
Ask HN: Plagiarism on GitHub – What to do? - compassios
Hi everyone,<p>I&#x27;ve been working on a command line tool for more than 6 months.<p>A member on Github changed the name of the project, reduced the number of features by removing 3rd-party libraries (all of them are optional in my CLI), and took the entire idea including modularity, plugins and even the mac logo () on the title of the project.<p>He should have created Pull Requests to contribute to the project instead of modifying the original project and posting it as a separate project in 4 days (vs 6 months that it took to me to organize and create all that code).<p>100% of the changes he made could have been made through Pull Requests.<p>If someone wants to take a look and contribute to the original project, this is the URL:
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;guarinogabriel&#x2F;Mac-CLI<p>What would you do if this happens with your project?<p>Please let me know your thoughts.<p>Thanks!
======
cjbprime
Two answers:

1) You could _potentially_ use a DMCA claim to take down the repo, _if_ there
has been a license violation. But:

2) This is not plagiarism. You put the code under a license that says almost-
literally "do anything you want with this code", and they did. There is no
legal obligation to use pull requests instead of forks.

> What would you do if this happens with your project?

Probably ignore it. If your version is better, people will use it instead. If
it isn't, that's life.

~~~
Turing_Machine
His license requires that his credit be retained. If the new project didn't do
that (which I'm assuming it didn't), it's both plagiarism and a copyright
violation (which aren't the same thing).

If the new project _did_ retain his credit, then, yeah, he's got no legal
recourse.

~~~
compassios
Hi Turing_Machine,

How should the other project retain the original project credit? How should be
my project referenced?

~~~
cr3ative
The author of the competing project claims to have used no code from Mac-CLI.
Why do you feel you deserve anything more than the "inspired by" credit they
currently offer in their README file?

Your wording here:

    
    
      A member on Github changed the name of the project, reduced the number of features by removing 3rd-party libraries (all of them are optional in my CLI), and took the entire idea including modularity, plugins and even the mac logo () on the title of the project.
    

Heavily implies the repository was cloned then edited, but it's being claimed
that isn't the case. Can you clarify?

~~~
compassios
Absolutely. I am okay with creating a better tool using Python for example,
but the competing project took the entire idea of a bash script on the local
folder that implements plugins like my project.

Small details like the colors are the same on the colors script. I was
referring to the fact that all those changes could have been done on the
original project through Pull Requests, instead of dividing the effort.

~~~
krapp
>but the competing project took the entire idea of a bash script on the local
folder that implements plugins like my project.

Ideas don't belong to anyone, though. And I'm sure you're not the first or
only person to come up with "a bash script on the local folder that implements
plugins". And unless you've got a patent on that, you've got no right to be
upset that someone else does something you did first.

And again, you know, you did _open source_ the code, which implies you _want_
people to use your code and modify it if they wish.

But did they actually _fork_ your project and not provide you credit? Your
original comment made it seem as if they did, but now it appears you're just
upset that someone else created a similar project to yours, rather than
contribute to you.

If that's the case, it's understandable that you would rather they contribute
to your project than have their own, but it's not plagiarism on their part.
Contributions are a privilege, but forking is a _right_ as far as open source
is concerned.

------
jonkiddy
Hanlon's razor. [0]

Assume that the person doesn't know how to correctly contribute code to an
existing project. Reach out to them and gently let them know that they are
welcome to contribute via Pull Requests. Also, be flattered that someone found
value in your work. Assume that the other person simply doesn't know any
better. If no response, or no change in a small period of time, then DMCA as
mentioned in the other comment.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor)

~~~
compassios
Hi jonkiddy,

Thanks for your comment. Do you think that I can do something by changing the
license on my open source project?

~~~
jonkiddy
INAL. I'm not sure if there is much you can do. If you open sourced the
project in such a way as another party can do what they want, we'll expect
them to do whatever they want.

~~~
compassios
I understand. Thanks for your comment!

