[shadd22]

An interesting read regarding an open source project where the code additions by one contributor has made the entire project the source of a court proceeding; where they are being told that they are responsible for what is contributed to the open source project.

http://torrentfreak.com/court-open-sourc...ng-131205/

Could such a thing ever happen with the way XBMC Devs check eachothers codings and utilize Git-Hub for building XBMC?

[Piers]

Worrisome for the future development of Open Source, another win for censorship and bullshit politics.

[poplap]

This makes no sense, why would anyone think a community should be punished for one person's mistake.

[Prof Yaffle]

There was something about how they'd specifically "made the code theirs" through copyright, etc. - it's the packaging as much as anything. So - to German courts, anyway - it's the difference between "here's a collection of open source code from different authors" and "here's a single package that I've assembled from different places".

Kind of a subtle difference, as I'm yet to find a FOSS project where you download it line at a time before compilation...

[Ned Scott]

I'm not really clear on the situation, since it sounds like it's a plug-in. I don't use JDownloader, so I don't know if they use plug-ins like how we use add-ons, where it's separate from the application.

Either way, this is one of the reasons the XBMC Foundation exists. Anyone, in Team XBMC or in the general community, has some basic protection because the "Foundation" would be liable, rather than individuals. Worst case scenario is the "XBMC Foundation" goes down in flames, and the "XBMC-B Foundation" arises somewhere else. Or something like that.

More and more open source projects either are or should be looking into the creation of such legal entities. For something that mostly just exists on paper, it goes a long way in protecting individuals on multiple fronts.

[Eleazar Coding]

I'm not so sure if that's true, in matters of piracy it could be considered a criminal act, in which case the civil umbrella of a Foundation's status would not protect it's members individually against prosecution.

[Ned Scott]

I'm not so sure if that's true, in matters of piracy it could be considered a criminal act, in which case the civil umbrella of a Foundation's status would not protect it's members individually against prosecution.

I'm not really sure about that, but it's a moot point. XBMC explicitly contains DRM-busting code for DVD playback, and possibly other areas (XBMC can be complied without those features, though). So if we're screwed, we're already screwed ;)

Granted, our disclaimer states that it is up to the end-user to make sure that usage of XBMC complies with their local laws, but I'm guessing that wouldn't have helped JDownloader either.