AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service • Hacker News Board

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#161

Post by gruturo » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:02 PM UTC

thatguyagain wrote: post #137

code4tee wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read further down the Twitter thread you’ll see others point out that AWS actually DID acknowledge him in the release and thus his original rant isn’t accurate. He acknowledges that later in the thread. Of course the, now inaccurate, headline Tweet remains the thing getting attention.

Are people really expecting the devs at AWS to give a "thank you" to every third party developer out there who's code they use? This is just ridiculous. When does this become an obligation? Is there an unwritten rule of how large/successful a team has to be before they need to give thank's like this?

Actually yes, we do. And I don't think this is excessively onerous. While not a legal requirement, it is a legitimate expectation, like having your "Good Morning" returned by someone, and we feel sad when this does not happen.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#162

Post by varispeed » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:02 PM UTC

3131s wrote: post #118

varispeed wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The model where company makes money off of someone else's work without paying them should be illegal. Currently you cannot hire someone as an apprentice and don't pay them - you need to give at least the minimum wage. OSS is sort of a loophole where companies can obtain work without payment. I think this practice should be illegal and regardless of the license company adopting OSS solution should pay its contributors…

You want to make permissive licenses illegal or what? That's ridiculous. Pick something like the MariaDB or CockroachDB license if you don't want Amazon to provide a hosted version of your software.

Yes it should be illegal to use OSS in SaaS platforms without paying the OSS contributors.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#163

Post by rfrey » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

thatguyagain wrote: post #137

code4tee wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read further down the Twitter thread you’ll see others point out that AWS actually DID acknowledge him in the release and thus his original rant isn’t accurate. He acknowledges that later in the thread. Of course the, now inaccurate, headline Tweet remains the thing getting attention.

Are people really expecting the devs at AWS to give a "thank you" to every third party developer out there who's code they use? This is just ridiculous. When does this become an obligation? Is there an unwritten rule of how large/successful a team has to be before they need to give thank's like this?

There's a pretty bright line between "code they use" and "project they fork".

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#164

Post by varispeed » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #63

jasode wrote: post #42

There are some replies in this thread that misunderstood the content of Tim Nolet's twitter post. (Probably because the short headline has pitchfork raising overtones.) - He's not complaining that Amazon forked his code with Apache license. He admits he also uses other open source with permissive licenses - He just thought it would be nice/courteous/polite/etc if Amazon acknowledge/recognized/credited/mentioned/thank…

Yes I remember there was a similar scenario with Microsoft as well. > In other words, I'm not aware of a permissive license that's the same as BSD/Apache with the only difference in that also says "use it as you wish but you must mention my name when you're a commercial enterprise making a splashy product announcement". Yes. What we need is ABSD, AMIT or AAPL where the first A stands for appreciation / Attribution

Oh the good old companies paying in exposure... If you make a profit from using someone else software you should pay them (plus appropriate tax) regardless of the software license.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#165

Post by auggierose » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

I don't see why AWS shouldn't have to BUY a license from the developer. Why are developers giving away their work for free? If you require a thank you, you might just as well require them to pay you money. That's the only thank you from corporations that counts.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#166

Post by Intermernet » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

tannhaeuser wrote: post #144

save_ferris wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Open source software is more than a license and code. It is a community and the digital public square. Unfortunately, there's absolutely nothing about the OSS community that actually instills this mantra in people. I like to think that I also see OSS as a community and digital public square, but there's no universality to that philosophy. > Either we as a community hold ourselves and others within our community to…

> OSS is a great thing that has tremendously benefited the industry I'm beginning to question this. The proliferation and commoditization of F/OSS is what made SaaS business thrive, and made it so that integration and polish is the only avenue left to make a buck, leading to our paltry attention economy, oligopoly, and platform lock-in by network effects. This after decades of personal computing striving to liberate…

"when was the last time you used a piece of software that truly achieved something useful on its own rather than solving a perceived problem that only exists because of the idiosyncratic nature of the web and cloud stacks?"

Go and Rust. Probably unpopular opinions, but I'm very glad those two languages are open source.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#167

Post by varispeed » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

dak1 wrote: post #62

I'm extremely disappointed to see how many comments on here focus on the very narrow legal questions and amount to: "Your license didn't say they couldn't." Open source software is more than a license and code. It is a community and the digital public square. And the Tragedy of the Commons is just as applicable to our public square as it is to William Forster Lloyd's common land. Either we as a community hold ourselv…

Big companies use OSS to avoid hiring employees and paying their wages plus taxes. It is a loophole that should be regulated.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#168

Post by IggleSniggle » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

sushicalculus wrote: post #149

steerablesafe wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"thank you" is a pretty low price for software.

I think thatguyagain is making a good point about infinite regress. Should we all add a thank you to our github pages, thanking every dependency, library, framework, to Stroustrup, to Stallman, to Linus, and to John von Neumann?

I’m with you on that one, but if you are literally just forking a package, rather than depending on a package, and rebranding it into your ecosystem, then a big “thank you for making this and making it open source” is appropriate.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#169

Post by bdcravens » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

thatguyagain wrote: post #137

code4tee wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read further down the Twitter thread you’ll see others point out that AWS actually DID acknowledge him in the release and thus his original rant isn’t accurate. He acknowledges that later in the thread. Of course the, now inaccurate, headline Tweet remains the thing getting attention.

Are people really expecting the devs at AWS to give a "thank you" to every third party developer out there who's code they use? This is just ridiculous. When does this become an obligation? Is there an unwritten rule of how large/successful a team has to be before they need to give thank's like this?

No, but they do it typically: "Announcing AWS X, our implementation of {open source project}" (they do this with MongoDB, ActiveMQ, etc). The product mentioned here is more than just a managed version of the open source project; it is a major component however. (good example is Redshift, though when they announced it they barely mentioned the role Postgresql plays in that to be honest)

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-redshift-the-new-aws...

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#170

Post by candu » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

thatguyagain wrote: post #137

code4tee wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read further down the Twitter thread you’ll see others point out that AWS actually DID acknowledge him in the release and thus his original rant isn’t accurate. He acknowledges that later in the thread. Of course the, now inaccurate, headline Tweet remains the thing getting attention.

Are people really expecting the devs at AWS to give a "thank you" to every third party developer out there who's code they use? This is just ridiculous. When does this become an obligation? Is there an unwritten rule of how large/successful a team has to be before they need to give thank's like this?

...yes? This is an automatable process these days, AWS / Amazon certainly have the resources to do it, and under many OSS licences it's a legal obligation to give attribution.