Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 543 posts

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#141

Post by 88j88 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #114
criddell wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be like this everywhere, but in the US all software engineers are self-labelled. It's not like medical doctor (MD) or professional engineer (PE) where the title actually implies some license to practice.

Common misconception, but Software Engineer is actually a licensed profession in many states (with vague industry exemptions): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_professio... But virtually nobody does it. The NCEES even abandoned their Software Engineer licensing exam a few years ago because nobody was taking it.

Looks like they stopped offering exam to license people: https://www.nspe.org/resources/pe-magazine/may-2018/ncees-en...

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#142

Post by lainga »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #140
oliwarner wrote: post #70

It's concerning how many self-labelled software engineers on Twitter are chipping in with comments like "it's open source so it's fair game" or "they just need to add attribution".

In many jurisidictions "Engineer" is a licensed and regulated title, and their professional organizations have tried to regulate it, but lost the war. We know have actual engineering programs that focus on software and 6-week bootcamps graduating people who claim to be "Software Engineers", so add it to the list of appropriated words right next to "Geek".

The attitude on (mostly American) HN is against licensing bodies, as far as I've seen in the past.

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#143

Post by dodgepong »

addingnumbers wrote: post #78
ghusbands wrote: post #9

People are misunderstanding this and claiming it's not problematic. Ben Torrell (an OBS developer) notes later in the thread that there is indeed GPL code compiled into TikTok's executables; since source is not available and they have not got another license, it is unlicensed and hence illegal.

People are misunderstanding this and claiming it's not problematic because the tweet in the HN link is idiocy. They show one URL in one installer script with an obsproject.com domain and conclude, from the presence of that URL alone, that the entire project is a whole cloth copy of OBS. That URL is nothing but a 302 redirect to the directx runtime at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Download/confirmation.aspx?i... The…

Again, to be clear, we've decompiled the TikTok LIVE Studio binary and confirmed that it uses code derived from OBS Studio.

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#144

Post by G3rn0ti »

anthk wrote: post #125
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common misconception, but Software Engineer is actually a licensed profession in many states (with vague industry exemptions): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_professio... But virtually nobody does it. The NCEES even abandoned their Software Engineer licensing exam a few years ago because nobody was taking it.

In Europe being an engineer has civil accountability on issues. You can be fined really high if you hire a self-called engineer without a proper degree. Or at least decades of alleged experience in the field.

Well, yes, this applies to engineering. But not to software engineering.

Personally, I like „software engineering“ as it is — being a free profession where talent counts more than a degree.

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#145

Post by throwhauser »

oliwarner wrote: post #70

It's concerning how many self-labelled software engineers on Twitter are chipping in with comments like "it's open source so it's fair game" or "they just need to add attribution".

It's reminiscent of people adding "no copyright intended" (sic) when posting other people's music online. It seems like intuitions about copyright have been shifting, even if the law hasn't.

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#147

Post by fsckboy »

jaywalk wrote: post #54
sergiotapia wrote: post #49

Hope there is a multi-million dollar pay-off for OBS.

OBS is willing to work with TikTok to get them into compliance. That would either mean open-sourcing the software or paying for a license.

> That would either mean open-sourcing the software or paying for a license

no, in general it means TikTok rewriting those portions of the software themselves

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#148

Post by emaginniss »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #140
oliwarner wrote: post #70

It's concerning how many self-labelled software engineers on Twitter are chipping in with comments like "it's open source so it's fair game" or "they just need to add attribution".

In many jurisidictions "Engineer" is a licensed and regulated title, and their professional organizations have tried to regulate it, but lost the war. We know have actual engineering programs that focus on software and 6-week bootcamps graduating people who claim to be "Software Engineers", so add it to the list of appropriated words right next to "Geek".

Right, "geek" should go back to the original definition: a person who bites the head off of a chicken in a carnival show.

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#149

Post by humanistbot »

addingnumbers wrote: post #78
ghusbands wrote: post #9

People are misunderstanding this and claiming it's not problematic. Ben Torrell (an OBS developer) notes later in the thread that there is indeed GPL code compiled into TikTok's executables; since source is not available and they have not got another license, it is unlicensed and hence illegal.

People are misunderstanding this and claiming it's not problematic because the tweet in the HN link is idiocy. They show one URL in one installer script with an obsproject.com domain and conclude, from the presence of that URL alone, that the entire project is a whole cloth copy of OBS. That URL is nothing but a 302 redirect to the directx runtime at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Download/confirmation.aspx?i... The…

> that the entire project is a whole cloth copy of OBS.

That is a straw man argument. It doesn't matter what percent of the infringing product uses GPL-licensed code.

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#150

Post by ghaff »

29083011397778 wrote: post #133
ghaff wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's not an open source software license.

I suspect you're conflating Free, Libre, and Open-Source Software. The first can be free (as in beer), the second free (as in you can do whatever you please with it), and the last is that the source is publicly available. GP's proposition would be Open-Source, but not FLOSS IIUC

In general people use the open source definition and the licenses approved by the OSI as what defines open source. These don't allow you to discriminate based on usage, such as commercial use. (If you own the copyrights, you can dual license under both an open source and a non-open source license of course.)

"Source available" or "shared source" licenses are not generally considered open source.

Post reply on HN