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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

#511

Post by brainless »

kortilla wrote: post #507
ketzo wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source software is something that has no meaningfully similar parallel in any other industry, and that has created untold billions (trillions?) of value across the world while also allowing literally anyone to carve out a piece of that value. That is special. That is wonderful. It is a place for idealism. And honestly, it's worth getting angry about when people (and companies) don't respect it and improve upon i…

It’s open source, if you’re mad a company used the software in a way you don’t like, you’re not really getting it.

You are either the one who was in the open source movement, in which case I will hold my silence. Else I will say you do not know that open source was started when on-premise was a thing. How do you know how open source would have started now in the era of cloud?

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

#512

Post by munk-a »

purpleidea wrote: post #505
munk-a wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it should be possible to modify the GPL3 to disallow any usage in a for-profit setting - then you could individually re-license the code for different users to privately consume (and, optionally, free them from the burdens of the GPL3's copy-left infection). There'd be some issues, any commits you pulled in from the community wouldn't be eligible for re-licensing unless your PR acceptance flow included securi…

> I think it should be possible to modify the GPL3 to disallow any usage in a for-profit setting That's not how GPLv3 works. Both in terms of selling [1] and in terms of additional permissions under section 7. GPLv3 without a CLA essentially requires you make the modified code available, but not when it's behind a cloud/webservice. For that you need AGPLv3. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

To clarify - that's why I specifically mentioned a modification, the CC-Attribution-Non-commerical license accomplished this in a non-software setting so I assume a sufficiently practiced lawyer could make the modifications to the GPL3 to specifically disallow usage in commercial settings - this would, after the modification, not be GPL3 anymore of course.

This does go against some philosophical decisions underlying the GPL license but IMO GPL itself is less free than BSD/MIT licensing and to each their own.

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

#513

Post by EpicEng »

unethical_ban wrote: post #408
EpicEng wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this big co strategy of "mine. I profit now. everyone who built up this useful thing can suck eggs" really sucks and sucks for the humans and sucks for Open Source. Then use a different license. Hoping that a company like Amazon finds it in their hearts to always do what _you_ consider "the right thing" is just a loser of a strategy. You seem to want all of the good of open source, with none of the downsides. Good l…

"Don't like how shitty people can be? I don't care" - that is how this kind of comment reads. But let's move on. Interesting idea for a license. Everyone can use and modify it, but if a large company with a market cap above $100m or a company wholly funded or owned by such company decides to utilize this project as a for-profit service, then said large company must hire me at for no less than $175,000 in 2020 value.

>"Don't like how shitty people can be? I don't care" - that is how this kind of comment reads. But let's move on.

No, I think I'll respond to that. It's not that I don't _care_, but it's naive at best to expect anything else. Besides, if your license allows it, they're not really taking advantage are they? Change your license.

>Everyone can use and modify it, but if a large company with a market cap above $100m or a company wholly funded or owned by such company decides to utilize this project as a for-profit service, then said large company must hire me at for no less than $175,000 in 2020 value.

Seems incredibly difficult to implement logistically, and most companies will probably just say "screw it" as they all hope to be valued at > 100M some day. Just enforce a per-basis license negotiation for commercial use or disallow it entirely. What happens if a company goes from a cap of 99M -> 101M -> 98M (etc etc). Just seems wrought with obvious problems.

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

#514

Post by yummybear »

mjasay wrote: post #297

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-p…

Imo there needs to be an official policy from aws on thes kinds of issues. Taking a free product and monetizing it on this scale morally requires some compensation for the original creator(s).

