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@phrawzty@hachyderm.ioI feel like most in-house software is tacitly released under the Hot Potato Licence.
@phrawzty This is so incredibly funny, thanks for the share! :-)
@phrawzty Ah... for Proprietary Software then, is it?
@phrawzty I would like to imagine that this is like the licensing agreement for a Discworld cursed object.
@phrawzty oh shit! I didn't know I could do that! Big check-ins today.
@phrawzty They expect Puck to make amends.
@phrawzty @ritawho
The Hot Potato License (HPL) allows anyone to make changes
-- but only the last person to change the software gets all rights to the code.
Sorry - Legally, I can't fix my bugs.
FOSS Hot Potato License:
Version 1, September 2017
All rights reserved by the last person to commit a change to this repository,
except for the right to commit changes to this repository,
which is hereby granted to all of earth's citizens for the purpose of committing changes to this repository.
@phrawzty Now I have to re-read "The Long and Dark Teatime of the Soul"....
"Hot Potato" "Pass it on"...
@phrawzty "rights to the code"? Better "obligations".
De facto operation in house. "You touched it last, you are the expert,"
@phrawzty This describes the migration project I've been working on since like .. February last year .. in ABSOLUTE perfection!
@phrawzty This also applies to in-house documentation in wikis or other systems which display "last modified by so-and-so" for each document.
𝕭𝖆𝖙
@phrawzty "'all of earth's citizens"
what about someone working from space?
@phrawzty definitely got hot potatoed at work this month. I fixed a minor bug in a library that is unmaintained due to layoffs and a week later overheard my name being cited as the library owner despite barely knowing how it works or even what it does
@phrawzty The closed-source version of the Hot Potato License is actually what most companies use internally. Most companies like this that I had the misfortune to work at would routinely bring up "who touched it last" as an argument for "who owns this?"
The result was that most engineers simply refused to work on anything except their own pet-project sandbox repos, lest they be held responsible for maintaining the monstrosities that awaited them in the hundreds of other microservice repos.
@phrawzty I laughed, but since the right to commit is remains, THE JOKE IS A LIE.
Now I'll be awake all night thinking about how a license that removes rights to changes from the people who have made changes could work...
,
] @phrawzty Lunar citizens are SOL
@phrawzty Fun fact: that license is ALSO the default for anything involving the law area.
Though we usually call it something else, like "crying baby". And the objective is to pass it along ASAP, because if things go pear-shaped, the person holding it is the sole responsible for dealing with the aftermath.