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AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

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

#251

Post by bloodorange »

rfrey wrote: post #173

Much of the discussion in this thread has highlighted the difference between those who regard open source as a community and public good, and those who regard it as a resource to be exploited. The latter sees anything beyond legalistic compliance as an unreasonable expectation. Personally I'm disappointed with the exploitation view, but I also think it's an interesting example of how different assumptions lead groups…

What you call "exploitation view" is at the very core of a capitalistic mindset.

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

#252

Post by Aeolun »

geodel wrote: post #155
josalhor wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I suggest an idea from a coworker in a meeting as if it was mine, that move would be seen, at the very least, as somewhat rude. If I got that idea from examining the competition, that would be seen as a smart move. Sure, if attribution is a requirement then the natural thing to do is to turn it into a legal requirement . But I don't think that is the discussion here. It comes down to how we want to treat open sour…

> If I suggest an idea from a coworker in a meeting as if it was mine, that move would be seen, at the very least, as somewhat rude. It will be lot more rude if your coworker now hit social media berating you for stealing other people's ideas. If just office ideas were this important may be they need to be submitted with process of academic journals with proper attribution. It can't be both ways: "Announcing that tak…

> It will be lot more rude if your coworker now hit social media berating you for stealing other people's ideas

Would it? I’d be inclined to agree with the coworker.

The message is not ‘stealing other people’s ideas’, it’s ‘stealing other people’s ideas without acknowledgement’.

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

#253

Post by wpietri »

code4tee wrote: post #97
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…

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.

I would hardly call that a rant. And I would hardly call a deeply buried source reference the kind of collegial social acknowledgement he was hoping for. So perhaps, as somebody very concerned about inaccuracy, you could correct your errors here?

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

#254

Post by Aeolun »

hashkb wrote: post #210
smusamashah wrote: post #113

> Oh @awscloud I really do :Two hearts: you! But next time you fork my OS project https://github.com/checkly/headless-recorder and present it as your new service, give the maintainers a short "nice job, kids" or something. Not necessary as per the APLv2 license, but still, ya know? He is only nicely and asking for recognition/attribution while acknowledging that it's not required per licence. I don't know why people…

Are those on this forum not similarly free to express their judgment?

I guess they are. It would just be nice if they paused and check they made that judgement based on what they actually read, instead of the initial emotion they felt while reading.

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

#255

Post by nacs »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #235
mywacaday wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it comes back to politeness, somewhere in amazon there is product manager that saw or was shown Tim's repo and saw an opportunity(nothing wrong with that). It would have been a nice thing to do to give him a shoutout just like it was a nice thing to do of Tim's to release his code under a permissive license. There must be a mountain of code forked by large companies that if given some sort of recognition woul…

lol. That's almost certainly not how this worked. This worked by: - The PM set some broad brush requirements. - An engineer saw there was some useful code. - They/their infrastructure checked that it was under a sensible license. - They added it - They released it - Someone noticed that their product was being used under the license that they had released it under. - .. - Big deal?

> An engineer saw there was some useful code.

This is full clone of the original project, not "some code".

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

#256

Post by wpietri »

jd_mongodb wrote: post #190
bdcravens wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/aw…

Import to realise that the DocumentDB (Amazon's MongoDB emulation) is not based on the MongoDB code base.

The code may not be based on their code, but I don't see how you can have an emulation of X that isn't based on X. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but there's nothing stopping them from including some of the other forms. Plus a little gratitude, maybe.

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

#258

Post by kllrnohj »

loufe wrote: post #246
smusamashah wrote: post #113

> Oh @awscloud I really do :Two hearts: you! But next time you fork my OS project https://github.com/checkly/headless-recorder and present it as your new service, give the maintainers a short "nice job, kids" or something. Not necessary as per the APLv2 license, but still, ya know? He is only nicely and asking for recognition/attribution while acknowledging that it's not required per licence. I don't know why people…

To be fair: as mentioned elsewhere in the comments, Amazon did in fact credit him, and he admitted his mistake later in the Twitter thread.

Incorrect. Amazon included the legally-required NOTICES, which isn't what he was asking for. And similarly the author did not admit any such mistake as no such mistake was made.

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

#259

Post by yourapostasy »

rfrey wrote: post #173

Much of the discussion in this thread has highlighted the difference between those who regard open source as a community and public good, and those who regard it as a resource to be exploited. The latter sees anything beyond legalistic compliance as an unreasonable expectation. Personally I'm disappointed with the exploitation view, but I also think it's an interesting example of how different assumptions lead groups…

The exploitation view is mostly due to the anonymous nature of those personal, natural person individuals performing the decision to exploit. The personal cost to them of the decision is muted if it is felt at all: the endless layers of the corporate body shields them.

However, if their names attached to such decisions were plastered all over LinkedIn, GitHub, or the even the project "look who is using our project" page, the responsibility that went with that decision authority just went up a noticeable amount. With REST API access to graph-networked tracking of such decisions, someone's track record of these kinds of decisions will follow them. Forever. Such tracking will also start revealing companies with a certain track record. The consequences of that are up to those in the future making decisions whether to interact with those individuals. It could be neutral, beneficial, or adverse, depending upon who they deal with.

Also, nothing prevents open source projects from tapping such aggregated data in an automated fashion, and auto-updating an exception to their open source license. "Anyone may license under license, except for the following list of individuals: ..., And except for the following list of companies: ..., . For you, ." Licenses are similarly amended to generate the attribution data in the first place.

That consequence can be whatever strikes the fancy of the project. Whether it be must license commercially, must post a LinkedIn video of them singing "Good Ship Lollipop" before they can license under the open source license, must post an escrow bond they forfeit if they violate the terms, etc.

Shine a light upon the natural person authority, and see who steps into the spotlight proud to show off their accountability.

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

#260

Post by bonoboTP »

arbitrage wrote: post #207
prepend wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s to be expected then, the legal bare minimum.

I had a professor, once, who chewed me out for submitting work at the deadline. I told them that if they wanted me to submit it on Thursday, they shouldn't've set the boundary for Friday at midnight. That didn't go over too well.

Interesting cultural differences. In other places if you submit earlier than the deadline they assume you didn't care about it enough to use all available time to make it as good as possible.
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