Memex
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WorldBrain
License?
The read me states the repo is under the MIT license, but the link is dead and there is no other license file. I just wanted to question/clarify the license this repo is currently under.
Cheers 🎉
The previous license was removed in 564012e1a (Tue, 5 Oct 2021) and a new license was added in a branch: https://github.com/WorldBrain/Memex/commit/cb09f4ff7effb675e4e880be7f9052af04585bec
I just hope that that they do not move away from being FOSS. That was the main reason I chose to use Memex.
There are a couple of potential licenses in use on branches, but the master branch claims to be MIT licensed in the README, but there is no LICENSE file. I think it would be safest to assume that the code is copyright the authors and not OSS until a suitable LICENSE file appears on master.
the master branch claims to be MIT licensed in the README, but there is no LICENSE file.
I think the README is not updated when they removed the license file 164 days ago.
I think it would be safest to assume that the code is copyright the authors and not OSS until a suitable LICENSE file appears on master.
I'm hot a lawyer, but as far as I can remember, if a license is not mentioned, the default is "proprietary", hence your assumption is correct.
Also I stumbled upon this article in opensource.org:
Court affirms it's false advertising to claim software is Open Source when it’s not.
So if we consider README as a legal document, then Memex is OSS, if we consider it as a wiki-like document with no legal implications, then it can be considered as "advertising" that Memex is MIT where in fact due to the lack of license it is proprietary.
I think the README is not updated when they removed the license file 164 days ago.
Also, Mozilla Addons page https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/worldbrain/ still says "MIT License" for the release 3.1.10 but as you said upstream has removed the license file long ago.
It feels a bit disingenuous to not change/remove the license on Mozilla add-ons website. If not done by Memex devs then Mozilla should step in.
It's not just license but upstream has also changed one of the core libraries (memex-common) from public to private so now it's impossible to build the source code. See https://github.com/WorldBrain/Memex/issues/1235#issuecomment-1066121960
Then how can this addon be listed as having "MIT License" on Mozilla Addons website when the addon can't even be built with the available code and needs at least one proprietary library to build?
