

Ask HN: Is it unethical to scrape OS code from GitHub to demo my SaaS features? - ainla

It&#x27;s a hypothetical question. I&#x27;m thinking about productizing (and selling) one of our internal dev tools (as SaaS) and I&#x27;m wondering how would I market it. One scenario that I would imaging would be:<p>1. Scrape OS projects from GitHub (the ones, where my tool would add value).
2. Make &quot;project&quot; pages for them into my SaaS (where my value add is shown) and link back to original source in GitHub and authors.
3. Advertise the value of my product by bringing these projects as examples to public web.
4. Hoping for some inbound rush...<p>Contacting with every project owner and asking them to try out my thing...would be too time consuming for a small start-up :)
If you guys think my plot here is dodgy, then I&#x27;ll stick with the honest plan and just contact projects one-by-one.
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greenyoda
Depending on which license the software uses, you might be violating the
license terms. For example, the GNU GPL states:

 _" You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive
it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish
on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating
that this License and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7
apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and
give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program."_[1]

[1] [https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html](https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)

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robobro
If you don't break the copyright terms, I don't think it's unethical.

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ainla
I would not touch the code and copyright terms. We just add metrics and
visualization layers.

Question is more about linking to the GitHub project and creating "mirrored"
profiles. I personally hate when some what-ever-app would copy my public
social media profile to "add some value" to it publicly without asking me, but
I wouldn't mind if they take my OS code and make it easier to consume.

That's my dilemma.

