Contradictory license information on Terms of Service page

[ColinM9991]

Code of Conduct

• I have read and agree to the GitHub Docs project's Code of Conduct

What article on docs.github.com is affected?

https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#5-license-grant-to-other-users

What part(s) of the article would you like to see updated?

The GitHub Terms of Service, namely the License Grant to Other Users section contradicts the information outlined on the GitHub Licensing page

The specific contradicting quotes are, from the Terms of Service

Any User-Generated Content you post publicly, including issues, comments, and contributions to other Users' repositories, may be viewed by others. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and "fork" your repositories (this means that others may make their own copies of Content from your repositories in repositories they control).

Compared to the content on the Licensing page

You're under no obligation to choose a license. However, without a license, the default copyright laws apply, meaning that you retain all rights to your source code and no one may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work

This is confusing and it's not immediately clear whether a fork and derivative is or is not allowed for a public repository in which the developers have not explicitly selected a license. Which takes precedence here - the inherited copyright or the terms of service?

I apologize if this is the wrong place to raise this. It also was not immediately clear which team would be responsible for such an issue as GitHub support seems to be more focused around account issues.

Additional information

No response

[welcome]

Thanks for opening this issue. A GitHub docs team member should be by to give feedback soon. In the meantime, please check out the contributing guidelines.

[nguyenalex836]

Thank you for raising this issue! I'll get this triaged for review ✨ Our team will provide feedback regarding the best next steps for this issue - thanks for your patience! 💛

[subatoi]

Hi @ColinM9991 👋 thanks for raising an issue and I agree this should be clarified. Since this falls under site policy, would you be happy to open an issue under the site-policy repo per these instructions?

I apologize if this is the wrong place to raise this. It also was not immediately clear which team would be responsible for such an issue as GitHub support seems to be more focused around account issues.

No need to apologise. This is hosted on docs.github.com after all! We could probably make the instructions clearer but only a very small minority of issues fall into this particular bucket, where we need to redirect users to the site-policy repo, which is why the instructions remain as they are.

I'm happy to leave this issue on hold whilst we wait for a reply to your other issue cc @nguyenalex836

[ColinM9991]

Thank you both for your replies and guidance on next steps. You've both been very helpful.

I'll raise this issue on the site-policy repository in the coming days, once I've wound down at work, and will reference this issue for visibility.

[nguyenalex836]

@ColinM9991 Happy new year! ✨ We wanted to check if you were still planning on referencing this issue in the new issue you were going to raise in the site-policy repo.

If you need us to keep this issue open, we're more than happy to - just let us know 💛

[ColinM9991]

@ColinM9991 Happy new year! ✨ We wanted to check if you were still planning on referencing this issue in the new issue you were going to raise in the site-policy repo.

If you need us to keep this issue open, we're more than happy to - just let us know 💛

Happy new year to you too @nguyenalex836 , I hope you had a wonderful festive period.

My apologies for the delay in raising the subsequent issue. I've done this now and have cross-referenced here. I'll see first what the team there say and then close this issue if it's no longer needed.