Github ToS and Open Source

[Tom H]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 10:57 AM, Ralf Mardorf <silver.bullet at zoho.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 03 Mar 2017 16:35:31 +0100, Xen wrote:
>>Colin Law schreef op 03-03-2017 15:24:
>>>
>>> Can anyone explain the significance of this in words that the
>>> relatively uninitiated can understand?
>>> https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10_e20170301-tg.htm
>>
>> What it appears to say is that Github hosted projects can only be
>> forked on Github, all projects must allow to be forked, and
>> attribution-style licenses are forbidden.
>
> Wouldn't this be a discrepancy? If something is GPL'ed and provided at
> Github, why should somebody forking it, provide it via Github, too?

One of things that the blogger mentions is that there's a "solely" in a
paragraph of the ToS [1] that might mean that gpl'd content on GitHub
can only be shared via GitHub.

I'm not a lawyer so I'm just an English speaker parsing
legal/pseudo-legal text:

I suspect that he's misinterpreting [1]. I suspect that GitHub's trying
to protect itself from user A uploading something, deleting it after
user B's cloned it to his account, and complaining to GitHub that that
content should be deleted from user B's account too.

I don't see how [1] prevents, for example, a distribution from running
"git clone github_hosted_content" - most likely as an anonymous user but
not necessarily - creating a tarball of that content, and distributing
it as a source deb or rpm.

[1] If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed publicly, you
grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide license to access
your Content through the GitHub Service, and to use, display and perform
your Content, and to reproduce your Content solely on GitHub as
permitted through GitHub's functionality.