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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

#291

Post by Chris2048 »

cmaker10 wrote: post #48

Could everyone take a moment here and reflect on their hostile attitude towards an open source author who just wants to be treated fairly (in a moral sense)? My guess is that none of the people who are lecturing and gloating have ever written anything substantial. Shame on you.

Is describing people who disagree with you as "[never] have ever written anything substantial" a fair treatment?

You're basically implying people who do not subscribe to you philosophy as lazy and/or unproductive.

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

#292

Post by nickbauman »

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?

RedHat gave stock options to F/OSS contributors when they IPO'ed.

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

#293

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

rbanffy wrote: post #188
tinus_hn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s a great idea but for instance the Linux kernel would have to come with documentation that mentions the tens of thousands of authors. A massive undertaking that doesn’t help anyone, really.

Linux is GPL and I doubt it would have tens of thousands of authors if it were not. It would have a dozen proprietary forks.

> "Linux is GPL and I doubt it would have tens of thousands of authors if it were not."

Aren't the BSDs a counterexample to that?

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

#294

Post by atonse »

scarface74 wrote: post #240
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…

Every talk AWS does about Redshift they mention that it’s based on Postgres. They tell you to download a Postgres driver to connect to it with any language besides Java for which a JDBC driver is provided.

Well ... they tell you that not because they're bending over backwards to give postgres credit. They're doing it to tell you that the barrier of entry to this database is nearly 0 if you are already using Postgres.

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

#295

Post by kevincox »

young_unixer wrote: post #278
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…

> If you feel attribution is important, choose a license that makes it legally binding. Some of us think copyright is unfair and we want to use it as little as possible. That means using MIT or BSD licenses. That doesn't mean we are against attribution. We are only against the use of coercion to get attribution. We can say "It would be nice if you give attribution" without saying "I'm going to use my legal rights to…

That seems like a very hard line to me. Copyright gives fairly comprehensive control over use, however trying to draw a line somewhere down full-control, attribution or no control seems very hard.

As it is today you can use your full control to allow full use with attribution. Of course the "unfairness" probably comes from the fact that you can't force others to do the same.

In my opinion the best option is to keep copyright at "full control" with a time limit. Probably 10-20 years. However that doesn't solve your desire for only attribution.

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

#296

Post by tomrod »

RankingMember wrote: post #181
tomrod wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good practice to cite your sources. Even if you're strictly legal, being ethical doesn't hurt.

It seems they did, just in a not obvious place. The thing with legal documents is that, if it's not in the document, you can't expect it to be adhered to. This gets hairy when opposing parties have different ideas of what "norms" are, aka "unspoken/unwritten expectations", as we see here.

I get that, and don't disagree.

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

#297

Post by mjasay »

I run the open source strategy and marketing team at AWS. As I told Tim privately and publicly (https://twitter.com/mjasay/status/1317084448119169024), I hadn't been aware of this but am talking with the relevant product team to see how we can improve in his regard.

AWS uses a lot of open source, and we contribute a lot, both in terms of code (first-party projects like Firecracker and Bottlerocket, but also third-party projects like Redis, GraphQL, Open Telemetry, etc.), testing, credits, foundation support, and more. But open source is ultimately about people and communities, and I personally feel we could have done more to acknowledge the great work Tim and his co-maintainers have done, and try to support their Headless Recorder work. We're talking with Tim now about this.

(While I think we do far better than sometimes acknowledged, we're also always looking to improve, and appreciate all the feedback that helps us toward that goal.)

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

#298

Post by Chris2048 »

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…

Describing the latter as "exploitation view" is the kind of bad-faith label ala pro-life vs anti-abortion.

I see not problem with a lack of attribution, but that means I support "exploitation"?

why not describe your own position as the "egocentric" view?

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

#299

Post by ojosilva »

enriquto wrote: post #94
sheeshkebab wrote: post #29

Are there open source licenses that specifically ban major cloud providers from using software and letting others use it on Apache 2 terms? Specially license tailored against every one of them, by name?

No need to mention them by name. Just use the AGPL, for they are all irrationally allergic to it. EDIT: notice that usage of the AGPL produces the desired effect, while still being free software (which it wouldn't be the case if you excluded specific users in your license terms).

AGPL may go too far sometimes, as to intimidate companies from using an opensource project internally, and not necessarily as a (user-facing) service as in the case with the OP and AWS.

That's due to fact that AGPL's _user interaction_ clauses can be too vague in legal terms, in a way that many internal use cases could be litigated as a user interaction over a network.

It has been discussed before here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16636963

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

#300

Post by tylerhou »

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…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ChQK8j6so8
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