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

#531

Post by mlyle » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

voidfunc wrote: post #335

mlyle wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying the only courtesies we should render to others in life are ones that we're duty-bound by license agreements or other contracts to give? Out with social norms and niceties, and in with black letter law? I don't want to legally demand a specific acknowledgement; I know that this can have unintended consequences and greatly complicates adoption. Also: If my stuff is used at the periphery of something yo…

> So you're saying the only courtesies we should render to others in life are ones that we're duty-bound by license agreements or other contracts to give? Nothing you do for your employer as part of work should be considered "courtesy" or a "social nicety".

The "something you do for your employer as part of work" was a strawman and doesn't relate to what we're talking about. We're talking about whether it meets social norms to take open source work, launch it as the core piece of a product, and do the absolute minimum legally required acknowledgment.

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

#532

Post by mlyle » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

didibus wrote: post #503

mlyle wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying the only courtesies we should render to others in life are ones that we're duty-bound by license agreements or other contracts to give? Out with social norms and niceties, and in with black letter law? I don't want to legally demand a specific acknowledgement; I know that this can have unintended consequences and greatly complicates adoption. Also: If my stuff is used at the periphery of something yo…

> So you're saying the only courtesies we should render to others in life are ones that we're duty-bound by license agreements or other contracts to give? Isn't that the whole point behind the rule of law and the civil society? Anything that isn't well understood or known in advance of someone engaging in an activity, and then later faces unfair retribution because apparently they didn't do what wasn't told to them t…

> Anything that isn't well understood or known in advance of someone engaging in an activity, and then later faces unfair retribution because apparently they didn't do what wasn't told to them that needed be done, or did something that wasn't told to them shouldn't be done.

Your argument self-contradicts. You assert, broadly, if it's legal it's OK. The "unfair retribution" of people getting annoyed about it and complaining is also legal, so that should be OK, too. :P

> Now, yes I understand that maybe when you said hey this is open source with Apache license, you had in mind an audience of students, or one man startups, or hobbyist, or amateurs, and hadn't really thought if it applied to big corps.

Nah, when I said "Apache License", I meant that legal license. But that doesn't mean doing some things that effectively cost nothing, that exceed the license requirements, aren't socially customary.

There's no law that says you have to say "thank you" when someone renders you a service or has made something that makes your life easier or lets you make a bunch of money, but if you stand on legal grounds to avoid saying "thanks" you might be a dick, and people might call you out for being a dick.

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

#533

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

LocalH wrote: post #344

mlyle wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying the only courtesies we should render to others in life are ones that we're duty-bound by license agreements or other contracts to give? Out with social norms and niceties, and in with black letter law? I don't want to legally demand a specific acknowledgement; I know that this can have unintended consequences and greatly complicates adoption. Also: If my stuff is used at the periphery of something yo…

I think they’re bemoaning the fact that many employers will couch it in terms of courtesy yet also claim the right to be angry if you don’t go above what is required. It should be encouraged to do more than required, yes. But it shouldn’t be punishable if you don’t.

[deleted]

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

#534

Post by mlyle » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

craftinator wrote: post #434

mlyle wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying the only courtesies we should render to others in life are ones that we're duty-bound by license agreements or other contracts to give? Out with social norms and niceties, and in with black letter law? I don't want to legally demand a specific acknowledgement; I know that this can have unintended consequences and greatly complicates adoption. Also: If my stuff is used at the periphery of something yo…

Yeah, as long as my company will double my pay when I ask for it as a courtesy, I'll come in on my days off as a courtesy. Tit tat

The employer thing is a strawman here; the subject of the article is AWS forking and launching a product with minimal (but legal) attribution. I didn't argue -anything- about the employer case, staying on topic to AWS's behavior.

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

#535

Post by drevil-v2 » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #515

rmrfstar wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 u…

I think that is an unfair comparison. Being articulate does not does not imply any other quality than just being articulate.

Back in the day I thought Obama was amazing. He was articulate and considered in his manner of speech. Then we hearing about the drone strikes with heavy collateral damage. And then Snowden came out and told us how Obama administration had put in place all the necessary infrastructure for a surveillance state. And then he put in place Title XI and kangaroo courts at Universities to completely undermine the core tenet of our legal system "Innocent until proven guilty".

