

We are not github and that's perfectly fine - adambenayoun
http://www.binpress.com/blog/2012/08/21/we-are-not-github-and-thats-perfectly-fine/

======
lambda
Hmm. I decided to take a look at the commercial licenses on Binpress, and this
caught my eye:

    
    
        2.4 Including the Right to Create Derivative Works: 
        Licensee may create derivative works based on 
        Software, including amending Software’s source 
        code, modifying it, integrating it into a larger 
        work or removing portions of Software, as long as 
        no distribution of the derivative works is made
    

Now, a lot of the components on Binpress are things like Objective-C classes
for use in iOS. But linking to such a class creates a derivative work, and it
sounds like you are not then allowed to distribute your derivative work, which
would make it rather useless.

Given section 2.1, it sounds like the license is intended to be used only for
server-side code, not anything that will be distributed to end users.

    
    
        2.1 Limited: Licensee may use Software for the purpose of:
          2.1.1 Running Software on Licensee’s Website[s] and Server[s];
          2.1.2 Allowing 3rd Parties to run Software on Licensee’s Website[s] and 
            Server[s];
          2.1.3 Publishing Software’s output to Licensee and 3rd Parties;
          2.1.4 Distribute verbatim copies of Software’s output (including compiled 
            binaries);
          2.1.5 Modify Software to suit Licensee’s needs and specifications.
    

But a lot of these components are client side-components. There is either
something wrong with their license, or something wrong with their curation, if
they are trying to license client-side code with a license that seems to only
make sense for server-side code.

There seem to be lots of other problems with the licensing, too; the license
summaries will say things like "Can be distributed in 5 projects" but the
actual license itself never mentions the number 5 at all (example:
<http://www.binpress.com/license/read/id/1225/app/1063>). Or the "developers
license" will say that it's "Sublicensable", but not define what that means or
what restrictions there are.

Given that it seems that the core reason for Binpress to exist is to make it
easy to commercially license small software components, the fact that the
licenses make no sense does not make me feel very comfortable about using it.

~~~
pytrin
We have a page that details the differences between the licenses type -
<http://www.binpress.com/content/licenses>

We worked with a copyright lawyer to build those licenses, we didn't just made
arbitrary decisions. I assure they are all useful in the context that they
claim to be.

~~~
lambda
You didn't really respond to any of my points. I even linked to an example of
a non-sensical license; a license that uses server-side language client side
code, and which has things in its summary that are completely missing from the
license.

You may have had your licenses reviewed by a lawyer, but that doesn't mean
that the correct license is being applied to the correct product, or that
there are no bugs in your license summary system.

------
bradfa
Cool!

But, if I try to connect via GitHub, it wants:

    
    
      This app would like to be able to do the following:
    
        Read your public information.
        Update your user profile.
        Update your public and private repositories (Commits, Issues, etc).
    

That's a little worrying. I'm part of a company "organization" on GitHub with
all private repos. Exposing our code would be a bad thing and these statements
don't give me much to go on that that will be true. I'm not sure if the
wording is GitHub's or Binpress', but some clarification would be nice.

I'd like the ability to limit Binpress to just the private repos I expose to
Binpress.

~~~
pytrin
Unforunately, the Github API doesn't give such fine-grained control. You can
either get read access to all the repos, or write-read access to all the
repos.

<http://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes>

~~~
mapleoin
_Unforunately, the Github API doesn't give such fine-grained control. You can
either get read access to all the repos, or write-read access to all the
repos._

Actually that link you just gave says the opposite (and I know I've given this
permission in the past to Travis CI for example):

 _public_repo

    
    
      Read/write access to public repos and organizations.*

------
lnanek2
Sounds like a response to a ton of people asking them why they aren't on
GitHub - in other words making excuses for ignoring customer requests. I think
a much better response would have been something like, "We make sure every
public license module we list is on GitHub and are working with GitHub on ways
to get everything on there, as a mirror at the minimum. Thanks for the
overwhelming feedback!"

Whenever I have some sample code to give out at a hackathon or workshop
nowadays, the first question I get asked is if it is on GitHub. Tons of people
are used to and comfortable with that and ready to go, some may not even know
how to use git without it. Emailing source (often blocked) or using links to
web sites or repos users are not as familiar with has not worked out as well.

Heck, even I prefer it when I use something like the Facebook library, since
later on I can see their updates and port them into my branch used in my apps
and see other people's fixes and comments on their bugs and updates. Sometimes
the first and best fixes are unofficial. So even with a module provided direct
from Facebook, the social aspect and huge forest of uncurated content around
it is still helpful.

------
jaredbrown
I'm surprised so many people ask this question. Isn't the intent of binpress
to provide these code snippets/libraries/solutions at a cost?

~~~
adambenayoun
Jared, We provide both free and paid components but for a different purpose
from github (as outlined in the article).

We're also complementary to github since we allow developers to import their
repositories to binpress and add a commercial layers on top of it.

~~~
jaredbrown
Yea, I love the idea. I just don't see GitHub as it is today being all that
similar. The comparison didn't come to mind. I think a response like this is
typical from most people you mention your product or service to. The typical
response is to compare it to a large product or service. I think you need to
be aware of these large companies, but that in general this feedback isn't
worth much.

------
mfontani
Do you intend to support projects in other languages, like Perl?

