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Comment by someonebaggy

3 days ago

If it's your software send a DMCA. They have a legally required timeframe to process those. If it's open source, however, then you don't have any valid DMCA claim.

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someonebaggy

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hnlmorg  3 days ago

That’s not how open source works.

Open source code is still copyrighted. What the license defines is rights that people have in distributing that code. If an unofficial repository is using open source code to ship malware, and the license that software had didn’t allow that, then the unofficial repository is still breaking copyright law despite the code being open source.

93po  3 days ago

Code can be open source while the name and logos are copyrighted and still enforceable via DMCA

  • rpdillon  3 days ago

    You're thinking of trademarks. Different body of law.

    EDIT: e.g. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/

    • 93po  2 days ago

      Logos can be part of both. A sufficiently unique logo (e.g. not just the name in Times New Roman) is absolutely copyrighted and an image of it cannot be distributed/reproduced without authorization unless fair use, which the malware project is not.

      You're correct I was overly broad about the actual name use being DMCA-able though.

  • nomel  3 days ago

    You can have copyright open source code, which is what allows open source licenses to enforce their terms. Open source doesn't mean "free to do whatever you want". There are very restrictive open source licenses, and you can deviate from the common open source licenses.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_copyright

  • someonebaggy  3 days ago

    Which project copyrighted its name and logo?

    • kelnos  2 days ago

      Logo? Every single one. All creative works automatically get copyright by default.

      Now, projects might choose to license their logo permissively, but that's an active choice.