It was intentionally and maliciously designed to break other projects that used the code in those public repositories he had stewardship over.

-Deozaan (January 10, 2022, 04:54 PM)

If you take someone else's code which is under a license that says "no warranty" and you contribute nothing to that code, you have no legal (because of the license) nor moral (because you don't contribute back) right to complain that the person who basically works for you for free stops doing so.

Just because other people decide to use my code, not breaking their code is not my responsibility.

But this guy is an obvious bad actor who intentionally caused harm through his actions.

-Deozaan (January 10, 2022, 04:54 PM)

Being nice is not a requirement for any free software developer, is it?
If you make a lot of money with stuff I wrote in my free time, expect that I won't like you much. And if you don't give me any reason to be nice towards people not liked very much by me, I probably won't be. Why should I?

(Just in case: I'm not the author.)

And this is not his first foray into intentionally harming others. He has a history of making literal bombs and booby traps.

-Deozaan (January 10, 2022, 04:54 PM)

So it's that guy's fault that other people download and embed his stuff? Did he make them?
I guess he did not.

When he released his code using an open source license, it became a public good.

-Deozaan (January 10, 2022, 04:54 PM)

This is a very awful perception of open source and licensing. Thank you for letting me know how you think about the software I posted on DC; that it's not mine anymore because I published the source code. I'll probably make all of my future NANY contributions closed source. Because I am not interested in you voluntarily violating my copyright just because you don't give a fuck about the license which you legally accept by using the code.

Just in case you do care: Most open source licenses explicitly state that the licensed product - usually, source code and/or documentation - is not a public good. I usually use the MIT-0 and/or the CDDL these days. Both basically say that the code is still mine, you are free to modify and distribute it, but if I decide to break it, it's not my problem.

If I wanted my code to be "a public good", I'd put it into the Public Domain. (in Europe, that would still require me to explicitly say so.) But I don't.

That's pretty much the meaning of free software.

-Deozaan (January 10, 2022, 04:54 PM)

No. It is not.

"Free software" means: Take it, modify it, embed it, contribute your changes (if required by the license and/or if you want to be nice).
"Free software" does not mean: Take it, then complain about my changes.

If you want to be the steward of the version you use, fork it. You are free to do so.
If you want someone else to be the steward of the version you use because you're lazy and/or a greedy corporation, that's not someone else's fault.

I have just checked the license of the faker.js software. It is the MIT license. Here's what you can do with it:

• Modify it.
• Redistribute it.
• Use it commercially and/or at home.
• Embed it in non-free software.

But what you can't do with it:

• Hold the developer liable for any breakages in your software because of the code you downloaded from him.

If you don't want to allow a developer to - intentionally or unintentionally - break your software in a later update of his code, here are your options:

• Fork the working version.
• Pin the working version number.
• Don't use software licensed under a license that allows this.

There is no reasonable reason why the "victims" did not choose any of these three options. They deliberately agreed that the author can do whatever he wants with his part of "their" software.

He is perfectly within his rights to intentionally destroy his own copies of code.

-Deozaan (January 10, 2022, 04:54 PM)

And they decided to update their copy of his code with a destroyed version (version number "6.6.6" - ha!) without even checking the consequences. Sounds like bad QA (or even no QA at all) on their side to me. Not his fault, is it?

He is not within his rights to destroy public property.

-Deozaan (January 10, 2022, 04:54 PM)

Free software that is not Public Domain is still a property of the author. The MIT license literally contains a copyright!

A person who creates a statue and freely donates it to be displayed in a public park does not have the right to destroy the statue later if he becomes angry that people aren't paying him money for it.

-Deozaan (January 10, 2022, 04:54 PM)

Unless the park owners signed a license contracts that lets the person do that. Which is what happened.

Again, he hasn't shown that he reached out to Microsoft before posting this.

-wraith808 (January 10, 2022, 01:25 PM)

A free software developer should not have to ask anyone, certainly not Microsoft, for permission to destroy his own code. That's pretty much the meaning of free software.

GitHub has some mechanisms to prevent "hacks", including 2FA. So you're only allowed to make your own code unusable if you can prove to Microsoft that you're really you? What kind of crude understanding of free software is that?

Because if something is checked into a repo that is obviously wrong, it can be construed as a compromise of the account, resulting in the locking of the account.

-wraith808 (January 10, 2022, 11:08 AM)

So Microsoft (I will not say anything about Windows Me here... or should I?) has decided that you must not check in obviously wrong code into your own repositories?