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Warn HN: Elance clients are stealing code from GitHub

31 points by supster ↗ HN
I've hosted source code for a couple of my side project iOS apps on Github (that are like 90% done), and it looks like somebody is claiming them as their own on Elance and bidding for developers to complete them.

My code:

https://github.com/sapanbhuta/Cents

https://github.com/sapanbhuta/Clean

Contracts on Elance:

https://www.elance.com/j/ios-app-bug-fixes/67713491/

https://www.elance.com/j/ios-app-update-needed/67714378/

I'm all for open-source and code sharing for the sake of learning, but something about this just seems disgustingly wrong.

40 comments

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fabulist
I think you're right to take offense, this person is blatantly claiming credit for your work. Their repository on Git doesn't even show it was forked from yours.

I'd suggest you get in touch with GitHub and Elance; they'll probably have one or both accounts suspended, and hopefully they'll abandon the endeavor after that.

yuashizuki
I suggest you sue this fucker directly, he has violated the lincense terms and condition. https://github.com/sapanbhuta

press fedral charges on this asshole.

detaro
Uhm... that appears to be OPs account, just saying.
yuashizuki
He changed the license by removin ur name and placing his. This it self is a violation of the license.
yuashizuki
I am pretty sure all his other repos are fraud to.
eru
In this particular instance the elancer might have violated the license. But if they were more careful about preserving attribution (and a few other cosmetics), it seems like everything would technically be above board.

Before you use an open source licence, especially the MIT style licences, you should ask yourself, if you are OK with a random stranger profiting off your work commercially.

In any case, I advice against suing, since it's unlikely you are going to see any money. (IANAL.) I also doubt that a random elance developer will be able (or willing) to finish your work for 500 USD.

yuashizuki
But he should atleast ask github to ban this fraudsters, worst case senario sue github for supporting users who violate such licenses. Maybe sending a leagal notice to github would get you results. Atleast there is no doubt that he violated the license
eru
Yes, sending a friendly note to github seems like a good idea. But don't expect too much apart from the satisfaction of seeing his current account banned.
yuashizuki
Yes, but moraly we should all mark these individuals and there emails and other info, so they are banned for ever. This individual is probabely using this work to show off on his resume. This is fraud, we all should take this very seriously.
yazaddaruvala
Do message Github+Elance, but also message this person. Request them to stop.

Maybe they just don't understand that you could sue them.. and that, if they broke the terms of the license, you would almost definitely get all of their profits if it were successful.

sinemetu11
> we should all mark these individuals and there emails and other info, so they are banned for ever.

This seems a bit over the line. So the elancer has no way to right this wrong? OP should just message the person. If he doesn't fix it then contact the site admins, etc. But hosting code with MIT license as others have already mentioned is permissive. I'm not a big fan of the online witch-hunt when someone messes up. If they learn from it and move on they're still a target and have already been banned forever but what should be an evolving community.

detaro
Github should ban this guy... from linking to OPs github repositories? How should that work?
potatosareok
This is probably not the place for me to go off on tangent, but why are you getting upset? Do you think he can finish this project on elance for $500 dollar? How is this going to affect you?

He is scummy guy. Ok. Agreed. But like eru said, you make your code available under MIT license. You can't have it both way of putting your code under a license like that and then complaining when someone uses it in a way you don't like. It seems very hypocritical to me to be angry if he is using your license properly. If I put $100 dollar out to charity and they don't use it in a way I see fit, that is my fault, not theirs.

Worst case scenario he makes someone to finish the app and makes a lot of money off it. And then you have a right to be angry if he violated your license in any way. But also you should think that you are very angry because you had app 90% of way done and someone gets all credit for taking it that last 10%. But then that is your fault for not taking it that last 10% yourself.

I will most likely lose all my 10 hn point for this but I would just drop a note to elance and then forget about this issue. Don't be vindictive about this. You are amazing person and have an amazing day, be more happy :) Good luck on being a doctor, forgot about this guy.

yuashizuki
Well its unfair to change the license and remove all the name of the orignal creator, yeah u can use the code to make money and all. But creadit should be given to the person who created it.
detaro
He didn't remove attribution or the license (yet), since he links to the original repository. Even the wording of the elance posts doesn't really claim they build it (but certainly also doesn't say "looking for someone who finishes this open-source app we found for us to use").
yuashizuki
why dont u look at his github profile, he changed the license
eru
> He is scummy guy. Ok. Agreed. But like eru said, you make your code available under MIT license. You can't have it both way of putting your code under a license like that and then complaining when someone uses it in a way you don't like. It seems very hypocritical to me to be angry if he is using your license properly. If I put $100 dollar out to charity and they don't use it in a way I see fit, that is my fault, not theirs.

That's almost true, but not quite. Does the MIT licence allow you to remove attribution?

charlesdm
Was attribution removed? The only links in the elance posts that I can see are links to the original repository.

