The current license is very restrictive

[nbro10]

Of course, I don't decide which license applies to this library, but I'd like to share my view on it.

I've only quickly read it, but the license seems to be super restrictive.

Apparently, it doesn't allow us to fork this repo, and only now I realise it!

You may not fork or copy the Licensed Materials to a GitHub public repository (except to the extent you are granted any such right pursuant to the GitHub Terms of Service).

Although I don't know how I should interpret this

except to the extent you are granted any such right pursuant to the GitHub Terms of Service

As far as I interpret the license, point a) of section 2 and the excerpt quoted above from section 1, we can't contribute to this repo at all.

This prevents us

• from helping you to fix bugs
• from forking it and maintain our own version if this original isn't maintained anymore (which might break our codebase if we decide to use this library)

Given that the code is "open", I would expect a more open license, which would allow us at least to fork this library and fix bugs.

Is it possible that this repo was originally private and the software mostly closed-source and the license hasn't been updated yet? I would hope so, because otherwise the current license really puts a lot of limitations on what we can really do with this library.

[shimizust]

@nbro10 Thanks for the feedback, this is valuable for us. I've forwarded the request to our legal team.

[shimizust]

@nbro10 I just had a meeting with legal to clarify the License restrictions. It is admittedly confusing, but it does allow you to fork the repo. In the language below, the GitHub ToS allows you to fork public repos, so that supersedes the first part of the sentence.

You may not fork or copy the Licensed Materials to a GitHub public repository (except to the extent you are granted any such right pursuant to the GitHub Terms of Service).

[nbro10]

@shimizust Thanks for the clarification. But are we allowed to contribute to this repo or not? Because being able to fork a public repo is not really enough. I think it would benefit everyone if the license was more permissive, i.e. it clearly states that we can contribute and/or modify it for your own purposes.