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No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

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Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#181

Post by trevyn »

dehrmann wrote: post #140
arthurcolle wrote: post #102

On Twitter, he claims that he was recently made homeless due to an apartment fire, and asks the community to send funds to help him avoid homelessness, which seems reasonable enough. He later goes on to describe "fake news written by the NY Post." I searched for this, and found an article that might be the article he describes (timing fits) [0] Pretty crazy story, all in all! He seems to be in some pretty dire strait…

This looks like a pretty popular project, so I assume he's decently talented. How does he not have a day job? Passion projects are great and all, but they're not known for paying the bills. Especially for solo maintainers, it's almost like playing a gig at a coffee shop for tips. Want to make a career out of it? You need talent, marketability, and be ready to compromise on your vision.

Playing a gig at a coffee shop for tips and not compromising on your vision seems like a solid choice to me.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#182

Post by deepstack »

dannyw wrote: post #68
deepstack wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He ought to keep the name, however there should be some way to keep track of the public forks via something that is github oriented. Maybe something in DHT like IPFS. It maybe something npm/yarn can work out.

Let's just use domain names? ytld.org/youtube-dl google.com/rust_icu facebook.com/react Don't have a domain name? marak.github.io/faker Not everything needs to be reinvented.

the whole point is the original author may not want to publish the forks on his domain. There ought to be independent 3rd party to keep track of the fork or a npm name that is not the author and not github (aka Microsoft).

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#184

Post by fabianhjr »

neltnerb wrote: post #162
fabianhjr wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It already exists on both fronts: stream2own and a cooperative. https://resonate.is/

Oh, I remember this. Gosh, I really wish it was good, and I mean that sincerely. It's just got such a limited selection and set of genres, and if what I want is a radio station to listen to in the background half the time... Don't get me wrong, the music is lovely. I like the idea a lot. It's just really not comparable =/

It surely lacks RIAA-adjecent content; hopefully it gets better over time and improves the musicians' living conditions.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#185

Post by UweSchmidt »

ganafagol wrote: post #32
echelon wrote: post #21

Seriously. What's the point of open source if companies just steal it, build billion dollar industries on top, and then lock everything down? Apple is telling us we can't run our own software on their goddamned devices, yet they built their empire on open source. Look at Facebook, Google, Amazon. They've extracted all the blood they can and given us back scraps. AWS is repackaged software you pay more for. Yes, it's…

I agree with your sentiment, but this is not the right reaction. It won't improve anything. What's the point of open source if companies just steal it, build billion dollar industries on top, and then lock everything down? You are free to adjust the license to prevent this. But then tomorrow everybody comes and rants about that the GPL is too restrictive. That's the price we pay for this. It's the license that keeps…

Similarly like democracy is brittle and depends on the values being upheld and cultivated by everyone involved, open source is more than a legal license.

Many people have paid it forward with a lot of hard work and built the entire infrastructure, starting with open source operating systems, bios and drivers. It's the motivation of these people that keeps work free, and they probably want to see a thriving ecosystem of software and an open internet.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#186

Post by pampa »

3pt14159 wrote: post #63
ganafagol wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment, but this is not the right reaction. It won't improve anything. What's the point of open source if companies just steal it, build billion dollar industries on top, and then lock everything down? You are free to adjust the license to prevent this. But then tomorrow everybody comes and rants about that the GPL is too restrictive. That's the price we pay for this. It's the license that keeps…

I don't want GPL. I want a license that prevents unpaid use by any entity that has any stakeholder worth more than a billion USD. That's it. That's all I want. MIT-Billionaires. Want to take funding from A16Z? That's a million a year for the license or something that maybe scales with a market cap just to level the playing field between a funded startup and Apple Computers. Don't get me wrong, I love Apple, but I don…

> Don't get me wrong, I love Apple, but I don't love this hyper-centralization of wealth and it would be better for the world if we defanged the power that billionaires have.

We tried it here in russia back in 1917. But then oops! something went wrong.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#187

Post by cercatrova »

ghayes wrote: post #170
cercatrova wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just a proprietary license, just write the license like that if you want as I don't see how anything is stopping you from creating or using such a license. Just don't make the assumption that it's open source, it's just another form of a proprietary license like much of the paid software currently present. However, don't complain later on that you can't modify software or run it on your own device like you can…

There are a ton of real world problems here though: if a small company gets acquired, do they have to stop using the license? Negotiate with you to pay for it? FOSS licenses are meant to be free to anyone, including big orgs, so long as they play by the rules. AGPL might be your target.

I was just mentioning to the OP about their wants, that it's possible for them to write their own license with their own terms, it is their source code after all, but I'm not necessarily advocating for such a proprietary license. I am in full support of the AGPL over 'permissive' MIT style licenses, although of course I'll still use MIT open source code if it exists.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#188

Post by gambiting »

tpetry wrote: post #112
arbitel wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? You opted for Spotify model when you sign up for the service. I am pretty sure you are still free to purchase the music or album in iTunes.

What happens with your iTunes music if your apple account would get locked? Sadly the only option nowadays would be purchasing hard discs, and hope theres no protection on the disk as you are not allowed to break it

Nothing, you can download all the music DRM free first. You do own what you bought, at least from iTunes you do.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#189

Post by lollmao »

Unrelated, but why do people prefer to assume gender over just using gender-neutral pronouns? Not a native English speaker but I've seen this a lot, especially on HN even when there's no indication of subject's gender whatsoever.

Or is it just weird to use they/them? Thanks

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#190

Post by goatinaboat »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #138
rusk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is wrong with saying “all rights reserved. You are free to use this software for educational and nonprofit purposes but once you start to make money off it you must request permission in writing” - I’ve seen a few licences like this. I guess the down sides are it might send some people elsewhere and you might be on your own trying to enforce it in court.

I think for a lot of companies that would be an instant turn-off, especially if they're still starting up. Besides, it would have to be a lot more formal; another commenter mentioned the Unreal Engine, which states something to the tune of "free to use until you earn over X, then you pay us Y% of your revenue". Cynically, open source libraries need to use the err, hook-and-sinker approach? Be really good at bootstrap…

I think for a lot of companies that would be an instant turn-off, especially if they're still starting up.

It is very much the Silicon Valley mentality that all value is added by that company and that no suppliers should make any profit.

Cynically, open source libraries need to use the err, hook-and-sinker approach?

The common terminology is “bait and switch”. Also very much Silicon Valley. Apple for example likes to become a critical customer for any supplier, then use their leverage to squeeze them.

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