question on github terms of service

[datarealm]

Anyone have any experience on github?

Just a point of curiosity.....  I see linode recently published all their guides and tutorials on github.  Glancing at the github terms I see:

"We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours."

Two lines later, there is:

"By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories."

So it seems one couldn't just download and republish linode's docs because they still own the copyright.  However, am I reading this correctly that someone could fork their repository and then alter and republish away?

 

[Francisco]

It looks like they license it under Creative Commons so you can probably republish?

Francisco

 

[datarealm]

Yeah, figured republishing would be ok.  What about altering?

Again, no plans, just a hypothetical I found intriguing.

 

[heiska]

Linode tutorials are published under the CC BY-ND license. 

 

[datarealm]

Linode tutorials are published under the CC BY-ND license. 

Thanks.

How does that work though?  GitHub TOS explicitly states that any posted project can be forked.  By definition isn't a project fork where it is used to create derivative work?

Seems like forking and CC BY-ND are mutually exclusive.

 

[tchen]

GitHub forking is a git clone so it falls under plain distribution. If you alter the fork, then it invokes the ND clause of the CC. Basically, a clean fork is all you can do with those guides.


P.S. Someone can fork your fork, but the CC BY-ND continues to remain in effect so we can have an infinite chain of archival forks, but nothing else.