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

#515

Post by LeifCarrotson »

rmrfstar wrote: post #483
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this big co strategy of "mine. I profit now. everyone who built up this useful thing can suck eggs" really sucks and sucks for the humans and sucks for Open Source. I think the software community is having an "I never thought the leopards would eat my face" moment. The community pushed for a long time for licenses that donated labor to corporations because the licenses sounded more "free", and that flattered their…

"They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish. The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit. Happiness lies not in the mere po…

It's painful to contrast FDR's thoughts on finance with what we heard last night:

> "Okay, first of all, let me answer. What they did is illegal, number one. Also, the numbers are all wrong, with the numbers they released. And just so you understand, when you have a lot of real estate, I have real estate, you know a lot of it. Okay? Right down the road, Doral, big stuff, great stuff. When I decided to run, I’m very underlevered, fortunately, but I’m very underlevered. I have a very, very small percentage of debt compared. In fact, some of it, I did as favors to institutions that wanted to loan me money. $400 million compared to the assets that I have, all of these great properties all over the world, and frankly, The Bank of America building in San Francisco. I don’t love what’s happening to San Francisco. 1290 Avenue of the Americas, one of the biggest office buildings."

[1] https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/HJCYu2w66p28wT2...

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

#516

Post by EpicEng »

backtoyoujim wrote: post #405
EpicEng wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this big co strategy of "mine. I profit now. everyone who built up this useful thing can suck eggs" really sucks and sucks for the humans and sucks for Open Source. Then use a different license. Hoping that a company like Amazon finds it in their hearts to always do what _you_ consider "the right thing" is just a loser of a strategy. You seem to want all of the good of open source, with none of the downsides. Good l…

This reads like big co marketspeak of "go suck eggs twice"

More along the lines of "I live in the real world". I can be empathetic to the situation and think the author essentially set themselves up for something like this all at the same time.

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

#517

Post by brainless »

For anyone who is saying "your license allows it":

These licenses were created pre-cloud era when on-premise was a thing and "Intranet" was a word. I grew fond of open source from high-school days as a kid in India because I felt the power that everyone is sharing their best creations for me to learn from. The spirit of open source, at least to me dates back to 1998.

Things have changed, a few providers host everything for every business. Do you feel open source would have taken same approach if started now?

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

#518

Post by greensoap »

dooglius wrote: post #495
greensoap wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't encourage or suggest the use of CC anything for code. It just wasn't designed for code and creates huge ambiguities on the rights you intended. https://creativecommons.org/faq/#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Common... As stated on the Creative Commons website (licensed under CC-BY): Can I apply a Creative Commons license to software? We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we st…

It says >Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available But as far as I am aware, there are no comparable software licenses that prohibit commercial use. So, the CC NC licenses seem to be the only option here, even if supposedly imperfect. Do you have an example of an ambiguity with regard to non-commercial use?

Heather Meeker, a great legal mind in the open source world, helped create this license: https://commonsclause.com/

You might consider whether it serves your intended goals.

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

#519

Post by prepend »

madeofpalk wrote: post #224
prepend wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

I’m not sure what the complaint is actually. It seems like the author just wants recognition. I’m not sure why he would want to expect anything other than what he specified in his project.

I pointed out that the minimum is to be expected because I’ve seen it mentioned a few times that’s all they did. Like the expectation is that they should have done more.

It’s a company forking a project, I would expect nothing else. It would be notable if he got a T-shirt or something.

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

#520

Post by foolmeonce »

lutorm wrote: post #465
darkengine wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my understanding, the GPL does not require acknowledging the original author's contributions any more publicly than the Apache license (used by the project). The Apache license already requires preserving the copyright notice, which AWS did. I think the issue is the author wanted a more public acknowledgement of his work, which is a very fair ask. As far as I know, no license requires this (and, I believe such a l…

My understanding is that GPL doesn't force the user to do _anything_ except license any derived work under GPL. It specifically doesn't put _any_ limits on what someone can do with that code precisely because doing so would limit your freedom (with the exception of the licensing issue which is required so as to not deprive _other_ people of the freedom to do what they want with the code.) It specifically does not req…

That's true, but wanting acknowledgement in some specific way is pretty frivolous compared to wanting changes made to be available under the same license so the fork doesn't maintain an incompatibility/add-on advantage that can't be fixed.

Whether the GPL is good enough for that depends on whether end users are recipients of binaries and therefore would be entitled to the source under GPL.

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