Articulate does not equal morality or justice or fairness. It certainly did not with Obama.

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

#536

Post by chemeng » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #412

chemeng wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If core developers are bought up by a single company, I'd be wary of the future control, direction and progress of the project. The open source version would likely stagnate as the commercial version gains features. It'd be hard not to align with company goals and plans when your paycheck depends on it. Better would be to use mechanisms that already exist to sponsor the core developers for a length of time (Patreon,…

I agree, there is a certain potential danger associated with it, however, it seems like there are quite a few cases where it worked out great. A specific example that comes to mind, one of the main core developers of Webpack (Sean) got hired by Microsoft to essentially just work on Webpack on MSFT paycheck (I think now he branched out a tiny bit into other adjacent areas as well, but he is still one of the main Webpa…

There are definitely cases where it seems to have worked out. My sense, like yours, is that it largely depends on how "community driven" the project is at that point. If it has many independent core developers/main contributors, or many diverse companies relying on it, it seems to work ok (for now).

That said, it feels like there is a missed opportunity in the space. Most large companies already donate money toward interests in their local communities, etc. Why isn't there an easy mechanism for tech companies to donate to sustainable funding of open-source that they all depend on? My guess is that because open-source projects are rarely set up as organizations, they can't achieve 501(c)(3). It would not only be tax advantageous for companies, but would also support business continuity and recruiting pipelines. It would also be great for open-source developers and the community.

Maybe there are efforts out there to create something like this?

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

#537

Post by asim » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #494

asim wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polyform Shield is what you're looking for https://polyformproject.org/licenses/

I've seen these Polyform licenses touted on HN a couple of times recently. I really do think we need a couple of new licenses along these lines to become popular enough to be generally accepted. Having said that, I struggle to really grok the language in these licenses; it could be that I'm just more familiar with MIT, BSD and the like, but with the Polyform licenses I'm always left with questions about what I can an…

I think its likely familiarity. Licensing is legal terminology so anything new requires time to reason about. In this case I am a strong advocate for these licenses as they're written in part by Heather Meeker who has authored some of the custom licenses for Redis Labs, MongoDB, etc to protect against this cloud provider hosting issue.

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

#538

Post by toyg » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #497

toyg wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And would that be a bad thing? If the tool is good, FOSS users will get a competitive advantage over AWS.

I had several discussions with fellow students in Uni about GPL vs. BSD licensing and BSD licensed code is, IMO, more free and more accessible - it really depends on what you want out of your code. Is your goal to provide a useful tool as a one-off that anyone can pick up and use? Then BSD is for you - otherwise, if you have expectations around self-maintenance of the code by consumers then you want to lean more towa…

Of course it’s more free - corporations are free to take your code and do as they please, as we’ve just seen.

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

#539

Post by archgoon » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

graton wrote: post #490

suyash wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet AWS wouldn’t even touch it if it was under GPL, most companies have made it forbidden to use because of reasons you stated.

FYI: Linux is licensed under GPL v2. AWS uses Linux extensively.

suyash is basically correct; usage of GPL (any version) licensed software is very heavily scrutinized at Amazon. Explicit exceptions need to be filed for, and are rarely granted. Unless you can make a very strong business case for the software, you're not going to get it approved.

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

#540

Post by dclowd9901 » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #429

masukomi wrote: post #346

I really wish, that when COs like Amazon decided to productize a thing they either offered the core developer(s) enough $ to work on it full time (if they wanted) or a job to do that with a guarantee that as long as it was a product, and they wanted to work on it, they'd be allowed to continue. Problem with offering job is the likelyhood of getting redirected to some other unrelated work. instead of forking they coul…

> 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…

You misunderstand what happened. Some open source software still had more restrictive licensing, but most corporations opted not to use it, often because they simply couldn't and still operate legally, and thus, the software was less supported and less used software died out.

When companies couldn't find free software to use, they just wrote it themselves, typically, unless it was something big and way outside their domain.

Rather than being beholden to a licensing agreement, it would be nice if OSS had a license for an "enterprise-level donation" that was mandatory for for-profit use. It would be a one-time cost, so it would be easier to push through the accountants at lots of big companies, and companies could feel free to use the software at their leisure. Authors/contributors could choose to charge another fee for upgrading to a new major version, opt to end support of an old version or not and so on and so forth.