In 1981 I wrote a tool that is still in use today. You can install the package on most major linux distros. This was before we paid much attention to software copyright, and I simply published it with my name on it and no license. About six months later someone took my code, removed my name from it, made some small changes that didn't change its behavior at all, and re-published it. By that time I had moved on and wa…
Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
181–190 of 454 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably a bit rude, but maybe we can all agree to accept "fork off" as an acceptable, concise, and descriptive answer to unwanted requests.
Self-plug for a tongue-in-cheek license I wrote to say exactly that, for exactly this reason :) https://codeberg.org/klardotsh/fork-off-public-license Fully agreed. FOSS maintainers don't owe you anything. You can ask for whatever you want, politely, but accept no or "maybe when I have the spoons, which may be never" as an answer, and don't push.
Maybe insert a few more rights here, like "modify"?
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#183When I was ~14 I open sourced a script to autoconfigure X11's xrandr. It was pretty lousy, had several bugs. I mentioned it on a KDE mailing list and a KDE core contributor told me it was embarrassing code and to kill myself. I took it pretty hard and didn't contribute to KDE or X11 ever again, probably took me about a year to build up the desire to code again. Everything else I've open-sourced has gone pretty well,…
Oh wow old war wounds from teenage days opened up. My friend kept locking himself out of root and would be forced to single user the system to recover. This was difficult for many reasons, including remote hands costing up to and including $50 per call. I decided to look into why su would only work with root. Found a very simple check that I thought was unreasonable. Made my first patch and proudly posted to the Free…
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#184https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack#:~:text=The%20sou...
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#185When I was ~14 I open sourced a script to autoconfigure X11's xrandr. It was pretty lousy, had several bugs. I mentioned it on a KDE mailing list and a KDE core contributor told me it was embarrassing code and to kill myself. I took it pretty hard and didn't contribute to KDE or X11 ever again, probably took me about a year to build up the desire to code again. Everything else I've open-sourced has gone pretty well,…
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stallman’s open source movement do you want to give RMS a heart attack? RMS founded the Free Software movement to protect the users of software. to redistribute power back into the hands of creators who were getting walled out of anything but proprietary work for an employer. If they were fired, they had nothing to show for years of work except a reference, since their deep expertise was essentially meaningless ignor…
The GPL he wrote is the basis of the reciprocity agreement that drove the open source movement, it is the legal mechanism that prevents commercial actors from taking over shared works, and locking other creators out of continued participation in their collective creations. Stallman explicitly warned about working on proprietary software for an employer: > “If I sign a nondisclosure agreement to work on a proprietary…
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anthropic has a tough alignment interview. Like I aced the coding screener but got rejected after a chat about values. I think they want intense people on the value/safety side as well as the chops.
What does being "intense" on the safety side mean? High risk taking with AI safety or low?
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I almost believed that was a thing, but I don't see any indication that it is. Not a bad idea IMO
It would be very, very hard to make this work in practice. What does it mean to offer a job? Can they offer a job that pays a dollar a year and call it a day? Or can you force them to offer you a job that pays a billion dollars a year? Can they offer you a job, but only in Antarctica? What about visa sponsorship? Of course, you can write whatever ill conceived terms you want in your license. But if your license is ba…
That actually doesn't sound so bad. (Designing the job requirements!)
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do colleagues have to do with anything? The better question is in what ways do you trust, and not trust, the company you work for? And the answer to that can be very complicated, and depend on the company a great deal. It also depends on who might buy the company in the future, and they might not be trustworthy at all.
The scenario is someone in a work environment, lying and defrauding in signed documents. Where does the workplace dishonesty start and end? Does the person think that their colleagues have the same rules, or different rules? How does that affect their work environment? (Incidentally, I'm sick of HN downvoting legitimate comments.)
And furthermore, as an employee end of the day it's your right to have to be look out for yourself. You probably don't realize that because you're infected with startupitis where everyone has to be all in to succeed.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#190We went full in and not only open sourced the firmware of our air quality monitors but made it completely open source hardware, this means it includes the electronic schematics, enclosure files etc. [1] I believe it was the single most important decision we took as a company and probably also contributed to a large part to the growth and success we are having now. It enables us to build a really strong community, and…