I haven't had the chance to write anything open source, but now with AI everywhere I don't think I will
Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
251–260 of 454 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#252When 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,…
Sorry to hear that. Props to you for keep on going!
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#253In 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…
Tell us the tool!
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#254I wrote a toy Kotlin compiler, for fun. Then one day a Jetbrains employee opens an issue which only says: “Why? Just why?”. Maybe it’s the language barrier… but I did not find that particularly polite. On the other hand I open sourced my blog and received lots of small contributions to fix typos or such which were nice.
The guy was probably upset that someone might be trying to compete with them while their compiler is itself open source. But it still sucks that they couldn’t be more subtle about it. In the end both they and you got upset. A small change in his tone and you might both come off with a nice feeling, him for knowing you were just playing around, and you for perhaps getting recognition from a Kotlin dev.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is of course a terrible reply to receive, I'm sorry you got that. But I also find the psychology behind this sort of reply interesting, because there's lots of factors that lead to this sort of extreme. Firstly, we don't know the age of the replier, but my guess would be someone also young, or at least immature. Telling people to kill themselves is not something adults typically do in any context.) So it suggest…
Meanwhile, here's Linus at the age of 42: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/linus-to-opensuse-devs-ki...
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Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#256Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taking that all the way to court would be like $10,000, right? Big companies will sue. For individuals it's a barrier to entry
Yeah, that sounds like more hassle than it’s worth. It should be free to file a DMCA claim with Apple, though, and get it yanked from the App Store.
I got it removed from the App Store. The first time, then after some months the same developer republished it with a few changes under a different name… I don't have the time to track it down again, I just published my app on the App Store for free so at least people won't give in and avoid the scam.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#258In 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…
It's probably hard to prove with something from 1981 but no license or copyright doesn't mean the source is open for taking. It basically means you just haven't set a license and could do that at any time, rugpulling the code from anyone who uses it. This is why projects like Fedora and Debian make sure everything they ship has a license.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#259I am the maintainer of a library to simulate keyboard and mouse input. I didn't start the project but took over the maintenance and have since rewritten pretty much all of the code. I recently found out that Anthropic is shipping it in Claude Desktop for some unreleased feature which is probably like "Computer Use". I noticed they had an open position in exactly the team responsible for the implementation and applied…
You should have licensed it under AGPL; Anthropic then would have reached you to negotiate a commercial license or contribute back to the project, since AGPL forces server-side code disclosures when deployed. Without that, they can legally use, modify, and profit from it without sharing improvements or compensating you
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
A project can't be monetized without getting wide adoption, and it can't get wide adoption without a permissive license that precludes monetization :(
There's two models that solve this. a) sell support contracts b) have contributors sign copyright agreements, license the project as GPL/AGPL, and then sell commercial licenses for people who can't use that
No, they don’t.
Selling support contracts is actually hard.
GPL/AGPL preclude widespread adoption (these days) — the grandparent explicitly mentioned “permissive” licenses.