YouTube-dl source code encoded in two images

[PurpleFoxy]

Distributing the code is not an issue. It’s keeping development moving when YouTube changes their apis.

[harryf]

This is also an interesting case for github. youtube-dl is popular enough that this just might annoy enough people to find an alternative way to collaborate on it. Meanwhile github becomes “that platform that might kill you project”

[strogonoff]

Linux kernel is developed[0] nicely without GitHub. All that’s really needed is a mailing list and someone (who doesn’t fear Google or RIAA suing them personally) willing to host the DVCS server.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel#Source_code_manag...

[Ahmed90]

Genuine question, how viable is it, if we (code monkeys) created some sort of a blacklist of the entities that are not allowed to use our open source projects? -- something like "We don't support Internet Explorer" but a bit more aggressive? like "These entities don't understand the Internet, we don't support them, they cant use our software"?

Maintaining that list would be a ton of work and edge cases tho :/

[protomyth]

Any organization you create to manage such a list will be captured by non-programmers with an agenda that is political and stops serving the original purpose. They will play favorites.

[rmrfstar]

Do you really want to live in a world where software is politicized to the point that FOSS devs are maintaining shit-lists of undesirables barred from using basic tools?

It won't end well, and the adverse effects will disproportionately impact people without power, not the large companies you have in mind.

[e12e]

Maybe we need apache with DMCA clause (like patent clause)-if you ever invoke DMCA your license is forfeit?

I'm not sure how viable it is - the GPL is hack on top of copyright - but the DMCA is an extension on top of copyright too (however ill advised).

[npongratz]

I cannot speak to its viability, but the BipCot NoGov License is a pioneer along these lines. It has been around at least 5 years: https://bipcot.org

'The BipCot NoGov License allows any use of software, media, products or services EXCEPT by governments. The BipCot NoGov License threatens no “government guns” for violators. It is not copyright-based, it is entirely shame-based.'

Text of version 1.2 of the license:

https://bipcot.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/BipCotNoGovSof...

[dgrin91]

Keep in mind there is no singular we. There will be code monkeys you agree with. There will be code monkeys you dont agree with. There will be code monkeys you sorta agree with. They would all start to make their own lists. You'll be on some of this lists.

All we've really ended up doing is fragmenting the internet more.

[0goel0]

Like https://github.com/climate-strike/license I guess. There's good discussion of this in the numpy mailing list linked in the readme.

[slooonz]

Then it’s no longer open-source projects.

[bob1029]

Sounds like what you are looking for is closed source software where you get to dictate precisely who your licensees are and under what specific terms they must use your software.

This is a model I have started to seriously consider due to increasingly prolific IP theft concerns. There is software that is so capable that it could be considered a weapons platform from some perspectives. I really worry about this stuff in context of China/Russia/India/et.al. and our willingness to relinquish our various competitive advantages.

[snomad]

Some negative points highlighted below but I think this is right tract still. Maybe an updated GPL with prohibition against DMCA?

[533474]

Look at the FSF, EFF...old MIT wizards went through the same...we should avoid centralised hosting for projects like these or be bullied into closing them by lobby groups

[sgt]

Great, now Imagemagick will receive a DMCA takedown notice! Can someone encode Imagemagick as audio using sox?

[ffpip]

Relevant - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342042\

JPEG image of Shakespeare which is also a zip file containing his complete works

[m4r35n357]

no such item

[Santosh83]

Most countries are being pressured into converging on a global set of copyright laws (among others), so unless we demand and can realise changes in the law, this is going to be a perpetual battle of attrition, and the other side's job in done when it becomes inconvenient enough for widespread use. They don't need to wipe something out completely.

[superasn]

This recent takedown will only make more people know about YouTube-Dl and hopefully create more forks. When will these big companies learn!?

[rnhmjoj]

The takedown may spark new life to the project development, which severely slowed down in the last months because there are too few maintainers.

[danso]

Plenty of people used and knew about youtube-dl already. It's made the front page of HN multiple times [0]. I've used it as a key example of why/how non-programmers should learn to use the command-line. People who weren't already aware or didn't care to learn aren't going to be significantly moved now.

[0] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=youtube-dl

[baal80spam]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

[formerly_proven]

It's still available from a bunch of Linux repositories. As it's completely written in Python, you can extract those packages and use the code even on Windows (or MACos, if you're into that sort of thing) https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/any/youtube-dl/

[freeCandy]

It's also on Pypi: https://pypi.org/project/youtube_dl/

[themihai]

We should start a political movement to stop this tyranny. Like the climate change movement it will take time but at least we will make some progress.

[protomyth]

The NRA is your model organization. No one cares if the EFF has an opinion but the NRA carries weight in elections. We need an NRA for encryption and we need one for open source. They should not be the same organization because you need a single, one line focus.

[533474]

There are movements such as the FSF and EFF. Why not join and get ur voice heard?...or perhaps start a new movement, not separate to those that already exist, but complementary and cooperative

[yardshop]

Just for fun, I wrote a little Python script to convert the image files back into the original archive.

Use Pillow to read the pixels from each file, and write the RGB values to a new file. Then use the gzip library to uncompress that and create a TAR file. Then I just viewed the TAR file in The V File Viewer.

I stopped there because that was enough to show that it worked. I have ImageMagick installed somewhere, but this was more fun.

[pdevr]

Original source code is still hosted on their website[1], for now.

[1]https://youtube-dl.org/.

[JdeBP]

... but none of the version control history, issues list, pull requests, branches, and whatnot.

[konart]

So... is there any 'official' mirror by now? I mean the one that the original author and maintainers are using, not just all possible mirrors created by the community, there are dozens of them of course.

[xvilka]

There is a mirror at Gitee: https://gitee.com/mirrors/youtube-downloader

[nautical]

Side Question : Is there a distributed alternative to github ?

[ape4]

How does it work anyhow? It must do more than `wget` the mp4

[boomboomsubban]

It also uses ffmpeg to combine various pieces, and I'm not sure what wget like program they use by default. It doesn't do much though.

[DiabloD3]

That is essentially what it does: it uses Youtube's own API to formulate the correct URL, using all publicly known data that Google themselves publish so Youtube can function.

[dkdk8283]

Seems like this tweet was also taken down.

[slezyr]

Nah, just "modern web". Tweeter always loads once in 10 times for me.