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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

#281

Post by edoceo »

wpietri wrote: post #256
jd_mongodb wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Arent Google and Oracle fighting the emulation X not based on X right now? (where X is Java API)

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

#282

Post by GuB-42 »

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…

Isn't there a requirement to acknowledge the original author for all copyrighted work, no matter how permissive the license is? That is, the only way to not make it a requirement is to put the work in the public domain, and in some countries, it is not even an option.

That is, how can you know who the copyright holder is if you don't do that?

Considering that not all projects are littered with (c) Stack Overflow User, I may have the wrong idea, but it is definitely something I have seen somewhere. I am not a lawyer, obviously.

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

#283

Post by [deleted] »

wpietri wrote: post #264
frabert wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, this point is kind of nonsense to me. If people acted as if they were held to the higher standard, we would not need licenses. People (especially when they're not acting alone, e.g. corporations) act in their monetary interest, most of the time. Hence, stick to the license that's least restrictive that still ticks all the boxes you feel are important. If you feel attribution is important, choose a license t…

There's plenty of sense to it. Every contract, every law states what we see as the bare minimum required not to be actively harmful. They're society's skeleton. But bodies are more than bone, and societies are more than people doing the bare legal minimum. Look at what the law requires of parents, for example. Food, shelter, clothing, school attendance, a lack of physical abuse. But parents who do the legal minimum a…

[deleted]

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

#284

Post by serguzest »

mekal wrote: post #250
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…

I think recognition by AWS would have been nice (win-win for both parties) but lack of it does not warrant public shaming. If someone doesn't thank you for your "free" services, then keep your head down, plow ahead and take comfort in knowing you're doing a good enough job for a company like Amazon to use your stuff. And if that's not enough, send them a private message and let them know how you feel. Given that ever…

You are talking about a trillion dollar company. I am sure their feeling wasn't hurt from "public shaming" Please save your empathy for the independent open source developer who spent his valuable hours on the project.

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

#285

Post by tonyedgecombe »

rusk wrote: post #142
thatguyagain wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Eh yes. Even my TV has an open source acknowledgements section in the menu.

We got a new oven last year and it came with a sheet of paper acknowledging all the open source software it used.

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

#286

Post by marcus_holmes »

xtracto wrote: post #270
madeofpalk wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this conversation is not about the bare legal minimum. no one is disputing they have acted legally.

Funny, these kind of threads sound similarly to how some companies I have worked for sound when talking about working on Saturdays: Me: Do we have to come to work on Saturdays? Boss: You dont HAVE to... but you know, people come and do work to go the extra mile. Me: Ok, but If I don't come, there's no problem right? Boss: Well, no, there's no problem. But you know, there's lots of work and it is great when people pus…

I worked for a financial organisation in Dublin for a while back in the 90's. Best attitude to this stuff I have experienced:

You have 8 hours to do your work in. If you need more than that then you're either slacking off or incompetent. If you've been given more than 8 hours work to do then that's a scheduling problem you need to take up with your manager.

Everyone worked their arses off all day, and at 5pm the entire office went to the pub to socialise. Some only stayed for a short time then went home. Others stayed on for hours. But staying in the office after 5pm was not acceptable.

As a developer, it was great. Interruptions were always pertinent, because all the socialising happened in the pub. I could code in peace for ~8 hours, which tbh is about my limit anyway, after that my quality goes downhill fast. And then we all hung out together. Being a developer who can't do the social thing in work hours with losing massive time to context switching wasn't a social handicap, for once.

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

#287

Post by pedro2 »

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…

  Open source software is more than a license and code.
Nope. You are thinking "Free Software". "Open Source" is "just" that: a legal license which may or may not have ethical considerations and fuzzy feelings.

You may wish to read https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point .

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

#288

Post by frabert »

wpietri wrote: post #264
frabert wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, this point is kind of nonsense to me. If people acted as if they were held to the higher standard, we would not need licenses. People (especially when they're not acting alone, e.g. corporations) act in their monetary interest, most of the time. Hence, stick to the license that's least restrictive that still ticks all the boxes you feel are important. If you feel attribution is important, choose a license t…

There's plenty of sense to it. Every contract, every law states what we see as the bare minimum required not to be actively harmful. They're society's skeleton. But bodies are more than bone, and societies are more than people doing the bare legal minimum. Look at what the law requires of parents, for example. Food, shelter, clothing, school attendance, a lack of physical abuse. But parents who do the legal minimum a…

I'd call this wishful thinking and something that's been proven time and time again to be not working as well as it should, in practice.

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

#289

Post by tonyedgecombe »

dsabanin wrote: post #198

Open source is getting perverse. Individual developers spend their free time developing a solution without making as much as a cent, while giant corporations are making billions on it. How did that become a thing?

The irony is these corporations don't even value the software because they don't pay for it. Giving your software to them is like telling them your time is worth nothing.

I preferred the days when there was a mass of small developers selling software to what we have now. It feels like we have gone backwards.

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

#290

Post by pornel »

tinus_hn wrote: post #125
frabert wrote: post #2

If you don't like the terms of the license for software you released maybe you should have chosen a different one.

Common courtesy is made of unwritten rules and it does serve a purpose.

For person-to-person interactions or small communities. Unwritten rules don't work for corporations. They're driven by what's profitable and (not even always) what's legal.
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