------
neurotrace
I found the supposed plagiarism and I'm not seeing it. From what I can see,
it's all original code and while what you made is thoroughly useful and
certainly took a lot of work, it's not exactly uncommon. You've created a very
comprehensive, plugin-ready, Mac-specific bash config. Yours handles numerous
cases, this person wrote their own handling a smaller set of cases that works
better for them. Traceur[0] was one of the first major JavaScript transpilers.
Does that mean Babel[1] is plagiarism?

[0] [https://github.com/google/traceur-
compiler](https://github.com/google/traceur-compiler)

[1] [https://babeljs.io/](https://babeljs.io/)

~~~
compassios
Thanks for your comment. My concern is that all the changes introduced by the
other project could have been done through pull requests.

Also, the other project wouldn't exist if my project wasn't there. One thing
is being inspired, another one is creating a separate project that is dividing
the community effort in two, instead of focusing in one project.

~~~
neurotrace
They could have but would removing those 3rd party libraries be in the best
interest of _your_ project? It appears that the other developer merely wanted
a trimmed down version of what you have.

As for possibly dividing the community: first, there's always competition.
This is especially true in software where anyone with a keyboard and know-how
can create a competitor. Second, if you're really concerned about community
division, consider what happened with Node.js[0] and io.js[1]. Initially,
io.js provided a slimmer and more frequently updated version of the same
framework. Then they got together to discuss how they were dividing the
community and decided to bring their projects together. Perhaps you should
discuss such a merge with the author of the other project.

[0] [https://nodejs.org/en/](https://nodejs.org/en/)

[1] [https://iojs.org/en/](https://iojs.org/en/)

~~~
compassios
Thanks for your suggestion! Specially for providing the example. I will take a
look at that.

------
krapp
You published this under an open source license that allows anyone to fork and
modify it as they see fit, as long as they include the license with their
fork[0].

If they did so, then all you can (and should) do is stop complaining about
other people doing what you gave them explicit permission to do.

The entire point of open source is that the code you write doesn't belong to
you, it belongs equally to anyone who wants it.

[0][https://github.com/guarinogabriel/Mac-
CLI/blob/master/LICENS...](https://github.com/guarinogabriel/Mac-
CLI/blob/master/LICENSE.md)

~~~
compassios
Thanks for your comment. Taking that license into account, should be there a
reference to my project on the other project?

~~~
krapp
I'm not a lawyer, but it does look like they need to include the original
copyright notice with your credit.

Of course, if they do, then there's not much you can do.

------
behnamoh
Frankly, that's one of the reasons I'm not interested in GNU GPL (at least,
yet). I would rather go with BSD License instead.

But really, the benefits that come from open source programming vs. writing
proprietary software are just a one-way road: while proprietary software can
benefit from ideas found in the open-source world, the open-source community
cannot benefit from proprietary software written by big giants like Microsoft
or Apple. So the bottom line is, the major purpose of writing open-source
software is maintaining the FreedomOfSoftware, not preserving your rights as
the programmer.

Now to address your question, I would try to look at it as a "force majeure"
to keep maintaining my code and improve it in many ways. Like it or not, you
have actually started a competition, and to win that, you have to keep making
your code better.

------
cr3ative
If you're referring to the project which cites yours as "a great source of
inspiration", they are materially different. The idea of a shell-script
collection for common admin tasks is not unique.

A quick look between the two (if my suspicion is correct) shows the new one
being pared down to tasks which are universal to OS X management, whereas
yours has things which appear to be useful primarily to you (magento
configuration?)

~~~
sleazebreeze
The OP has even opened an issue on that other project's github and discussed
it with the author of that other tool. The other author was very polite and
explained clearly that it is not plagiarized or ripped from Mac-CLI.

~~~
cr3ative
So in summary, from that issue you've referenced, it's a clean code
implementation (no code from OP's project) and has different goals and
abilities.

In that issue OP opened, they have demanded to be credited at the top of the
README.

This seems very unreasonable.

------
Turing_Machine
[https://github.com/contact/dmca](https://github.com/contact/dmca)

~~~
compassios
Thanks for the URL!

