Live data from Hacker News

From where I left

antirez.com

241–250 of 472 posts

Re: From where I left

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropping by in the comments to say many thanks for both of these books. I have hardcopies of both and "Crafting" remains my all-time favorite programming book. It's delightful, educational, and beautiful.

Where did you get the hardcopy? (I already have the paperback for "Crafting Interpreters", but I prefer to buy hardcopies if available) As far as I was aware, there are only paperbacks.

There are only paperbacks. By "hardcopy", they meant "printed".

I sell print editions through Amazon KDP and IngramSpark. Amazon is the lion's share, so I designed the print edition based on the formats they offer. At the time I started working on it, KDP only supported soft covers. They added hard covers right as I was finishing the book, and I didn't want to have to go back and redo everything.

I have to admit that "Crafting Interpreters" is pushing the limits for what you can get away with on a soft cover. When I first started writing the book, I expected it to be (much) shorter, but I just estimated wrong.

If I had a time machine, I might go back and tell myself to print it as two separate volumes.

Re: From where I left

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I make it a point to treat my projects as "top-shelf" professional-grade shipping software, as opposed to the "hobby-grade" that I see from many folks I know that write non-commercial software. What are the practical differences in the end result? My mind leapt to documentation, but I bet you meant more than that.

That's part of it, but then, there's architectural integrity, code quality, testing, testing, and more testing, then there's testing, and some more testing, then, there's taking care of all the "boring" release stuff, like testing. Then, of course, you can't have a release without testing. Getting an idea of what I mean? Finding a pattern in there? I generally don't have a ticket system, beyond the GitHub Issues, and…

Thanks for a great reply.

Re: From where I left

#243

Is Claude really that much better than ChatGPT? I Use ChatGPT Plus on a daily basis and have no complaints but is it worth cancelling it and get one for Claude?

For writing code, I've found Claude far better at conventional/framework based code. I've found ChatGPT better at reasoning about more complex/nuanced code.

As other commenters have said, that is just my personal opinion, I have zero evidence to back that up lol

Re: From where I left

#244
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without a CLA, Redis was originally licensed BSD. Releasing code under a BSD license is making a promise that you are OK with people using your code for commercial purposes. If you as a developer express personal feelings of dissatisfaction that someone is doing with your gift what you gave them permission to do, in such a way that could be construed as reneging on your promise, then that would make you dishonor…

> in such a way that could be construed as reneging on your promise Nothing could be construed in such a way, because such a reneging is not possible.

Well in this case, antirez literally promised[1] they wouldn't change the license of the core away from BSD, and then Redis Labs did just that, and now antirez is speaking favorably of that decision.

[1]: https://antirez.com/news/120

Re: From where I left

#245
post #214
post #68

For me, the license change upset me mainly for two reasons: 1. Many people had contributed their efforts to the Redis project for free - both in terms of code but also in advocacy, writing tutorials, publishing example code etc - and when they did that it was under the understanding that project would remain under the same open source license. It honestly felt like a betrayal of trust. 2. From a purely selfish point…

AFAIK, the reason for these changes is basically "prevent AWS from eating our business". Is that right? If so, are these trends harmful to open source? Are we not choosing between: 1. A world where all revenue in OSS infrastructure ultimately flows to a few big platform companies. 2. A world where these carve-outs are commonplace. Meta's carve-out with Llama is so interesting because it practically calls the big comp…

Affero GPL-style copyleft licenses are an option, although they are treated as radioactive by most companies. A clause that triggers the extensions over GPL only for companies beyond a certain size might make them more platable.

Re: From where I left

#246
post #127
post #68

For me, the license change upset me mainly for two reasons: 1. Many people had contributed their efforts to the Redis project for free - both in terms of code but also in advocacy, writing tutorials, publishing example code etc - and when they did that it was under the understanding that project would remain under the same open source license. It honestly felt like a betrayal of trust. 2. From a purely selfish point…

> I do also see these kinds of license trends as harmful to open source generally I've re-read this a few times and I'm still not sure what "harmful to open source" means in this sentence, could you expand on this a bit when you have time? (readings I considered: this will dissuade people from using OSI licenses, this will dissuade people from trying to monetize open source components, this will dissuade people from…

switched away to what? To a source-available license? copy-left?

Re: From where I left

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wild to me that the prevailing opinion seems to be "It is only TRUE Open Source if megacorps can modify the software and resell it without sharing their modifications". The hosted vs. distributed loophole is just that, a loophole. If, when the GPL was first published, the world was cloud-hosted and SaaS-ful, the GPL would either have included some provision like the SSPL, or it would have had relatively little i…

This argument about "evil megacorp" is problematic because you can't really isolate those from the small and wonderful startups. Specifically I've been directly involved in MongoDB ecosystem with FerretDB and there are so many small indie providers worldwide would love to offer MongoDB Atlas alternative to their customers, but can't because of SSPL license. I know, for many it is hard to make piece with it - Open Sou…

Small indie providers should absolutely be able to sell their MongoDB / Redis / XYZ as a service, but they should absolutely also be required by the license to contribute back their modifications to the software.

Like I said, I understand the complaints about the line-drawing issues with these licenses. I don't understand the viewpoint that the current state of OSS, where hosting != distribution, is acceptable.

Re: From where I left

#249
post #155
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With open-source software, a license is as much a social contract as it is a legal one. People contribute because they want to be part of a community building something which is beneficial to everyone . Everyone contributes where they can, and in turn takes what they need. Redis Ltd. broke the social contract. They decided that the short-term profitability of the company was more important than the project as a whole…

Open source is a gift economy. Receiving a gift does not form a social contract that entitles you to future gifts. It is not a "rug pull" for someone to stop giving you gifts. The old versions of Redis are yours for all time. No one can take that away from you. In fact, Redis is still giving you gifts to this day, just with a different wrapping. The new license seems perfectly reasonable, given how much companies lik…

> Receiving a gift does not form a social contract that entitles you to future gifts.

Certainly, but if you exchange gifts with someone every christmas, have been doing so for a decade, and they suddenly stop giving you one, or give you an unpolished one where they previously cleaned it to a shine, you are perfectly within your rights to be a bit miffed at that, and withold your own.

People can say the new license is reasonable (and by all reasonable measures it probably is) but that’s not how it feels, and that’s the important part.

Re: From where I left

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is expected to use any of the code licensed in this way commercially. You enter a contract with the vendor, tell them what you need, and negotiate a price. At that point, it doesn't really matter what the copyright license says.

So the entire license is just a bad faith trap? I could see it being used that way, potentially, but I don't believe that's actually Confluent's, MongoDB's, Elastic's, Hashicorp's, or Redis Labs' intent. In fact they've all explicitly stated the opposite. Are they all lying?

I don't think it's in bad faith. A lot of people still believe that they have to pay one of AdaCore/Baylibre/Embecosm/Red Hat/SUSE/Wind River if you want to use GCC commercially, to cover GPL-related risk.
Post reply on HN