasted for any purpose.
I’m thankful that Stack Overflow and similar sites set in their terms that submissions become free to use, but in general blogs, it’s not an automatic conclusion.