The glaring ethical issue remains that the core of Atom is nonfree. From what I've read, the source code will be viewable but not redistributable and the public can submit pull requests. If this is true, it means that GitHub is intending to trick users into providing gratis labor for their product without retention of copyright for their contribution.
I think calling it "hackable" is a little bit of a fudge on Github's part, but from what I can see of Atom, it's open enough that I'm okay with their characterization. Certainly it's more open and hackable than github.com itself.
I don't think it's clear at all. There are a number of users on the IRC channel who seem to think that Atom will be open-source, including some Github employees!
(Tom Preston Warner has already stated that Atom's core will not be open source)
Absolutely clear and honest would be something lie "we intend to take your free labor, declare it our property forever, make money of it en put it in our own pockets".
No one would consent to that, so organizations use weasel words or bury it in the small print. Mostly, they just obfuscate the consequences. Especially the "property" and "money" bits.
And yes, that is a "trick", even though by some definitions they are "clear" about it. Thousands of lawyers make a good living off that distinction.
Well, if they are charging money for the thing and they tell contributors they aren't going to get paid, I'm not sure there is much more of a puzzle to solve.
Let's rephrase everything: People should be aware of Github's lack of communication before they start messing with this too much.
I'm not well versed in the nuances of software licensing. Are there prominent examples of other projects using a similar setup? Or is Github unique in this?
Or is it a case where Github's size/reach makes them unique in this at scale?
We don't have any details of the Atom license yet, but it sounds like it will be equivalent roughly to Microsoft's shared source licenses for proprietary code: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source
You are conflating free-as-in-freedom and free-as-in-beer.
Software can be free (as in freedom) and open source while still not being free as in beer (ie, charging money).
davexunit is commenting on the fact that the Atom editor is proprietary (non-free) software, which has nothing to do with whether or not they are charging for its use.
Long answer: Some GNU projects require copyright assignment to the FSF. The most well known example would be GNU Emacs. However, unlike GitHub or another for-profit business, the FSF is a non-profit charity dedicated to free software. Additionally, there is a clause in the CLA to ensure that contributions cannot be made nonfree. I have made some small contributions to a handful of GNU projects at this point and I have not yet had to assign copyright for any of them.
The copyright assignment situation with the FSF and the GNU project is dramatically different than the potential situation that I've described about GitHub. I hope I've made things clear.