Yes, he can profit from them. That's the entire point of MIT/BSD licenses, so that companies can use certain libraries and/or components in their commercial software.

supster
Yep you are right, I'm not super angry or looking to sue; I just wanted to give everyone a heads up (call it a public service announcement for hackers). I was just shocked when I found this out (quite by accident) and the whole thing just seemed semi-immoral. I understand that I open-sourced the repos, but the way they went about this just seems ungentlemanly. Anyways, thanks for your kind words, you are awesome too!
potatosareok
Hey, sorry about that comment, I went off on a bit of a rant and wasn't even really responding to things you actually put in your comment.

Anyway, hopefully your PSA helps some other programmer consider the consequences of open sourcing their code.

charlesdm
You released these apps under the MIT license. This means that people can do with it what they want, as long as attribution is given in the app or when source code is used in binaries

If you did not want this, you should've released it under a different license (e.g. GPL).

Why are you upset?

nesu
Thanks for this post. I myself have a small app that I am thinking whether to publish as GPL or other licenses (MIT or Apache). But I am worried about some shady users who would rather distribute the binaries without the source.

I would react the same. At least, before other users change my own code or even profit from it, they should try to contact me. But MIT license does not oblige users to disclose the source. Nothing against MIT license, but it's somehow not a good fit for stuff that don't require the full source in order to run.

Why not release a new version, and publish it as GPL? That would be clearly a violation if they accept bids on Elance like that. Or try dual licensing.

brudgers
If you release under GPL, are you prepared to hire lawyers to enforce the license terms? It's ok if someone isn't, but in that case, why bother?
nesu
>If you release under GPL, are you prepared to hire lawyers to enforce the license terms? It would be good if one can hire lawyers, but to be honest, most developers working on side projects are not (at least in my honest opinion).

>It's ok if someone isn't, but in that case, why bother? At least there is some sort of protection, and at least to scare away those who cannot afford the risk of being sued. Who knows, a lowly developer now might be able to turn things around and finally afford lawyers at his whim. Or even gain some backers.

brudgers
Controlling access to Github repositories requires a paid account. The price of a free account is an open source licence.
Perdition
Incorrect. A free account means your repos are publicly accessible, it does not mean the code in those repos is under an open source license.
brudgers
[IANAL]

If the source code is publicly accessible, it seems ipso facto legally infeasible to assert closed source license terms up in it. That's not to say that the terms could not prohibit compilation, interpretation, and other forms of machine execution. But the source is open by the author's choice when the terms and conditions of Github are accepted.

DanBC
When magazines used to print sourcecode listings they very much retained the rights to those listings. They didn't allow redistribution in print or on tape.

That doesn't seem to be a complicated case and I'm not sure what would be different with hosting the code on github under a weird licence "read but no other use".

brudgers
Exactly. Of course here the license used was MIT, but like all licenses the reason it was a license is that the rights holder was a rights holder. If the code was in the public domain then license choice would be moot.

The bigger point is [IANAL] that "open source" only has legal relevance in regard to concepts like trade secrets (a common connotation of "closed source") where revealing the source code might be subject to tort. Any rights that others have derive directly from copyright law and the way in which the rights holder decides to assert their rights.

Putting something in a public Github repository makes it open source, but "open source" is mostly a common language phrase not a term of legal art.

malisper
> "open source" is mostly a common language phrase not a term of legal art

The term "open source" does have an official definition[0]. It doesn't mean what most people think it does and that is one of the reasons Richard Stallman has criticized it[1].

[0] http://opensource.org/docs/osd

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

brudgers
It's a certification of particular licenses. It's not a legal standard. That's why public domain is a grey area for OSI: http://opensource.org/faq#public-domain and the failure to certify Creative Commons Zero.

Carving public domain source code out of the definition of "Open Source" is the sort of thing trade bodies do. But it's something that one can argue before a judge. The copyright status and license are all that matters.

Perdition
Not a chance. Anything sufficiently complex enough to be a "work" is automatically copyright (in most countries).

That means absent an open source license you cannot "copy" (as distinct from "view") or create a derivative of that work.

"Open source" does not refer to the code being publicly viewable (Microsoft tried to pull that one a decade ago).

brudgers
[IANAL]

Open Source licenses are licenses because the copyright holder retains copyright. The reason there are terms is because the works are not in the public domain.

Remember, that in the US [other countries may differ] fair use is a cornerstone of copyright law.

danielki
As others have said - long as proper attribution is provided in the finished product, it's within the terms of the license that you put up. In the future:

* If you don't want your code available to the public, use a private repository - either Github's paid plans or Bitbucket (free private repos) or something similar.

* If you want your code publicly available, but not to be used in this way, use a different license - GPL/LGPL, CC BY-NC-SA, etc. Research to figure out which one works best.

mapster
If he/she is going to submit the presumed finished product to apple store, could you not intervene there?
yuashizuki
DO u not see whats wrong here, he created a github repo changed the name on the license to make it look like he created this open source project. This is called FRAUDE. Down Vote me if u hate me for speaking the truth.
supster
NOTE: Hey guys, OP here, just to clear up the confusion the github.com/sapanbhuta repo is mine. I included it for comparison purposes. The elance site is the other person using the code as his own. Hope that makes more sense lol