A reminder that kbin is still violating the zlib license of Postmill (the software that powers Raddle) : fediverse

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Since then, over 230 pull requests have been accepted. I had a branch where I was working on this, but a lot of code has changed in the meantime - among other things, ex the markdown implementation has been rewritten and, in fact, some of it is now outdated. Many files will still change and be rewritten before the release.

Before the first release, it will be done properly, and I will probably seek help and consultation from the right people https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/pulls/937. Currently, in the project's readme, I've clearly indicated that kbin is inspired by Postmill. Unfortunately, recently I've been overwhelmed by some personal matters, which caused me to neglect certain things. Now I'm doing everything to bring kbin to the appropriate state.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

"Inspired" is not an honest term. You're using someone else's code, so abide by the license they use, or remove their code from your project until you're ready to follow the license. You started lifting Postmill's code several years ago now and have had sooo much time to set things right but keep dragging your feet.

This isn't a school project, you're gaining financially from someone else's hard work without abiding by their (incredibly permissive) FOSS license and opening yourself up to serious legal action.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As I said, the markdown implementation that received the main thing has been rewritten by contributors. I need to consult on how it should look in such a case. Now the indicated similarities are between these files (these files will also be changed soon, before release):

https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/src/branch/develop/src/Repository/Criteria.php
https://gitlab.com/postmill/Postmill/-/blob/1e98b99bc4a20b396f2fa4089bdb1a308b7e18fd/src/SubmissionFinder/Criteria.php
https://gitlab.com/postmill/Postmill/-/blob/a9704316c1c78f15ca12c2dc5ad477f4ac9f530e/src/Entity/Submission.php#L21-57

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

May I ask why you haven't added the copyright notice to make kbin compliant while your volunteers are in the process of eliminating all of Postmill's code from the code base?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I think several factors contributed to this. First, I prepared the licensing tag, but when the time came to merge the branch - that code simply no longer existed. As you can see, the remaining files are what I call inspiration - it's not copied code but more of an overall concept, quite common in these types of applications (however, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a tag). Another factor is that sometimes you have to choose what to focus on first - eliminate and remove thousands of spambots, fix activitypub communication after updates from other software so as not to crash your server and others, secure the instance from sensitive content, deal with all the formalities related to the legal situation, working on moteration tools, handle pull requests from people who dedicate their private time to it and many more. Additional, I still need to make sure I can pay my own bills, and there's personal life.

And yes, two months is a long time, but for me, it was just a flash this time. A swift reality check occurred because the first release was supposed to come out over a month ago. I'm doing this the best I can, and without the help of contributors, none of this would have been possible. Due to the situation, I have to prioritize certain tasks. This is still marked as high priority, but it's waiting its turn. Nevertheless, I have the opportunity, I decided to seek external help to do it the right way before releasing the first version. I realized that it only seems like a simple task on the surface. I want close the matter once and for all. All of this also pertains to the licensing tags of Pixelfed, btw.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is a fair ask imo if the borrowed code is used currently.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Most of the indicated code is no longer part of kbin (unlike Pixelfed's code, to be fair). You can see the similarities in the links provided above. However, I need to thoroughly analyze everything once again to make sure nothing slipped past me and there isn't more of it. There might be a tool that could facilitate this. In any case, it's not my intention to hide the original source, even if major changes have been made. I'd gladly leave information about what the code was based on. I have no problem with that, the only enemy is time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

At the end of the day, I wanted to thank you for that reminder. Sometimes I really need it. For now, these two PRs will have to suffice. I'm sure I modeled them after Postmill. I can promise I'll get back to this and do it right.

Thank you for that, Adam.
https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/pulls/1005
https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/pulls/1006

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The fact that Ernest commented on this two months ago and then didn't fix the issue is saddening. I understand that everyone is busy, but crediting people isn't a big ask.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It really is ridiculous. It's such a small ask to give credit where it's due.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

perhaps they need a reminder or something. Violating Licenses is really bad.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Life happens IMO.

Any reason why the people repeatedly raising the issue don't just open a PR in Codeberg adding the attribution they deem "correct"? This isn't a court house, the source control tool is literally an open forum...

Am I missing something here?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

This is the responsibility of the person who wrote the code. This person is ernest. Life happens, but this is not a significant amount of work to be done and ernest said it would be done "today" 2 months ago.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're shifting the blame. Ernest promised a quick resolution 2 months ago and didn't follow through. I don't use kbin, I only use Postmill, so expecting me to clean up his mess isn't a reasonable ask.

It would take him less time to copy/paste the license file than it took him to write his latest feet-dragging comment here.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

You're shifting the blame

I don't see how I am...

Ernest promised a quick resolution 2 months ago and didn't follow through.

I understand that, and it's unfortunate that he's been unable to do so thus far.

That fact does not affect the validity of the original question IMO, especially when the complaint is originating from multiple people who each have equal access to implement the desired change.

I don't use kbin, I only use Postmill, so expecting me to clean up his mess isn't a reasonable ask

I'm not expecting a specific individual to "clean up his mess" really. There are multiple people being vocal about this issue besides yourself, from my perspective any one of these individuals can do this and move on.

It would take him less time to copy/paste the license file than it took him to write his latest feet-dragging comment here

While this is true, I think posts like these are also wasting his time needing to crowd control a post discussing how he should be using his personal time. These kind of interactions are really demotivating and draining for any developer or individual

Even if he went and did the change himself as a result of this post, people would still "why did it take you this long" and the like IMO

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

I've raised this in the matrix chat and have flagged this again to Ernest. I know initially about 2 months ago when the exodus happened that he was scrambling around trying to keep the server running as everyone joined.

Over the last few weeks he's be busy with a flood of PRs with either fixes, new features or support for the upcoming API integration.

I had no idea this ticket existed (mostly because there's been almost 1000 tickets submitted and I've been working on improvements)

Hopefully he can have a look at this and fix these issues soon, I seriously don't think this was done maliciously, but I'll do what I can to raise it (I have minimal exposure to open source licensing so I don't want to touch these files myself)

[+] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

I also was almost dismissing it as "who let raddle out of the box again", but this is indeed a valid complaint, which even is easy enough for kbin to become compliant - so I also don't see why they didn't do it immediately when it was pointed out.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I understood some of those words.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'd like to highlight that there's been a recent PR that's added the licensing to several files

https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/pulls/1006

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