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".
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TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
301–310 of 543 posts
Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Open source software is a name for free software which was intended to make it sound less ideologically loaded. Libre software, on the other hand, is a name for free software intended to make it less ambiguous while preserving ideology. Anyone who claims otherwise is either: a) trying to be an ideological purist fighting with those not following their ideology to the maximum, or b) trying to mislead you to try and de…
The impetus for the term was supposedly that people kept being confused the distinction between free as in beer and free as in freedom/libre. However, to your point, one suspects that some prominent people like Tim O'Reilly latched onto "open source" as a less ideologically-aligned term.
Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What's talent got to do with it?
Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they're equally influenced by their national governments, perhaps you can also direct us to ByteDance's own transparency report, so we can compare?
That would be moving the goalposts. We're concerned whether companies are de facto influenced by governments, not whether those companies produce PR material about said influences.
"You are moving goalposts"
proceeds to move goalposts
ByteDance doesn't issue such reports because everyone knows they cannot refuse a request by their government. Any report that says otherwise would be, as you say, "PR material".
Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The degree is part of the training of an engineer, not the professional designation itself. The challenge with our current understanding of the title software engineer is that practitioners are not held to the same standards and responsibilities as other engineering fields. It doesn't have anything to do with talent.
* not held to any standards and responsibilites.
FTFY.
Cynically, Me.
Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
#306I'd like to see HN shy away from posting twitter threads as news. There's almost always a hard link to the source material, and twitter threads are filled with emotional, truncated, nuance-lacking, trite clips that more often than not do little to promote healthy discussion of a topic. The goal of quality here really is noble.
>There's almost always a hard link to the source material...
Do you have a hard link to the source material in this instance? As far as I can tell[1], there isn't an article about this yet; the only results at the time of this comment are about how TikTok will be allowing "OBS-like streaming" soon.
In lieu of an actual article or blog post about this, what would you suggest people link to if not a Twitter thread? Should an issue not be discussed whatsoever if it's only on Twitter?
[1]https://www.google.com/search?q=tiktok+obs&source=lnms&tbm=n...
Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> It seems like intuitions about copyright have been shifting, even if the law hasn't. I think people actually know it's wrong and legally questionable. I believe they do it because they simply want to do it and in the back of their minds, hope adding some bogus disclaimer will let them get away with it... because other people seem to be getting away with it.
I think people think it's legally wrong but not morally wrong, and so they add a bogus disclaimer hoping that they can get away with it because other people have.
Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm out of my depth here, but what makes you say they can't swap out the OBS part for something else? Do you mean they can't swap it without modifying the rest of the code, or can't swap it at all?
If they swap it out, they have to build code which does exactly the same/ has the same interface. It can still be considered a "derived" work. I'm not a lawyer but that was what op meant.
To hell with this open source stuff then, the STUPID idea that these interfaces are copyrightable is total garbage.
That said, we should be able so sue open source developers - a fair bit of open source is reverse engineering interfaces (drivers, ACAPI, power management and more). If this violates the copyright of the underlying proprietary firmware - bring on the lawsuits!
Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they're equally influenced by their national governments, perhaps you can also direct us to ByteDance's own transparency report, so we can compare?
That would be moving the goalposts. We're concerned whether companies are de facto influenced by governments, not whether those companies produce PR material about said influences.
Moving goal posts would be more like claiming that, because we have evidence Google cooperates with the US Government for some investigations, the US Government has similar influence and control over Google as China does over ByteDance, without any scrutiny or review of the severity of China's influence on ByteDance.
Also, to the very point you bring up... recipients of an NSL can file a legal challenge to an NSL which would trigger a judge to have to review the request. NSL's also do not allow the government to request all sorts of data, but mostly direct PII and service metadata. NSLs are problematic but I seriously doubt any comparative limits apply to Chinese agencies' requests for data from ByteDance.
Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
> talent counts more than a degree Are you saying for MD or PE that talent doesn't matter? Anybody can say they are a software engineer. The title means nothing.
Yes. A degree matters much more than talent. If you can get a degree you can practice. The most talented person in the world with no degree can't. Some people go to places where their low talent but high cash flow allows them to get a license.
Oddly enough, I don't think I'd care to visit a medical professional whose sole virtue was talent. I'd kinda prefer some knowledge and skill, too.