Re: [GNUnet-developers] Discussion, and Help Wanted: Moving to Gitlab for Git, CI, and Issues

[Marcos Marado]

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 8, 2019 at 1:07 PM <address@hidden> wrote:
[...]
> > I am assuming that the "EU regulation" here spoken of is the Copyright 
> > Reform,
> > in particular Article 13. If that's the case, then “open source
> > software development
> > and sharing platforms” are explicitly excluded from it[1] (let's see
> > how will that be
> > transposed into national laws). It is arguable what defines something
> > as being an
> > "OSS dev & share platform", but I think it is fair to assume that a
> > gitlab instance
> > run and maintained by GNUnet e.V. and with the purpose of hosting only free
> > software would qualify.
[...]
> > If the OSS exemption didn't exist, this wouldn't be enough: those
> > within the core
> > team would need the tools to validate copyright infringement on each commit,
> > instead of a simple "I looked at it and, after a cursory glance, I
> > don't think it
> > infringes any copyright".
>
> This sounds pretty much like something EU should pay for, because
> without being able to go into details (for obvious reasons), the ways
> to analyze code out there in a way which satisfies the industry
> are endless and require almost as much resources.
> Imo we simply don't have the resources to fullfil this in GNUnet
> unless someone comes up with something pre-made we can use. To
> be quiet honest, this is a problem which affects Free and Open Source
> software at large, so to expect a complete check of every line of
> code for possible infringement must be automated. I don't want
> us to grow but at the same time slow down with each and every new
> committer.

Well... as I said, the eV will be exempt if the gitlab instance has, as I
assume it does, the sole purpose of hosting free software.
But yes, despite having managed to create that exemption, Article 13
is still harmful to free software (and the society in general), and this is
something EU should not have accepted.
Unfortunately, that was not the case*.

* well, in theory there is still a chance that this gets rejected: there is
going to be a vote by the Council of the European Union next monday
(15th April), and it could still be rejected if Germany voted against
it -- which doesn't seem to be something they're willing to do.

-- 
Marcos Marado